Food Storage [Meeting Summary]

March 4, 2010

Meeting held at Lebanon City Hall

Topic: Food Storage

Summary

• NOFA-VT reported that in 2007, fruit & veggie farmers in a NOFA advisory group asked for help with raising production rather than storage.  We’ll get an update from this same NOFA advisory group—if production has been successfully raised since 2007, perhaps now there is need for more storage.
• On food storage: energy wise, food freezing is very energy intensive and canning is also surprisingly high; it probably beats the energy investment of growing locally out of season or transporting, but there are many variables and it is difficult to judge.
• The idea of general stores as places of storage, brought up last meeting, fell through – they are optimized businesses, and in fact often need more storage than they have.
• Food storage as related to emergency preparedness may be the way to go on this: the possibility of storing food in under-utilized armories, and getting towns and the state involved from the perspective of preparing the community in case of an emergency, may yield more results.
• Possible sources of funding for initiatives like a community food storage facility were discussed.
• The need for sharing information keeps coming up: Valley Food & Farm has added a category of “local agricultural groups” to its printed and online Guide, but ideas were brought up about 1) expanding this, and 2) holding a face-to-face networking event through the VFC to bring together as many groups involved in local agriculture as possible for the purpose of forging connections.
• The topic for next meeting will be school and community gardens.  It will be held after school at a time convenient for those involved in Farm to School programs to attend.
• The possibility of establishing regular meeting times for the VFC rather than scheduling each individually was discussed; a poll will be sent around shortly to determine levels of interest, and what times would work for people.