Report on the Bi-Coastal Workshop on Rural Innovation, 2006

In the fall of 2006, Glynwood Center hosted a delegation from the Dutch Innovation Network.  The Dutch group came to learn about some American approaches to water resources, agriculture and other rural issues.  They were also interested in the various roles played by the nonprofit sector in the US.  Their trip focused on two very different regions—the Hudson Valley in New York State and the Central Valley in California.  Glynwood Center led the New York portion of the trip and our partner organization, the Great Valley Center, organized the Central Valley tour.  Background on the Innovation Network, highlights of the New York and California portions of the trip, and lessons learned are summarized below.

The Innovation Network from the Netherlands

The Innovation Network is an independent organization established by the Dutch government to develop cutting edge solutions to pressing problems in the Netherlands, with particular reference to water, agriculture and rural life.  The Innovation Network accomplishes its ambitious agenda through a small staff, a team of consultants and a network of representatives from industry, non-profit organizations, academia, and the government.  In the fall of 2005, a United States delegation led by Glynwood Center staff and including representatives of the Great Valley Center, visited the Netherlands to learn more about the Network’s structure, methods of operating and projects. 

In the fall of 2006, Glynwood and the Great Valley Center invited the Innovation Network to the U.S. for a workshop spanning both coasts, designed to allow the group to compare and contrast the situation and approaches in two of America’s great valleys - the Hudson Valley and the Central Valley.   

The Hudson Valley and New York City

During their short stay in New York, participants from the Innovation Network and Glynwood traveled to New York City as well as rural, farming communities north of the City, and small cities in between. 

The workshop began in Beacon, New York, to explore the possibilities of adapting abandoned industrial buildings into new cultural facilities that will attract people by train.  Beacon is a small riverfront City that had declined after its industrial base moved away, but which has been revitalized in recent years through the development of a premier art museum and related amenities.  DIA-Beacon is a world-class modern art museum created in an abandoned printing factory.  It will soon have a hotel and conference center as a neighbor, both within walking distance of Beacon’s downtown shopping area as well as a commuter train line into New York City.  The hotel and conference center project is unusual in many ways, including that it will be a state of the art “green” development and is being created on land owned by a land trust through a partnership between the land trust and a developer.   

The group also met with representatives of The Beacon Institute, a new entity being created through a State-led public-private partnership, which will have its headquarters and a research facility on the waterfront near DIA-Beacon.    The Institute is positioning itself to become a global center for interdisciplinary research, policy making, and education regarding rivers, estuaries, and their connection with society.  Plans are underway for The Institute to serve as an international resource center, to create a cutting-edge educational facility, and build a state-of-the-art rivers and estuary laboratory. 

Further north along the River, in Hyde Park, Sarah Olson, the Superintendent of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Historic site, introduced the group to the challenges of protecting a complex site with scattered elements, while working with a community to encourage compatible development of nearby lands. 

The next day, The Hudson River Foundation hosted the group at a luncheon in its New York City offices overlooking Battery Park and New York Harbor, at which we discussed examples of innovative, public-private partnerships that support conservation in the United States.   The structure of the Hudson River Foundation itself is a model that has been copied elsewhere.  Funds generated by the Foundation’s endowment, created from the settlement of a major environmental battle, support scientific research on the River intended to encourage better public policy.   Two other models for encouraging public involvement with and support for public parks and open space were presented:  The Battery Park Conservancy is a world-class example of the Conservancy approach, through which individuals and corporations are encouraged to support an independent, nonprofit Conservancy that assumes major management responsibility for a public park.  Friends of Hudson River Park Trust is an example of a Friends group that engages individuals and corporations to support a public resource, with a strong emphasis on education and advocacy.

The group also toured the Greenmarket in Union Square, a large farmers’ market in the heart of Manhattan, which was begun thirty years ago by the Council on the Environment in New York City to facilitate access to fresh, regional foods.  Discussion with farmers and others stressed the important economic support that this market provides for many farmers from the Hudson Valley.   

On the final day in the Valley, the group visited several orchards in northern Dutchess County, about 100 miles north of the City.  Farmers with whom we met described the challenges they face with marketing, transportation and labor, and the innovative and diverse ways they address these problems.  In addition, farmers talked about efforts protect an economically viable mass of farmland in spite of the strong development pressure in the Valley.  . 

