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SAN FRANCISCO, CA — The sustainable agriculture movement, by its very nature, focuses on everything from seed to plate, and the just-announced 2011 Growing Green Awards from the Natural Resources Defense Council reflect the breadth of those efforts.
The third annual awards were handed out to four pioneers focusing on everything from growing to serving food, including a pioneer of organic strawberry farming, a "renegade lunch lady", and the developer of environmentally friendly biopesticides.
The winners, chosen from 265 candidates, are:
- 2011 Food Producer winner: Jim Cochran, founder and co-owner of Swanton Berry Farm;
- 2011 Young Food Leader winner: Molly Rockamann, founder of the non-profit organization EarthDance Farms in Ferguson, Mo.;
- 2011 Knowledge Leader winner: Chef Ann Cooper, Food Family Farming Foundation;
- 2011 Business Leader winner: Pam Marrone is the CEO and founder of Marrone Bio Innovations.
During a press conference today unveiling the winners of the awards, Rockamann spelled out an idea that describes all the winners' efforts:
"I say if someone tells you you're crazy, you're probably onto a good idea," she said. "If something's not hard, it's probably not worth doing."
Rockamann, who won the NRDC's first-ever Young Food Leader Award, has started the EarthDance Organic Farming Apprenticeship program to connect more people from non-farming backgrounds to one of Missouri's oldest agricultural landmarks, the Mueller Farm.
"My goal was to reach a wider range of people, particularly urban residents who often feel disconnected from the rural agricultural communities that neighbor them," Rockamann writes in a blog post on the NRDC site. "EarthDance apprentices can stay living in town and at their jobs or schooling, yet learn everything they need to be successful organic farmers."
Jim Cochran, winner of the 2011 Food Producer award, knows a thing or two about being a successful organic farmer -- and about taking on a supposedly impossible task. Cochran's strawberry farm in Santa Cruz, Calif., was the first commercially successful organic strawberry-growing operation, bucking the industry standard of pesticide-intensive strawberry fields that are still the norm for the industry.
"My goal was to demonstrate that it was not only possible to grow strawberries organically but to do it in a commercially successful way," Cochran said during today's press conference, and nearly 30 years later he's proven his point.
Hi, I'm coordinating a
Hi,
I'm coordinating a Special Event for St. Jude Research Center and Children's Hospital. Here in the Mid-West, St. Jude hospital, perhaps you know, is a charitable hospital where no child is turned away from treatment of disease.
Many of us know that we need to eradicate lifestyles imposed by mainstream social systems that are afflicting parents and children with disease and grief.
Though this Special Event could be just a Yard-Sale to help with donations desperately needed to help these children, I'm hoping to propose & offer something more helpful, nutritious and fun.
I want to offer a Special Event of Music, Learning Games, Healthy Food, and guest speakers for positive lifestyle changes to ensure well-being in the family, the school, the future social system and prosperous environment.
Though this type of Special Charitable Event should be a part of our seasonal festivals everywhere, I am planning on holding this St. Jude Special Event here in my local Southern Indiana area. I am in need of some wonderful sponsors to join me in this Special Event who have similar ideas about fun, learning, and healthy eating and lifestyle habits.
I perceive this type of Event will be more advantageous for the children and research of St. Jude Hospital.
If you are interested in helping please write to Rev. Lisa M. Murray, ND, 1616 Ballou Road, Floyds Knobs, IN 47119-8523 for more information and collaboration. Thank you kindly.