Four Seasons

A new blog at Farm Fresh Rhode Island

2007-11-17T22:16:00.000-05:00

If anyone is still following – it sure has been awhile! – venture with me to a new blog. More focused on Rhode Island farms and food. Much, much less comment spam. [Farm Fresh Rhode Island blog]

2005-04-06T10:18:00.000-04:00

Four Seasons will be in hiatus mode for the next week or so while we devote our lives to searching Google Scholar. So many journal articles, so little time. But we'll try to spread the joy with some links sifted from our e-mail and web procrastination...

Agricultural empowerment and food security in impoverished areas of Kenya. It's part of Jeffrey Sachs' ambitious plans at the UN Millennium Project discussed in yesterday's NY Times. There was also a great write-up on the project in last November's NY Times Magazine.

With oil prices climbing, is local ag the hot stock to own? James Kunstler gives the A to Z on our coming energy conundrum and places some bets in an adaptation from his new book, The Long Emergency.

The energy cost issue is given a look in yesterday's notes from Farm Policy. Keith also delineates the latest talk about increased farm subsidies for enviro stewardship, though it seems there may be more politicking to it than follow-through. Show me the money.

It's finally that time of year. Time for the Feast of the First Asparagus. But even if you don't appreciate the after-smell of asparagus, there's some really nifty stuff going on at Gettin' the Right Eats.

'Tis also the season for rhubarb. And a hotel in Scotland sure knows how to celebrate the occasion. The plant is gorgeous.

In a followup to a post on Kraft's family of "organic" brands, there's a great article out there by Phil Howard from 2003. "Consolidation in Food and Agriculture: Implications for Farmers and Consumers" has a nifty web of the major corporate mamas and papas of organic brands. Jen of life begins @ thirty also noted that Green Digit has its own little black book.

It's not noted in those articles, but I find it very twisted that Dean owns Horizon, Silk, and most of the "regional" milk brands in the country.

If you haven't discovered Google Maps' satellite photos, it's the time waster you've been waiting for. There are probably some pretty impressive farmland views-from-above waiting to be discussed. Don't know how often they'll be updating the photos, but it would be neat to see seasonal change. (via kottke)

And there are some great local food /sustainable agriculture events going on in the Northeast over the next month...

All together now: mapping local foodsheds

2005-04-02T14:11:00.000-05:00

The Neighborhood Project is using data from craigslist housing postings to generate neighborhood lines in San Francisco. A script builds a map that color-codes the street address of the house in a listing with the neighborhood as defined by the poster. The results are here and pretty nifty. Neighborhood dynamics are notoriously social constructed. Areas often shift in identity in response to demographics changes (i.e. et voila, presenting Greenwich Village's long lost cousin, the East Village) and real estate marketing strategies (i.e. whatever Columbia touches magically becomes Morningside Heights instead of Harlem). Anyway, the map offers an interesting glimpse of how SFers self-identify. (via fab via craigblog)

Sure, it's great to look at how community is performed in our post-modern world, you say, but how does it relate to food? Outside of the Neighborhood Project's neighborhood focus, it's a really great example of leveraging distributed computing to better organize the otherwise overwhelmingly information of the web. The map depends of the collective work of thousands of people who each put up a housing listing, though they contributed without any extra effort (or intention, for that matter).

Now think of a website like Local Harvest that has listings from hundreds of small farmers across the US, or even the world. If those farmers posted what they were growing and when it was in season on the site, local foodsheds could be easily mapped. A local foodshed is marked by by the flow of a food item from where it is grown to its point of consumption and varies by the season. Sure, the information is out there as text across many different webpages, but the visuals of a map that makes it more compelling. From the Wisconsin Foodshed Research Project:

How might alternatives to our existing food system be organized at the local and community levels? How much food can a given region provide? Can local food systems meet nutritional needs and provide food security for everyone?

People living in the same foodshed can become a community for change that can collectively support and sustain the producers most local to it, as well as cultivate new producers to match demand. Bostonian to Providencian: "Wow, look! We're in the same foodshed for organic carrots in March. Let's work with a regional farm to start a buying co-op or winter CSA!" There are oodles of possibilities.

