VTechWorks Repository :: Browsing by Author "Bendfeldt, Eric S."

Browsing by Author "Bendfeldt, Eric S."

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2019 - 2020 Shenandoah Valley Buy Fresh Buy Local Guide
Bendfeldt, Eric S.; Price, E. French; Marston, Cyndi (Virginia Cooperative Extension, 2019-04)
Across the great state of Virginia, Buy Fresh Buy Local chapters have been founded to advocate for local food and agriculture stakeholders. e Shenandoah Valley Chapter’s food guide is a collaborative initiative of Virginia Cooperative Extension and community partners to bring you the most up-to-date information about what is happening on the farms and local food systems across the Valley. We want you to celebrate and take advantage of what this area o ers regarding local food! We invite you to get to know the farms and businesses listed in the guide, as well as the sponsors and community partners. Learn exactly where your food is coming from by asking farmers themselves how they grew it. Commitment to a local and regional food system from local collaborators is the reason the chapter and this guide exist.
The Beauty of Relationships and Shared Values in a Storm
Bendfeldt, Eric S.; Price, French (Virginia Tech, 2020-07-16)
A coalition of regional partners working collaboratively and cooperatively to keep communities fed, farmers engaged, and local businesses and organizations operating. This short vignette is part of our “Virginia Food Systems and COVID-19 Story Collection Project” that aims to highlight, collect, and share stories of hope and resilience in our food system amidst the pandemic.
The Beauty of Relationships and Shared Values in a Storm
Bendfeldt, Eric S.; Price, E. French (Virginia Center for Food Systems and Community Transformation, 2020-07-16)
For people caught in the middle of a storm, the situation can be fraught with tumult, uncertainty, and anxiety. The importance of relationships and values takes on new meaning and urgency in a rocky, harrowing time. The COVID-19 pandemic has been deeply unsettling to individuals and households, but the effects are particularly hard and devastating for low-wealth and vulnerable communities. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in speaking and working for the creation of a ‘beloved community’ in the 1950s and 1960s, encouraged people to lean into relationships and the values of courage, compassion, and care to address and overcome adversity. The Mid-Atlantic Food Resilience and Access Coalition (MAFRAC) is an example of such a caring response to the current adversity facing communities in the region. MAFRAC was established as an early response to COVID-19 in an effort to keep communities fed with nutrient-dense, locally produced foods; farmers engaged in planting and harvesting; local businesses and organizations operational; and to cooperate to strengthen farm and food relationships throughout the region’s food system.
Biomethane Production Technology
Bendfeldt, Eric S.; Ignosh, John; Ogejo, Jactone Arogo (Virginia Cooperative Extension, 2018-12-17)
Provides an overview of anaerobic digestion, and the current status of biomethane technology on livestock farms.
Biomethane technology
Ogejo, Jactone Arogo; Wen, Zhiyou; Ignosh, John; Bendfeldt, Eric S.; Collins, Eldridge R. Jr. (Virginia Cooperative Extension, 2009-05-01)
This publication provides a general overview of anaerobic digestion and the current status of biomethane technology on livestock farms in the United States. It is part of the Bioenergy Engineering Education Program (BEEP) of the Biological Systems Engineering Department at Virginia Tech. Most of the discussion uses dairy manure as an example of feedstock for an anaerobic digester.
