Tool to strengthen and coordinate Hudson Valley agriculture

by Philip Ehrensaft

American consumers are increasingly inclined to buy food from local, identifiable sources, produced with environmentally sustainable practices, and preferably from family farms as opposed to large-scale agribusiness. There are many farmers who would be all too glad to oblige them.

But there's a frequent disconnect that prevents those mutual desires from being realized. That disconnect is the lack of an agricultural transportation, warehousing, processing and distribution infrastructure that can cost-effectively move local, source-identified farm products to the buyers who want them. Our food system is predominantly organized by large-scale agribusinesses that run a fine-honed network for collecting, processing and distributing farm products to supermarket chains, large institutional purchasers like cafeterias in public institutions, or major private companies.

In effect, farmers can build the baseball fields, and many consumers want to sit in the stands, but the infrastructure for getting the two parties together is weak. One rapidly growing organizational tool for merging the two parties is a “food hub,” a combination farm marketing, farm family support, and often community-building tool that is being actively analyzed and encouraged by the United States Department of Agriculture.

The Hudson Valley Food Hubs Initiative, a policy research project sponsored by the New World Foundation's Local Economies Project, is one of the most ambitious and thorough investigations to date of this new way of linking farmers and consumers. The lead researcher, Sarah Brannen, from Upstream Advisers in Poughkeepsie, has produced a must-read analysis not only for Hudson Valley citizens focusing on agriculture, and economic development in general, but for a national audience as well. localeconomies-hv.org/food-system/food-hub

That's by virtue of Brannen's combing the experiences of food hubs nationally, choosing 12 for looking at best practices, and seeing how these lessons might or might not apply in Hudson Valley circumstances. The Hudson Valley is a region with one of the highest potentials for food hubs to link local producers and consumers, and thus bears national attention.

The Valley still has plenty of good agricultural land that hasn't been paved over; much of the land is suitable for high value per acre, sustainably produced fruits and vegetables, or craft dairy and meat production; the Valley is one of the only regions of New York with substantial population growth, and a relatively high proportion of its consumers are inclined to buy local, source-identified food; it is next door to the country's largest single food market, where there's also high enthusiasm for sustainably produced local food, not to mention copious vitamin pills and herbal supplements to counter the lousy air and sheer stress of the place.

So precisely what is this “food hub” beast? And how effective can it be in building up effective transportation, storage, processing and marketing links between local farmers who want to produce source-identified food rather than anonymous commodities shipped into the agribusiness system, and regional consumers who would like to buy what farmers want to produce?

A new national USDA research report—The Role of Food Hubs in Local Food Marketing by James Matson, Martha Sullins and Chris Cook—first cites a working definition of a farm hub: “a business or organization that actively manages the aggregation, distribution and marketing of source-identified food products primarily from local and regional producers to strengthen their ability to satisfy wholesale, retail and institutional demand.”

Then Matson, Sullins and Cook immediately nuance the definition on two counts: 1) Community-building and environmentalism. Many hubs evolved from educational or social missions to bring consumers and producers together. Besides selling local foods, they educate buyers about the importance of retaining food dollars in the local economy, and conserving farmland; 2) Virtual organizations. In this Internet era, very functional hubs exist that do not consist of brick and mortar facilities; rather, they “live” primarily in a virtual context and are thus able to transmit information quickly among local buyers and sellers.

So food hubs assume diverse organizational forms in pursuing a core mandate of linking local producers and consumers, ranging from private for-profit companies delivering to wholesalers and large institutions, and on to community nonprofits facilitating direct contact, both economic and social between farmers and local consumers, and a strong emphasis on helping small and medium-sized family farms survive and thrive in a food system tilted towards big farms.  

Among the 168 food hubs that were studied by the USDA researchers, there were 67 private companies, 54 nonprofit organizations, 36 cooperatives, 8 publicly held companies, and 3 informal arrangement. Criss-crossing these ownership forms, there was also diverse targeting of clientele: 70 focused on farm sales to businesses or institutions; 60 focused on sales to consumers; and 38 did both.

Foods hubs are an experiment in progress. Sixty percent of hubs inventoried by the USDA have existed for less than five years, another nine percent for six to ten years, and only nine percent for 29 years or more.

