Farm Fresh RI blog

Musings about locally grown food in the ocean state

Since November, Farm Fresh has had the pleasure of running Farmers Market Tours for community groups in the Greater Providence area at the Indoor Pawtucket Market. Some of the groups included the Pawtucket YMCA and Boys & Girls Club, COZ After-School Program, Environmental Justice League, The Learning Community, Rhode Island for Community and Justice, New Urban Farmers, and more! For those new to farmers markets, we loved showing them around, introducing them to farmers, sharing shopping tips and hearing their recipe ideas. All of the groups tried delicious samples of freshly cooked farmers market food from the Johnson & Wales Cooking Crew. Last week we ran our last tour of the season with an after-school group from Baldwin Elementary. The school is right in our neighborhood, and they were able to walk to and from the market!

Thank you to all who came on tours this season. We loved having you visit the market, and we hope to see you again soon!

Volunteers of the Month

It’s been a little while since we last recognized the amazing work of our Farm Fresh RI volunteers, so this month we will be recognize two individuals who have contributed to the operation of our Wintertime Farmers Markets, among other things. Anna Foster and Nathan Johnson were indispensable over the past year, and we wanted to take this opportunity to thank them! Plus, we want you to get to know them a little better.

Q. How did you hear about Farm Fresh RI?

Anna Foster: I heard about Farm Fresh though word of mouth, having grown up in Providence.  I had seen the outdoor Farmer’s Markets in the area of my home and was interested in doing an internship to complete my degree.

Nathan Johnson: I heard about Farm Fresh through a list Providence College gave me regarding potential companies that were available for student internships that focused on not only business aspects but also health and biology.

Q. What are some of the projects you’ve been working on at Farm Fresh RI?

A.F.: Some of the projects I’ve worked on have been Veggie Box and the running of the Wednesday market.

N.J.: At FF I’ve volunteered at the sales table each Wednesday, as well as working on a monthly sales analysis that measures any trends in product sales over each month.  I also keep the net income sales spreadsheet up to date.
Q. Does your volunteering at FFRI connect to your academics or future plans?

A.F.: Volunteering at Farm Fresh RI absolutely connects to my future plans.  I plan on eating local, because it tastes better and I hope to work in a similar office setting in the future. 

N.J.: Though not directly, my time at FF definitely has shown me what the general atmosphere and goal of many non-profits, something I didn’t factor into my career plans prior to working here as much as I do now.  

Q. What did (do) you study in college?

A.F.: I studied Philosophy, amongst other things, at the University of Rhode Island, where I just graduated from.
N.J.: Business Management and a Minor in Biology at Providence College. I am also graduating this month and going on to Graduate School for Marine Biology in Austin, Texas.

Q. What have you learned from volunteering?

A.F.: I have learned innumerable things volunteering at FFRI.  I can manipulate some websites and databases,  work copy and adding machines,  and am less fearful communication with other humans.
N.J.: I have learned numerous sales tactics and strategies, as well as the benefits of supporting local farms and the nutritional benefits they can provide to many consumers.

Q. What has been your favorite time/moment at FFRI (so far)?

A.F.: My favorite moment at FFRI would have to be going to the beach in Dartsmouth, MA after completing a tour of Silverbrook Farm. 

N.J.: Probably the 3rd of 4th week I volunteered was when I really got the hang of talking with customers about our products and felt comfortable with the entire operation, and once I wasn’t so nervous I really began enjoying my time at the market.

Q. What is your favorite vegetable?

A.F.: My favorite vegetable is the carrot

N.J.: jalapeno pepper

Stop by the last indoor Springtime Farmers Markets this Wednesday 4-7pm and this Saturday from 10am-1pm!

Also, a BIG THANK YOU to all of our volunteers who are graduating from high school and college this year: Sabine Desir (at right), Dan Preziose, Anna Jones, Molly Bledsoe, Leah Douglas, Nathan Johnson, and Anna Foster.

JWU Culinary Students Explore Local Foods

We’re lucky to have a world-class culinary institute right in our backyards here in Rhode Island. Johnson and Wales University (JWU) is training the next generation of inspiring chefs who are continuing to focus more and more on sourcing food from local farms in RI!

Farm Fresh Rhode Island is excited about a new initiative at JWU, the Wellness and Sustainability Concentration, that trains culinary graduates on issues of health, wellness, sustainability, agriculture and more.