Building Marketing Capacity of Local Food Systems: Case Studies from the Shenandoah Valley
He, Shu (Virginia Tech, 2014-09-17)
Small and medium-sized farms are an important demographic of the agricultural sector in the Shenandoah Valley and Chesapeake Bay watershed. Having sufficient food system infrastructure available and accessible to these farm operations is essential to help them add value to their farm products; diversify their operations and differentiate their farm and food products in an increasingly competitive and commodity-based food system. Despite its importance, however, local food systems (LFS) frequently have incorrect types or insufficient amounts of the equipment and facilities needed to support these systems. Through the use of two case studies, this study investigates current circumstances, future needs, and offers recommendations for two important components of LFS infrastructure in the Shenandoah Valley. The first study inventories and assesses existing infrastructure capacity available in the region. Using data collected from farmers, LFS organizations, and institutional foodservice organizations, a needs assessment is then completed to determine the specific amounts and types of equipment and facilities which would be needed to meet current LFS infrastructure needs. The second study explores current and potential benefits, and future challenges of a produce auction to impact Mennonite communities in the Shenandoah Valley. This analysis of the Shenandoah Valley Produce Auction (SVPA) was conducted using data obtained from both interviews and surveys. Results indicate that producers, existing infrastructure, and institutional buyers in the region would like to own, use, or rent food system infrastructure. There is unmet LFS infrastructure demand in due to the current lack of enough food cleaning, processing, packaging, and storing equipment in this area. For the SVPA, most of participants were satisfied with the auction. Buyers, however, reported that their procurement from the SVPA is limited by fluctuating prices, demand outpacing supply of produce, insufficient delivery services. Overall, food system infrastructure in general, and the SVPA in particular, were reported to have an important role in the region in supporting market access for local small and medium sized farmers, improve viability of local food system and the regional economy, and facilitating connections between consumers and their local food system. Several recommendations to strengthen the region's LFS are derived from these results.
Catalyzing Agricultural and Educational Resources to Move the Local Food Value Chain Needle in the Shenandoah Valley and Northern Piedmont Regions of Virginia
Bendfeldt, Eric S.; Latimer, Joyce G.; Niewolny, Kimberly L.; Morgan, Kim O.; Vallotton, Amber; Price, E. French; Marston, Cyndi; Love, Kenner; Sutphin, Mark; Sastre-Flores, Beth; Cooper, Jason; Mize, Tim; Hilleary, Jim (2019-10-08)
The Shenandoah Valley and Northern Piedmont Regions of Virginia are fortunate to have agricultural, cultural, and educational resources to catalyze and strengthen Virginia’s food system from farm-to-table. Despite growing demand and support for local food systems, barriers to sustainable success remain for farmers and food businesses, including limited or unwieldy value chain coordination, logistical hurdles, lack of transparent market signals, and inadequate scale, match and fit between producers and buyers.Educational outreach and value chain coordination has included: a Farm2Fork Affair and ongoing producer-buyer networking, Virginia Market Readiness Farm to Restaurant Workshops, On-farm Food Safety Walkthroughs, exploring a Soil Health Awareness/Action Campaign, and expanding the scope of the Shenandoah Valley and Northern Piedmont Buy Fresh Buy Local chapters in coordination with Virginia Market Maker.
A Community-Based Food System: Building Health, Wealth, Connection, and Capacity as the Foundation of Our Economic Future
Bendfeldt, Eric S.; Walker, Martha A.; Bunn, Travis; Martin, Lisa; Barrow, Melanie (Virginia Cooperative Extension, 2008-11-02)
An examination and exploration of the Martinsville region's capacity for expanding agricultural production,creating value-added products, potential to build and utilize the local food and farming system to meet growing demand and to be a foundational economic developmental tool.
Cultivating Virginia Farm-to-School: Growing from Grassroots
Benson, Matthew C.; Bendfeldt, Eric S. (Virginia Cooperative Extension, 2010-03-18)
A publication that describes the farm to school program which connects schools (K-12)and local farms with the objectives of serving healthy meals in school cafeterias, improving student nutrition, providing agriculture, health and nutrition education opportunities, and supporting local and regional farmers.
