Category Archives: Agriculture

May 7: Downtown Valdosta Farm Days

Downtown Valdosta Farm Days begin two weeks from tomorrow:
Bringing the best of the country to the heart of the City!

Downtown Valdosta Farm Days is a bi-weekly farmers’ market featuring local farmers and artisans and also serves to educate the community about eating local, nutrition and food choices.

Downtown Farmers Market
First and Third Saturdays from May to September
9:00 a.m. until 1:00 p.m.
Lowndes County Courthouse Square, Downtown Valdosta

There’s a calendar on their website, along with how to become a vendor. And everybody is purring now. Agriculture, economy, and a festival! And, it costs the county nothing.

More on this story as it develops.

-jsq

What will you do? —John S. Quarterman @ VCC 7 April 2011

I wanted to know what the council and the protesters will do when the biomass plant is canceled. I still want to know: what will you do?

Here’s the video, followed by my points.


What will you do? —John S. Quarterman @ VCC 7 April 2011
Regular monthly meeting of the Valdosta City Council (VCC),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 7 April 2011,
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

Before I started, the mayor noted that many people needed to go to an event at 7PM (he didn’t name it, but it was the 100 Black Men Annual Dinner.) He offered to proceed with scheduled business and re-open Citizens to be Heard at the end of the meeting. Nobody objected. I had already waited until nobody else seemed to want to speak.

My points: Continue reading →

Valdosta Downtown Farm Days —Mara Register

Mara Register came to the Lowndes County Commission regular meeting to talk about Downtown Valdosta Farm Days, following up from the Farm Days organizational meeting Monday.

I think her main points were:

  1. Provide additional information about healthy eating with food from local farmers, thus helping solve the epidemic of childhood obesity in Georgia.
  2. Economic development opportunity for small farmers.
  3. Promote downtown district.
When? The Saturday after First Friday and the Saturday after Art After Dark.

Where? The parking spaces around the historic courthouse.

No livestock. Local produce. Here’s video of the first part of what she said.


Regular Meeting, Lowndes County Commission, Lowndes County, Georgia, 12 April 2011
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

Logistics, such as no cooking, because Continue reading →

Master Gardeners Graduate

Grand Bay Master Gardeners (GBMG) has been holding a class to become master gardeners, and they just graduated yesterday!

I’m not going to attempt to name all of them, because the ones I missed would be miffed. I will say that’s Gretchen Quarterman on the right. And that these are people from all over the area, city and country, Democrat and Republican. Growing food is the universal community builder.

GBMG is “organized as a cohesive working group in Lowndes, Brooks, Echols, and Lanier Counties”. They’ll be holding more classes, so you, too, can become a master gardener.

-jsq

Farm Days: Connecting Lowndes County and the City of Valdosta

Yesterday I wrote that interactions about Valdosta Farm Days between the Lowndes Commmission and the City of Valdosta “could have been smoother if one or both of the parties had been proactive.” The VDT reported that the County Commission wants to know about Valdosta Farm Days, and apparently there was a disconnect between the staff and the Commissioners. Here’s how the Commission came to be informed, through interactions of citizens and staff.

First, an excerpt from the paper paper story by David Rodock, “Farmers market proposal discussed by commission”, Tuesday, April 12, 2011, page 3A (it’s not online): Continue reading →

Being proactive —Gretchen Quarterman

At the Lowndes County Commission work session on Monday morning, County Manager Joe Pritchard distributed a map to the Commissioners from the Valdosta Main Street Manager, Amanda Peacock, detailing a proposal for a Farmer’s Market on the sidewalk of the old County Courthouse.
proactive: serving to prepare for, intervene in, or control an expected occurrence or situation; anticipatory


Lowndes County Commission work session, 12 April 2011, Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia.
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

While apparently supportive of the initiative, the process could have Continue reading →

The Greening of Black America Initiative –James R. Wright

Here is the beginning of the long-running Greening of America email thread, a post by Valdosta City Council member James R. Wright. This is what Brad Lofton sent his non sequitur response to, and it is also what prompted my It’s an opportunity policy proposals. Here’s the powerpoint councilmember Wright seems to be referring to. -jsq
Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2011 08:11:48 -0400

I thought you all might find this power point article interesting. It was sent to me by a group representing local small farmers who are looking into growing bio-crops for economic opportunities to feed their families. The information below is from the power point presentation.

THE GREENING OF BLACK AMERICA INITIATIVE:

Continue reading →

Lame-duck Lofton cranks the same old scratched wax cylinder

After he gave his goodbye speech, I wished him happiness in Myrtle Beach and thought maybe he’d make a graceful exit. Nope, he’s still cranking the Edison phonograph on the same old scratched wax cylinder. Here he is last week responding to James Wright and dozens of other people in the same thread to which I later posted It’s an opportunity. In Lofton’s case, he’s still fixated on the losing proposition of biomass fuels. -jsq
Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2011 08:59:49 -0400

James:


© BrokenSphere / Wikimedia Commons.
Thanks so much for sharing this and for your continued strong support of our client’s green renewable energy project. In addition to assisting the country in reducing our consumption of middle eastern fuel and improving the environment, this project will provide a much needed economic impact for landowners of every race, and the Industrial Authority will assist in the efforts underway to assist local farmers. Google “benefits of biomass electricity,”

Continue reading →

It’s an opportunity –John S. Quarterman

“Like a burned-over longleaf pine, we can come back from this recession greener than ever, if we choose wisely.”

Here is my response to James R. Wright’s questions about jobs and priorities. -jsq

It’s an opportunity for those of us who are not currently searching for our next meal to help those who need jobs, and thereby to help ourselves, so they don’t turn to crime. Like a burned-over longleaf pine, we can come back from this recession greener than ever, if we choose wisely.

Switchgrass seemed like a good idea five or ten years ago, but there is still no market for it.

Meanwhile, local and organic agriculture is booming, and continued to boom right through the recession.

Not just strictly organic by Georgia’s ridiculously restrictive standards for that, but also less pesticides for healthier foods, pioneered as nearby as Tifton. That’s two markets: one for farmers, stores, and farmers’ markets in growing and distributing healthy food, and one for local banks in financing farmers converting from their overlarge pesticide spraying machinery to plows and cultivators.

Similarly, biomass may have seemed like a good idea years ago, but with Adage backing out of both of its Florida biomass plants just across the state line, having never built any such plant ever, the biomass boom never happened.

Meanwhile, our own Wesley Langdale has demonstrated to the state that

Continue reading →

Greening Of America –James R. Wright

In a long-running email discussion that started with a post by Valdosta City Council member James R. Wright about switchgrass for biomass, Councilmember Wright wrote two messages on Saturday, 26 March 2011, each asking questions of Dr. Michael Noll. The first one contained this paragraph:
Economic development is a high priority on the mind of many people. If you read the local paper you will see page after page of foreclosures, failing businesses, and unemployment at a all time high. Please explain to me how we can address these problems through energy needs?
Councilmember Wright elaborated later that same day: Continue reading →