Culinary Arts Department Chair Bill Idell has been instrumental in making this new concentration happen and getting the program connected with local farms and agriculture. Between farm field trips and presentations from Farm Fresh RI during the program curriculum, students have also been working with local farms directly through our Market Mobile distribution program.

We were invited along to the most recent “Chefs Table,” the final project for Chef Braden Lewis’s Plant-Based Cuisine class. The noontime meal featured a 7-course plated meal entitled “Near and Far” featuring items sourced from local farms and flavors from all around the globe.  Culinary students Tariq Sheriff, Damiam Scardamaglia, Shannon Glazebrook, Hyunyong Jung and Sangjae Lee did a fantastic job preparing and presenting this mini-feast, featuring food from local growers and producers including Schartner Farms, Baby Greens, Narragansett Creamery, Aquidneck Honey and Farming Turtles. The four lucky guests at our table enjoyed a rich and creamy parsnip soup, barley risotto with fiddleheads and red onion jam, grapefruit granita, and citrus chiffon cake.

Farm Fresh RI is excited to continue building a relationship with this new program at Johnson and Wales, and the students in these classes. We look forward to JWU’s continued exploration of how food can be a powerful agent of change, and how farms can be a great partner in creating delicious menus.

“Yesterday, I bought bok choi, which I don’t normally get because I don’t normally cook with it…with something like bonus bucks I don’t feel guilty going off and trying things like new vegetables.” -Wintertime Market SNAP customer While the local food movement is gaining momentum, 14.5% of Americans are classified as food-insecure. Farm Fresh Rhode Island has made a commitment to use local food systems to address food security through various incentive programs. Brown University senior and Farm Fresh Market Manager Molly Bledsoe, has written a senior thesis assessing the efficacy of Farm Fresh RI’s programs to address food insecurity, and what obstacles stand in the way of their improvement. She will be presenting her research at a Thesis Poster Session in The Kasper Multipurpose Room 040, Faunce at Brown University - 75 Waterman Street. Friday April 27 from 1-3 PM. Congratulations Molly! Long time volunteer and intern, Molly will be joining the Farm Fresh Rhode Island staff full-time when she graduates this May.
“Yesterday, I bought bok choi, which I don’t normally get because I don’t normally cook with it…with something like bonus bucks I don’t feel guilty going off and trying things like new vegetables.” -Wintertime Market SNAP customer

Molly Bledsoe on rightWhile the local food movement is gaining momentum, 14.5% of Americans are classified as food-insecure. Farm Fresh Rhode Island has made a commitment to use local food systems to address food security through various incentive programs. Brown University senior and Farm Fresh Market Manager Molly Bledsoe, has written a senior thesis assessing the efficacy of Farm Fresh RI’s programs to address food insecurity, and what obstacles stand in the way of their improvement. She will be presenting her research at a Thesis Poster Session in The Kasper Multipurpose Room 040, Faunce at Brown University - 75 Waterman Street. Friday April 27 from 1-3 PM. Congratulations Molly! Long time volunteer and intern, Molly will be joining the Farm Fresh Rhode Island staff full-time when she graduates this May.

A Letter from an Urban Farmer

Nathanial Wood is an urban farmer in Providence at Front Step Farm. He has written a letter outlining unexpected challenges that currently face his farm. While urban farming continues to gain momentum in cities around the country, this article reminds us of the urban farming plight in our backyard, and also the power of community.

April 10, 2012

Writing this letter is not something that I am undertaking with a light heart. If you know me, you know me as an urban farmer. Without this city I wouldn’t be who I am today. I wouldn’t have a community, friends or a place to draw strength from.  To be straight forward- I need help.

I’m writing to you as a farmer, and someone who believes in this little city with all my heart.

For the past several years I’ve been working on building a life around urban farming. I started as a volunteer at City Farm and Scratch Farm and eventually got my dream job as a paid farm apprentice, learning how to grow a huge amount of food on a small amount of space. Clean, Healthy, Wonderful food. I learned to coax life out of a soil that provided for millions before me, and will outlast me and everyone I know.

After my time as an apprentice at City Farm ended I decided to try my own hand at making a living farming in the Providence. Fortunately, after years of working at coffee shops, movie theaters, parking cars and landscaping, I found that I could make it by with relatively little income so long as I had passion and food.  I found a vacant lot- a site that contained a home decades ago that burnt down, and sat empty for half a century, worked out some rent with the owner and put myself to work cleaning soil, removing trash, getting to know my neighbors, learning to grow good salad and carrots, raising bees, starting a CSA, selling at farmers markets, chatting and educating any interested passers by. I felt a connection to land and life and time that is greater than anything I’ve ever felt in my life.  I named it Front Step Farm, and it has been my life for two wonderful, fortunate years.

