{join the fun} NOFA-NY’s Locavore Challenge

We are proud to announce that we are the ‘Blog Sponsor*” of this year’s Locavore Challenge by Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York (NOFA-NY).

As a group, From Scratch Club, strive to eat as locally and as organic as possible for the health of our families, the community, the world at large and to support our local foodshed economy. We want to know the people who grow our carrots, or who harvest our honey, who take care of our the animals that will become our ham, steak, broiler chicken or sausage. Since the Miss Irene, the storm of the century for most towns in Upstate New York, caused widespread flooding, we want to stand behind them during this uncertain time for many of them due to the storm whether it was almost-ready to be harvest sweet peppers or future fall and winter crops like carrots or white squash that were harmed, it is bad for many farmers in our immediate area and also more badly hit, Schoharie County. Since starting my work as CSA Coordinator at Kilpatrick Family Farm, I’ve learned many valuable insights into farming, one of those is that vegetable crops can {not} be insured. So these losses are big.

So we were thrilled when we saw that they were running a month-long challenge to eat local! What a FUN way to take small steps to eat locally and help support your local farmers here in New York State. A participant can choose between three different tracks, depending on how big of a challenge you want to take on, which is great because ANY effort put towards buying food in your local community from your local farmer or value-added producer is a step forward. There are fun challenges and products you can choose to do for points- like making your own ice cream or joining a fall/winter CSA share!

According to NOFA-NY’s Press Release:

The NY Locavore Challenge is a month-long campaign aimed at engaging consumers across the state in eating local organic foods.  The goal for this campaign is to educate consumers about how to make healthy and ethical food choices, cook with in-season, local organic foods, while supporting local sustainable farms and food businesses. 

Our 2011 goal is to involve 5,000 people in this year’s challenge, and bring the concepts of local, organic and sustainable more into the forefront of the general public’s minds. 

This year’s program is versatile, fun and FREE!  Participants have the option of signing up for either a Bite-Sized, a Meal-Sized or a Feast-Sized challenge, and within these challenge scopes choose from a variety of different mini-challenges or events to participate in.

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I have to say that these sorts of challenges are fun and VERY educational. The smaller FSC crew of last winter, completed the “Dark Days” Challenge where we had to eat as sustainable,organic, local and ethic as possible once a week through the darkest days of winter; December-March. Alexis, Amanda, Dianna, Sarah and I learned A LOT. Like the Dark Days Challenge, there are exceptions, like nuts, rice, olive oil and the like PLUS you get to choose 5 ingredients as your personal exceptions.

If you are interested in participating along with us as we will be reporting on our participation throughout the month (YES PLEASE!!!)  register online here…September is here (can you believe it?!?) and the fun is about to start! In addition, September 29th is “Potluck Across NY” where participants celebrate the challenge with a potluck dinner. Plans have not been arranged yet, but we will of course be hosting one of those dinners. 

DISCLOSURE: We are NOFA-NY Members AND we paid to be a sponsor.