Green Bees

Bees & VCC = The greenest public structure in Vancouver

Video by: Stefan Morel

From the filmmaker:

The Vancouver Convention Centre was minted as the city’s newest architectural wonder, at the opening of the 2010 Winter Olympics.

The greenest public structure on Vancouver’s ever-rising urban skyline, the VCC was engineered with a host of sustainable features: a green roof with “resident” bees (and beekeeper), reclaimed BC timber, watershed preservation systems, etc.

Just Another Worker….

When asked about what it was like filming all those bees, Stefan said:

When I filmed the bees+hives, I wasn’t wearing any protective gear: no beekeeper suit, no hat, no net…and despite the intense summer heat, the sweat dripping down my face and the stress of the bees on my lens…I didn’t get stung once! Just goes to show you: if the bees understand that you mean them no harm, and you can relax into their buzzing environment, they’ll welcome you into their hive. I was perceived as just another worker:)

To view additional work from the filmmaker visit: stefanmorel.com

About Harvest, LLC shares stories about food and agriculture. Subscribe to receive stories about the science, history and relevance of agricultural crops grown and harvested around the world.

In Depth Interview with Multi-Award-Winnng Director Mark Dodd

Mark Dodd is an award winning photographer-filmmaker who has worked world-wide for 20 years with the BBC. Visit his website at www.1080films.co.uk to view this and other projects

AH:What is the film “The Man Who Stopped the Dessert” about?

MD:The film is a documentary about Yacouba Sawadogo. He’s an illiterate African peasant farmer from Burkina Faso which is in kind of in, if you imagine Africa, it’s west in the center, just below the part of the Africa called the Sahel which is a big band of arid land below the Sahara Desert, which stretches to the west all the way over to the East. Burkina Faso is kind of on the left hand side in the west. It’s a landlocked country, and it’s one of the poorest countries on the planet.

And the stories is about, well it’s about his life story really. It wasn’t intended as a film about conservation. I was attracted to Yacouba’s story because of who he is, and what he’s achieved, and his humble beginnings. And that was really important to me in the film to show the story through his own voice. So if you see the film, there’s not much narration, and it’s really about Yacouba telling us about what he’s achieved. And what he’s achieved is amazing. He’s – over 20 years, he’s turned vast areas of dry, bone rock hard soil into fertile land, and he grows crops in it now, and the crops are feeding thousands of families. His techniques have been exported, and they’re feeding thousands of families. He’s grown a forest there from scratch. Certainly it’s got a large forest. I think it’s 20 acres or, or 20 hectares, I’m not sure what that is in acres. But it’s – he’s an amazing chap. Yeah, and that’s the story of the film.

Yacouba Sawadogo

AH:How did you come to learn about the work of Yacouba?

MD:That was pure chance. I had a friend, an English friend who happened to be living in Burkina Faso in 2007. I just went over there to visit him just to see what he was up to, and not a lot to do in that part of the world, and he suggested one day we go and visit this interesting farmer as he called him. So we went town to Yacouba’s land, and my friend actually speaks French. Yacouba doesn’t speak French; he speaks his indigenous language, which is Mòoré. So we had to bring with us someone who could speak Mòoré and French, and then actually translate it from French to English; it was quite a tortuous task. I didn’t know to expect, well I wasn’t expecting anything.

We turned up, Yacouba wasn’t around, so we kind of wait under the shade of a tree. And then after about a half an hour or so, we hear the sound of this moped coming through the bush. He must have been in his 60′s at the time, this gentleman arrived in a kind of long brand smock with a pick ax over his shoulder and got off, and that was Yacouba Sawadogo. He showed me around his land, around the forest, around the fields. And I thought, this guy’s done some impressive things. So we all sat down and interviewed him formally, and that took about, over an hour or two. And that – by the end of the interview, I thought this story has to be told. And at that point I decided I wanted to make a film about Yacouba and his life. I had no idea how I was going to do. But at the time, I was a BBC staff cameraman, so I thought I’ll take this story home and offer it to BBC to be made into a film.

Team with PM

AH:What exactly is the Sahel and what are some of the ways his work has impacted the people living there?

MD:The Sahal is a huge band of land between West Africa, and all the way over to the eastern side. It’s below the desert, below the Sahara desert, it’s beyond the fertile zone. So it’s kind of a semi-arid area. And it’s a very unforgiving part of the world. It’s very dry, and not a lot grows there, and they have extended periods of drought. And through the 1980′s, there was very serious droughts across that part of the world. But at that time, Yacouba was just starting on his kind of investigations into trying to do something into reverse the process of desertification, which was going on long, where you had areas of land which was being cultivated, which was being degraded both by the climate change, and also human intervention, cutting down trees for firewood, that kind of thing.