Brannen's mandate was to take a systematic look at how each of these diverse approaches to organizing food hubs might or might not work well to advance farming in the Hudson Valley. The report pulls together a very large body of information on the 3,100 farms working 474,00 acres, and generating $322 million gross farm sales in the nine counties along the Hudson River from Westchester and Rockland through Columbia, Greene, and Sullivan counties—in addition to the New York City food market's potential for Hudson Valley farming. Brannen also interviewed 117 farmers and food business people; organized seven food hub listening sessions involving 200+ people, and assembled an impressive expert advisory board to give her advice and feedback as she proceeded. One also has the distinct impression that she read every study, major and minor, of the food hub experience in the US.

One surprise in the Hudson Valley Food Hubs Initiativereport, a well-founded surprise, is its conclusion that projects for creating a big, central regional food hub for the Valley would not be an optimal move. Given the diverse nature of farming here, sales and distribution networks are equally diverse. One size does not fit all, as it might, for example, if Illinois and Iowa organic corn and soybean farmers wanted to band together to reach adjacent urban markets. In the Hudson Valley, farmers and merchants in the fruit, vegetable, dairy, meat and poultry sub-sectors are already performing some typical farm hub functions appropriate for their quite different respective sectors. This ranges from direct farm sales and farmers' markets to Community Supported Agriculture, and on to farmer co-ops and farmers using their own trucks for delivery to local retailers.

With respect to existing food-hub-equivalent arrangements for reaching individual consumers and small retailers, Brannen advocates solidifying and extending what has already started.

In contrast, a new effort is needed for building organizations that overcome predominantly weak links between the Valley's farmers and the large-scale purchasers who are the big sluggers in our current food system. That includes big supermarkets and food wholesalers, food services in the Valley's large private firms, and big public institutions like hospitals or schools. This will require building new capacities, like on-farm quality controlled packing of produce, and especially recruiting management and sales people who know how deal with the big purchasers. Given increasing consumer preferences for local source-identified food, and the desire of the big purchasers to make money delivering what consumers want, that can be done.

Above all, Hudson Valley citizens' organizations must make it very clear to their governments, nonprofits, and large private firms that they want firm commitments to buy local, source-identified food.

The Bard Conservatory Orchestra and its well-rounded education.

by Philip Ehrensaft

Of all the Bard College success stories, the rapid rise of the Bard Conservatory to national and international prominence is likely the college's biggest bang in the shortest time. In 2003, the Bard Conservatory was a promising idea for a new approach to professional music education proposed by Robert Martin, who was simultaneously an eminent cellist, a philosophy professor with a PhD from Yale, a vice-president of Bard College, and the president of Chamber Music America. Martin was inspired by the newly opened Fisher Center for the Performing Arts—providing the class act venue that is a necessary component of a class act conservatory.

Martin advanced two core ideas for creating a new Bard Music Conservatory: first, breaking with standard conservatory education, where accomplished young musicians are chosen directly from high school on the basis of highly competitive auditions, as well as the usual grades and recommendations. Conservatories then give them rigorous musical training, but little else. That's viewed as optimal for upping performance levels by youngsters who have already demonstrated their exceptional talents and willingness to work very, very hard. Stick close to your knitting.

On the basis of his own trajectory, Martin respectfully disagrees. He passed the admission gauntlet for an elite conservatory, the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, but also wanted to do a liberal arts degree at an equally elite liberal arts college, Haverford. Curtis discouraged the young Martin from such a perceived distraction, but he persisted and emerged five years later with two sheepskins in hand. Martin continued the same dual path, simultaneously doing things like playing cello in the highly reputed Sequoia String Quartet and earning tenure as philosophy professor.

Above all, Martin sees this dual path as the opposite of distraction for development as a musician. His liberal arts and then doctoral philosophy training upped his curiosity, reasoning capacity, and ability to see connections between things. That, in turn, advanced his understanding of the structure and meaning of the scores on his music stand, and how to communicate that understanding to audiences. He wanted to create a conservatory where every student would reap the fruits of multidisciplinary synergy.

That idea got a ready green light from Bard College's president and fellow polymath, Leon Botstein. After dual training as an historian and conductor, Botstein became the president of Bard College in 1975, at the ripe old age of 29. Botstein and Martin co-directed the rise of the Bard Music Festival, from a promising event at an exurban college into a major event in Greater New York's crowded, competitive music season. A working partnership was ready to go. Martin recruited yet another Bard polymath as the vice-director of the proposed conservatory, Melvin Chen—a classical pianist who also earned a Harvard PhD in chemistry.

