Decorating for Fall? Buy Local!

I am hearing from a lot of local producers that they’ve got a glut of pumpkins and gourds this year.  I’m also seeing a lot of great-looking ornamental corn, tiny pumpkins, pretty squash, and other great decorative fall produce.

The only problem is, a lot of those producers are having a hard time moving their lovely pumpkins, squash, corn, and gourds this year.

While some of that might be due to the poor economy (maybe fewer people are pulling out all the stops on decorating this year?), I would guess that a lot of folks are picking up their fall decorations shipped in from other regions and perhaps even other countries–maybe even some of the same folks who are buying their local food weekly at farmers markets.

Why is it important to buy produce that you’re not actually going to eat from local farmers?  For pretty much all the same reasons you buy that local food–supporting local farmers for one.  Building the local economy, for two.  Encouraging good stewardship of your local and regional land resources for three.

You see, a lot of those local pumpkins, gourds, and ornamental corn are grown in the same soils as your local food.  The time and energy investment in those decorative fall crops can be just as intensive as food crops, and the farmer relies on income from selling those crops just the same as income from food crops.

And while I don’t ever encourage our patrons to think of a farmers market as a place with 24/7 low-low prices, I have noticed that the prices on pumpkins, gourds, and other holiday produce are very competitive with those at the local groceries and the big box stores.

We at the Vermillion Area Farmers Market have just two weeks left in our regular season, with our last market on October 22nd–just a little over a week before Halloween.  Many of those fall decoration crops keep very well, so you can stock up and be pretty darn confident that your decorations will last through the Thanksgiving holidays.

Won’t you support your local farmers and buy your holiday decorations from those same folks who bring you the great local food you’ve enjoyed all season?

 

Farmland buy-ups and political instability

A short post because I’m heading out to the Elk Point Farmers Market in a few minutes, but this article, shared by a friend on Facebook, caught my eye.

Remember that discussion about the newest and scariest speculation in farmland?  As predicted, it IS causing political instability–especially when it’s a multinational buying up farmland in another country where food is already too scarce or too expensive for the local populace.  Take Madagascar as an example:

The urban poor were angry at the price of food, which had been high since the massive rise in global prices of wheat and rice the year before. Food-price rises hit the poor worse than the rest of us because they spend up to two-thirds of their income on food. But what whipped them into action was news of a deal the government had recently signed with a giant Korean multinational, Daewoo, leasing 1.3 million hectares of farmland – an area almost half the size of Belgium and about half of all arable land on the island – to the foreign company for 99 years. Daewoo had announced plans to grow maize and palm oil there – and send all the harvests back to South Korea.

Terms of the deal had not originally been made public. But then the news leaked, via the Financial Times in London, that the firm had paid nothing for the lease. Daewoo had promised to improve the island’s infrastructure in support of its investment. “We will provide jobs for them by farming it, which is good for Madagascar,” a Daewoo spokesman said. But the direct cash benefit to Madagascar would be zero – in a country which can barely produce enough food to feed itself: nearly half of the island’s children under the age of five are malnourished. [Paul Vallely. "Wish You Weren't Here: The Devastating Effects of the New Colonialists." Independent/UK 10 August 2009]

I hate to be a doomsayer, but the article goes on to report that deals like this are going on all over the world–with large investors–multinationals and governments–buying up land in impoverished areas in countries Ethiopia, Tanzania, Brazil, and Russia. Some of the land is for food farming; some is for fuel-farming.

Peak oil? How about “Peak Food”?

 

Lack of Information and Support has a Chilling Effect on Farmers Markets in South Dakota

Looking at the state’s local food website and even at the Dakota Rural Action local foods directory, you’d think there just aren’t that many farmers markets in South Dakota.

But in my travels throughout the state in the past few weeks, and through the e-mail requests for help and information from beginning or established markets over the past few months, I’ve discovered this just isn’t the case.

In fact, there are scores of little markets all throughout the state. It seems that almost every little town–even ones with no traffic lights and only one paved road–even ones with populations under 500 people–have lively little local markets with diehard vendors and loyal customers.

On my visit to the extreme northeastern part of the state this past weekend, I learned about four more markets within a fifty-mile radius of each other, none of which is advertised in any larger publication on farmers markets in the state.