Hump-day et ceteras

2005-03-30T10:45:00.000-05:00

I've been pretty busy with work lately. Here are some of the fruits of my productive procrastination:

A slideshow of the lifecycle of coffee bushes at a Costa Rican coffee plantation in the Tarrazu River Valley

Not enough farmers to keep up with the demand for farmers' markets, says USDA radio (mp3 audio)

An anecdotal look at Bette Midler's financial rescue of NYC community gardens and her continued engagement in greening the city through the New York Restoration Project

Spring has sprung: there were fiddleheads at Delicious Orchards yesterday, and apparently they've hit NYC too

Invasive fungi and aphids have shaped wine as we know it

An Earth Dinner on Earth Day, with 50 creativity cards to spark conservation and contemplation. The cards get at our connection with the food we eat in a playful way

Et cetera: Bread, GMOs, and the French

2005-03-29T10:58:00.000-05:00

Bread is without a doubt our Achilles heal, and so our ears perked up when The Fresh Loaf mentioned the new math that a new bakery in Oregon is doing:

Local Pinot Noir + Local Wheat = Salem Sourdough

Chef Frank Stitt of Highlands Bar and Grill in Birmingham, AL talked on Sunday with NPR's All Things Considered about fresh ingredients, farmers' markets, food as community-building, and the art of Southern cuisine

Yesterday, US Farm Policy discussed the latest on GMOs, focusing on a recent debate in Missouri over pharmaceutical rice and Syngenta's admission of releasing unapproved biotech corn into the wild. Resource Insights also recently made mention of the related USDA coverup, via sustainablog)

If you're looking for an interesting read on GMOs, check out Molecular Invasion by Critical Art Ensemble. It's a worthwhile manifesto that navigates between unaffected academics and radical activism in its tone. The authors argue for less corporate hush-hush and anti-biotech fear-mongering, and instead for more research transparency and public involvement. Their goal is informed debate and a populace that can differentiate between cases of unwarranted GMO fears and unjustifiable GMO risks. A good read, available online in PDF, though my eyes preferred its paper form. Also check out CAE's "Free Range Grain" project

Josh Friedland of The Food Section interviews four French food bloggers in an attempt to demystify American's latest intrigue with the Franco-food lifestyle. A few of the recurring themes are portion size, discipline, processed foods, exercise, being picky about freshness, and that we're not all so different

Meanwhile, On Healthy Living dispenses advice on seasonal eating

A victory garden in Texas to reduce our dependence on foreign oil

A blog to keep an eye on: Sustainable Table

Local Food Forum in Providence, RI - April 13-16

2005-03-27T15:07:00.000-05:00

There's a lot up Farm Fresh Rhode Island's sleeve:

Local Food Forum at Brown University in Providence on April 13-16. Strategies for improved community food security in southern New England. Featuring Anna Lappé, co-author of Hope's Edge and co-founder of the Small Planet Institute, and workshops on everything from local wine to farm-to-school programs to grassfed beef. It's free and open to the public.
Monday Market opens June 20 next to the central bus station in downtown Providence and promises to make local foods accessible to the thousands of commuters and government workers who pass by every day. This farmers' market is going to become a destination!

PS- A happy, hopefully pastel-less holiday to everyone celebrating!

Child Nutrition Act gets at obesity and small farms

2005-03-26T08:52:00.000-05:00

Piggybacking on US Food Policy's coverage of childhood obesity and the on-going federal budget debates that have legislators looking at other farm-related programs to cut instead of subsidies...

When Congress passed the Child Nutrition Act in 2004, it passed a Farm to Cafeteria program under the name "Access to Local Foods and School Gardens" (Section 122). According to the Community Food Security Coalition, the program would provide seed grant funds to schools to facilitate the purchase of locally grown food for school meals:

Section 122 authorizes a grant program for schools to receive funds of up to $100,000 to assist with the start-up costs of a farm to school project. These competitive, one-time grants will allow schools to purchase adequate equipment to store and prepare fresh foods, develop vendor relationships with nearby farmers, plan seasonal menus and promotional materials, and develop experiential nutrition education related to agriculture.

Sounds exactly like what we should be encouraging in our schools.

It's estimated that about $5 million would be needed to get it off the ground, but Congress has yet to fund the program. Here are the obligatory links about how to contact your senators and representative.

A stew to drag out winter by its feet

2005-03-25T08:45:00.000-05:00

I'm definitely growing impatient with winter. Yesterday was windy and bitter in Providence, and we got a fresh coat of slush on the ground. But yet another gray day was a great excuse for chili. Armed with MA-grown rutabagas from the latest Urban Greens order, an orange fresh from a friend just-returned from her family's California grove, and 7 different kinds of beans, I set off to make a hearty, slow-cooked meal. Plus, it didn't hurt that there were stewed tomatoes waiting patiently in my freezer from last fall.