Dynamics and Characterization of Soil Organic Matter on Mine Soils 16 Years after Amendment with Topsoil, Sawdust, and Sewage Sludge
Bendfeldt, Eric S. (Virginia Tech, 1999-07-14)
The present state and future prospect of the world's soil resources has prompted scientists and researchers to address the issue of soil quality and sustainable land management. Soil quality research has focused on intensively-managed agricultural and forest soils, but the concept and importance of soil quality is also pertinent to disturbed systems such as reclaimed mine soils. The restoration of soil function and mine soil quality is essential to long-term ecosystem stability. The objectives of this study were (i) to determine the comparative ability of topsoil, sawdust, and sewage sludge amendments, after 16 years, to positively affect mine soil quality using the following key soil quality variables: organic matter content, aggregate stability, and mineralizable nitrogen, (ii) to determine the effects of these key soil quality variables on plant productivity, and (iii) to determine the comparative ability of trees and herbaceous plants to persist and to conserve or maintain mine soil quality. In 1982, a mined site was amended with seven different surface treatments: a fertilized control (2:1 sandstone:siltstone), 30 cm of native soil + 7.8 Mg ha-1 lime, 112 Mg ha-1 sawdust, and municipal sewage sludge (SS) at rates of 22, 56, 112, and 224 Mg ha-1. Four replicates of each treatment were installed as a randomized complete block design. Whole plots were split according to vegetation type: pitch x loblolly pine hybrid (Pinus rigida x taeda) trees and Kentucky-31 tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea Schreb.). Soil analyses of composite samples for 1982, 1987, and 1998 were evaluated for changing levels of mine soil quality. The positive effect of these organic amendments on organic matter content, total nitrogen, and other soil parameters was most apparent and pronounced after 5 growing seasons. However, after 16 years, soil organic matter content and total nitrogen appear to be equilibrating at about 4.3 and 1.5%. There was a significant difference in organic matter content and nitrogen mineralization potential between vegetation types. Organic matter inputs by vegetation alone over the 16-yr period in the control plots resulted in organic matter and nitrogen mineralization potential values comparable to levels in the organically amended plots. The results suggest that about 15 years is needed for climate, moisture availability, and other edaphic features to have the same influence on overall organic matter decomposition, N accretion, organic nitrogen mineralization levels, system equilibrium, and overall mine soil quality as a one-time 100-Mg ha-1 application of organic amendment. Tree volume and biomass were measured as indices of the effects of organic matter content 16 years after initial amendment. Individual tree volumes of the sawdust, 22, 56, and 112 Mg ha -1 SS treatments retained 18 to 26% more volume than the control, respectively. Overall, fescue production was the same among treatments. Organic amendments improved initial soil fertility for fescue establishment, but it appears that they will have little or no long-lasting effect on plant productivity.
The Ecotonal Nature of Community Food Work: A Case Study of Trauma-Informed Care and Agential Change Space
Bendfeldt, Eric S. (Virginia Tech, 2023-03-20)
Communities of color in particular have experienced a traumatic history of structural violence, interpersonal racism, segregation, and oppression. The unjust history of structural violence and the deleterious treatment of people and cultures in the U.S., that in part stems from neoliberal policies and rationality, continues to plague communities and people within the food system. Many people and communities are working to actualize the social-ethical ideal of a non-violent 'beloved community' to counter this unjust history and expand the boundaries of what is possible for individuals and society. Historical and systemic injustices ramify the adverse experiences and trauma affecting vulnerable people's lives. The effects and pervasiveness of individual and collective trauma at a global scale has highlighted a serious need for broader-scale awareness and adoption of a trauma-informed care approach by community food work organizations, practitioners, and social change leaders. A trauma-informed care approach was developed as a health care framework based on the importance of adverse childhood events to poor distal health and mental health outcomes. Without a deeper understanding of how extensive the collective impact of such trauma and injustice is on people and the food system; community food work researchers and practitioners may reify uninformed responses that result in continued trauma and injustice. However, there are few examples of community food work organizations using a trauma-informed care approach as an organizational change process to promote community transformation and resilience. This research examined and specifically analyzed how a community food work organization that is engaged in mutual aid and social-ecological activism embodies trauma-informed care; engenders an agential change space; and grapples with the aspirations and tensions of being an organization seeking to ameliorate the effects of anthropogenic trauma and expand the boundaries of what is possible individually and collectively. A narrative inquiry methodology was used to critically explore and study the perceptions and thoughts of 17 study participants of how a trauma-informed approach to care is embodied and agential change space provided as mutual aid and community food work. The seventeen study participants' narratives were coded and analyzed using the Principles of a Trauma-Informed Care Framework defined by SAMHSA (2014), Bowen and Murshid (2016), and Hecht et al (2018). The narrative inquiry of seventeen narratives demonstrated that an integrated trauma-informed care approach as an organizational change process is essential to the formation of agential change space and has wide-reaching applicability to mutual aid efforts and community food work pedagogy and praxis, especially as organizations and practitioners confront ongoing systemic trauma and injustices that have resulted from structural violence and continue to persist due to the dominant hegemonic neoliberal framing that exists in relation to race, gender, and socioeconomic class.