The second pillar of the proposed new conservatory was pragmatic: it would be very expensive to hire high-level musicians as full-time faculty. Being located in the exurban fringe of the country's principal music market, New York City, presented an evident alternative: dip into NYC's deep pool of elite musicians, who would commute to Bard to give lessons. The Bard Conservatory's faculty is a who's who sampling of top Big Apple talent. To name but a few: Dawn Upshaw in vocal music; Shmuel Ashkenasi, Eugene Drucker and Arnold Steinhardt for violin; and Jeremy Denk, Richard Goode, and Peter Serkin for piano.

In the fall of 2004, the Bard Conservatory was still an embryonic proposal. Within just one year, the Conservatory opened the doors for its first cohort of 20 students in September 2005. In contrast to my alma mater, Oberlin, Bard Conservatory students are required to do a second, non-music degree. Martin learned that, while a majority of students admitted to Oberlin's conservatory expressed an interest in doing dual degrees, only 15 percent actually did so. The goal was to recruit students willing to take on the substantially extra time and work that had enriched Martin, Botstein and Chen, both as musicians and as informed citizens.

Now there are 90 carefully selected students, half from across the US and half from abroad. That's enough musicians to form the Bard Conservatory's full symphony orchestra, a young ensemble that quickly became good enough, guided by Botstein's baton, to dare a Lincoln Center debut in 2010. This May 22, the BCO returns to Lincoln Center for a concert presaging August's 24th edition of the Bard Music Festival, Stravinsky and His World.

Hudson Valley residents don't have to trek to Manhattan to hear what the BCO will perform at Lincoln Center. On May 11, they'll perform the same repertoire in the Fisher Center's acoustical gem, the Sosnoff Theater, starting with Stravinsky's seminal early piece, Feu d'Artifice (Fireworks), Op. 4. Fireworks showed such promise that the ballet impressario Sergei Diaghalev hired the young Stravinsky, still a student, to compose The Firebird. Then there's Prokofiev's Violin Concerto No. 1 in D, featuring one of Bard's prize faculty catches, Shmuel Ashkenasi, as the soloist. The concert wraps up with Shostakovich's bold Symphony No. 10.

May also brings 11 recitals by graduating Bard Conservatory students, and an opportunity to hear why they are getting admitted to graduate programs in America's big name conservatories. There will also be a four-part Chamber Music Marathon running on the weekend of May 3-5. The details can be found at the Conservatory's website, bard.edu/conservatory/events. You can also take the opportunity to see the brand new Bard Conservatory Building, made possible by a beyond-generous $9.2 million gift from Bard alumnus Lazlo Z. Bito.

by Maria Reidelbach

Last month in my column about bees, Chris Harp, local apiarist, explained that the blossoms of fruit

Mulberries.

trees are one of the richest sources of food for bees. Just after I wrote the piece, there was more bad news about the colony collapse disease that threatens the entire honeybee species. What a great time to think about adding more blossoming fruit trees to a garden both for our six-legged allies and for our own delight!

If foraging wild food is like a pick-up, and growing annual vegetables is like a summer fling, planting a fruit or nut tree is like getting married. Both marriage and tree take time to get established, but if healthy, both endure for a very, very long time. “You plant a pear for your heir,” is the old saying that John Wightman repeated to me. John is the extremely knowledgeable farmer of Wightman Fruit Farm and an NRCCA Certified Northeastern Crop Advisor. He sobered me about the impact of, and the amount of care needed by, the unimposing twig with roots that you place in your garden. If all goes well that twig will become a towering presence, so you want to take your time and choose very, very carefully. If you choose well, John adds, well-placed and -tended fruit and nut trees can add a lot of value to a garden both visually and productively. He points out succinctly, “Trees are fantastic at turning solar energy into stuff that tastes good.”

