Editor’s note: This is your weekly installment of images from Douglas Gayeton and Laura Howard-Gayeton’s Lexicon of Sustainability. We’ll be running one image every Friday this winter, so stay tuned. If you have your own sustainability terms, you can add them yourself to the Lexicon of Sustainability.

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We live in a world of dwindling natural resources. The principle of sustainability offers us a road map for managing what we have left. Yet as we attempt to put our world back in balance, we’ve seen the term “sustainability” grossly misused, its meaning devalued, hijacked, turned into hollow sounding marketing jingles.

Instead of tossing the word away, we should take it back and work to redefine what sustainability means.

Peter Gerica is a third generation Gulf Coast fisherman.  When I asked how his crab business survived both Hurricane Katrina and the BP oil spill, he said, “After Katrina, we lost everything. When I say everything, I mean when we got out of the trees all we had on were our pants and a smile. You just have to keep moving forward.”

His definition of sustainability? “It can be defined as any species, (including Gulf Coast fishermen and Louisiana blue crabs) that withstands the impact of all user groups upon it, maintaining equilibrium throughout its lifecycle.”

What is your definition of sustainability?

Editor’s note: This is your weekly installment of images from Douglas Gayeton and Laura Howard-Gayeton’s Lexicon of Sustainability. We’ll be running one image every Friday this winter, so stay tuned. If you have your own sustainability terms, you can add them yourself to the Lexicon of Sustainability.

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People search their cities and neighborhoods for unused or unwanted things: litter, refuse … even food. Fruit is often overlooked (while still on the tree and once its fallen to the ground).

The Fallen Fruit Collective began as a Los Angeles-based public art project. When artists David Burns, Austin Young, and Matias Viegener began examining the spaces between houses in their neighborhood, they quickly discovered over 100 fruit trees in a five-city block area offering organic public fruit year-round. So they mapped this resource and shared it with others.

Since their first map in 2004, people around the world have shared their discoveries by mapping the “fallen fruit” in their communities. This Fallen Fruit Movement allows people to rediscover their own backyards turning urban foraging into a treasure hunt.

David’s thoughts on foraging for fallen fruit:

People simply assume it’s somehow not as good as fruit from the market. That two-block journey they take by car to their local grocery store further reinforces that disconnect. Los Angeles is a car culture — everything is seen through windshields … against the soundtrack of cell phone conversations. Part of our mission is to get people to look at things they sometimes don’t see. One girl told me she didn’t eat bananas because she thought you were supposed to eat the peel … which she hated. It wasn’t until she tried one on an L.A. sidewalk that she changed her mind.

How to create a fruit map

1. Find a neighborhood with lots of fruit growing in or over public space
2. Trace an outline of the streets and place little symbols for the fruit trees
3. Share with your friends

(Note: These maps should be suggestive and playful, not overly precise, and used to encourage people to explore their own neighborhoods.)

Editor’s note: This is your weekly installment of images from Douglas Gayeton and Laura Howard-Gayeton’s Lexicon of Sustainability. We’ll be running one image every Friday this winter, so stay tuned. If you have your own sustainability terms, you can add them yourself to the Lexicon of Sustainability.

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Robert Kenner, director of Food, Inc. and founder of the new website Fix Food.

Most “edible education” initiatives are designed to teach kids about food and show how to lead a healthier lifestyle, but what about adults? Uncovering and disseminating the truth about our broken food system remains a challenge … and it’s not about to get any easier. Last year, states across the country proposed legislation to make the taking of pictures or video of farms or food production facilities illegal (they were all eventually dropped).

Thirteen* states have passed food libel laws to criminalize any behavior which may endanger the profits of a food company (this includes defamation by written or printed words, pictures, or in any form other than by spoken words or gestures).

Robby Kenner, director of the documentary film Food Inc., says the food industry has little interest in letting us know where our food comes from and what’s in it. His biggest shock came during a congressional hearing on whether cloned meat should be labeled. When the industry rep said, “I don’t think it is in the interest of the consumers to be given this kind of information … it would just be too confusing,” the lack of transparency in our food system became all too clear.

Was this why Kenner made Food, Inc.? Yes. He was curious to know where our food comes from and how we can feed the world in a more sustainable way. “Eating food that is produced in an industrial manner just doesn’t taste as good as it used to,” he says.

*Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Texas. Twelve of these states’ statutes are civil; defaming a food company is considered a criminal act in Colorado.