Why don’t we hear about these markets? Why aren’t they publicized, and why don’t they join together with other, larger markets to collectively bargain for better regulations, more customers, and to share vendors?

Because they’re scared.

They don’t know the health code. They don’t know who to talk to, and they’re afraid of surprise visits from the Department of Health that might shut them down.  The locals know about these markets, and they have regular customers, but outside of that community circle, the markets are somewhat of a secret.

Last year at the Black Hills Farmers Market, the SD Dept. of Health and Clark Hepper, Office of Health Protection administrator, on reading in the Rapid City Journal that Joel Schwader was making and selling hundreds of kuchen (South Dakota’s state dessert), came to the market and shut him down.

While kuchen is not a shelf-stable baked good (it contains a custard filling), and Schwader did need to make the dessert in a commercial kitchen with all the appropriate licenses, the incident has, according to reports from markets throughout the Black Hills, had a chilling effect on the number of vendors who come to sell.

While the customer base is still there, and in fact is still growing, the feeling among vendors and market managers is that if you get big, if you get press and you are popular, you run the risk of the Health Department coming in and shutting you down.

While the little local markets scattered throughout the state are hidden from outside view, that doesn’t mean their vendors don’t read the news, or hear about incidents such as this through the producer grapevine. Heck, even some customers I’ve talked to relate that they don’t write checks at markets anymore, for fear that could get their favorite producer in trouble.

Managers are concerned even about selling the markets’ mainstay: fresh, homegrown produce.  The Rapid City Journal article on Joel’s kuchen had Hepper stating that, “Any time you have food for sale or service, you’re required to obtain a food service license.”

Obviously, for fresh produce at farmers markets, that’s just not true. Selling homegrown tomatoes or potatoes does not require a license–or does it?

While the article also relates that Hepper “concedes that the state and the hundreds of community farmers market associations throughout the state could better educate and enforce these regulations and standards,” the question is how? (And by the way–hundreds? He must know about more markets than all of the rest of us combined.)

How can farmers market boards and even individual vendors educate on and enforce regulations that seem to be amorphous, subject to change, and impossible to get hold of in any layperson-usable form? These problems, coupled with generalizations and misinformation spread by state employees themselves, is serving to hamstring South Dakota’s burgeoning local food economy.

Regular readers of this blog know that I identify a strong local food economy not only with helping to save family farms and boosting the local economy as a whole, but also with food safety and security in uncertain times.

Unfortunately, our state government seems still to be languishing back in the “bigger is better” days, where small producers who actually grow or make food for people to eat get no (positive) attention, no respect, and no real support.

It’s true there are some really helpful people in state government, but what’s also true is that a lot of officials, faced with situations they’ve never encountered before, are making things up as they go along, and instead of taking a “let’s work this out together” approach, are falling back on an enforcement-only, “just shut the ‘problem’ down” tactic.

When I get yet another, “I don’t know what to do,” “they won’t call me back,” “we are losing vendors,” “we don’t want to be listed” e-mail from a farmers market manager or vendor, I wonder if state or local governments will ever figure out what folks in many other states did long ago–that farmers markets and local production are a huge benefit to the local and state economy.

I say it’s time for us vendors and customers and market personnel to go to Pierre and demand real support–support that doesn’t relegate us to a side-line or sub-title or add-on to some Dept. of Ag employee’s already over-filled plate. Yes, we need regulation–regulation that comes in an easy-to-read and readily accessible format–but we also need support.

We need support from people who have experience with building, growing for, and selling at markets, who know the rules, and who are willing to lobby on our behalf for regulations that encourage rather than discourage local production and marketing.

We need support that welcomes small producers and markets into the fold, instead of forcing them to hide out and hope they won’t be discovered–helping their local economies, providing safe and sustainable food for their friends and neighbors, and improving our state’s food security.

And if you want to get in on the process of drafting new regulations that support rather than discourage small producers and markets, contact Dakota Rural Action at 605.697.5204.

 

Economics of Sustainable Ag

Despite my desire to beat Cory to the punch this morning with a post about the FDA desire to limit the use of non-therapeutic antibiotics in livestock operations, a more pressing desire to put on a decent presentation at the Yankton Organic Field Days tomorrow has led me deep into the Series of Tubes researching the economic sensibility of sustainable farming.