Siting a tree in an optimal location is crucial. The main conditions that affect a tree's success are: the amount of space for mature size, amount of sunlight, the condition and composition of the soil, water drainage, exposure, wind direction and soil contamination. Many species need to be planted in pairs in order to fruit abundantly (kinda romantic, I think), so you've either got to have room for two, or get your neighbor to plant one. The permaculture method takes the art of siting to a new level. Ethan Roland is the principal of Appleseed Permaculture in Accord and for the last seven years has been planning balanced ecosystems that contain a wide variety of food-bearing plants, from annual vegetables to berries to fungus to trees. Ideally, all live in a symbiotic community that makes the best of a site's conditions and that maximizes self-maintenance and sustainability.

The variety of tree you choose will have a huge impact on your success. Counterintuitively, the most obvious choices are not the best! Our Hudson Valley climate spans the USDA hardiness zones from 5 to 7. This rules out citrus fruits and tropical fruits, obviously, but also makes some borderline species much more challenging. Peaches, nectarines, apricots and plums will grow here, but you court failure at many turns. Successful growers take these limitations seriously and instead choose species and varieties that thrive here.

Elizabeth Ryan is a local ag powerhouse, one of the founders of the New York City greenmarket and farmer of four orchards in Dutchess and Ulster counties. For home growers she recommends pears; the trees don't freeze and although they grow slowly, they will live 100 years (plant a pear for your heir!). Elizabeth also suggests the sweet cherry varieties Schmidts Biggarreau and Hedelfingen, and sour cherries, which I think are the most insanely delicious fruit ever.

Lee Reich is a New Paltzian who has written a bunch of books about all aspects of edible landscaping. He's got a master’s degree in soil science, and a doctorate in horticulture. Lee grows a stunning variety of fruits and vegetables on his “farmden” (farm and garden). He recommends native varieties because they evolved especially for our environment. These include the pawpaw (get a named variety), the persimmon (Szukis is good), pear (dwarf trees do well), sour cherry trees (Cornelian), and chestnuts (peach chestnut). Wightman recommends dwarf varieties for small gardens.

Cultivated fruit and nut trees need more care than ornamental or native trees because it's heavy-lifting to grow fruit every year (literally): they need species-specific feeding and pruning, they are vulnerable to pests and diseases (who also like to eat fresh fruit), and some more particular than others. Apples, as it turns out, are incredibly difficult to grow, and require specialized pruning and multiple pesticide sprayings, whether organic or not. It's not rocket science, but if you don't do it right you probably won't get fruit and your tree could die. Who knew?

Many smart growers choose native fruit trees with unfamiliar fruit. Natives are both hearty and disease and pest resistant. Philip Perlman is a retired video and filmmaker and a founder of The Kitchen, a performing arts org in New York City. These days he farmdens in Accord, and has become so smitten with the pawpaw tree that he has planted over 60 of them—a real pawpaw plantation! Pawpaws are a delicious, tropical-tasting fruit that is distantly related to the banana. Philip sells his extras to the High Falls Food Co-op, where you can get them for a few weeks in September. Lee Reich points out that pawpaw trees are very beautiful in all seasons. They also begin bearing in just three or four years. Another native tree that is recommended by the experts I asked is the persimmon. Philip likes the hearty American persimmon varieties, which bear a juicy, sweet-tart fruit in the fall. Ethan recommends mulberry trees, with a delicious fruit that looks like a blackberry.

Chestnuts take a long time—7 to 10 years to fruit—but they, too, are a favorite with our mavens. A generous neighbor gave me some fresh chestnuts once and they were shockingly good. Most native chestnuts were wiped out in the 20th century by blight, but now there are new blight-resistant varieties. Lee recommends hybrids and Philip likes the flavor of Chinese chestnuts best. Hazelnuts are also a hearty native nut and they grow in curious little cabbage-like shrouds.

There's something I haven't mentioned that is a problem with almost all fruit trees. Squirrels are the elephant in the room (or, er, garden). Philip recommends planting your trees far enough apart so that the little buggers can't jump from tree to tree. Birds, also, can be voracious. Chris Hewitt (CW publisher) once told me that smart old farmers would plant mulberries next to their cherry trees because the birds liked mulberries better.

I hope that I've whetted your appetite for tree fruit and nuts. But do your homework! Catalogs may entice, but as John Wightman points out, “You don't build a house by going to the lumberyard first,” and “don't plant more than you can care for.” It's a bit of work, but the payoff? John confides that “my apples taste better to me than any other apples do,” and your fruit probably will, too. He thinks it's the taste of pride.