This chili is like a red raincoat, protective against the elements and visually catchy, and its citrus flavor offers the hint of a wonderful spring in the making. The recipe is pretty simple, go-with-the-flow-ish. I made a huge pot, but I've tried to adjust down the portion sizes:

1.5 cups dried beans of as many kinds as you can get your hands on (kidney, garbanzo, adzuki, black, black-eyed, pinto, navy, green lentils) -- go wild, it will look prettier for it
1 decent rutabaga
1 onion
1 orange
1-2 cloves of garlic
1.5 cups stewed tomatoes (with parsley, rosemary, basil)
salt and pepper to taste

1. Soak whatever mix of beans you'd like in 3x the amount of water for a couple of hours or overnight.

2. When you're ready to cook, drain the beans (reduces later flatulence) and add another 2-3x the water. Then set atop the stove so it barely simmers.

3. Add onions, anywhere between diced and sliced depending on your preference.

4. Add minced or thinly sliced garlic.

5. Add rutabagas. I sliced them into thin 1/2"-ish squares and I left the skin on (washed) because it all gets real soft. Also I like a chili full of different textures and chunk sizes.

6. After 30-40 minutes, when the beans are fairly tender, add chunks of orange peel. They'll add a wonderful zesty flavor (it's almost spring after all) and float to the top so they're easy to scoop out after. Et voila you now have an orange to snack on. You can also add a bit of lemon juice (to the chili) to stem any color bleeding.

7. Add frozen tomato stew and mix around while it dethaws. (To make tomato stew, slice fresh tomatoes with fresh parsley, basil, and rosemary and add the same amount of water. Let it all lightly simmer for 5-6 hours, stirring every hour or so until you have a semi-liquidy, mostly-tomato... stew! A great way to make summer last into the colder months!) You probably wouldn't be disqualified for using canned tomatoes and dried spices, but it might be worth waiting 'til tomato season.

8. Let the stew-to-be continue on a low heat (depending on your patience) until it's as thick as you desire. If you're in a rush, you can also add green lentils at almost any point and they'll absorb a bunch of the water.

9. Add salt and pepper to taste. The flavor punch of the chili really comes from the vegetables as they slow-cook. Not particularly spicy, but if that's what you prefer it's just a few jalapenos away!

Congress tries to cut sustainable ag programs

2005-03-24T16:23:00.000-05:00

Instead of cutting farm subsidies to ag giants, Congress is looking to save money by eliminating funding aimed at sustainable farming. From Roger Doiron of the Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Working Group:

The Conservation Security Program (CSP) is a promising new federal program that rewards farmers for their conservation efforts. Its passage in the 2002 Farm Bill represents one of the sustainable agriculture movement’s greatest victories in recent memory. CSP also happens to be a great program for the Northeast in that, over time, it will become available to all farms including the small, diversified ones that tend to characterize our region. As it’s a new program, there’s some concern that it offers the easiest target for cuts in the 2006 budget.

It looks to be a promising program, if it's not nipped in the bud.

Your Congressperson (or their diligent staffers, more likely) is only a call away... the National Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture has made some quick facts about the budget cuts available

Hump day et ceteras

2005-03-23T11:11:00.000-05:00

Bitter Greens Journal, a superb and belated addition to our bookmarks, points to an article back from when government organic standards were wee babes. It brings up many of the same issues that are relevant to sustainable food systems today.

Tropical envy: Countdown to mango season in the Philippines

Authentic foods are all the buzz. "People now want food with a place, a face and a taste."

A Chattanooga, TN mayoral candidate (who has the misfortune of sharing an infamous name) has a vision of local foods and a walkable city

Eco-friendly weddings with locally grown vittles. Yet another reason, at least in the Northeast, that summer is the season for weddings (via Wedding-Dress-Guide)

Locally grown strawberries nourish bikers cross-country trip from San Diego to Florida (They're in Texas now)

Taco Bell boycott ends after 4 years: Yum Brands agrees to pay 1 cent more per pound of tomatoes

The gender roles of the land

2005-03-22T17:41:00.000-05:00

After describing rock dust as Viagra for plants in the last post, I came to ponder the gender roles that we assign to farmland and how it affects discourse and perceptions of the corporate vs. local debate. It's no giant leap to see that land is usually given feminine qualities: virgin, fertile, barren, nurturing. It is big ag, the farmers, and [his] machines that are workhorses, plowers, industrial. (Leave the nurturing to the gardeners.) The patriarchal powers that be (TPPTB), society at large included, are comfortable with the male dominating the female, with big ag dominating the fields.