Yep–that’s one of my two presentations tomorrow (the other’s on CSA)–somehow I roped myself into it after expressing a desire to attend such a presentation and being told that our dear Ag Economist friends at SDSU don’t have the hard figures to present such a lecture.

So li’l ol’ English instructor and small farmer me is doing some serious reading on the subject. I’m glad I have learned the usefulness of constructing an annotated bibliography before writing a research paper or presentation–that’s what I make my students do, and that’s what I’m doing now.  Looks like I’ll have a great new assignment example to post to my online classes!

What I’ve found in my reading is this: while there have been some studies on the social, economic, and environmental impacts of sustainable agriculture, there is a great need for larger studies with better measurement techniques.

Consider, for example, that many of the studies have assumed basic equality between conventional and organic/sustainable farms in terms of soil structure (tilth) and fertility without realizing that residual fertility means less fertilizer cost and better tilth improves soil’s ability to absorb and hold moisture–reducing run-off and leaching of nutrients, as well as irrigation costs.

Other studies have simply measured net yields and income without measuring input costs. Since one of the tenets of sustainability is to reduce outside inputs–that seems like a pretty important thing to measure–more important because one of the biggest costs on conventional farms is the outside inputs of fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides, etc.

Add GMO seed on top of that and the conventional costs really skyrocket. Of course, not every sustainable farmer saves their own seed–and with some crops, they run the risk of being sued for patent infringement by GMO seed companies if their neighbor’s GMO crop cross-pollinates with their own seed stock.

Measuring input costs is a huge factor in determining economic feasibility of sustainable farming practices because even if sustainable yields are lower (and the popular myth that organic/sustainable yields are lower is not necessarily true), drastically reduced input costs can mean much more of the crop’s value goes into the farmer’s pocket instead of to seed, fertilizer, and chemical companies, boosting the overall profit margin beyond that of conventional practices.

So my research is basically telling me there needs to be more research–but I think that’s a good thing.  More hard research on the benefits that any sustainable farmer can tell you about means more jobs, more good news, and a stronger movement in a positive, sustainable direction.

Despite the need for further research, I do feel confident that I’ll have enough hard facts and findings for a decent presentation tomorrow–and if any of those SDSU Ag Economists are there, I’ll be sure to share.

OK, back to work!

 

The Empty Table

Last week, I set up at the farmers market–not with vegetables, but with information and petitions on the Food Safety Enhancement Act.  I think it was disappointing to some of my regular customers that my table held books, papers, and a clipboard rather than veggies.

I can understand that.

Truth is, I don’t have a lot ready in the gardens right now–I planted heavily for the early spring, so that I’d have lots of greens and spring veggies for the first few weeks of the market, when the bigger truck farmers are generally just starting to do their heavy planting.

My spring harvest tapered off right about the time that the other farmers started bringing their produce in–pretty decent timing, though I am constantly encouraging others to plant “early and often,” so I’m not the only one with produce during the first few weeks.

Too, in keeping with my research and development goals this year, I planted some of my summer crops–beans, cucumbers, melons, squash–a little later than usual, so I could avoid the plague of cuke beetles and squash bugs that can really take over and destroy crops if the pests find the crops when they (or the crop) first emerge.

That has worked really well so far.  Coupling a later planting with moving the main squash and melon patch to a completely different area of the farm has drastically reduced the pest problem–I’ve only seen (and squished) three squash bugs and two of their egg clusters so far, and I haven’t seen a single cucumber beetle (or potato bug) so far.

I had to put the cucumbers in one of the main garden areas though–there just isn’t enough room yet on the far hill for all the cucurbits–but I planted them late, and under the row cover I’d had on the spring cabbage, and left the cabbage stumps there to rot.  I finally uncovered that row yesterday and set up some supports for the cukes–they’re doing great!

The beans I planted earliest of all were the shell/drying beans.  I’m really not sure how many of those I’ll sell–the point of that crop is to fill my own pantry with good organically grown dried beans–and to see if a couple of 45′ trellises will produce an adequate crop to do so.

The heirloom snap beans just got in a couple of weeks ago and are growing fast–but there’s not quite so much space devoted to those this year–most of them will go in the freezer after being roasted together with summer squash and sage.

I’d also like to reserve a fair number of sweet peppers on the plants this year to get them red and ripe before roasting and pickling strips of them in jars–I can’t get enough of those for sandwiches and salads, and at $4-5 a jar in the store, I think I can do it better and cheaper.