Maria Reidelbach is the proprietress of Homegrown Mini-Golf on Kelder's Farm: wacky putting greens set in a tasting garden of edible plants.

Tree fruit related events in May:

Lee Reich plant sale (keep an eye on his blog for details)

Kickstarter project to rebuild the historic cider house at Breezy Hill Orchard: kickstarter.com, search Breezy Hill

Good resources:

Appleseed Permaculture: appleseedpermaculture.com

Lee Reich's website and blog: leereich.com

Fruit Production for the Home Gardener, Penn State: http://extension.psu.edu/plants/gardening/fphg

The Pruning Book, by Lee Reich

Uncommon Fruits for Every Garden, by Lee Reich

Landscaping with Fruit, by Lee Reich

The Complete Book of Edible Landscaping, by Rosalind Creasy

New York Nut Growers Association: nynga.org

Northern Nut Growers Association: nutgrowing.org

Local commercial orchards mentioned above:

Breezy Hill Orchard, Staatsburg

Stone Ridge Orchard, Stone Ridge

Wightman Fruit Farm, Kerhonkson

As spring unfolds into summer and we’re all looking for recreational opportunities, stay tuned for more exciting events at walkway.org.

by Maria Reidelbach

Last month we talked about the havoc that deer wreak in your garden. We covered how deer are gourmets and like to eat baby plants and most of the same fruit and vegetables we like, how they're creatures of habit and tend to stick to the same habits and trails. One interesting fact I've learned in the meantime is that the leaping deer signs so common on our roads often mark the spots where deer trails cross the road. They're like deer crosswalks (cross leaps?). Who knew? Also, another deer resistant edible plant to add to the list from last month: our local currant maven, Ray Tousey of Clermont, told me that deer won't eat black currant plants—only the black currant has the fragrant greenery deer scorn, the other colors don't.

Last month we talked about deflecting methods, this month we'll talk about more active measures to take to protect your dinner, because once deer know that your yard is yummy, they'll make sure to cruise it regularly for anything fresh and new and it will become one of their habitual paths. The most extreme and permanent solution is fencing; it's also the most expensive and I'll leave that for last.

A combination of more modest strategies will often do the trick. Scare devices work, especially if you regularly rotate them to keep deer on their toes (do deer have toes?). You can try motion-triggered lights or water sprays. Scare tape and balloons may be effective, as can be the classic scarecrow, especially if you dress it with shiny objects like sequins and metallic items (why should drag queens have all the fun?). Wind chimes with shiny danglers hung from trees can work, too.

The next resort are repellent substances. Repellents work best if you use them before deer have made your place their daily hangout. And again, for the best results, alternate what you use. There are a bunch of different products out there, some of them are stinky, some noisy, some emit electronic waves. Liquid repellents seem to work the best, and are used either on the plant itself (contact repellent) or are sprinkled around the plants (area repellent). Deer Defeat, a company in Red Hook, has developed a nontoxic product that works so well that Victoria Garden's landscaping crews use it in many of the gardens they care for. You spray on or around the plants you want to protect, several times a season, as directed. You can use it on food plants, but because it contains raw eggs, it's not recommended for use on plants you expect to eat any time soon. For the surprise effect, alternate stinky repellent with “sweet” repellent made with cinnamon, also available commercially.

You can make your own repellent; the essential ingredients are eggs and water. It may not last as long as commercial products, but you probably still only need to apply it every couple of weeks. Here's a recipe for a tweaked version.

Stinky or Sweet Deer Repellent

3 raw eggs

3 Tbsp garlic juice or chopped garlic OR 15 drops of cinnamon oil

Use a blender to puree the ingredients with enough water to keep everything whirling. Add the mixture to one gallon of water. Use the liquid as a spray either directly on the plants or on surrounding vegetation.

This repellent may also be effective against rabbits and groundhogs.

Other common home deer repellents, such as hanging bars of Irish Spring soap or balls of hair, don't seem to be as effective as sprays, with reports of deer actually eating the soap, but again, try things out, and talk to your neighbors about what they've found effective. Deer gangs have their cultures and herd mentalities.