At the end of the day, we sampled some of the delicious apples grown in the region and celebrated Halloween at Glynwood by teaching the Dutch delegation how to carve jack-o-lanterns.

 

The Central Valley, California 

After three short, but intense days in New York, the group traveled to a region that is very different physically, economically and ecologically.  The Central Valley produces virtually everything from almonds to cotton to pomegranates and is a major source of food for the entire United States.  In fact, the Valley produces more food than any other state in the country.  It’s flat and vast, rich in soils, but poor in water.   

The Great Valley Center outlined its work as a major nonprofit in the region, and introduced some of the key issues facing the Valley.  After touring a farmers’ market, the group met with farmers, academics, and activists to discuss the issue of immigration.  Although the farmers and immigrants are often at odds, they depend on each other to make their living. Yet changes in public attitudes and public policy are threatening many long-established relationships. Later in the day, the group toured a large feedlot with over 100,000 cattle.  The industrial scale of agriculture here stood in stark contrast to the small scale, family farms in the Hudson Valley.  Interestingly, the operators of this giant feed lot employ some marketing strategies similar to those used by small producers in the Hudson Valley.  They have developed their own processing facility and a brand name that is recognized by customers.

The next day, the group traveled further south to learn where and how water is managed.    Most water is captured in the mountains and brought to the Central Valley through giant aqueducts and public works projects.  In the southern Central Valley, the group toured a water bank – a highly complicated engineering system for storing water for times of drought. Issues relating to water management were of particular interest to our Dutch colleagues who have developed projects based on the concept of thinking of water as a “friend rather than an enemy.”  This suggests trying to working with water in a more flexible way, rather than stressing management based solely on hard engineering.  They were also intrigued that the water storage facility has become an extremely attractive place for wildlife, although that was never the intent of any policy.

While traveling, the group learned about strategies for open space conservation and managing development pressure. Middle- and lower-income residents of Los Angles and San Francisco are moving to the Central Valley to find affordable housing in exchange for long driving commutes.  This has created growing development pressure on the Central Valley that is both changing the landscape and threatening some of the richest soils in the world.  At the end of a long day, the group briefly visited Yosemite National Park and discussed some of the conservation challenges being faced by the National Park Service as it attempts to manage visitor impact on one of the country’s premier natural treasures. 

Overall, the major themes that emerged during this time in the Central Valley were the scale of production, immigration and labor issues, water access, and housing and development pressure.  The infrastructure, agriculture, and the landscape of the Central Valley are vast. Everything - from their approach to water management to huge new houses to vast cotton fields and almond orchards - seemed especially large when compared to the Hudson Valley. 

Themes 

The trip was eye-opening for everyone involved.  The big and dry California landscape provided a strong contrast to the wooded hills and river landscape in the Hudson Valley.  Nevertheless, the farmers in the Central Valley and the Hudson Valley are confronted with the some of the same challenges, including development pressure, increasing land values, low prices for products, and the cost and availability of labor.  The structure and scale of the operations in New York and California could not have been more different, but it was fascinating to see the commonalities. 

One seeming advantage of the New York region is that city residents appreciate the landscape and the beauty of the Hudson Valley.  Tourism, including agri-tourism and cultural tourism, are becoming more important economically.  Typically, the Central Valley is an area that urban residents drive through on their way to the mountains, without stopping to visit.  On the flip side, efforts to protect the Hudson Valley are much more difficult because of the multiplicity of governmental units and the intense development pressure based on second home owners and residents looking for affordable housing further from urban centers.   

Issues relating to water in the two regions are also profoundly different.  The Hudson Valley has sufficient water resources for agriculture and other activities.  In contrast, water access in the Central Valley, especially in times of drought, is a highly contentious issue between agricultural and residential interests.  While New Yorkers are concerned about water quality, Californians spend a tremendous amount of public resources on transporting water across the state.   

By the end of week, our colleagues from the Innovation Network had been exposed to contrasting realities and approaches in the U.S. -- landscapes, people, and projects.