So would turning the current gender roles discourse on its head simultaneously produce a stronger public backing for sustainability and family farming? "Land once virile is now being castrated by the pesticides and monoculture that nurture corporate agriculture's profit scheming." Or perhaps, "needy monoculture practices and dramatic pesticide use by corporate ag have really been a bitch for the virility of the land." If it sounds funny, maybe there's just too much momentum going for the current gender roles our culture has assigned to nature and industry?

The future is rock dust

2005-03-22T10:46:00.000-05:00

Can the byproduct of quarrying be nature's own super-fertilizer? Two Australians think so:

"By spreading the dust we are doing in minutes what the earth takes thousands of years to do - putting essential minerals in the rocks back into the earth."

Like Viagra for plants. Anyhoo, if any North American farmer out there has had success with rock dust, Billie Best of the Regional Farm and Food Project wants to hear from you.

Food and environmental justice

2005-03-21T10:45:00.000-05:00

Environmental Justice (EJ) is the right of every community to a healthful quality of life. If you look at the disparities between poor/minority communities and monied/white communities when it comes to obesity incidence and access to fresh/nutritional foods, it is clear the food is an EJ issue. There has been a lot of excellent writing in the past weeks on various food-related pieces of the very vast EJ puzzle.

Even before a study came out this past week suggesting that obesity could shave 2-5 years off of the average American lifespan, US Food Policy was cooking up a storm on the obesity issue. He's been looking at the marketing of processed foods to children, the lack of nutritional food options in schools, and the inadequacy of public health preventions or insurance coverage.

Meanwhile, life @ thirty pointed us in the direction of an article that describes redlining practices that create food insecure communities. Many neighborhoods are devoid of supermarkets, and others have a miniscule selection of the produce that was not up to par for supermarkets in wealthier areas.

She also has written about the pitfalls of industrial organic. Formed in response to high profit margins, big organic ag tends to have a lack of concern for affordability -- not exactly a future with an organic carrot on every dinner plate. Patronizing the organic label without concern for whether it's coming from a sustainable local farms (most of the produce in the Northeast is from California or beyond) also has EJ consequences. It means fewer farmers' markets in food insecure neighborhoods and fewer donations of fresh produce to local food pantries. The dented boxes of fruit rollups and expired Cheetos bags that are often donated en masse to soup kitchens are not exactly... well you get the idea. But great ideas are being put into motion, the folks at Elijah's Promise more-than-a-soup-kitchen in New Brunswick, NJ get it and I'd surmise they're not the only ones.

Weekend reads: Local across the globe

2005-03-19T13:53:00.000-05:00

Wow. You might be sick of all of the good news coming out of the UK. But this new Eat Anglia site is really amazing, tackling the inconvenience factor by delivering local foods directly to homes within a 20-mile radius of the East Anglia region's center.

Gothamist reminds us that springtime means maple syrup time in northern New England and confesses their love for the organic side of McDonald's -- "would you like local yogurt with that?"

Making the connection between local foods, transportation, and CO2 emissions in Japan

Bringing the local Malaysian food culture onboard a Russian space mission

Sustainable farming models in the Philippines

Weekend reads: Whole Foods watch

2005-03-19T13:15:00.000-05:00

Positive reaction to Whole Foods' move into Union Square this week: WNYC radio, NY Times

900 underground parking spots and 80,000 square feet later, a flagship Whole Foods themepark opens in Austin: A local TV station did before and after opening videos. The press is eating up and printing ridiculous quotes like their VP saying, "We have... over a hundred people cooking literally from every culture in the world." But if you can't laugh at that, there's always this. In all seriousness though, the high prices and elitist image that Whole Foods cultivates, in combo with media attention like this, do create a perception that organic ag can/should never be accessible to the masses.

Watch out Europe, here they come: a British invasion

Small farms redux and America's food fears

2005-03-18T10:58:00.000-05:00

Last week we mentioned a NYT op-ed by agricultural economist Bruce Gardner that argued that small farms in America are vibrant and healthy. Since then, there have been several letters to the editor suggesting that the op-ed was an exercise in selective statistics. Many "farms" may be inactive but classified as such for tax benefits. Horse farms now count as farms in NY, which has padded the numbers. And another letter argues that it is the loss of medium-sized farms to consolidation that we should be worried about.

And speaking of worry, one of Gardner's papers from last year is entitled, U.S. Food Regulation and Product Differentiation: Historical Perspective. He chronicles America's food fears and the government regulations that have resulted, which he notes have often intersected with the economic interests of certain industries. He also describes the fiscal inefficiencies that have resulted from many regulatory efforts.

