‘Ripple Effects’ seminar begins Thursday

April 19, 2010

FAIRHOPE, Ala. — Environmental enthusiasts need not wait until Saturday’s festivities and educational activities at the Fairhope municipal pier to celebrate Earth Day this year.

Edwin Marty, executive director of Jones Valley Urban Farm in Birmingham, will lead a workshop on community gardens as the featured speaker in the inaugural “Ripple Effects” seminar this Thursday, April 22, at Windmill Market. Photo courtesy of Jones Valley Urban Farm.

Thursday, an inaugural workshop on community gardens in the “Ripple Effects” seminar series will take root at Windmill Market on the official date of Earth Day: April 22.

The featured speaker will be Edwin Marty, executive director of Jones Valley Urban Farm in Birmingham.

“Edwin is going to give his talk and presentation and try to use that as an example others could emulate,” said Rebecca Bryant, senior consultant with Watershed, a “green building” consulting company that is sponsoring the new workshop series. “Jones Valley Urban Farm has grown from this little patch of land in Birmingham, as an after-school program with inner-city kids, to having vast acreage and working with a diverse group of people. They’ve done such a great thing and really are creating ‘ripple effects’ from the work they do.”

An Earth Day celebration with live music and food available from Moe’s Original BBQ will follow the event, she said.

“What we’re trying to do in a very big sense is ask our communities to look at how our food system works and how it could work better,” Marty said. “What we want to have is an intentional food system, where we, as a community, have created a system that’s efficient and focuses on local production and provides community members fresh, safe food.”

Marty is an ethno-botanist who, before taking a full-time role at the urban farm, was assistant garden editor for Southern Living magazine and has worked as an agricultural consultant in Mexico, Australia, Mongolia and Chile. He also teaches farm-based courses for the Alabama School of Fine Arts and Clayton College of Natural Health.

“I represent an organization that is turning vacant land into farmland and teaching kids about where their food comes from and helping other communities start similar projects with urban farms or community gardens,” he said. “There’ll be something for everyone in terms of what I’ll talk about, hopefully, addressing the idea that if we create an intentional food system, everybody in the community is going to benefit.”

In 2001, Marty created the first gardens for JVUF, a nonprofit organization that raises organic crops for local markets and restaurants and also hosts educational programs for local public schools. Five years later, the farm expanded to a full-block location in downtown Birmingham not far from city hall. Since then, the group has grown to include over 28 acres of urban farm land, employs 20 people and teaches thousands of youth each year about growing and eating locally grown food.

“There’s a lot of interest in community gardens in Fairhope with the Local Food Production Initiative group, a lot of folks in Mobile are also getting interested,” Bryant said. “Edwin’s organization has taken these dilapidated pieces of land and turned them into something where people gather as part of a new local economy. They’re also beautiful places, as well as economic magnets.”

The April 22 event at Windmill Market begins with Marty’s hour-long lecture and workshop, starting at 5 p.m.

Earth Day was founded in 1970 by former Sen. Gaylord Nelson to bring awareness to environmental problems and solutions and predates most major environmental protection laws, which were enacted in the followingyears.

Future seminars in the “Ripple Effects” series will take place this summer, fall and winter, Bryant said.

Watershed is affiliated with Walcott Adams Verneuille architecture firm, whose founding members are co-owners of Windmill Market, an open-air market and building with a number of energy-efficient and sustainable features, in addition to its trademark wind turbine, as well as several small vegetable garden beds.

“We are honored to have Edwin as part of our seminar series at this year’s Earth Day celebration,” Bryant said. “People should bring their questions and ideas. This will be an interactive workshop. Stay after the presentation to celebrate Earth Day at the Windmill Market.”

Windmill Market is located at 85 N. Bancroft Ave. in Fairhope. For more information, contact Bryant at (251) 517-5214.

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