Here’s a scoop: The next Environmental Professionals Network breakfast program at Ohio State features Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams. The Columbus company, which is continuing to expand nationally, last year earned B Corp certification for its sustainability practices, one of only eight Ohio businesses to hold that distinction. Registration for the May 12 event includes breakfast and, yes, ice cream samples. (Photo: CSRwire.)
Month: April 2015
How to use high tunnels to grow longer, make more money
CFAES has a workshop coming up on growing fruits and vegetables in high tunnels. High tunnels are a relatively low-cost, low-input way to extend the growing season into early spring, late fall and even winter. Extending the growing season benefits farmers, because early and late crops usually sell for more money — sufficient cash flow and profitability being keys to a farm’s sustainability. It helps consumers, too, by upping the availability of fresh, local produce, which is not just a way to eat better and be healthier but can cut the carbon footprint of one’s eating. Get more workshop details. (Photo: USDA-NRCS.)
Things worth saving; or, a preference to not be eft-bereft
I remember my older daughter, who was 3 at the time, finding and gently holding a red eft like this one after a thunderstorm while camping in Pennsylvania. (Red efts tend to come out after rain.) That was 15 years ago. Today, red efts and all of North America’s salamanders are in peril. The threat of a deadly disease is looming. Tomorrow, you can hear about scientists’ efforts to protect them. (Photo: iStock.)
Thursday: ‘The emerging alliance of religion and ecology’
Mary Evelyn Tucker, senior lecturer and research scholar at Yale University, presents “The Emerging Alliance of Religion and Ecology” at 4 p.m. Thursday, April 9, in the spring seminar series by CFAES’s School of Environment and Natural Resources. Attend in Columbus or watch in Wooster by video link.
Tucker teaches a joint master’s degree program between Yale’s Divinity School and School of Forestry and Environmental Studies; directs the Forum on Religion and Ecology at Yale with her husband, John Grim; and served on the Earth Charter International Council. In the video above, she talks about the emergence of an “ecological theology.”
Fighting hunger, boosting farming in northeast Ohio
A recent USDA grant is good news for hungry people in northeast Ohio, for farmers in the region and for efforts to grow the connection between them. The Cuyahoga County office of CFAES’s outreach arm, OSU Extension, is involved. So is the Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Food Policy Coalition, which the Cuyahoga County office helps convene. Find details in an April 2 story in Ohio’s Country Journal. Read more about the coalition and its work fighting food deserts in Cleveland in the spring issue of CFAES’s Continuum magazine, coming in June.
‘Everyone recognizes how important this is’
What is Ohio doing to stop toxic algae? Kristina Smith answers that question in her April 2 Port Clinton News-Herald story.
‘It is small and personal and that is good’
In a March 31 story, Brian Lisik of Farm and Dairy reports on CFAES’s recent Living the Small Farm Dream conference. Earlier related post.
In case you missed it
If you have time, read this story to the very end. It’s worth it.
Growing green energetically
Biofuels, bioproducts and growing the crops needed to make them in Ohio are the focus of a CFAES workshop April 9. Among the topics: Growing switchgrass (shown here) to make ethanol and growing dandelions and guayule for rubber and latex. Read the press release. Check out the speakers and topics in the flier. It’s free, but sign up by Monday, April 6, if you want the free lunch. (Photo: iStock.)
How to start a school garden or grow yours even more
CFAES’s outreach arm, OSU Extension, holds its 2015 school garden conference, “Growing a Sense of Place,” April 24 in Columbus. It’s for you if you plan, plant or teach in a school garden or are thinking about starting one. Why a school garden? Not just plants grow there.