The City of Montague, MI, located just a short ways north of Muskegon, recently passed an ordinance regarding the climate emergency. The City committed to a range of ambitious sustainability measures to implement over the next several years to help their community adapt to increased environmental challenges and contribute to a sustainable future for all.

To help start this process, the City enlisted students from GVSU’s ENS department to research and develop ideas for Montague to use in its Climate Mobilization Action Plan (MAP). For our part, we focused on finding ways to bolster Montague’s local food system.

From developing community gardens and a citywide composting system to simply providing educational materials to community members to learn about eating local, we produced a number of ideas for the City of Montague to consider as it moves forward with its sustainability initiatives.

One of the first steps was understanding a little more about the city of Montague and what their overall goals were in regards to this emergency climate change ordinance.

We had the opportunity to listen in on a City Hall meeting, where city manager Jeff Auch and other local community members talked about the climate ordinance and what their goals were, long and short term. One part of their plan involved the local food systems in Montague. There are already a seasonal Farmer’s Market, local farms, a food science lab, a local composting leaf pile and many other great starts to a more sustainable food system.

The local food systems are very important in communities. Some key aspects that are needed when wanting to adapt more sustainable practices within the food system are having enthusiastic, energetic farmers that are willing to adapt and lead the change; having strong communication between farmers and local retailers/food markets; having the community invested and taking pride in being a part of this important system; and having supportive local officials as well.

With all of this in mind, we had to think about a lot of different stakeholders and ideas when brainstorming for our project. After talking with the Farmer’s Market manager, Kelly, and the owner of the local grocery store, Jason, we had the opportunity to get an idea of what the needs and wants are of two stakeholders who not only are involved in the community, but also a part of the community! After interviewing and seeing the city of Montague we decided to focus on three main projects for the city in regards to a more sustainable food system.

The bulk of our presentation will focus on the core ideas we selected--a citywide composting system, urban and community garden developments, and educational materials. However, when we were brainstorming, we had several other worthy ideas we’d like to briefly mention here.

These include:

-Compost stand at the Farmer’s Market

-Incentives for grocers and local restaurants to buy local

-Seed exchanges

-Local food festival

-Composting program among local businesses and restaurants

-Food co-ops/improving CSA programs

-Donations of leftover produce (from local restaurants/grocery stores) for farmers to use for feed

-New ways to incorporate the food science lab at the high school

Below are the three ideas that we are primarily going to focus on creating more developed plans for:

To help the City of Montague dispose of food waste more sustainably, we propose developing a citywide composting system. Composting is the practice of converting unused organic material like vegetable matter into compost that can subsequently be used as plant fertilizer in soil. The process fits well with the common environmental refrain, “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle,” and would benefit Montague’s local food system by allowing for more sustainable waste disposal and creating opportunities to use compost as fertilizer at local farms or community garden sites. Under our proposal, the City would create and manage a composting service for the community.

Where can the City put a composting facility?

In our conversation with the owner of local grocery store Montague Foods, we learned that the store’s space limitations effectively prohibit them from doing any on-site composting, but that the business may be open to the practice if it could be done elsewhere. This would likely apply to even smaller businesses like restaurants as well. The City can help by using some of its property in the nearby industrial park to establish a composting site and, to make participation easier, providing a compost pick-up service to the community (and/or convenient drop-off sites).

How can the city accomplish this?

To be successful, the composting service has to be convenient. To avoid placing any additional burdens on local businesses and residents, the City should incorporate compost pick-up into its existing waste management infrastructure so that it's as easy for a local resident to dispose of their compostable materials as it is for disposing of recyclables and ordinary trash.

Should a full pick-up service prove infeasible, the City could alternatively establish convenient drop-off sites for residents and businesses to use, at which point the city would transport the material to the main composting site.

For more ideas about how to establish and manage community composting services, see this article, which profiles three entrepreneurs who started residential composting businesses. Though our proposal is for a City-managed service, the logistical challenges are similar enough that these examples may be instructive.

How will this benefit the City of Montague?

An effective composting system has the potential to enhance the experience of eating local in Montague. As just one example, if the food waste from a local restaurant was all composted, that compost could be used to fuel local gardens and farms to grow new produce that the restaurant could use for its meals. Similarly, any food waste generated by a community garden could be composted and put right back into the garden to fuel new growth. Composting, then, is not just a clean way to dispose of waste, but also a means to convert that waste into productive energy for new food growth. Developing a composting service would allow the City and its residents to enjoy truly local, self-sufficient food products while reducing and reusing waste.