Tomatoes will go in the canner and freezer as usual–as many as I preserve, there’s never enough of them to last until the next year’s crop. What broccoli side-shoots I can get (after the plants developed hollow stems from the heavy rainfall and started rotting away) will also find their way to the freezer.

Does it sound like I’m being stingy with my harvest?  Does it seem like I ought to be bringing more to the market instead of squirreling it away in my own pantry?

Let me bring this post back full circle, then, to what I had on my table at the market last week: petitions calling for small/local producer exceptions in the Food Safety Enhancement Act and information about the Farm Beginnings sustainable farmer-training program starting this fall.

Then let me refer back to what I’ve been blogging about in the past couple of weeks: Monsanto, SDSU, and GMO wheat; farmland speculation by foreign countries and big investors; and again, the food safety legislation.

I spend a lot of my time doing research–thinking, learning, and writing about local food, small producer, and food security issues.  While there is a lot of positive and exciting news in those areas, there is also a lot of troubling news.

Without sounding too much like a “Repent-the-End-is-Near” nutjob, let me just say that I think more people and more small communities at the end of the supply lines should be more concerned about how (and how well) they are going to eat in the coming hard times.

Yes, I do think they are coming, and on a global scale.  You can point at a stock market rally to say things are getting better, but as far as I can see, those rallies tend to mean that someone cut a deal that made some rich people richer by costing other people their jobs, their livelihoods, their food supply, their lives.

No one likes to talk about doom and gloom stuff (OK, some people do), but we in South Dakota are living in a food desert at the end of a very long and complex supply network.  Even if, at the worst, food continues to come through that supply chain, it could get impossibly expensive.

And here we are, sitting on top of some of the most gorgeous farmland in the world, and we’re shipping off the bounty of that land to the ethanol plant, the corn syrup and partially-hydrogenated soy oil manufacturer.

I don’t have anything against the people who work the land growing corn and soy for a living, but I think we as individuals and as a community ought to seriously consider carving out some of that land to ensure a steady and adequate food supply (planting early and often), as well as a facility or two for the processing and storage of that food.

So, that’s pretty much what I do in my spare time–what I’m doing when I’m not teaching classes or puttering about in my own humble gardens.  I’m trying to encourage others to take up a fork and a spade, and fighting against those who would regulate or restrict  that fork and spade in the name of land speculation or food “safety” or a swanky new development.

But I know having a table full of petitions isn’t as fun as having a table full of shiny young summer squashes, glossy peppers, and bazillions of tender beans.

The most fun I had at last week’s market was this: I got some of those tender yellow beans from another vendor.  And I got a cherry pie, two sacks of new red potatoes, a bag of the best homemade laundry detergent ever, and some tiny little white onions because all I’m growing are yellow and red ones.

Then I went home and made a big salad of those beans and potatoes and onions, roasted in the oven, plus cherry pie for dessert. And then (with my mouth occasionally full of my dinner), I got on a hour-long conference call with other activists and organizers from five western states.

The call was a Western Organization of Resource Councils meeting about how we will approach our legislators with the best Food Safety Act amendments so that the beans and potatoes and onions–and yeah–the cherry pie, too–will not only still be there in the coming years, but hopefully there’ll be more for everyone.

So, without being too righteous about it (after all, I really don’t have that much ready in the gardens right now)–let me say that the empty table is a sort of subtle reminder about what can happen without people working behind the scenes for the rights and freedoms of small farmers and those who want a fresh, secure, and sustainable local food supply.

See you at the market!

 

The Newest (and Scariest) Speculation: Farmland

This morning’s perusal of articles posted by those I follow on Twitter yields this bit of potentially frightening news (and a hat tip to @CathyAtThe Fund for sharing).

In a post dated just yesterday, Chris Nelder at Energy & Capital asks, “Is Farmland the Trade of the Century?”

Legendary investor Jim Rogers has been all over the investing press this year, saying that farmland is his preferred vehicle. “If I’m right, agriculture is going to be one of the greatest industries in the next 20 years, 30 years,” he said in a March interview with CNBC. He is now the director of two funds which are developing new farmland in Brazil and Canada.