Evaluation of household water quality in Rockingham County, Virginia
Ross, Burton Blake; Bendfeldt, Eric S.; Dransfield, M. G.; Whitmore, S. A.; Parrott, Kathleen R.; Bourne, Amanda C. (Virginia Cooperative Extension, 2000-08)
During Summer 1999, a program of household water quality education, which included water sampling, testing, and diagnosis, was conducted in Rockingham County, Virginia. Participation in the water quality program was made available to any Rockingham County resident who utilized a private, individual water supply. During the course of the project, 300 households submitted water samples which were analyzed for iron, manganese, hardness, sulfate, chloride, fluoride, total dissolved solids, pH, saturation index, copper, sodium, nitrate, and total coliform and E. coli bacteria. These analyses identified the major household water quality problems in Rockingham County as iron/manganese, hardness, total disolved solids, and bacteria. Additionally, a number of samples were determined to have concentrations of sodium and nitrate high enough to possibly lead to health complications for at-risk segments of the population. After the completion of the general water testing program, water supplies from 16 households were resampled for the testing of 23 pesticides and other chemical compounds. None of the samples had a concentration of any of these contaminants exceeding EPA Health Advisory or Maximum Contaminant Levels. A total of eleven detections were observed in seven separate samples. Following completion of the program, a survey was mailed to the 300 participants. One hundred and thirty-eight participants returned survey forms on which they identified their reason(s) for participating in such a program; the primary reason being concern about safety of their water supply. Returned survey forms also provided insight into measures participants had already taken, or planned to take, to improve the quality of their water supply. More than one-half of the households who reported having at least one water quality problem had taken, or planned to take, at least one measure to improve the quality of their water supply. Fifteen percent or more of all participants had taken, or planned to take, one or both of the following actions: purchase or rent water treatment equipment and shock chlorinate the water system.
Everyone At The Table: A Community Food Equity Assessment for Harrisonburg, VA
Bendfeldt, Eric S. (Virginia Cooperative Extension, 2017-06-29)
Discusses community goals for the Harrisonburg food system, and ways to locally improve this food system.
Everyone at the Table: A community food equity assessment of Harrisonburg, VA
Bendfeldt, Eric S.; Schermerhorn, B. (2017-05-31)
In the 2014 Food Deserts in Virginia Report, Harrisonburg ranked 4th out of eight cities with reported high levels of low-income residents. According to the report, 18.4% of Harrisonburg residents are food insecure (8,860 people). A broad-based food equity assessment, Harrisonburg EATs (Everyone at the Table), was conducted to help the city and residents to strategically plan to improve food security and community well-being. Virginia Cooperative Extension, in collaboration with Skeo – a community planning and design firm based in Charlottesville, conducted research to learn how the local food system currently functions in meeting residents’ day-to-day food needs. The research included surveys, interviews, listening groups, data analysis, mapping priority equity zones, synthesizing recommendations, and highlighting community assets. Participants shared community-based goals for strengthening the Harrisonburg food system. The research and assessment identified six food equity zones based on specific food access and security criteria. Recommendations as a starting point for creating a more just, resilient, thriving community-focused food system in Harrisonburg included: 1) increase food retail spaces in food equity zones, 2) provide land for home and small-scale urban farming enterprises, 3) build capacity for urban and rural food and farming enterprises, 4) educate the community on food equity issues and opportunities, and 5) develop a Harrisonburg Food Equity Council.