But he seems to overlook many of the inefficiencies of the "efficient" industrial food system. It is very true that fear of pesticides is what often drives people to spend "whole paychecks" on organic food items. However, the public has good reason to scrutinize what they're eating (he notes the past use of lead to preserve peppers). Government standards, though imperfect, are often the only (though limited) assurance in a transnational food economy. Industrial production increases the use of chemicals for growing, processing and transport. And just as important, it means that consumers don't form a relationship with the person who grew/raised their food. That relationship would otherwise foster a personal trust in the quality of their food and help govern what they choose to buy. Without it, the fear and cynicism abound.

Health food industry web: Kraft

2005-03-16T11:10:00.000-05:00

Late last year, I remember walking through a supermarket and noticing a new brand of macaroni and cheese sitting next to Annie's on the shelf. I later found "Back to Nature" products all over the health food section of the store. Then, seemingly overnight, the brand popped up at other supermarkets in the area. With such a huge product line and such a strong distribution link, it seemed like some huge food co had to be behind the brand. And it is! It's a much smaller world out there than the supermarket shelves make it seem. We'll start with Kraft, majority owned by Philip Morris (AKA Altria), and there's enough ownership consolidation in the industry out there to make this an ongoing feature.

Kraft brands

Back to Nature - pasta, grains, cookies, cheese

Boca - burgers, fake meat

Starbucks - coffees in grocery stores (distributor)

Tazo teas - lattes, bottled drinks (distributor)

Balance - energy bars

Biodiversity threatened as pesticides flourish

2005-03-15T12:20:00.000-05:00

Monarch butterfly populations are at their lowest levels since records were first taken in the 1970s. As reported in the NY Times, it's partially due to industrial ag:

Hardier genetically altered corn and soybean crops in the United States and Canada, in the breadbasket areas that are the monarch's main summer conjugal grounds, have enabled farmers to use stronger herbicides to eliminate weeds. That has drastically depleted the supply of flowers on which the butterflies feed, as well as common milkweed, on which the monarch lays its eggs in the spring and summer and on which its larvae feed, several biologists say.

It's a slippery slope. The pesticides kill the flowers that are the monarch's main food supplies. That leads to lower monarch populations, which in turn results in fewer plant offspring due to the reduced availability of monarch pollinators. It's been happening for awhile now, but it's depressing nonetheless.

Seed swap photos

2005-03-15T10:20:00.000-05:00

Pictures are up from Sunday night's seed swap in Providence. Talk abounded about upcoming swaps in Worcester, MA. Seeds of all shapes and sizes found their way into eager new hands, but I'll let the pictures do the talking (sorry about the photo quality).

PS- Pics on the web don't do the scarlet runner beans justice. Their patterns and color are incredible.

Supermarket critique

2005-03-14T13:22:00.000-05:00

The Stop and Shop flier came late this week. They must have wanted to build up suspense for their weekly specials. I've seen low prices, but they're really going all out for St. Patrick's Day:

Green Cabbage: 19¢ per pound
Potatoes: 10 pounds for $3

Is it any wonder that small local farms can't compete?

On that note, another springtime idea I missed yesteday is joining a co-op or bulk buying club in your area. They're probably under the radar of many folks, but United Northeast's buying club list has locations practically everywhere in the Northeast and Midwest. And if there's not one by you, starting one is easy.

If you're looking for rants about corporate grocery stores, there's a pro small/indy food market blog calling your name.

(PS- For people in Providence, Urban Green buying club's next order is due this Thursday - local organic veggies and bulk staples await in just a few clicks of the mouse!)

Springtime ideas and projects

2005-03-13T12:15:00.000-05:00

Stock up on organic/heirloom seeds: Huge swap/potluck in Providence tonight at 6:30-8:30pm. Or search through online catalog: Seed Savers or Seeds of Change or Johnny's. Or ask a local farmer where they get theirs

Start a compost: Master Composter Guide (your town may even have free classes and bins)

Join a CSA: Local Harvest

Donate old garden tools and plastic 4 inch and gallon pots for transplanting to your local garden club.

Start a farmers' market: Workshops May 19-20 in NYC

In the name of fiber, eat your stalks and skins!

2005-03-11T11:05:00.000-05:00

I'm the kind of foodie that munches on a raw kale stalk until I can't chew through it anymore. And I discovered last night just how tasty the skins of boiled beets are (washed... not that a little dirt ever hurt anyone). And let's not get started on how healthful broccoli stalks and potato skins are. I like to explore the flavor nuances in every nook of the vegetable -- though some families like Solanaceae (nightshades), Rosaceae (not all almond-looking pits are almonds), and Apiaceae (carrot greens) do have no-trespassing areas.