Major investors who have caught the farmland fever include George Soros and Richard Rainwater. A host investing houses like TIAA-CREF and BlackRock Investment Management have plowed serious cash into the sector as well.

Most recently, Qatar, Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, China, South Korea, and Egypt have all made the investing press for taking multi-billion dollar stakes in large tracts of farmland in relatively unexploited areas of the world, primarily in Africa and Asia. Not just because they like the investment outlook, but because they are worried about securing enough food to feed their own populations.

There are several serious problems with investors going after farmland as a great long-term investment–chief among which is that big influxes of cash into specific sectors drives up the price of the commodity–and it’s already hard enough for farmers to buy land.

Occasionally you can get an older farmer willing to help out a beginning one by offering a reasonable deal (contract for deed or the like)–but with wealthy investors waiting to plunk down large sums of cash–how is a young farmer going to compete–especially when retiring farmers want some comfort after their long years of toil?

Too, driving up the price of land tends to drive out the existing farmers–either by raising taxes (and our state has done some work on mitigating this through a tax on production value rather than land value) or by boxing in producers, so they can’t expand.

On our recent trip West River, my fellow farmer and I spoke to a woman at the Ghost Town and Rock Shop in Okaton, South Dakota. A little Wiki: “As of the 2000 census, the population was 29. Okaton has a closed school, a tourist ghost town, a gas station, and a crumbling grain elevator on the nearby abandoned train tracks.”

During our conversation with the woman, who helps run the little tourist spot, she mentioned that her family has a ranch nearby, and she also has four sons.  But the ranch isn’t big enough for all four of them to make a living there with their families.  They’d like to expand, but Ted Turner has bought up so much land there it has boxed them in and driven up land prices throughout the region.

MULLEN, Neb. — Ted Turner’s men didn’t flinch. As the price climbed past $8 million, $9 million, $9.5 million, they continued bidding at a rapid-fire pace.

When the auction was over, they walked away with what they came for: 26,300 acres of prime ranch land, at a cost of nearly $10 million.

“It hasn’t taken long to find out he’s serious,” said Duane Kime, a rancher and Turner neighbor who was outbid by about $100,000 by the CNN founder.

But what exactly is Turner serious about?

The question gnaws at folks here and in other rural areas of the country where people once thought the billionaire just wanted to play cowboy.

Turner has amassed 2 million acres over the past two decades to become the largest private landowner in the country. He owns land in at least nine states, with most of his holdings in New Mexico, Nebraska, Montana and South Dakota, and is restoring buffalo, cutthroat trout, wolves, black-footed ferrets and other flora and fauna that filled the Plains before the West was won.

His front men say their boss doesn’t have a secret agenda — he just wants to be a rancher. But each big buy only heightens the anxiety and gives rise to conspiracy theories, the most ominous of which hold that the swashbuckling Atlanta executive is bent on putting Nebraska ranchers and farmers out of business. [AP via Fox News. "Ted Turner's Land Purchases Generate Suspicion." 28 November 2007].

Turner’s buy-ups aren’t new, but they do give a pretty good idea of what happens when big money interests start grabbing up our most precious resource. While Ted may be doing some good work for the environment, ranchers who own the land they ranch (and farmers who own the land they farm) are by and large the best stewards of that land. And when big money gets involved, farmers and ranchers can’t compete.

On a global scale, I can’t help but think about what happens if there are food shortages in the countries that are snatching up farmland in other countries–and what happens if there are food shortages in the countries where much of the prime farmland is owned by other countries or outside interests.

Let me give an example: Say the mythical country of A buys up a lot of prime farmland in mythical country B and starts growing food on B’s soil to export to and feed the citizens of A.  What happens if there’s a food shortage in B (especially likely due to a lack of prime farmland, which has been bought up by A)? Do you think B’s residents are going to respect A’s fence around property in B’s country when they are starving?

And what about security in a time of need?  Will B allow A to import military forces, or even private security, to protect A’s crops from B’s starving people? And what would that do to the political stability of B if that was allowed?

I think it’s pretty easy to project the violence and instability this new colonialism will cause, nevermind the most important bit about a country using its own land to feed its own people.  Or are we so beyond that simple concept in a global economy?  Try telling that to the starving masses.

Some final thoughts on the farmland buy-up.  Investors think in terms of returns, and in most cases, investors are thinking about fairly quick returns–not fairly low but sustainable-over-the-long-haul returns.  Farming that stresses quick returns is farming that depletes resources and destroys land.