The most expensive, but most sure-fire solution to keeping deer away is a fence. The best kind of fence varies regionally, but here in the Mid-Hudson Valley, there are several good choices. A minimalist approach that works near houses was shared with me by Chris Hewitt, the publisher of this paper and a master gardener. He drives six-foot pieces of rebar into the ground around the edges of beds. Then he runs three rows of nylon fishing line low, middle and high on the bars. Deer bump the line and don't know what it is. Chris cautions that this works best in beds around houses where people are and deer are skittish, otherwise the deer figure out that they can push through.

Diane Greenberg of Catskill Native Nursery works on the front lines of deerland all the time. She has used picket fences with added taller posts to which a running chain is attached, making the fence look more imposing—to a deer. Chris says a five-foot fence can work around a small garden; deer are hesitant to jump into a small, enclosed space. A six-foot fence can be made to look taller with the addition of sticks poking above. But you really need a seven-foot fence, in this area, to reliably keep deer out. For best value, Chris recommends using 2x4 welded wire fencing and cedar posts—there are cheaper deer-netting materials, but they are not very durable. The wire fencing is also available in a black vinyl coated version that is less visible.

For those set against constructed fences, Diane suggests living fences—thick, tall hedges made of a variety of deer repellent and resistant bushes and grasses, with constructed gates at entry points. Hedges have the virtue of adding beauty and a natural border to your garden.

More info:

Ray Tousey has a table at the Kingston winter farmers’ market where he has his own currant juice and crème de Cassis, among other tasty produce and products. He's got plants in season.

Deer Defeat, more info at deerdefeat.com

Herzog's Supply Company, Kingston, herzogs.com, carries sweet deer repellent and 2x4 welded wire fencing.

Catskill Native Nursery, Kerhonkson, catskillnativenursery.com, edible deer-resistant plants and herbs.

Victoria Gardens, Rosendale, carries deer repelling supplies and plants.

Phantom Gardener, Rhinebeck, thephantomgardener.com, an organic source of gardening and deer repelling supplies.

Maria Reidelbach is creator and proprietress of Homegrown Mini-Golf on Kelder's Farm and is quite busy getting the edible landscaping ready for spring.

Local radio continues to inspire and push new boundaries.

by Anne Pyburn Craig

Radio, early in its second century of existence, still has room for rebels. Ever since the early 1920s, when broadcasting began, the power of an individual being able to broadcast over the airwaves has been changing our world; even with the development of television and Internet, radio remains unique in that all a listener needs is a simple, inexpensive device and a couple of batteries (or a hand crank) to access information and entertainment.

This democratic, near-universal access on the receiving end has allowed radio some interesting moments. Franklin Delano Roosevelt began using radio to forge a direct connection to the citizenry while he was still governor of New York, reaching over the heads of the opposition and straight to the people. In 1938, thousands of minds were blown when a dramatic broadcast of H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds was mistaken for a news bulletin announcing an actual Martian invasion. Drama and comedy, live and on the air, created a cultural common denominator and frame of reference on a scale never before seen—by the time television arrived on the scene, 82 percent of Americans were listening to the radio.

As educational director of the Poughkeepsie-based Children’s Media Project, Mary Ellen Iatropoulos is helping to nurture the next generation of communicators. As a Vassar College grad, she found herself uniquely positioned to give them a voice in the community.

“As a Vassar student, I managed WVKR, the college radio station,” she says. “When I came to CMP, I stayed in touch with people there—and I remembered that they didn’t have any youth programming.” WVKR (91.3 FM) extends an open invitation to members of the community to propose programming, and when Iatropoulos approached them about an audio version of CMP’s high-energy, high-quality DROP TV format, she found ample enthusiasm.

“This May will be the fifth birthday of our Radio Uprising show,” she says, “and I continue to be amazed by what our youth producers come up with. We talk about space exploration, the future, uses of Twitter and Facebook—we run the gamut from controversial to tame.

“Radio is my personal favorite medium. It has the immediacy of TV without the need to always be at your most dolled up and polished—you can be in sweats in the studio and still deliver a moving, effective show. Getting in front of the camera can be nerve-wracking; the mike, not so much. It’s very freeing. People come out of their comfort zones in ways many of them couldn’t on TV.”