To not only help educate the community of Montague learn more about gardening and more sustainable, small scale greenhouse practices, but also bring together the community in a fun and interesting way, we propose implementing community gardens around the city, as well as a community wide greenhouse to assist in education and local food production! This would be a beneficial project for all age groups and could greatly influence the city in a positive way. In our proposal, the city would create and with the help of volunteers in the community, maintain community gardens & greenhouse for the community.

Where can the city put a community garden/greenhouse?

In our interviews with the city manager, Jeff and the farmer's market manager, Kelly they mentioned some areas that would work out the best for a community garden. One would be really great near the apartment complex that is downtown because this is a more urban area and not much opportunity for residents to have their own gardens, so it would work out really well! It would be a good central area as well that many people could have access to!

Another great place for a garden would be somewhere near the schools, this would open up an endless amount of educational opportunities for students and residents in Montague! Education is a key aspect in promoting more sustainable practices, and if we can start at the schools and reach ages elementary to high school, there is a lot a great things that can stem from these gardens! The high school has a food science lab as well, so putting a greenhouse here would be an awesome way to get students more involved with the local production of fruits and vegetables as well!

How can the city accomplish a garden and greenhouse?

This will be a very big project that could be really fun! We do not have much experience about how to accomplish a project like this but there are many awesome resources out there that provide some key ideas and ways to create gardens/greenhouses. With regards to funding, there would be different routes that the city could take, there are grants out there or maybe even see if local businesses would sponsor a garden/greenhouse.

There are many questions that have to be asked and this would be something that the city hall council and community members would want to get together and flesh out what type of garden they want to create, what size, where at, who is going to take care of it, etc. There would be a lot of questions that need to be fleshed out within the community of people who know the Montague area and live there!

Here are some helpful links on how to start a community garden:

Community Garden & Community Garden

With regards to a greenhouse or a hoophouse, it would be the same questions that are asked with regards to a community garden. Essentially getting the city council and members together and fleshing out the logistics and what would be best for their community.

A greenhouse will be a long-term investment that will have long-term outcomes that can only benefit the community. There are a lot of websites out there on how to start these greenhouses and maybe even someone from the community that has greenhouse/gardening background would be valuable and assisting with the specific details.

Here are some helpful links on how to start a greenhouse:

Greenhouse How-To & Greenhouse How-To

Who would be involved?

This is the best part about this project, the community could full-heartedly be actively involved in taking care of both! We think that it would be very cool if volunteers could become a regular part of taking care of and creating these two projects. If a local grassroots organization or group took the initiative, this could already be a large step in the direction towards a successful and beneficial garden and greenhouse!

One of the best examples that I can think of is Urban Roots in southeast Grand Rapids. They are a community farm and education center that have been doing a lot of really cool things! They have employed staff, but also rely on interns and volunteers. This would be an awesome organization that could potentially help and give advice to Montague.

How will this benefit the city of Montague?

A community garden and greenhouse would create an educational opportunity and chance for everyone in the community to get involved with something so important and close to home.

To help embrace further education of sustainable food systems in the city of Montague and in general, we think it would be beneficial to have some sort of informational brochure that can be placed around downtown, in the public library, or displayed at the Farmer's Market. We have made a template example of what the brochure could look like and what information it could contain. There are various different types of free brochure making websites that could be used to make a brochure; for physical documents, it would be important to use recycled or compostable material.

We designed our sample document using the free online platform Lucidpress (see image below); Canva is a similar site for doing the same thing. For more advanced designing, the city could use software's like Microsoft Publisher and Adobe InDesign.

In regards to the recycled/compostable paper materials, there are a few different website's that we were able to find that have them:

Green Printer Online

Carbon8

Hello Print

Below we have created a simple sample idea for what the brochure could look like, featuring a sample design and some content the City might include in a f!

In conclusion, these are just the tip of the iceberg of ideas that we came up with providing ways to create a more sustainable food system in the city of Montague. These are feasible ideas that could truly thrive in this city but it will take extensive planning and collaborating in the city in order to successfully plan them.

Both the composting service and community garden/greenhouse ideas are just a start, there is a lot more that will need to go into these projects. However, the beneficial long-term outcomes will positively impact the city of Montague in many ways than one. We hope that the brochure can spark some more ideas for flyers/brochures like this that could be displayed around the city!

We hope that this provides some more ideas and creative-thinking for the community and cannot wait to see where Montague goes from here!