This leads me to my cry for help.  Last week Front Step Farm was purchased by my neighbors without warning and they are asking me to vacate. I am allowed to stay until the end of the season or I can leave now.

If you are curious, I knew this day was coming. I was farming with only the hope that I, and others, could work out a model of urban farming that led to actual land tenure and incentives to land owners to keep their land as farms. We’ve made progress towards that, but nothing concrete. I’d hoped to be able to pass the farm off as a production area, or a community garden when I eventually leave. I’d even spent a good slice of the past winter looking for new land to move to, but all my options lead to dead ends.

My soil stained fingers can’t really communicate the turbulent mixture of emotions that I am having, but I still wanted to write to you- my friends and community, to put out a call for help. I need to try and land on my feet and find new farmland, quickly (1 month).

Read More

A month ago we celebrated Michael Bove’s amazing volunteer time at Farm Fresh Rhode Island with a shout-out on the blog. Here is the text from his interview! Thanks again Michael. Q: How did you hear about farm fresh? M.B.: I am apart of a Group Called SLICE (Student Leaders in Community Engagement) and through this volunteer group of Johnson & Wales I was able to set up volunteer times. Q: Does your volunteering at FFRI connect to your academics or future plans? M.B.: Yes it does, Currently I am taking the science of Culinary Arts and Foodservice Management at Johnson & Wales. Volunteering here helps me be able to directly apply the uses of different products that I see while volunteering and cooking. It helps me better utilize different products and I am able to use more seasonal produce. Q: What do you study in school? M.B.: The science of Culinary Arts and Foodservice Management. Some Classes include: Business, Accounting, Meat cutting, Garde Manager, Beverage Service… Q: What have you learned so far from volunteering here? M.B.: Specifically learned parts of Purveying and shipping food. Also how food organically or fresh from the farm is produced. Q: What has been your favorite time/moment at FFRI? M.B.: I really enjoy the farmers markets and the first time that I saw the Wintertime market and learned how it runs, and the work that it takes to put it together. Q: What’s your favorite vegetable? M.B.: I believe it would be different types of Squashes, mainly because there is so many things that you can make with them!

A month ago we celebrated Michael Bove’s amazing volunteer time at Farm Fresh Rhode Island with a shout-out on the blog. Here is the text from his interview! Thanks again Michael.

Q: How did you hear about farm fresh?

M.B.: I am apart of a Group Called SLICE (Student Leaders in Community Engagement) and through this volunteer group of Johnson & Wales I was able to set up volunteer times.

Q: Does your volunteering at FFRI connect to your academics or future plans?

M.B.: Yes it does, Currently I am taking the science of Culinary Arts and Foodservice Management at Johnson & Wales. Volunteering here helps me be able to directly apply the uses of different products that I see while volunteering and cooking. It helps me better utilize different products and I am able to use more seasonal produce.

Q: What do you study in school?

M.B.: The science of Culinary Arts and Foodservice Management. Some Classes include: Business, Accounting, Meat cutting, Garde Manager, Beverage Service…

Q: What have you learned so far from volunteering here?

M.B.: Specifically learned parts of Purveying and shipping food. Also how food organically or fresh from the farm is produced.

Q: What has been your favorite time/moment at FFRI?

M.B.: I really enjoy the farmers markets and the first time that I saw the Wintertime market and learned how it runs, and the work that it takes to put it together.

Q: What’s your favorite vegetable?

M.B.: I believe it would be different types of Squashes, mainly because there is so many things that you can make with them!

Sakonnet Times: Buying a piece of the farm

Yesterday’s Sakonnet Times featured a story about Community Support Agriculture (CSA) offerings at Wishing Stone Farm (Little Compton), Hilltop Farm (Westport), Roots Farm (Tiverton), Ocean State Fresh (Newport), and the challenges local fishermen face trying to use the CSA model tosell their catch directly to customers.

Time to sign up for a Summer 2012 CSA share!

The first Ship Street Farmers Market was a big success! And quite an exciting moment for the city, with vibrant use of public spaces in the transformed Jewelry District. Hopefully, the market contributes to a vision of what this neighborhood can and will be.

The market runs for 5 Tuesdays in April, up until May 1st. If it’s successful, it will continue into the summer. So invite your friends and enjoy Brown University’s amazing new community space at Ship Street Square.