Even after video ended its golden age of dominance, radio has continued to cast a potent spell. DJs like Wolfman Jack and Cousin Brucie provided a lot of people with their first exposure to mind-expanding music. Personalities like Imus and Howard Stern became cultural icons. Right wing talk radio shows stroke the egos and stoke the xenophobic fears of like-minded dittoheads. Millions tune in to Christian stations to feel educated and guided in their spiritual journeys. Radio has bred scandals and reached behind enemy lines in wartime.

And it remains a powerful tool, for propaganda or enlightenment. Unlike visual media, we can listen to the radio while driving or working at other tasks, which may give its messages a certain stealth access to semi-conscious levels of thought and certainly broadens its reach. Iatropoulos believes that when young people become involved in media production, they’re empowered by a much deeper understanding of the constant barrage of messages coming at them.

“Young people are constantly being targeted as consumers of media,” she says, “but we don’t validate them much as producers. They have an enormous amount to add to the conversation. And in order to navigate life, it’s important for them to understand how media is created and how it affects people.”

Radio Uprising’s weekly hour-long show offers a refreshing antidote to the kind of agenda-driven echo chambers that the mainstream media breeds. The kids are honest, fresh, and unafraid.

“Right after the assassination of Osama Bin Laden,” Iatropoulos recalls, “we had two young men on the air who had diametrically opposing views. One perceived it as the day freedom won, a glorious day for American ideals. Another student believed no government should assassinate anyone.” This is, of course, the exact sort of territory that provokes acrimonious swearing fits from so-called “adults” from sea to shining sea, all over airwaves and Internet alike—but the kids, says Iatropoulos, took it to another level. “We debated what it means to be patriotic. Nobody was judged. And why not let youth debate? They get shut down a lot. We need to let them learn civil discourse. We live in a society that rewards win/lose conversation, zingers, and one-liners—we get conditioned to go for the joke instead of the deep thoughtful comment. That kills intellectual discussion, which involves mental muscles that need to be exercised. Raising questions, talking about subjects without judgment—that’s how you do that, and it had better not become a lost art.”

Despite the consolidation and homogeneity of the airwaves—Clear Channel owns 850 broadcast stations, Cumulus Media about 525—radio remains a refuge for independent voices. Satellite and Internet radio allow almost infinite variety, but the terrestrial variety—the kind that still requires only the most basic equipment for access—would be in grave danger of fading into a wasteland of syndicated sameness if it weren’t for the passion of local heroes who keep it real.

The Hudson Valley is blessed with several good independent stations that have found commercial success without knuckling under to control by corporate conglomerates. WDST (100.1) and WKZE (98.1) are both locally owned and dearly loved. Then there are the listener-supported community gems: WJFF in Sullivan County (90.5), besides rebroadcasting public radio content, fills 50 percent of its time slots with locally produced individual content. Kingston Community Radio takes over the WGHQ (920 AM) airwaves five mornings a week for local guest hosts and call-in sessions during which local political and other officials and personalities can connect directly with listeners in their homes, cars and workplaces.

And they do. Research shows that despite our ever-increasing menu of media options, over 75 percent of people listen to the radio at least a little every day, and over 90 percent at least once a week. The first video on MTV, Video Killed the Radio Star, has turned out to be more fantasy than prophecy.

When reporter Gary Lycan of the Orange County Registerasked radio personality Tim Conway Jr. about radio’s relevance, he had a quick and impressive answer. "Radio broke the name Christopher Dorner, carried live interviews from crippled cruise ship Triumph, and bested TV in reporting the asteroid that hit Russia…The Today Show even gave KFI credit for being the first media outlet to talk to the Big Bear resident that was carjacked by Christopher Dorner."

Meanwhile, at WVKR, kids rule their Thursday afternoon time slot, opening with a pulse-quickening theme created by Delswan Madden in collaboration with the Turn It Up youth radio—a joint project of CMP and Mill Street Loft. And they’re getting educated by the experience in all sorts of ways.

“We have a few songs we play just to get a breather,” says Iatropoulos, “but it’s really hard for the kids to find music that’s not owned or subsidized by a major label, and the rules are strict—there’s no playing Katie Perry or Kanye West. The same major companies control Lady Gaga and P Diddy—it’s an illusion of choice that these corporations go to lengths to create. So the Radio Uprising youth learn to seek out more organic, local, underground stuff. First they’re dumbfounded, then they’re pissed—and motivated.”