Editor’s note: This is your weekly installment of images from Douglas Gayeton and Laura Howard-Gayeton’s Lexicon of Sustainability. We’ll be running one image every Friday this winter, so stay tuned. If you have your own sustainability terms, you can add them yourself to the Lexicon of Sustainability.

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Any discussion about the sustainability of salmon is no longer limited to analyzing the numbers of fish pulled from the sea. Each winter, salmon return to rivers and creeks in the Pacific Northwest to spawn, but if these waterways are impacted by surburban spawl or pollution from agricultural runoff (as shown here), their numbers are dramatically reduced. In some cases, salmon simply don’t return to spawn at all.

Founded by river and native fish protection organization Pacific Rivers Council, Salmon-Safe is an environmental certification organization based in Oregon that works to inspire habitat conservation.

Salmon-Safe certification encourages the adoption of ecologically sustainable agricultural practices that protect water quality and spawning grounds by focusing on riparian area management;  water use management; erosion and sediment control; integrated pest management; animal management; and biodiversity conservation.

The Buchanan family has managed Tyee Wine Cellars for five generations dating back to 1885, with over 80 acres of riparian habitat on the property. (Back in the 1950s, David’s father wouldn’t allow the Soil Conservation Service to straighten the creeks and remove the riparian trees).

Text from the image

As one of the first farms certified by Salmon-Safe almost 15 years ago, David adheres to a number of fish friendly principles:

1. Maintain a cover crop under the vines year-round to sequester carbon, keep the vines in balance and prevent erosion.
2. Dry farm the vineyard, using irrigation only for frost protection in early spring.
3. Protect nearby creeks with native riparian buffers 60 to 400 feet in width that enhance habitat for native fish, birds, and wildlife. (David has planted over 4,000 native Oregon oak, Oregon ash, western red cedar, and Willamette Valley ponderosa pine.)
4.  Apply only minimal amounts of organically acceptable spray to the grapes when needed.
5. Use non-lethal scare tactics to discourage birds and wildlife from eating the grapes during harvest.

Large trees, root wads, and wood left in the stream provide shelter (and shade to fish and rearing habitat for young fish). The wood slowly breaks down over the years to supply food to aquatic insects which in turn provides food for crayfish, fish, and other aquatic organisms. Wood left in the stream also helps create positive water flow changes and meandering in streams.

On creek banks, riparian buffers (including trees and shrubs) provide shade and bank stability to keep the creek cool and keep sediment from silting up the stream. Clean, clear cold water is best for salmon and trout.

Editor’s note: This is your weekly installment of images from Douglas Gayeton and Laura Howard-Gayeton’s Lexicon of Sustainability. We’ll be running one image every Friday this winter, so stay tuned. If you have your own sustainability terms, you can add them yourself to the Lexicon of Sustainability.

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Can a new word change an entire industry?

Yes. When consumers first heard the term “cage free” eggs, they voted with their wallets at their local supermarkets and much of industry has been forced to change its practices. Will it happen again when they learn about “free range” and “pasture raised” eggs?

Alexis Koefoed of Soul Food Farm hopes consumers can learn to distinguish between “cage free,” “free range,” and “pasture raised” when they go to their local supermarket.

Cage free: Chickens that are not kept in cages. This means chickens are still confined to a barn with limited or no access to outside. The term “barn-roaming” more accurately describes this principle.

Free range: Outside the United States this term refers to a method of farming where the animals are allowed to roam freely rather than being contained in any manner. In the United States, USDA regulations apply only to poultry and indicate solely that the animal has been allowed access to the outside. These regulations do not specify the quality or size of the outside range nor the duration of time the animal must be allowed access to this space.

Pasture raised or “pastured”: Animals, like Alexis Koefoed’s chickens, that have been raised on pasture with access to shelter. This term is being used by farmers who wish to distinguish themselves from the industrialized “free-range” term [but it is not legally binding].

If possible, try to get to know the farm and learn what’s behind the terms they use to describe the eggs you buy. And tell us what kind of eggs you buy in the comments section below!

Editor’s note: This is your weekly installment of images from Douglas Gayeton and Laura Howard-Gayeton’s Lexicon of Sustainability. We’ll be running one image every Friday this winter, so stay tuned. If you have your own sustainability terms, you can add them yourself to the Lexicon of Sustainability.

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Jones Family Farms (at Middle Farm)
Lopez Island, Wash.

