JANUARY 29, 2014 BY
Future Pointe is a farm outside of Colorado Springs, CO that makes our Zero Waste program look like pattycake. By reclaiming thousands of pounds of food from the nearby foodbank’s waste stream every week, they make more food: by using it to make compost and making recipes for feed for their pigs and chickens and other nearby farmers. But it doesn’t stop there… from recycling the thousands of cans they open and the cardboard boxes they come in, to reusing old barns wood for housing for the learning center tenants, Future Pointe is a prime example of how to do agriculture sustainably. This speaker was truly inspiring and we hope it leads to many exciting projects in Steamboat!
Watch the full video from last night’s talk on the YVSC You Tube channel: http://youtu.be/0qRlaTzgVEQ
About Future Pointe
We believe the proliferation of waste of all types represents new challenges and new opportunities on both local and global scales. Waste is a low common denominator. So long as we rely on large scale mechanisms to deliver our most basic needs, we will encounter unimaginable waste and lost opportunity.
How to respond through the lens of sustainability is the central question. In other words, how can we leverage waste to strengthen our agricultural resources and restore human livelihood in our communities?
We envision a sustainable supply of local, healthy food and ongoing opportunities for people to work, create, grow, and learn in the service of themselves and their local community. Future Pointe believes that sustainability is defined by the relationships among things. As such, we help communities build models which integrate waste, agriculture, and marginalized people. Waste is an untapped economy. We are confident that it can be managed locally in ways that generate new, elevated common denominators affecting food production and human livelihood.
• Community-based waste sorting as a curriculum in organization, efficiency, communication, and safety for marginalized people
• Community-based waste as new employment opportunities
• Community-based waste as recyclable commodity and earned revenue
• Community-based waste as compost, soil production, and vegetable harvest
• Community-based waste as affordable animal feed and local meat production
• Community-based waste as a model leveraging local resources, creating new opportunity, and uplifting people
Future Pointe is currently piloting and advising the development of a Zero Waste Program with Care and Share, Feeding America’s food bank serving Southern Colorado.
The partnership aims to do the following:
– Convert recyclable materials inside Care and Share’s warehouse into commodity (earned revenue)
– Evolve best practices related to transforming all food items unfit for distribution (dented, damaged, dated) into animal feed and compost at Future Pointe’s farm at Brett Gray Ranch
– Bridge the gap between Care and Share and local farmers to ensure optimal use of the feed commodity and overall zero waste stewardship at each property
– Engage local youth-at-risk in a Learning Lab for Life curriculum based on the transformation of waste into new food This current project, which began as a Zero Waste Consultation with Care and Share in 2010, serves as Future Pointe’s central demonstration of integration around waste, agriculture, and people. Future Pointe plans to continue evolving this demonstration and hopes to be available to support other communities interested in their own integrated formulas in 2014.
Co-Owner, Brendan McCrann was a social worker and nonprofit director before moving onto the farm to launch a social enterprise experimenting with food security, waste interception, employment strategies, and agricultural livelihood. He earned a master’s degree in nonprofit management, speaks Spanish, and insists on doing everything the hard way.
More information and Future Pointe’s website: www.futurepointe.com
This Month’s Event:
“Leveraging Waste”
Brendan McCrann with Future Pointe
Tuesday, January 28th 5:30pm-7pm
Creekside Cafe, 131 11th Street
About Future Pointe
We believe the proliferation of waste of all types represents new challenges and new opportunities on both local and global scales. Waste is a low common denominator. So long as we rely on large scale mechanisms to deliver our most basic needs, we will encounter unimaginable waste and lost opportunity.
How to respond through the lens of sustainability is the central question. In other words, how can we leverage waste to strengthen our agricultural resources and restore human livelihood in our communities?
We envision a sustainable supply of local, healthy food and ongoing opportunities for people to work, create, grow, and learn in the service of themselves and their local community. Future Pointe believes that sustainability is defined by the relationships among things. As such, we help communities build models which integrate waste, agriculture, and marginalized people. Waste is an untapped economy. We are confident that it can be managed locally in ways that generate new, elevated common denominators affecting food production and human livelihood.
• Community-based waste sorting as a curriculum in organization, efficiency, communication, and safety for marginalized people
• Community-based waste as new employment opportunities
• Community-based waste as recyclable commodity and earned revenue
• Community-based waste as compost, soil production, and vegetable harvest
• Community-based waste as affordable animal feed and local meat production
• Community-based waste as a model leveraging local resources, creating new opportunity, and uplifting people
Future Pointe is currently piloting and advising the development of a Zero Waste Program with Care and Share, Feeding America’s food bank serving Southern Colorado.
The partnership aims to do the following:
– Convert recyclable materials inside Care and Share’s warehouse into commodity (earned revenue)
– Evolve best practices related to transforming all food items unfit for distribution (dented, damaged, dated) into animal feed and compost at Future Pointe’s farm at Brett Gray Ranch
– Bridge the gap between Care and Share and local farmers to ensure optimal use of the feed commodity and overall zero waste stewardship at each property
– Engage local youth-at-risk in a Learning Lab for Life curriculum based on the transformation of waste into new food This current project, which began as a Zero Waste Consultation with Care and Share in 2010, serves as Future Pointe’s central demonstration of integration around waste, agriculture, and people. Future Pointe plans to continue evolving this demonstration and hopes to be available to support other communities interested in their own integrated formulas in 2014.
Co-Owner, Brendan McCrann was a social worker and nonprofit director before moving onto the farm to launch a social enterprise experimenting with food security, waste interception, employment strategies, and agricultural livelihood. He earned a master’s degree in nonprofit management, speaks Spanish, and insists on doing everything the hard way.
More information and Future Pointe’s website: www.futurepointe.com
