Agraria Journal Winter 2021

AGRARIA JOURNAL 2021 43 ROTATIONAL GRAZING PASTURE The other well installed with EQIP funds will provide water for animals and crops in the 40-acre rotational grazing pasture Agraria is developing. The area will also include silvopasture, an agroforestry practice that combines trees with forage crops. The permit for that well has not yet been issued, but we expect to install perimeter fencing before year’s end and introduce small ruminants in 2022. AGRARIA COMPOSTING CENTER Agraria partnered a few years ago with Trillium Organic Services on a pilot composting service for a handful of Yellow Springs residents and a couple of local businesses. The organization purchased the small business this summer and secured a grant from the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency to build on that collaboration with another pilot project: a class 2 composting center on its Huston Road campus that aligns with both Agraria’s agricultural and educational missions. Construction has already begun. The center is unique among small-scale composting centers in Ohio, according to the OEPA. Most Class 2 sites require or include some kind of nonporous surface. Agraria’s will be built without extractive materials, employing a 4-foot high earthen berm around the perimeter that will have perennial plantings on its surface to obscure visibility and mitigate odor. The center will comprise a quarter acre for the first year; the maximum allowable size for a Class 2 center is a half acre. A class 2 compost operation can process any type of organic matter, from food scraps to dairy, animal byproducts, and yard waste. During the pilot project’s first phase, the composting center will not serve the public. Agraria is beginning small by partnering with a Mills Lawn 6th grade class to recover their food waste, process it into compost, and collaborate on educational opportunities for students, including field trips and workshops. The initiative is part of the Village of Yellow Springs Climate Action Sustainability Champion Program. The champions in this case are two Mills Lawn students, Elise Bongorno and Violet Matteson, and Agraria Land Team lead Alex Klug. The students hope to spark a composting initiative in Yellow Springs. The end goal, according to Klug, is to operate an ecologically designed small-scale educational composting project that could be replicated by institutions , municipalities, etc., and to steward a new generation of learners who are knowledgeable about how to reduce waste in their communities. Agraria is exploring opportunities for composting institutional waste during the second phase as well as partnering with the Village of Yellow Springs on community- wide composting. JACOBY CREEK STREAM AND WETLAND RESTORATION PROJECT The Jacoby Creek stream and wetland restoration project is set to spring from the drawing board into action early next year. That’s the plan, according to The Nature Conservancy (TNC), which is carrying out the project in partnership with Agraria and the Tecumseh Land Trust. The preliminary work of removing some of the honeysuckle and other invasives along the creek and its tributaries was completed in 2020 by Green Corps of Cincinnati. Next comes the heavy equipment, as early as January, to remove what’s left—and begin the major work of remeandering the stream. TNC will replant the restoration area with native trees, shrubs, grasses, and forbs and is collaborating with Agraria on plants for the extra buffer zone along the perimeter of the restored area. That zone will serve as a demonstration site for permaculture and agroforestry. TNC will monitor the restoration area for 10 years to insure invasives do not return. RESEARCH ON AGRARIA Water Catchment System The installation last spring of a new standing seam metal roof and gutters on our historic barn means Agraria can take another step toward installing both a water catchment system for the gardens adjacent to the front campus and solar panels on the barn roof. The first steps were taken by engineering students in the University of Dayton’s Engineers in Technical Humanitarian Opportunities of Service Learning (ETHOS) program. One ETHOS team conducted preliminary research over a 12- week period in the summer of 2020 and produced a design for installation of an above-ground metal cistern on the south