The consolidation of the meat industry has resulted in fewer local slaughterhouses, forcing many small producers to truck their animals hundreds of miles.

Can meat be local?

Yes. One solution is to make slaughterhouses mobile and bring them directly to where the animals are. The first mobile slaughterhouse sanctioned by the USDA can be found on Lopez Island, one of Washington State’s San Juan Islands. This tractor trailer travels to farms and ranches on this chain of islands, allowing butchers to slaughter livestock on-site under the supervision of USDA inspectors. It’s a model now being duplicated across the country.

What’s inside the truck?
An 8 x 12 foot trailer fitted with:
1. A sink
2. A 300-gallon water tank
3. A cooling locker with carcass hooks
4. A Jarvis 404 wellsaw
5. Two butchers + one USDA inspector 

The mobile slaughter unit (MSU) allowed Nick Jones of Jones Family Farms to incubate his farm in its early years. While it isn’t the most economic solution (it costs approximately $650 per cow, $250 per hog, and about $120 per goat/sheep), the MSU connects Nick with his fellow farmers and allows him to participate in safeguarding his local food shed. The MSU also allows Nick to remain on Lopez Island, where, due to climate, geography, and history, he can produce truly distinctive and extremely high-quality foods.

Editor’s note: This is the second in a weekly installment of images from Douglas Gayeton and Laura Howard-Gayeton’s Lexicon of Sustainability. We’ll be running one image every Friday this winter, so stay tuned. If you have your own sustainability terms, you can add them yourself to the Lexicon of Sustainability.

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Xuyen Pham’s Garden
East New Orleans, La.

After Xuyen Pham lost her New Orleans home to Hurricane Katrina, she turned the property into a farm to feed her community. She fled Vietnam with her husband and children at the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. After months in Southeast Asian refugee camps they were moved to Fort Chaffee in Arkansas. The family was eventually sponsored by a hotel owner in Oklahoma, but the cold proved too much so they moved yet again, settling in the “Mary Queen of Vietnam” community in East New Orleans.

This farm is surrounded by houses (we are right in the middle of a suburban housing tract in East New Orleans).

Xuyen stands amidst taro plants in her home garden. The plant stems are a base ingredient in traditional soups and congees found on most Vietnamese dinner tables. By growing taro and other vegetables, she keeps Vietnamese traditions alive in her community.

Xuyen’s definition of “food sovereignty”:
The ability of community members to control food access (both effluent and influent) independent of outside food sources (such as supermarkets). Members of the community grow traditional fruits and vegetables and fisherfolk go shrimping, fishing, and crabbing to sell at local stores, the local Saturday farmers market, and most importantly, to feed their families and community members.

Xuyen is also a participant in a local New Orleans East aquaponics project. The project is being implemented by MQVN Community Development Corporation and was established originally by fisherfolk displaced by the BP oil drilling disaster as a way to create jobs and to ensure adequate food access in New Orleans East (a USDA-identified food desert). In the near future, she and her husband, with the help of MQVN Community Development Corporation, will construct greenhouses and an aquaponics growing system on their farm plot.

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Industrial agriculture = monoculture.
Small farms = biodiversity.

Small, organic farms like Rick Knoll’s are able to eliminate their reliance on petrochemical-based fertilizers and pesticides. The results are fewer pollutants, less environmental degradation, and cleaner air. And by using cover cropping and other soil fertilization principles they are able to sequester carbon and keep topsoil — which is carbon heavy — from being lost into the atmosphere (the latter also contributes to climate change).

Biodiversity

Weeds + trees + crops + critters + soil = An integrated food web allowing biota to self-regulate = A self-regulating, multi-layered farm that requires little maintenance and no pesticides.

Additional text taken from the photograph:

The conventional farmer next door¹ calls Rick’s organic methods “dirty farming” (they’re “clean”). Each winter their fields sit idle for months at a time. Since no cover crop is planted (a process that returns nutrients to the soil and increases fertility), the soil remains exposed to the elements. Wind erosion will carry some of this precious top soil away and, in so doing, release carbon back into the atmosphere.

About Rick Knoll

Rick Knoll is an organic farmer who has been practicing biodynamic farming for 32 years. He owns Knoll Farms in Brentwood, Calif., and holds a Ph.D in Organic Chemistry from UC Irvine. He has also studied Agroecology at UC Santa Cruz. Learn more on the Knoll Farms website.

This image was made possible with generous funding from Google.