Slow Food Tennessee Valley co-founder Sarah Bush picks heirloom tomatoes at Vuck Farm in Riceville.  Élan Young/Hellbender Press

Slow Food ramps up regional food resilience efforts

RICEVILLE — On a hot summer day in late June, Sarah Bush, co-founder of Slow Food Tennessee Valley, slices some varieties of tender heirloom tomatoes freshly picked from tall rows of plants strung up in a giant, covered hoop-style greenhouse before serving them on a cutting board with a bit of farm-fresh chevre and basil.

The tomatoes span hues of yellow, red, green and purple, some a solid color or slightly striped and bearing intriguing names not found in grocery stores: striped Heart, Cherokee evergreen, chocolate stripe and Valencia. The flavor combinations explode into farm-to-table bliss. 

The tomatoes are especially terrific for a reason: Bush, 46, has practiced regenerative farming since she was 28.

Mentored by other small farmers around the country who taught her how to exist and thrive in an economy that favors Big Ag, she now splits her time between Vuck Farm, a biodynamic farm in Riceville owned by her partner TJ Teets, and managing the produce department at Three Rivers Market in Knoxville — Tennessee’s only cooperative grocery.

She also serves on the planning committee for CRAFT (Collaborative Regional Alliance for Farmer Training), which is run by the Southeastern Tennessee chapter of the National Young Farmers Coalition.  

Not a bougie supper club

Founded in 2008, the Tennessee Valley chapter of Slow Food is the only chapter in the state that has remained active since its founding. 

A little more than two decades earlier in 1986, thousands of Italians gathered at the base of the sprawling Piazza di Spagna in the center of Rome to protest the country’s first McDonald’s restaurant. Slow Food’s founder, Italian journalist Carlo Petrini, was among them. Instead of bringing a sign with a slogan, Petrini brought a big bowl of penne pasta to share with the crowd chanting We don’t want fast food. We want Slow Food! Three years later the movement became an official organization and today spans 160 countries. 

A new paper reveals the important role that inland fisheries play in providing affordable nutrition around the world.  Illustration courtesy of Lakshita Dey via Virginia Tech

Under-reporting of economics of sustenance fishing is a social justice issue

David Fleming is a Virginia Tech writer and communications specialist.

BLACKSBURG — It is a sight of summer: Along the banks of rivers and streams throughout the Southeast, recreational fishers will cast lines into the water, hoping that a fish will take the bait. In urban towns and cities such as Roanoke or Charlottesville, the same lines dangle from bridges or freshwater wharfs.

All of these activities are currently catagorized as “recreational fishing,” but for many fishers in the U.S. and around the world, the act of fishing in freshwater is not a leisurely pursuit but a way to provide critical sustenance and nutrition for individuals, families and communities.

An expansive new paper, co-authored by Virginia Tech Assistant Professor Elizabeth Nyboer of the College of Natural Resources and Environment and published in the journal Nature Food, reveals the underrecognized extent that inland recreational fisheries provide food and nutrition to people as well as offers insight on their vulnerability to future climate challenges. 

Moviegoers are seen outside a postwar screening of a film at Grove Theater chronicling Oak Ridge’s role in the development of nuclear weapons and energy.  Department of Energy Photograph Collection/Oak Ridge Public Library

Public/private grants will fund natural resource preservation and enhancement in East Tennessee

OAK RIDGE — The U.S. Department of Energy signed a $42 million agreement as part of the Natural Resources Damage Assessment and Restoration (NRDAR) process for impacts from its historic operations on the Oak Ridge Reservation. 

Contamination released from the Oak Ridge Reservation negatively impacted natural resources and services depending on those resources in the region. The goal of the NRDAR process is to restore natural resources and replace natural resource services equivalent to what was lost. 

A trustee council comprised of representatives from the state of Tennessee through the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC) as the lead state agency, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Tennessee Valley Authority and DOE evaluated how natural resources were injured and developed a Restoration and Compensation Determination Plan. That document was finalized in December 2022 after accepting public comments.

All funds from the $42 million agreement will be deposited into an account held by the state to fund grants to organizations and public entities for a wide range of local projects that either enhance the area’s natural resources or provide nature and recreational opportunities. 

Katheryn Albrecht holds a juvenile American kestrel just prior to releasing it into the Wildwood area of Blount County as part of the Farmland Raptor Project.  Thomas Fraseer/Hellbender Press

Farmland Raptor Project takes wing to expand raptor populations on private properties

WILDWOOD — She felt the bird in her hand in her heart as the kestrel strained toward freedom.

Elise Eustace, communications director for Foothills Land Conservancy, blessed the bird and let it go, free to make a home somewhere on the 300-acre Andy Harris Farm or elsewhere in the Wildwood area of Blount County. “I’ve never gotten to do something like this,” she said. “So exciting.” 

Two other juvenile kestrels joined their kin on the warm summer afternoon, lighting into nearby oaks and atop a telephone line above the red and yellow pollinator gardens and dry pasture and cornfield and copses that punctuate the property in the shadow of smoky knobs that rise gradually to the Smokies crest beyond the blue-green hollows of the Little River watershed. Resident sparrows, bluebirds and kingbirds voiced displeasure at the new arrivals. 

ORNL researchers are using artificial intelligence to speed the identification of environmentally friendly solvents for industrial applications.  Andy Sproles/ORNL, U.S. Department of Energy

OAK RIDGE — Oak Ridge National Laboratory scientists developed a method leveraging artificial intelligence to accelerate the identification of environmentally friendly solvents for industrial carbon capture, biomass processing, rechargeable batteries and other applications.

The research targets a class of solvents known for being nontoxic, biodegradable, highly stable, cost-effective and reusable. 

The scientists developed a method to predict solvent viscosity — a key property impacting performance for industrial applications. They compiled nearly 5,000 data points on 672 solvents, evaluated quantum chemical features that guide solvent molecular interactions, and deployed an algorithm called categorical boosting to quickly parse the data and determine the best candidates.

“We reduced computational time and complexity with our approach, while still incorporating all possible molecular interactions,” said ORNL’s Mohan Mood.

ORNL’s Michelle Kidder said, “Interpretable machine learning helps us to design solvents with desired properties for carbon capture by reducing experimental time and cost in the laboratory.”