Once you’ve lost the ability to feed people, and villages start to close down, people leave villages in great numbers. And Yacouba was trying to find a way to stop all this. And what he did was he kind of reinvented an ancient farming technique called the Zai, which is Zed-a-i in the local language. And what that technique was at the time was just kind of scratching small shallow holes in the ground during the rainy season, and planting seeds in the holes. And that was getting limited results, but it wasn’t very effective. What Yacouba did was he resigned the pits; he made them much wider, made them a lot deeper. And he started to add compost in the pits, organic matter, and then he planted the seeds in the Zai pits.

But probably one of the most important things he did was he started preparing the land during the dry season which was actually a bit of a gamble for Yacouba because you weren’t allowed to do that. Local tradition said you’re not allowed to touch the earth in the dry season, and there’s no kind of rational behind it, it’s just that’s how it was done. So by doing this, he caused big problems, he got a lot of people’s backs up, and he suffered for that. People thought he was a mad man doing that kind of thing digging holes in the dry season. But he continued doing it. But he had a lot of opposition from people; the village elders didn’t like what he was doing. And one day when he was off his farm, he went to town into the local city to have a meeting there. And while he was there, some people, we don’t know who it is burnt down his newly planted forest and his crops. So he had a lot of opposition at the time. But he continued doing what he’s done, he’s worked through it, and his techniques have now been communicated through other families in the area, and he’s just had an amazing success with what he’s doing. And of course now since the films been made, he’s on the radar of the, well a lot of the top level. UN Secretary General Bank Ki Moon actually referred to Yacouba Sowadogo in a recent convention as the man who stopped the desert. So he’s kind of up there now. Listen to the Bank Ki Moon Speech at UN Radio here.

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AH:What is Zai and what are some of the challenges Yacouba has faced in getting people to adopt this technique?

MD:I guess what happened was they could see the results he was achieving. What happened was the year, the first year he did this Zai technique, the improved version where the holes were deeper, and with the compost. And the other thing he did was he planted trees amongst the crops as well, which has the effect of slowing down of land erosion when it blows, the trees slow down the wind, the trees also gather dust, and the dust settles underneath the trees. It helps – all these things added together help. He also puts termites in amongst them. Termites, if you have termites, they will actually break down the soil a lot. So that was termite’s help. He does all these little techniques, and they’re all little simple, little quite simple but when added together, they have these really effective results. And the – because it’s simple, the ideas are easily communicated, and that’s another idea to success that you got to be able to have simple ideas so people can just replicate the ideas. But I guess the reason why people, he’s a lot turned was they could see the results he was achieving the year, the first year he did it, it was a bad for rainfall. But even with the low rainfall, he achieved really good crops, and when he went into town to tell people about this, they didn’t believe him. They said, “Its been a drought year, what are you talking about?” So he had to battle the people in town, the kind of agricultural people to come and have a look. Say look – they couldn’t believe what they saw when they arrived there.

AH:He has developed such an incredible technique. I think the beauty behind it is the simplicity in the fact that aside from labor, there are no costs…

MD:That’s right, and this is important. And prior to that, what happened, all foreign agencies would come in, and they’d kind of impose technical solutions to the problems that required plant, and machinery. And machinery requires maintenance, and requires fuel, and it also, these techniques were imposed, they weren’t to build on anything that was indigenous. And the thing about Yacouba’s technique is that it’s a homegrown solution, and the people, the farmers feel ownership of the solution. And once you have ownership of the solution, then you’re kind of halfway there. And of course it’s a simple solution, it doesn’t require lots of skills, obviously there’s a certain amount of training required, and Yacouba does train people. He does, he has people visiting his farm where he trains people in his techniques. And what he’s doing now is he’s going out of his farm to other villages and teaching people in other villages because obviously this certainly can go, and go, and go.

AH:Have policy-makers taken notice of this work?