Facilitating Community Change: Making Sense of Opportunities, Resources, and Potential
Kaufman, Eric K.; Seibel, Megan M.; Tyler-Mackey, Crystal; Niewolny, Kimberly L.; Bendfeldt, Eric S.; Latimer, Joyce G. (2020-01-29)
While many Extension professionals recognize the importance of claiming or accepting a role with community change, it can be difficult to navigate the dynamics and prepare for that role. This workshop will outline key opportunities for professional learning, including appropriate sequencing from novice to advanced experiences. We will take care to highlight publications and in-service opportunities that have emerged from two different program teams: Leadership, Volunteerism, and Civic Engagement (LVCE), as well as Community, Local, and Regional Food Systems (CLRFS).
Facilitating Community, Local, and Regional Food Systems
Bendfeldt, Eric S.; Walker, Martha A.; Latimer, Joyce G.; Niewolny, Kimberly L.; Scott, Kelli H. (Virginia Cooperative Extension, 2019-06-10)
Discusses the planning of community, local and regional food systems.
Facilitator's Guidebook - 2018
Bargainer, Mary Catherine; Eley, Michelle; Fogel, Jonah Malachai; Geiger, Cheryl; Jakes, Susan; Peery, Seth; Prohn, Seb; Sanberg, Nicole; Smutko, Steve; Bendfeldt, Eric S. (Virginia Cooperative Extension, 2018-10-25)
Offers guidelines for gathering stakeholders by using the Community Capitals Framework, enabling a community to determine its assets, and make investments for future growth.
Food Deserts in Virginia
Grant, Alan; Hairston, Jewel E.; Bendfeldt, Eric S.; Clark, Susan F.; Crawford, Cheryl; Denckla-Cobb, Tanya; Jackson, Franklin; Jones, Debra S.; Jones, Edwin J.; McFerren, Mary M.; Niewolny, Kimberly L.; Odeh, Oluwarotimi; Reese, Felicia; Rose, Antwan; Tyler-Mackey, Crystal (Virginia Cooperative Extension, 2014-01-22)
The purpose of the Virginia Food Desert Study Report is to determine the current status of food deserts in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The report identifies challenges, consequences, strategies, and resources to address food deserts and offers recommendations for the Virginia General Assembly's consideration and action.
Guidelines for In-House Composting Poultry Mortality as a Rapid Response to Avian Influenza
Flory, Gary A.; Peer, Robert W.; Malone, George W.; Bendfeldt, Eric S.; Clark, Robert A. (Virginia Cooperative Extension, 2015-09-24)
Notes the procedures for composting poultry carcasses to reduce spread of bird flu (avian influenza).
Healthy Farms from the Soil Up: Finding Common Ground -- Virginia Conservation Innovation Grants (CIG) Final Project Report
Bendfeldt, Eric S. (Virginia USDA-NRCS, 2017-08-15)
This Conservation Innovation Grant (CIG) addresses soil health, a priority for USDA-NRCS. We specifically focused on finding and building common ground around soil health management through innovative partnerships and educational outreach across agricultural and conservation communities. The educational programing and outreach products focused on four project objectives: 1) to develop an intermediate level soil health curriculum endorsed by and useful to both Virginia Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and Virginia Tech/Virginia Cooperative Extension; 2) to encourage farmer-to-farmer learning through on-farm demonstrations, case studies and testimonials of innovative farmers as ‘Soil Health Champions’ for Virginia who could share their applications of soil health principles on reduced tillage and cover cropping in specialty crop production; 3) to increase adoption of summer and winter cover cropping systems; and 4) to prevent soil loss and nutrient runoff through demonstration, training and promotion of Virginia USDA-NRCS’ rainfall simulator. The fundamental project goal was to ensure key Virginia partners, including NRCS, Land Grant Universities and Extension institutions, other agencies, and a broad range of farmers, find and stand on “common ground” with respect to soil health principles and some consensus of vocabulary and messaging.

Browsing by Author "Bendfeldt, Eric S."

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