Too, if investors think that they can simply buy up land, displacing the farmers and ranchers who live and work there, and then hire them back as wage slaves, they don’t know farmers very well at all.  Those who have stuck it out can be a seriously ornery and independent folk, and they consider themselves learned professionals, not hired lackeys.

The managers and workers who get hired on to replace real farmers aren’t going to give a damn about the long-term health of the soil or the land, nor are they likely to care that much about the nutritional value and safety of the crops grown on that land. They’re going to simply try to make the boss happy by producing as much as they can to maximize profits.

In the end, there are a couple things that might save us from the nightmare this farmland grab could easily become.  The first is that farming is a risky business–and investors are used to “managed” risk.  But, how do you adequately manage risk in an environment and climate that is increasingly unstable and unpredictable?

And yes, you can insure–but what good does insurance do you if what you really need is food?  Let me cite my favorite of all Wendell Berry quotes here: “What could be more superstitious than the idea that money brings forth food?”

Because of the inherent nature of massive speculation (that is, it forms a price bubble, which eventually bursts), it also could be that after a few years of outrageously high prices, the price crashes back down below where it is now–offering an even better opportunity for young farmers to get onto the land.

But given global climate change and its projected impact on the global food supply–to sit back and hope that in a few years this will all blow over, and we can get back to the business of recruiting young farmers and producing decent food seems more risky to ALL of us than a credit default swap could EVER be.

 

You Think E Coli Spinach is Scary?

Then check out this article on what’s going on in California’s major agricultural regions.

In a quest to provide the “safest” mass-produced products, major distributors are forcing the farmers who wish to sell to them (and who may be under contract to do so) to bulldoze ponds, poison wildlife, and rip out riparian buffer zones in an attempt to make their fields more “sterile.”

Dick Peixoto planted hedges of fennel and flowering cilantro around his organic vegetable fields in the Pajaro Valley near Watsonville to harbor beneficial insects, an alternative to pesticides.

He has since ripped out such plants in the name of food safety, because his big customers demand sterile buffers around his crops. No vegetation. No water. No wildlife of any kind.[Lochhead, Carolyn. "Crops, ponds destroyed in quest for food safety." San Francisco Chronicle. 13 July 2009.]

These draconian measures are a preemptive means of complying with the forthcoming Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009 (H.R. 2749–pdf alert!) and a scramble to make the industrial food system seem safer.

But the measures being taken are not going to make it safer, and the measures being taken are not based on sound science. In fact, the heavy-handed measures being demanded by large processors in many cases can only be extrapolated based on what is happening in the landscape, because they are a secret–”proprietary information.”

Large retailers did not respond to requests for comment. Food trade groups in Washington suggested calling other trade groups, which didn’t comment.

Chiquita/Fresh Express, a large Salinas produce handler, told the advocacy group Food and Water Watch that the company has “developed extensive additional guidelines for the procurement of leafy greens and other produce, but we consider such guidelines to be our confidential and proprietary information.”

The growers are being told to comply if they want to sell, but the public is not allowed to know just what is being done to the land and their food in the name of safety.

“It’s all based on panic and fear, and the science is not there,” said Dr. Andy Gordus, an environmental scientist with the California Department of Fish and Game.

Preliminary results released in April from a two-year study by the state wildlife agency, UC Davis and the U.S. Department of Agriculture found that less than one-half of 1 percent of 866 wild animals tested positive for E. coli O157:H7 in Central California.

Frogs are unrelated to E. coli, but their remains in bags of mechanically harvested greens are unsightly, Gordus said, so “the industry has been using food safety as a premise to eliminate frogs.”

Farmers are told that ponds used to recycle irrigation water are unsafe. So they bulldoze the ponds and pump more groundwater, opening more of the aquifer to saltwater intrusion, said Jill Wilson, an environmental scientist at the Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board in San Luis Obispo.

Wilson said demands for 450-foot dirt buffers remove the agency’s chief means of preventing pollution from entering streams and rivers. Jovita Pajarillo, associate director of the water division in the San Francisco office of the Environmental Protection Agency, said removal of vegetative buffers threatens Arroyo Seco, one of the last remaining stretches of habitat for steelhead trout.

