Monadnock Food System Spotlight of the Month: Moosewood Ecological

MFCC's mission is to bring stakeholders together regularly to cultivate projects and actions that support a robust, sustainable local food system for future generations to enjoy. To that end, we center our work on farm needs - marketing, infrastructure; making local food accessible to everyone in the community; integrating farm to school curriculum into local schools so that children know where food comes from and how it's grown; and advocating for policy that is supportive of local agriculture.

We also support land conservation - the work of organizations like the Cheshire County Conservation District and Moosewood Ecological. Land conservation and food production should work hand-in-hand to minimize loss of extinction in birds and mammals and of native habitat, and mitigate shortfalls in food production. 

A sound, biodiverse ecosystem is critical to the management and regulation of a sustainable food supply. A resilient ecosystem maintains healthy soils, enables pollination and regulates pests and disease. Jeff Littleton, owner of Moosewood Ecological and his team, focus on the development of pollinator habitats and native plants. They specialize in "balancing trends of growth, habitat conversion, and climate change with the protection of biodiversity and ecological integrity," according to their website.

Extensive logging on the Beaver Wood Tree Farm Forest left the land susceptible to soil degradation. Littleton and his team drew up a plan to stabilize the soil and used techniques such as revegetation with native herbaceous seed mixtures and other plantings, mulching, and used erosion control fencing and native riparian plantings to mitigate invasive species and water erosion. 

In 2014, the Moosewood team began to ecologically monitor 235 acres in order to develop a project design respectful of the landowners' vision and ethics for stewardship. Using their expertise in conservation, ecology, wildlife biology, natural resources management, and GIS technology they successfully developed a path for sustainable land management that enhances ecological integrity, biodiversity, and climate resilience.

Currently, close to 16% of the world's lands are under formal protection. With any luck, it will stay this way permanently. The other 84% could be under an integrated planning approach where experts like Moosewood Ecological could help to make a variety of uses for land possible such as intensive farming, conservation, agroforestry or sustainable farming that ensures the land can harbor existing species.