However, it has come to my attention (mostly through jokes made on my behalf) that this is not normal. Just a few weeks ago a letter to The Ethicist asked, "can I break off and pay for only the mushroom caps," implying that the stem is unfit to bring home to the family. But there is hope for "extraneous" food. If you're one of those people not currently into the tops of leeks or squash skins, then perhaps the recipes at Expendable Edibles (via TastingMenu) may offer you some motivation.

Where we draw the boundary of edibility seems somewhat arbitrary. Beet greens are thought inedible, until you call them chard. My friend Adi took me by surprise two nights ago when she neglected to peel her kiwi and bit right in. Who knew? I suppose it's naive to think of this situation as arbitrary, though. In most cases it comes back to how sugary or effortless a bite is to chew, a great example being the watermelon's crisp white layer -- my layer of choice. And since it hasn't killed me yet, I think I'll continue my informal exploration of forbidden foods.

On the flip side, your compost is probably much better fed, and there's nothing wrong with giving some of what we reap back to the earth.

Compost as metaphor

2005-03-10T17:02:00.000-05:00

The March/April 2005 newsletter from AS220 compares artist communities to a compost heap, arguing for the crucial role of the collective group in each story of individual success:

They are places of cultural ferment. One can think of the conditions that produce art as akin to a compost pile. Compost contains a little bit of everything, all mixed up, and decidedly not neat. But everything in the pile contributes to the final product: rich soil in which to grow your vegetables.

Farming and conservation

2005-03-10T15:16:00.000-05:00

The most recent FoodNews e-newsletter points to a Minneapolis Star Tribune interview with Professor Richard A. Levins about the impact of farming policy [in Minnesota] on biodiversity and conservation. Not quite slash and burn but not exactly well planned.

Q: Certain farmers today who own land that traditionally has been untillable, can -- through the use of chemicals and genetically modified crops -- plant that land with the reasonable expectation it will be profitable relatively quickly, assuming that government support payments are made. This puts at risk some of the relatively few remaining unbroken wild lands we have.

A: Correct. What we have are situations that sometimes make sense for individuals but might not make any sense at all in the larger picture. That individual farmer you speak of, expanding his or her production of grain crops, today is not competing so much with a neighbor as with a farmer, say, in South America. The only way that battle can be won is by being the absolute lowest-cost producer in the world, which -- by the way -- is unlikely for an American farmer, or by depending on continued government supports -- which is also appearing to be less and less likely. Unfortunately, that farmer oftentimes does not have the option of government supports to use the land in ways that would meet some of our environmental goals. That's where the problem lies.

Fruit trees in public spaces

2005-03-09T14:18:00.000-05:00

Lucky Vancouverites will soon be seeing more apple, pear, chestnut, and hazelnut trees in public spaces. Besides just increasing access to deliciously fresh foods, the fruit tree project will also encourage chemical-free growing, food bank donations, exercise (and walking to get food also equals fewer emissions), and cold storage for year-round community food security. Wow, it sounds like a win-win-win...

Yesterday, WorldChanging noted a related effort by a group called Village Harvest in Santa Clara Valley, CA. And if you've been missing out on the other wonderful conversations at WorldChanging recently, then, well, you've been missing out.

Vermont maple syrup and Jersey tomatoes

2005-03-09T10:31:00.000-05:00

The supposedly controversial and subsequently censored PBS episode of Postcards from Buster has found its way online. The downloadable episode finds the bunny in Shelbourne, Vermont, where he visits a maple syrup farm and a local dairy. Too bad kids will miss out on knowing more about where their food comes from... though they can still learn about growing giant pumpkins in Oregon.

Vegetable or not, looks like the tomato is about to be claimed by New Jersey. There's something about the NJ soil and air that screams tomato, although being a native of the state, I may be a tad biased. Regardless, they picked the right Solanaceae as their mascot.

"Whose Safety Rules? Whose Standards?"

2005-03-08T10:55:00.000-05:00

Dr. Vandana Shiva examined the particulars of the 2005 Food Safety and Standards Bill in India in a recent article. She expresses worries about pesticides and processing, nutrition and biodiversity, GMOs and Monsanto, among other artifacts of industrial food production:

There is no reference in the objectives to most distinctive aspects of India’s food systems – indigenous science, cultural diversity and economic livelihoods in local food provisioning. Ninety nine per cent of India’s food is processed naturally and locally for local consumption and sale. Our science of food is based on Ayurveda, not the reductionist science which has treated unhealthy food as safe. This “free economy” that serves local community is governed by community control, and local culture, is now to be regulated by the centralized rules and standards appropriate for a 1% industrialized large scale manufacture. The “integrated Food Law” is a law to dismantle our diverse, decentralized food economy.