This is what the industrial food system has wrought, and this is what the Food Safety Enhancement Act will make common practice.

Not only that, but the food safety legislation doesn’t differentiate between these massive-scale growers and processors, and someone like me: growing on a small, well-managed acre and selling direct to customers–many of whom I know by name.

I don’t need environmentally destructive field management, growing, and packing guidelines to keep from poisoning my neighbors. I need to care–and I do.

Seattle trial lawyer Bill Marler, who represented many of the plaintiffs in the 2006 E. coli outbreak in spinach, said, “If we want to have bagged spinach and lettuce available 24/7, 12 months of the year, it comes with costs.”

Still, he said, the industry rules won’t stop lawsuits or eliminate the risk of processed greens cut in fields, mingled in large baths, put in bags that must be chilled from packing plant to kitchen, and shipped thousands of miles away.

“In 16 years of handling nearly every major food-borne illness outbreak in America, I can tell you I’ve never had a case where it’s been linked to a farmers’ market,” Marler said.

“Could it happen? Absolutely. But the big problem has been the mass-produced product. What you’re seeing is this rub between trying to make it as clean as possible so they don’t poison anybody, but still not wanting to come to the reality that it may be the industrialized process that’s making it all so risky.”

If you care about the environment and truly safe and sustainable food production, please take a moment to call or write your legislators on this dangerous piece of legislation working its way through the House of Representatives.

 

Beginning Farmer and Rural Community Workshops

Beginning Farmer Workshops on Available Farm Bill Programs

When and Where:
Tues., July 14th – Yankton
10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m
Yankton Area Arts/G.A.R Hall
508 Douglas

Tues., July 14th – Brookings
6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
Co!  onwood Bistro
Brickwood Plaza
1710 Sixth St

Wed., July 15th – Sioux Falls
12:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.
Landscape Garden Center
26971 Minnesota Ave
(3/4 mile south of 69th and
Minnesota)

Refreshments Provided!

Sponsored by The Center for Rural Affairs
and Dakota Rural Action
RSVP : Call Virginia  at  402-687-2103, Ext 1017 or email virginiaw@cfra.org.
For more info: www.cfra.org

 

Food Safety Bill will Shutter Farmers Markets

But the response can’t just come from small producers and vendors.

There has been a lot of hullabaloo about the various versions of food safety legislation working through Congress, and there has been a lot of misinformation and misunderstanding.

I haven’t posted on this matter before now for a couple of reasons.  It has taken me some time to sort through all the e-mails, information, and actual text of the bills.  I’ve also been pretty busy actually growing food for my family and the local market.

The Western Organization of Resource Councils (WORC) has a good fact sheet (pdf alert!) on the newest version of the food safety bill, H.R. 2749, the Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009. The bill essentially sets up one-size-fits-all federal oversight for ALL producers, even those selling only direct to consumers in local markets.

The oversight includes FDA standards for growing, sorting, packing, transporting, and holding of raw agricultural products no matter the size of the producer or the locale of the market, registration (with fees) and inspection of premises engaged in processing food no matter their size, and mandatory recordkeeping and electronic filing for all those producing agricultural goods to be eaten by people.

The bill, as it stands, is a big, elaborate, and expensive mound of red tape for producers to wade through, which once again benefits large producers who can afford to pay fees and hire staff while eliminating competition from the little guys (and gals) who don’t have the time or the profit margins to add one more thing to their plates.

The reason for the Food Safety Enhancement Act is obvious–there have been way too many outbreaks of food-borne illness in this country, and they have been vexing to trace with the elaborate supply lines used by large-scale food producers.  But the Bill doesn’t discriminate between those who have been responsible for the outbreaks and those who are selling good, clean food to local markets on a small scale.

I reject this level of government oversight, and I’ll bet there are a lot of other small producers who feel the same way.  The people who buy food from me know where it comes from, and the USDA and the IRS both know I’m farming, too–I fill out the Census of Ag, and I report my farm earnings on my taxes. I also remit state and local sales tax on what I sell.

One of the reasons I don’t pursue organic certification of my crops is that I’m not interested in having to report to the federal government about the food I grow and how I grow it–though I’m happy to show any of my customers who ask. I’m not interested in paying more fees and keeping more records other than those that improve my crops and my practices.