MD:That’s a hard one to gauge because what policy policymakers have taken note – I think they have now, I think they have. I think the thinking now from policy makers, they learned the lessons of the past, they know that parachuting in ready-made solutions doesn’t really work. And what does work is engaging the local people. Dr Chris Reij, the Dutch scientist is a real baton holder for this kind of process, he’s the Dutch scientist that you saw in the film, and he’s really backing a large movement in that part of the world called the “African Re-Greening Initiative“. And this African Re-Greening Initiative is based on local solutions, what local people have done, and it’s – what the outside aide does now is it really helps the local people with the solutions that they’ve already produced. It just helps them develop those solutions, and communicate them.

Mark Dodd filming Yacouba as a boy


AH:The music was fantastic, can you tell me about the music in your film?

MD:The music was a mixture of – well actually to me the music is absolutely crucial to any production. I wanted the music to feel not like a documentary, I wanted the documentary to feel more like a cinema experience than a documentary which is why its been, I think its been screened so many times in cinema’s. But the brief to the person who wrote the music was I wanted it to feel like a cinema experience. And I kind of, I think he did it, I think he did it.

Children running in village


AH:How has this film changed you personally Mark?

MD:It’s – oh my – how has it changed me personally? I guess its made me more willing to take risks because at the time when I first started the project, I had a safe job at the BBC, I was a staff cameraman, I had a regular income. And in order to make the film, I had to quit my job, and that was a bit scary because that was in 2008. And about a month afterwards, the world collapsed financially. So that was a bit of a worry. But Yacouba, his example is very inspiring not only in obviously what he’s done for the people there, but his whole attitude towards life, and about how he just gets on and does it. So I guess yeah, it’s probably made me a bit more happy to take risks.

AH:Where is the film screening next and what lies ahead?

MD:The next film screening as I understand that there’s two film screenings coming up in Austria. It’s in film festivals – it regularly appears in film festivals all over the world. I get emails all the time from film festivals asking to screen the film, which is fantastic. Normally you have to submit your films, and they’re actually coming to me and saying, “Can we screen it?” And so that’s great. And that’s happening all the time. So the next ones in Austria. But we actually went back – talking about screenings, we went back – I don’t know if you’ve seen the clip on the website. We went back last year to screen the film in Yacouba’s village.

AH: I loved that clip!

MD:Yeah, wasn’t that amazing? To me, it was the highlight of the whole process going back there. I mean, obviously this is my first film as a producer. Prior to that I was just a cameraman, so at the end of the day I would hand over the rush of the tapes and kind of wave goodbye. So this is my first film I’ve kind of written. So obviously, it was a huge amount of emotional attachment to it. And it was such a relief when we screened the film in his village and everyone went mad for it. And it was just such a privilege. Yacouba loved the film, and I think we did his story justice, he seemed to think so.

To learn more and to purchase the film visit: www.1080films.co.uk/yacoubamovie

About Harvest, LLC shares stories about food and agriculture. Subscribe to receive stories about the science, history and relevance of agricultural crops grown and harvested around the world.

Eat Better, Live Better

Video by: Molly Gard
From the filmmaker:

This documentary short investigates how purchasing a new home led one family to reinvent themselves as organic avocado farmers, creating a new sense of economic, social, and environmental sustainability.

About Harvest, LLC shares stories about food and agriculture. Subscribe to receive stories about the science, history and relevance of agricultural crops grown and harvested around the world.

Delivering Personal Chefs to Your Home

Ancho Stewed Pork with Farmer's Market Roasted Brassicas

A Conversation with Munchery Co-founder, Tri Tran:

AH: Please tell me about Munchery.com and how long have you been in business?

TT: Munchery started back in May, 2011

AH:Do you work directly with farmers?

TT: We do not work directly with farmer’s per se, but our chefs definitely do all they can to utilize local produce whenever possible and often procure it at local farmer’s markets. Based out of San Francisco, we consider ourselves fortunate and privileged to have such great agriculture easily available to us year-round.

AH: What was the impetus for starting this company?

TT: We are dads who share with our spouses extremely busy schedules juggling work, school/child care, and all of the intricacies of family life. Even with the best of intentions, eating a balanced dinner became a challenge simply because there was not enough time in the day to shop, cook, and clean-up. The typical alternatives to cooking – restaurant take-out, frozen and canned food, etc – did not meet our criteria, especially from a health and wellness standpoint. You can only have greasy pizza so many times. Hiring a personal chef is a natural solution, but is cost-prohibitive to a majority of people. Still, we were aware of talented population of women and men who offer personal chef services. We also knew that they had a limit to the number of households they could provide food to given all the work required just to shop and prepare food for one family. So, being engineers, we put on our geek hats and built a marketplace for these personal chefs that would allow them to serve a much larger group and have that food delivered. We don’t see ourselves as a replacement for traditional restaurant delivery food, but more as a healthy alternative.

