Glynwood is calling for nominations for its eighth annual Harvest Awards. The Awards recognize farmers, individuals, organizations, and businesses across the United States that demonstrate innovation and leadership in support of regional agriculture and sustainable food systems.

Please help us recognize outstanding work from around the country by nominating someone whose work you admire. This year's categories include:

The Glynwood Harvest Farmer Award recognizes a leader in the farm community who has developed cutting edge approaches to production, processing, marketing, or distribution, which may include educating the public and/or other farmers about the importance of soil health, humane livestock management and other sustainable production methods.

The Glynwood Harvest Award for Connecting Communities, Farmers and Food recognizes outstanding work done by individuals, businesses or organizations that link farmers and the broader community to strengthen a regional food system. Their work can be focused around unique grassroots efforts, the development of creative partnerships between diverse segments of the food system including urban and rural populations, efforts that connect locally grown food with consumers who typically lack access to fresh foods, and similar endeavors to foster a robust, inclusive, and sustainable food system.

The Glynwood Harvest Wave of the Future Award recognizes an individual, business or organization that is developing innovative approaches to address the critical challenges facing our food system. Examples include creative approaches to climate change, food delivery systems and regional infrastructure, and affordable land and agricultural models for beginning farmers.

The Glynwood Harvest Good Food for Health Award recognizes an individual, business or organization that is at the forefront of creating ways to use sustainable, regionally-produced food to improve the health of children, the elderly, and consumers that traditionally do not have access to fresh, healthy food and/or drawing the connection between health care needs/costs and diet.

In all categories: This year, we are particularly interested in projects that demonstrate one or more of the following:

• farmer-led collaborative marketing and distribution systems


• innovative policy models and grassroots advocacy on behalf of family farms and sustainable food production


• the advancement of agriculture in underserved communities


• the key roles being played by young leaders


• innovative approaches to the production, marketing and distribution of pastured livestock, including the distribution of local protein to restaurants and other institutions

How to Nominate Someone:
Please visit www.glynwood.org for nomination details, information on past winners, and to make an electronic submission. To receive nomination forms via snail mail, please contact Kim Vargo at kvargo@glynwood.org or (845) 265-3338. Additional information about Glynwood and past Harvest Award winners can also be found on our website. Nominations must be postmarked or e-mailed no later than July 23, 2010.

About GLYNWOOD and the HARVEST AWARDS

The Glynwood Harvest Awards honor individuals, organizations, and businesses across the United States that demonstrate innovation and leadership supporting regional agricultural and sustainable food systems. Glynwood created the Harvest Awards program in 2003 to help to identify and disseminate "best practice" ideas and to inspire others to take action within their own communities.

Located in the Hudson Valley, Glynwood's mission is to help communities save farming. Glynwood works at the intersection of the needs of communities and the opportunities available to farmers and landowners. Their unique niche is to empower communities to support farming and conserve farmland, while also working their own land to demonstrate the economic viability of environmentally sustainable agriculture.

Glynwood

Glynwood

Glynwood is one of the nation’s leading sustainable agriculture and food organizations, with a mission to save farming by strengthening farm communities and regional food systems. Founded in 1995 and located in the Hudson Valley, Glynwood operates its own 225-acre farm, which models sustainable farming practices, conducts science-based soil and pasture restoration, and trains young farmers.

To further its mission, Glynwood conceives and implements community-based programs like Keep Farming®, and tackles infrastructure challenges such as the shortage of slaughterhouse facilities so that small to mid-size farmers can thrive and supply local and regional food systems. Through a national and international network of like-minded professionals and organizations, Glynwood gathers, develops, tests and shares innovative ideas and initiatives from around the world that may be effective in local communities in the Northeast and other regions of the country. In addition, the organization sponsors conferences, educational programs and public events to further a sustainable and robust food system. In 2010, Glynwood founded The Glynwood Institute as an incubator for ideas and action, a "creative action-tank" that develops and promotes realistic solutions to critical issues within the food system.

Glynwood's main programs:

• Keep Farming® is Glynwood's unique, step-by-step program for empowering communities to develop and implement plans to support local farming and conserve farmland.
• Glynwood Farm tests, innovates, and teaches techniques that demonstrate the economic viability of environmentally sustainable farming. With 225 acres in the Hudson Valley, it is a real-world model of farming practices that seek to optimize production while operating as an ecological unit.
• The Apple Project: Saving Orchards with Apples, is stimulating ‘apple entrepreneurship’ in the Hudson Valley by encouraging the diversification of apple varieties, promoting the production of high-value hard cider and spirits, giving growers new resources for knowledge and skill, and supporting a growing market for hard cider and apple spirits.
• Modular Harvest System™ is a revolutionary mobile system that is modeling the solution to the severe shortage of humane and high-quality meat processing facilities for pasture raised livestock - a solution that will benefit farmers, consumers, communities and the environment.
• The Harvest Awards honors farmers, organizations, and businesses across the United States for innovation and leadership in sustainable agriculture and regional food systems.
• The Glynwood Institute is a creative action-tank working to shift the U.S. to regional sustainable food and farming through its public programs like TEDxManhattan: Changing the Way We Eat.

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