Jah Roots Joins Columbia's Own Idea Factory

Jah Roots Brings Agri-Tourism to Columbia

Heathwood Graduate Builds Future on Senior Exhibition

Jah Roots, the brain-child of Scott Harriford, class of 2011, has been accepted as the first business into the newly created University of South Carolina College of Hospitality, Retail & Sports Management Business Incubator. The newly formed incubator is being supported through funds provided by the South Carolina Center for Economic Excellence in Tourism and Economic Development and will be housed at the USC Columbia Business Incubator. Harriford, now a USC student, is building his future upon the work of his Heathwood Hall Senior Exhibition. The Senior Exhibition is a final project that reflects the culmination of a student’s experience at Heathwood. This year-long research project, beginning with an original thesis and Involving extensive work with a committee, especially with an expert in the field of study, is a requirement of all Heathwood Hall seniors for graduation. Harriford researched and experimented with how to build and maintain the easiest and most cost efficient hydroponic system for a small home grower. Hydroponic gardening is the art of growing plants without soil, using mineral nutrients and an alternative growing method. This allows the growth of many edible plants year round. Harriford’s experiment concluded that using a water culture system and florescent light panels is most efficient and inexpensive. Harriford took the knowledge gained from this project to create and become CEO of Jah Roots, South Carolina’s newest Urban Hydroponic Garden. Established in 2012, its goal is to supply the greater Columbia area with fresh produce. Jah Roots provides restaurants such as Ristorante Divino and Il Giorgione locally grown and chemically-free produce. Jah Roots is moving beyond just growing crops to community awareness by creating an interactive and educational experience for others. Jah Roots’ soon-to-be Urban Interactive Hydroponic Botanical Garden & Farm will allow visitors the chance to see, smell, taste and touch completely organic, hydroponically and aquaponically grown harvest year round. Its goal is to reach out to today’s youth and educate them about sustainability and farming practices. For more information on Jah Roots contact W.L. Harriford, IV-CEO at scottharriford@gmail.com

West African agriculture advocate and women’s rights activist to visit Clemson during World Food Day 2012

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Dienaba Diallo, pastoralist farmer and president of Burkina Faso’s Collége des Femmes, will tour Clemson University’s Student Organic Farm and Clemson Public Service and Agriculture’s Simpson Beef Cattle Farm Oct. 12 as part of events surrounding World Food Day 2012. Clemson’s School of Agricultural, Forest and Environmental Sciences (SAFES) and the international relief and development organization Oxfam America will host the tours. Diallo will learn about Clemson’s work in the local community and around the world to promote food security and increased food production and will speak to students in field crop production and women’s studies classes. Diallo will also meet with Clemson faculty, administrators and researchers. Diallo is from a region of Burkina Faso in West Africa where millions of people are at risk of hunger and malnutrition. Since leaving her career as a history and geography teacher to return to her home village and rejoin her ethnic group's traditional vocation of animal herding, Diallo has advocated for better investment in small-scale producers. FULL STORY

Celebrating NW urban food harvests

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NORTH DENVER – UrbiCulture Community Farms celebrated the 2nd annual tour of Sunnyside’s local farms, “Tour de Harvest.” Founded by Candice and Jon Orlando, this urban farmer couple embarked on a mission to bring fresh produce to local families and women’s shelters, Family Tree and Safehouse. Irene Glazer was the first Sunnyside citizen to offer her garden as a testing ground for the concept. Since then twelve local yards and large, often barren plots, have given up grass, weeds and mowing as hosts to this urban farming affair. Sixty CSA members benefit from the fruits (and vegetables) of this labor of love by belonging to the consortium that provides garden fresh produce on a weekly basis. In addition, families in need are provided with fresh food, as an alternative to convenience store and fast food fare. On September 15th over 100 curiosity seekers and “localvores” set out on foot or bike to tour nine of these gardens for a progressive dinner party followed by a street side hootenanny. Gardens ranged from small front yards to mammoth back gardens, all punctuated with verdant leafy greens, eggplant, tomatoes, pumpkins, squash, and plants that shall remain nameless to many who wondered. Jon Orlando explained, “The trick is how you can grow a huge amount in a dense space. We don’t grow broccoli because it attracts aphids. We grow leaf lettuce, not head lettuce, because we can get two or three yields in a season. We live in a desert environment where climactic swings make it hard to manage gardens, so we utilize staggered planting to increase our output.” FULL STORY

Prince Protégé Taja Sevelle is Now an Urban Garden Guru

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When Prince took Taja Sevelle under his wing in the 1980s, the singer/songwriter’s career took off. After a whirlwind with Prince, she landed in Detriot to record with a Sony producer in the Motor City. But the motors weren’t being made much any more. “As I became acquainted with the city, I felt a lot of job loss and a lot of blighted unused land within the city proper,” Taje remembers. “It really caught my eye,” In 2005, Sevelle put her music career on the backburner because she so deeply felt the need and possibilities in her new city. She started the non-profit Urban Farming, which is now booming around the world. After launching with $5,000, three inner-city gardens and only herself on staff, she built the organization into 60,000 registered farms and gardens around the world. FULL STORY