AH: How are your expansion plans going and what city will Munchery.com be coming to next?

TT: We have specific plans to expand to 20 major metropolitan areas across the country in the next couple years. For the immediate time being, our sight is set on other parts of San Francisco’s Bay Area such as Marin County, the Peninsula, Silicon Valley and East Bay.

Asian Chicken and Soba Noodle Salad


AH: Will you give me an example of one or two of your menus?

TT: There are way too many to choose from, but I’ll just list a couple meals that are available today and tomorrow. These complete and balanced meals cost $13.99 each.

Grilled Pork Tenderloin Skewers with Forbidden Rice

Pork tenderloin skewers with smokey Spanish paprika and forbidden rice, toasted hazelnuts and scallions salad mixed with red wine vinegar and extra virgin olive oil. Served with grilled asparagus and salsa verde. Gluten-free.

Chicken ‘Saltimbocca’ with Black Trumpets

A new take on traditional Italian Saltimbocca. Chicken cutlets and black trumpets are tied together, rendered and dressed with Gribiche. Comes with a side of wild rice rutabega pilaf. Vadouvan carrot-string salad adds a fresh indian-spiced zing to the meal. Gluten-free and dairy-free.

Grilled Pepper Jack Portabella Mushroom with Pineapple Salsa & Black Bean Quinoa Salad

Grilled juicy portabella mushroom filled with melted pepper jack cheese topped with spicy pineapple-serrano chile salsa served with organic black bean & quinoa salad w/ tri-color bell peppers, scallions & lime vinaigrette. This is a vegetarian and gluten-free meal.

Trio of Sliders


Here are just a few recent reviews from our customers (and no, they are not our friends or family, if they sound too good to be true)

AH: How are your clients responding to your service so far?

TT: We have fantastic customer repeat rate (47% of our customer base has ordered at least twice! 14% has ordered at least 5 times!).
“This was honestly one of the Best steaks I have ever had! I love every moment of it, and the purple potato salad was a nice change of pace.” – Nick Lattner on 4/24/2012

“Wow…what can I say…the Ragu alla Casa was amazing! I wasn’t sure what to expect – over rice? Well, I knew it just wouldn’t be “ragu” – and there it was…very, very tasty, tangy, delicious. I’d definitely recommend the Ragu alla Casa – its a fantastic meal.” – Jeffrey Leach on 4/28/2012

“This was our first meal purchased through Munchery and it definitely did not disappoint. The chicken was delicious with the breast being super tender, and the portion size being big. The sauce was very flavorful that we didn’t need to douse it as we often do with most food (we are a salt family). We ordered two servings, but had plenty to be able to feed our three year old son as well (he loved it and asked for more). What more can I say, I will definitely order this meal again and again from Nicole… thanks for giving me a wonderful evening with my family without having to hassle with shopping and making dinner. :) ” – Jill Krimmel on 4/3/2012

AH: How specifically does your work add value to society?

TT: For busy people, who, on a daily basis, face work, commuting, exercise, children’s schedules, extra-curricular activities, etc. , it is difficult to manage all of this and still be able to prepare themselves healthy, well-balanced meals. They may have the very best of intentions, and specific wellness goals, but they find themselves at a loss a few nights of the week. Munchery offers a fresh and healthy alternative to the status quo of quick and easy meals.

We work hard to make getting food from our chefs very affordable! These delicious meals are not reserved for affluent customers. We aim to democratize the personal chef experience.

For chefs, there are not many options for them to hone their craft. They can work in a restaurant, but those hours are long and hard with very little compensation. For a young chef straight out of culinary school, the grind of the restaurant is satisfactory because it provides experience, mentorship and is a good addition to their resume. For those that do not work in restaurants, the options are limited: they can cater, teach cooking classes, work as a personal chef or do something entrepreneurial. Munchery provides chefs, too, a nice alternative from the grind of typical chef work. They get their own virtual storefront on the Munchery marketplace to cook the food they want, when they want to cook it, and do not have to worry about the other aspects of the business such as delivery, marketing, and accounting. Moreover, they can scale their business and appeal to a larger audience without having to stretch themselves in multiple directions.

To Learn more visit: Munchery.com

About Harvest, LLC shares stories about food and agriculture. Subscribe to receive stories about the science, history and relevance of agricultural crops grown and harvested around the world.

