GreenStart's mission is to foster a resilient energy and food system for New Hampshire by providing technical education and practical agricultural examples. An educational non-profit organization established in 2006, GreenStart sees food and fuel security as the end-product of a vibrant, sustainable agriculture system in New Hampshire.
New Hampshire has 40% of its land area in agricultural soils, yet farms only 10% and imports 95% of its food and fuel. New Hampshire has no significant petroleum resources. To feed and fuel itself from sustainable natural resources, New Hampshire must improve its soils while also improving production.
To achieve this end, GreenStart facilitates projects that
1) increase soil carbon “banking”
2) decrease energy inputs
3) increase both food and fuel outputs (positive energy and carbon balance)
4) promote “tight” cycling of nutrients
5) provide opensource access to appropriate knowledge, seeds and equipment
Thank you for participating in the Food Systems Hackathon at the NOFA-VT Winter Conference! This email contains some important information about how you can stay involved after this past weekend's hackathon. A special thanks to all of our sponsors, producers and partners:
Photos from the opening workshop:http://flic.kr/s/aHsjSzn2oxPhotos of the various concepts generated during the workshop:http://flic.kr/s/aHsjSzKhA3 A document summarizing each concept:https://docs.google.com/document/d/1S_TysiEfshGR5bqOY7UzZyIBtYFgtQHOf6qPqW66L-I/edit?usp=sharing
The latest issue of Seven Days includes an article about the hackathon:Hack-to-the-Landers? Farmers and Coders Cultivate Connections Code for BTVCode for BTV is an official Code for America Brigade that facilitates sustainable collaborations on civic software and open data projects between coders, designers and organizations (both governmental and non-governmental) in the greater Burlington, Vermont area. Code for BTV hosts events for civic hackers to come together and work on building and reusing civic apps and support open data initiatives. Stay in touch:
Farm to Plate Tech Task ForceThe Farm to Plate Tech Task Force strives to deliver increased business viability to the Vermont food system by connecting technology needs with solutions through education, events, programs, networking and referrals. Join the Farm to Plate Tech Task Force:
You can also contact Stan Ward <stan@stanward.com> if you would like to join the Farm to Plate Tech Task Force call scheduled for this Thursday, February 20 from 10am to 12pm. Farm HackFarm Hack is an open source community for resilient agriculture. Farm Hack has set up a forum to continue the conversations from this past weekend's hackathon:http://farmhack.net/forums/bvt-hackathon-nofa-vt Farm Hack has also captured some notes and documents from this past weekend:http://farmhack.net/forums/code-bvt-documents-and-notes Some specific tools documented by Farm Hack from this past weekend:
Vermont Digital Economy ProjectThe Vermont Council on Rural Development's Digital Economy Project is looking for volunteers to assist in the building of WordPress websites for nonprofits and other organizations that provide essential services to their communities. Email Rob Fish <rob@vtrural.org> to get involved. This past weekend, this team made progress on a new website for Seedfolks Farm in East Calais.
</td>