Defining Sustainability in the Restaurant Industry

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Without a doubt, U.S. consumers want sustainable food, and demand is growing quickly. According to the Organic Trade Association, the market for organics alone has gone from $1 billion in 1990 to $26.7 billion in 2010. Interest in local food is also on the rise. According to the USDA, as of mid-2011, there were 7,175 farmers markets in the U.S, a 17 percent increase from 2010. Restaurants like Lyfe, a new fast casual chain launched by former McDonalds‘ execs and Mission Local Eatery in San Francisco are leading the charge towards more sustainable restaurant options. But as the market continues to grow, these restaurants and others like them struggle to define sustainability for their customers and suppliers. Restaurateurs and consumers often don’t know how to weigh the various attributes that fall into the sustainability bucket. FULL STORY

FORGET FOOD POISONING: HYDROPONIC PROTECTION FROM PRODUCE CONTAMINATION

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An estimated one in four Americans suffer from food poisoning every year, often times caused by contaminated produce that was most likely purchased at a corporate grocery store or restaurant. While most cases are isolated incidents, some become high-profile outbreaks that result in massive recalls, lots of wasted food and millions of lost dollars. There’s one easy way to avoid the risk of such harmful, and potentially fatal, illnesses such as E. coli, salmonella and listeria. Foods grown hydroponically in your own home have almost zero chance of being contaminated with dangerous foodborne disease. Here’s a look at the food-borne disease threat and some easy hydroponic solutions to avoid getting sick. Illness: E. coli Sicknesses Per Year: 260,000 Deaths Per Year: 100 Outbreak: A 2011 E. coli outbreak in German sprouts left at least 29 dead and 3,000 sickened. Hydroponic Solution: Sprouts can be grown easily at home. All you need are some seedlings and a glass bowl (see Rosebud Issue 20). It’s a great starter hydro project, perfect for teaching young children about the wonders of home growing. Illness: Salmonella Sicknesses Per Year: 1,200,000 Deaths Per Year:400 Outbreak: 68 people were sickened in 10 states after eating contaminated shredded lettuce from Taco Bell. Hydroponic Solution: Many varieties of delicious lettuce can be grown in a variety of hydroponic systems, including ebb and flow and NFT (Nutrient Film Technique). Not only is it certain to be disease-free, but hydroponic lettuce is tastier and healthier than the iceberg lettuce served at most restaurants. llness: Listeria Sicknesses Per Year: 1,600 Deaths Per Year: 260 Outbreak: 30 people died in 2011 after eating tainted cantaloupe in America’s deadliest food outbreak in over a decade. Hydroponic Solution: People tend to think large melons like cantaloupes and watermelons are too big to grow with home hydroponics, but we’ve seen great results grown in rockwool. Just make sure you have enough space.

To Find Fields to Farm in New York City, Just Look Up

Back in the 1960s, Lisa Douglas, the Manhattan socialite played by Eva Gabor in the television sitcom “Green Acres,” had to give up her “penthouse view” to indulge her husband’s desire for “farm livin’.”

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Today, she could have had both. New York City (the stores!) is suddenly a farming kind of town (the chores!). Almost a decade after the last family farm within the city’s boundaries closed, basil and bok choy are growing in Brooklyn, and tomatoes, leeks and cucumbers in Queens. Commercial agriculture is bound for the South Bronx, where the city recently solicited proposals for what would be the largest rooftop farm in the United States, and possibly the world. FULL STORY

Local Produce Increasingly Preferred To Organic, Consumer Survey Shows

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A recent survey of grocery shoppers commissioned by Whole Foods Market gives new credence to a belief that's taken hold in the sustainable food movement over the past few years: when it comes to consumer preferences, local is the new organic. Forty-seven percent of the 2,274 adults polled in the online survey said that they would be willing to pay more for fruit, vegetables, meat and cheese produced near their homes. That's a far larger share than those that said they would pay more for food without artificial ingredients (32 percent), meat made without antibiotics or hormones (30 percent) or "handmade, small-batch or artisanal and specialty foods" (20 percent). FULL STORY

Why this bus has a garden on top of it

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Buses have made strides in recent years to be more eco-friendly. So far it's been things like becoming more fuel friendly, but in the future we could see buses go a step further, taking unused spaces on their roofs and turning them into beautiful, rolling gardens. The project is called "Bus Roots" and it was conceived by New York City designer Marco Antonio Castro Cosio for his graduate thesis at New York University. He calls it "nomadic urban agriculture," and a prototype has already hit the streets courtesy of the BioBus, a mobile science lab that has traveled between New York and Ohio. FULL STORY