Also examined are the effects of our globalized food system on disease spread in humans and plants and other biosafety issues. Full text at Infoserve, which has recently posted a lot of GMO news from around the world.

Farm subsidy cuts may destabilize small farms' niche

2005-03-07T14:25:00.000-05:00

In today's NYTimes, Bruce Gardner, a former president of the American Agricultural Economics Association and the USDA's Chief Economist under President George HW Bush, offers his take on weak logic in the proposals to cut farm subsidies:

We have 2.1 million [farms], and the rate of decline has slowed to a trickle, with today's total essentially the same as that of 1990.
...
If large farms produce less of the bulk program crops that are subject to the limits (cotton and rice are the main ones affected), they will produce something else on their land, and that something else may well be the high-value crops that are more prevalent on today's small farms than on large ones.

Good points (and his analysis of the 2002 Farm bill is also an interesting read). There is definitely a stable dynamic that has developed over the years, with industrial farms producing huge quantities of low-margin cash crops and smaller farms filling in the blanks (though not always with high profit items, as he implies). However, for argument's sake, an interrelated reason that some crops are so low-margin may be the soil/machine/labor techniques that developed specifically to mass produce these crops. So only time will tell if it becomes financially/structurally prudent for monocrop farms to reorient to new crops.

If fewer big farms produce corn, prices may rise and result in a reduction in the amount of high fructose corn syrup and other corn products that appear in our diet. Maybe there would be enough money in corn for small farms to grow genetically diverse varieties or even organic corn (which is also impossible to find). On the big farms side of the tracks, maybe farms operated by General Mills will start growing quinoa. Now there's a nutritional thought, however unlikely.

Whole Foods' local potential

2005-03-06T21:54:00.000-05:00

Brian Halwell of the WorldWatch Institute wrote in the Sunday NYTimes about Whole Foods' move into Union Square. He argues that the chain is harmless because they can't compete with the allure of the Greenmarket. They also have the potential to increase availability and educate the public about the importance of eating local, although he concedes they have a long way to go.

Some cynical thoughts: Maybe they can start by paying local farmers a decent amounts for their produce? Given the chain's considerable markups, many farmers have been left less than thrilled by past transactions and now refuse to sell to Whole Foods. It's even been the case with at least one national health food brand. That's not to say that I don't shop at Whole Foods; among other reasons, they're the only place I've found to have origin labels on (most) veggies and tomatoes. But there's a whole bushel of improvements that we should be challenging them to.

Local is greener than organic

2005-03-06T11:20:00.000-05:00

The BBC picked up on a new research study, Farm costs and food miles: An assessment of the full cost of the UK weekly food basket in the journal Food Policy that found food grown within a 12 mile radius to be more economically and environmentally sustainable than non-local organic food. Speaking in these quantified terms, I'm curious what the break-even point for organic vs. local would be?

Responses from the blogosphere: WorldChanging reminds us that ideally we'd have access to organic local produce, Cascadia Scorecard distinguishes between personal health and global environment health, and Sustainablog muses on the mixed bag that is Whole Foods.

My two cents: Though it's not always the case, food grown on small farms with the intention of being consumed locally tends to be produced by relatively green means. Fewer pesticides and preservatives are needed since there is no intention of shipping it afar. Many small producers can't afford organic certification. Others may be in transition to organic standards (or are interested in learning more about them) and still need financial support to be able to make the leap. Organic standards also aren't right for every farm and not every organic farm is a model of environmental ethics. The best way to know how sustainable your food is still through talking to your farmer or visiting the farm. And if your local farmer isn't certified organic, ask why. You'll be constructively advocating for sustainable growing practices and learn more about the history of your food in the process.

Depressingly, the UK study ends:

However, localisation of food systems, such as we point to here, would require changes in the behaviour of actors and businesses across the whole supply chain, with localised geographic areas needing different patterns of land use to supply local markets and consumers. Some of these changes may lead to trade-offs and losses in overall system sustainability, or possibly losses in jobs in the freight or input supply industries. In addition, proximity alone may not be a good measure of sustainability, as a long journey on water has a lower impact than a shorter one by road. At the same time, though, globalising trends in food systems are likely to continue, making localisation harder and less likely to occur, despite the net economic benefits.

But on a brighter note, one of the study's authors advocates in the BBC article for a subject we've touch on in recent weeks, origin labeling:

Since supermarkets do know exactly where their food is coming from... they have a duty to inform their customers.