I’m interested in growing healthy, safe, nutritious food for my family and my community and finding more ways to increase the sustainability and positive environmental impact of my farm. If the government says I can’t sell that food in a local market without paying their fees, filling out their electronic records, and working under their close scrutiny, I will simply quit growing food for market.

And I’ll bet you’ll hear the same thing from a lot of other independent-minded small producers, too.  Oh, we’ll keep growing for ourselves, of course, but I don’t think it’s outrageous to suggest that many producers will quit selling and many farmers markets will be a shadow of their former selves or shutter completely if this thing goes through.

If you buy local food; eat local food; or just want to keep small farmers in business for the good of your local, regional, and yes, even national economy; I suggest you take action on this bill.  Read the fact sheet, write, call, or e-mail your representatives, and get the word out.

You can also visit the Western Organization of Resource Councils’ website, www.worc.org, for more information.

We do need food safety legislation, but that legislation’s weight should fall on those whose complex systems and lax oversight are causing the problem.

 

Farm Beginnings Training Program in Brookings

From the Dakota Rural Action Press Release:

“Farm Beginnings” Training Program Offered in Brookings

Dakota Rural Action is now accepting applications for Farm Beginnings®, a farmer-led training and support program that will be held in Brookings beginning this October.  Farm Beginnings provides participants an opportunity to learn first-hand about low-cost, sustainable methods of farming and gives them the tools to successfully launch a profitable farm enterprise.

Deadline for application is August 31, 2009, and class size is limited.  To learn more about the program and receive an application, contact Dakota Rural Action at (605) 697-5204 or email heidiku@dakotarural.org.

“Farm Beginnings would benefit anyone interested in building a solid and sustainable business plan,” says Sarah Trone, a small-scale organic food producer and farm-to-table restaurateur from Brookings, who serves in a leadership role for the course.  “Whether farmers are just at the dreaming stage of a farm business or well established and looking to grow in fresh ways, Farm Beginnings offers participants the opportunity to establish a solid foundation for their agricultural endeavor.”

“It’s exciting that farmers can help other farmers get started in the business,” says Rebecca Terk, who operates a small vegetable farm near Vermillion and will serve as a course presenter for the program.  “There’s a growing demand for local produce, meat, eggs, and other products and there’s simply not enough farmers to meet that demand.  This program can help get new farmers started where there is a strong and growing market for their products.”

Farm Beginnings participants learn goal setting, financial planning, business plan creation, alternative marketing and innovative production techniques.  Classes are taught by local farmers and agricultural professionals and held twice a month from October 2009-March 2010 in Brookings.   From April-August participants have the opportunity to take part in on-farm education components including skill sessions and farm tours, as well as connect with established farmers for additional mentorship if desired.

Kristianna Gehant, a garlic and egg producer from Astoria, took the Farm Beginnings course in Minnesota last year.  “Participating in Farm Beginnings helped focus our goals for the farm and gave us the tools to plan a profitable enterprise.  As our operation grows, we continue to reference the whole farm plan we developed, and the Farm Beginnings network of experienced farmers continues to be a great asset when we need advice or feedback on production questions. Farm Beginnings gave us a valuable foundation to build our farm enterprise.”

A fourth generation farmer from Marion, Larry Eisenbeis became involved in bringing the course to South Dakota because he has witnessed a lack of new people pursuing farming as a career.  “Farm Beginnings can help provide answers for folks who are looking for new ways to make a living with the resources we have in this place.  This course helps farmers conscientiously make plans and formulate goals. Because it’s farmer-led, participants build on the real-world experiences of established farmers, and farmers in return have the opportunity to mentor the next generation.”

Farm Beginnings® is an established curriculum developed over a decade ago by the Minnesota-based Land Stewardship Project that is now replicated in several different states, including IL, NE, ND, and NY.  Dakota Rural Action has adapted the curriculum to meet the needs of South Dakota farmers.

Dakota Rural Action is a grassroots family agriculture and conservation group that organizes South Dakotans to protect our family farmers and ranchers, natural resources, and unique way of life.

CONTACT:    Heidi Urlacher, Organizer, Dakota Rural Action, 605/697-5204, heidiku@dakotarural.org

Dakota Rural Action

PO Box 549

Brookings, SD 57006

www.dakotarural.org

www.sdlocalfoods.org

Phone: (605) 697-5204

Fax: (605) 697-6230