Gabe Eggers, of Twin Buttes Farms and member of the homegrown Food Retreat, empties apples to be processed for cider during last year’s Apple Days festival in Durango./Photo by Debra Parmenter

Planting the seed

Homegrown Retreat focuses on local accessibility, self reliance

by Page Buono

Just the Facts What: Homegrown Food Retreat When: Fri. - Sun., Feb. 21-22 Where: Fort Lewis College For info: www.Growingpartners.org

Local food producers, consumers, advocates and educators are gearing up for the 6th annual Homegrown Food Retreat. The theme of this year’s event is “Home Cookin,’” and the line-up of speakers and workshops will focus on innovative local food projects ranging from fungi as soil cleansers to a chef-to-farmer dating service.

“We have an amazing food system and lots of people doing incredible, innovative things,” said Rachel Landis, steering committee member for the event and coordinator of the Fort Lewis College Environmental Center.

Organized by The Growing Partners and hosted by Fort Lewis College, the event requests a $15- $20 donation from participants. Funds raised will go to supporting next year’s event as well as other Growing Partner events like the Tour de Farms, Iron Horse Chef and more. The past events have hosted nearly 200 attendees, and this year’s planners are anticipating closer to 230.

“We wanted the event to be accessible to everyone, which is why it’s a suggested donation,” Growing Partners Event Coordinator Celeste Greene said. This mission echoes the Growing Partners charge of offering food advocacy, education and accessibility to all ages, incomes and cultures. 

The retreat kicks off at 7 p.m. Fri., Feb. 21, with a lecture at FLC by keynote speaker Russell Evans, director of the Transition Lab in Montrose. Evans, winner of MIT’S Climate CoLab “Local Solution” Contest will guide participants in creating “skilled resident” relationships. Evans will both share the details of the model, as well as facilitate the opportunity for residents and hosts to connect. 

The skilled resident model stems from a belief, based on experience and data, that coming out of college with loads of debt is no longer sustainable. Citing a recent study from the U.S. Department of Education, Evans said there are more 27-year-olds now living with their parents than living on their own.

Instead of continuing to encourage the status-quo (i.e. going to college will make you successful), Evans will explore an alternate way of thinking and pursuing happiness that encourages community connections, skilled labor and small, simple solutions to larger-scale problems.

“At Transition Lab we’ve been able to take all of those problems and turn them into solutions,” Evans said. “Everything we’re looking at has an incredible opportunity and ability to meet basic needs in ways that are totally independent of a traditional economy.”

Evans said he looks forward to the Durango event and meeting people from all different spectrums, left to right, who can come together on ways to pass down knowledge about farming, community relationships, work ethics and self-reliance.

“The big thing isn’t so much speaking and sharing my ideas, but sharing the how-to,” he said.

After the Friday night event, the retreat will start-up again 8:30 a.m. Saturday with a free taco-bar breakfast form Zia, followed by a series of TED-inspired talks.

“There are a lot of cool innovative projects going on in our region,” Greene said. “And they’re not something you can read about in the paper.”

 The 15-minute talks will run the gamut, covering everything from the Southwest Seed Library and the Real Food Challenge to herbicide carry-over and the power of mushrooms to save the soil (aka, mycoremediation).

“The talks are applicable to all groups of people,” Greene said.

After a couple hours of inspiration, innovation and discussion, participants will be invited to enjoy an all-local lunch by Sodexho, the college’s food supplier.

The afternoon line-up boasts a series of workshops where participants can choose from topics like: “The Farmer Chef Connection;” “What to Grow and What Not to Grow;” or “What’s for Lunch: Engaging Public Schools in our Food System.”

Participants are invited to partake in any workshop that interests them, though the workshops are divided into three main categories of participants: advocates, producers and consumers.

“The idea is to plant the seed about new markets, and hopefully shift models to increase production of existing farmers, as well as capture the attention of potential producers,” Landis said.

The Farmer-Chef Connection, which acts as a “hook up” service between food producers and potential markets, will last for two hours, while the others are hour-long events. The idea is modeled after Eco-Trust, a similar Farm-Chef connection in Portland.

When farmers and chef’s register online for the workshop (to which they were invited) they are prompted to complete a survey that helps organizers pair them strategically. For example, a chef looking to buy local meat will be paired with a local producer of meat instead of sitting at a table with a farmer who deals only in vegetables.

Landis said one of the greatest successes to come out of this year’s event will be the side conversations and connections happening outside the meeting rooms. “Individual connections are a big deal in a small food system,” Landis said.

Making those individual connections has been a challenge. According to Landis, getting everyone at the table presents a unique set of obstacles, and some of the ideas of past retreats have died in the water as a result. For example, a distribution hub has long been a discussion and was a focus of last year’s event. While there was some momentum after the retreat, the idea eventually floundered.

Landis said it is hard to know exactly why that is, but it is likely related to the fact that most local farmers already have a market, and so there is little incentive to change the structure, though Landis argues that farming and ranching could be more efficient and potentially profitable if market needs were assessed and met with something like a cooperative distribution hub.

Along those lines, this year’s event will also explore the inherent challenges of limited production both by showcasing new markets and discussing alternatives to small-scale diversified farming.