Loyola University Tends Field with Horse Power


Video by: Jenny Kane

From the filmmaker:

Lane Linnenkohl of Equus Oaks Farms plows a quarter of an acre of land on Loyola University’s Ecology Campus in Woodstock with Percheron Draft horse power. The land will be used to plant organic wheat for the university.

To view additional work from the filmmaker visit: jennykane.com

About Harvest, LLC shares stories about food and agriculture. Subscribe to receive stories about the science, history and relevance of agricultural crops grown and harvested around the world.

Life Sciences Film Festival

Call for Entry

Details about the 2012 Festival:

International Festival of Documentary Films on Natural and Agricultural Sciences and Sustainable Development, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, lsff.cz

Life Sciences Film Festival Call for Entry: lsff.cz/en/akt/73

Our conversation with the LSFF Program Director, Štěpán Alexander:

AH:How did the get it’s start?

SA: The idea to realize an interdisciplinary film festival on the grounds of The Czech Univesity of Life Sciences in Prague has kind of been there from the start of our studies at CULS. As for us the two brothers (Stepan and Martin Alexander) studying ecology and forestry and simultaneously providing czech subtitles to audiovisual works presented at the film festivals like Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, Febiofest, Prague Short Film Festival, Ecofilm and others events, film has become something like an annual panoramic reflextion of the world for more than a decade now. So when the university came out with a formal offer of collaboration with civic organizations we had to understand that as an invitation not only for what we have learned but mainly for the filmmakers interested in life sciences.

AH:How many films were screened in the 2011 Festival?

SA: The first year of the festival finished on Friday October 21 and the total of 132 films from 28 countries were shown, 46 documentaries took part in the competition. The screenings were followed by discussions, seminars and forums with the participation of filmmakers and experts from the academic world.

AH:What kinds of films are you hoping to see in the 2012 Festival?

SA:The official selection LSFF 2012 will bring the latest documentaries about agriculture sciences, food production and sustainable development from all over the world.

About Harvest, LLC shares stories about food and agriculture. Subscribe to receive stories about the science, history and relevance of agricultural crops grown and harvested around the world.

All in the Family – Working 2012

Family Farming for Five Generations

Video by: Nick McNaughton

From the filmmaker:

Abbott Farm has been in the Abbott Family since the Civil War. The farm has seen quite a few changes over the years, and is in the midst of completing the latest change that includes a little bit of Agro-entertainment. But one question still remains: will Warren be the last Abbott to truly call this farm home?

About Harvest, LLC shares stories about food and agriculture. Subscribe to receive stories about the science, history and relevance of agricultural crops grown and harvested around the world.

Therlfall Goat Dairy

From Alan Wong Farmer’s Dinner Series

Chef Alan Wong is a man that categorically embraces the activites of farmers and enlists them to share stories of agriculture. He started The Farmers Series Dinner in his Honolulu restaurant for the “Chance to bring the farmer into the restaurant so the customers could get to meet them, talk to them” This is the story of the Hawaii Island Goat Dairy, a farmstead goat cheese operation on the Big Island of Hawaii.

Produced by: Susanne Kurisu of Menpachi Productions

Edited by: Joshua Dunson

About Harvest, LLC shares stories about food and agriculture. Subscribe to receive stories about the science, history and relevance of agricultural crops grown and harvested around the world.

Bee Well

Beekeeping Advocate Shares Her Story

Video by: Kirby Engelman

From the filmmaker:

Honeybees are very misunderstood. Commonly feared for what is simply their self defense against giant flailing arms, they are actually extremely calming creatures that create something so miraculous and delicious. These passionate workers are disappearing everyday, a heartbreaking fact called Colony Collapse Disorder. Since last fall, I have taken it upon myself to give the bees a better name and help their ever dwindling population thrive by becoming a beekeeper. I am simply a facilitator for their constant flawless work. For more, visit my blog at birchnbees.tumblr.com

About Harvest, LLC shares stories about food and agriculture. Subscribe to receive stories about the science, history and relevance of agricultural crops grown and harvested around the world.

The Bucket Mystery Solved

Farming Artifact Explained

Video by: Rick Gibb and Jim Hawkins

From the filmmakers:

Sean Quinn, curator of the Moynalty Steam Threshing Museum explains the practical use of this bucket.

About Harvest, LLC shares stories about food and agriculture. Subscribe to receive stories about the science, history and relevance of agricultural crops grown and harvested around the world.