Amen. Seems Brits really loved their local this past week.

Weekend reads

2005-03-04T11:29:00.000-05:00

Worms and compost and fungi, oh my: A look at healthy soil and biodiversity

Monsanto watch: NC+ Hybrids, one of the top 10 national suppliers of corn seeds, is the latest buy out (third purchase in five weeks)

PA Sustainable Ag conference notes: "A network of local farms can be preferable and safer than being supplied only by large processing centers"

Rural poverty, machine/biotech, and the long-term viability of farming. Plus, on marker-assisted selection: “It is not simply about food and fibre production, but the source, worth paying for, of much of what is fundamental to mankind’s health, happiness and wellbeing”

Life on the farm is 24/7/365. The couple that runs my hometown organic farm in NJ recently attended a family wedding and spent their first night off the farm in 5 years.

A glass half-full in Alaska and half-empty in South Dakota

Local food mania at universities: 20-30% of the dollars that Bates spends on food now stays in Maine... at the same cost as a big national distributor

Court overturns Bush's changes to factory farm regulations: ruling reaffirms clean water standards and public notifications

Food-related social justice issues in the news

2005-03-02T11:09:00.000-05:00

USDA loan discrimination. As many as 66,000 farm workers were inadequately informed about the settlements from the successful Pigford v. Glickman civil rights case concerning racially related loan denial by the USDA. There was a Congressional hearing on Monday with testimony from Vernon Park of the USDA Civil Rights Office and Dr. John Boyd, president of the National Black Farmers Association (NBFA), among other advocates. [Environmental Working Group, Washington Post]

Harassment and no overtime. A 60-acre family farm in NY goes bankrupt to a pending lawsuit by workers. The farm's manager, Cheryl Rogowski, is not named in the lawsuit and has been honored numerous times for her efforts to help educate migrant and seasonal workers, both at her own farm and throughout the region.

Tomato sweatshops. A Taco Bell boycott has been launched by tomato pickers in Florida. The Washington Post describes:

"If they're lucky, the workers get to spend 12 hours on their hands and knees, filling buckets of tomatoes for 40 to 50 cents a bucket."

Will we ever bear the true costs of what we eat?

Inspiration in the Classroom

2005-03-01T10:25:00.000-05:00

Heidi of 101 Cookbooks has a great writeup on a school in Napa, CA that isn't skimpy when it comes to helping its students develop a strong appreciation for the food they eat. The Oxbox School envelops kids in a world of seasonal delight through culinary arts programs and classroom gardens sowed with vegetables, fruit, and herbs. Of course, it doesn't hurt that the school chef is from Chez Panisse.

Heidi also notes efforts in Philadelphia schools to reduce junk food portion and calorie size. We've previously noted similar anti-junk food efforts in NJ and NY. In a sense a much more humble goal than at Oxbow, but indeed a very different playing field.

Local food mania in the central UK!

2005-03-01T09:06:00.000-05:00

In a series of articles this week, the Birmingham Post will be promoting local eating in central England, after a recent poll found that "only 40 per cent of the region's restaurants bought most of their supplies from local producers, yet 65 per cent wanted to source more food regionally."

Today's edition of The Post examines the myth of higher prices (it all comes back to distribution quirks) and tips for chefs/restaurateurs from TV chef Alan Coxon. Yesterday, Prince Charles offered words of support to the paper's efforts.

The Post even has a contest going. Lucky Brits can win a hamper of locally grown produce. I'm kinda jealous.

Organic Dairy's Growing Pains

2005-02-28T17:38:00.000-05:00

Trouble in organic dairy land: "converting as much land as possible to organic" vs. "supporting small family farms" has pitted USDA/Horizon/Aurora against Stonyfield/Organic Valley/small farmers over what 'pasture' means. The National Organic Standards Board is meeting to discuss the issue this week.

Somewhat related Organic Valley is pitching in with the Help Wanted: Organic Farmers campaign targeting conventional growers in the Midwest

The Gospel of Yogurt

2005-02-28T11:09:00.000-05:00

Many agree, yogurt is one of nature's most wondrous foods. Busily tended to by bacteria eager to get at its milk sugars, yogurt is easily digestible and subtly sour at its prime. And yogurt is a survivor -- don't try this at home kids, but if left out for a few hours in mild temperatures or left for a month or two in your refrigerator, yogurt will probably still taste just great with granola. Call me crazy but I usually let it sit past the date on the lid just to squeeze out every last bit of sourness. Don't overlook its dynamic food genre scalability, either. Good mornings are made great with a mix of cereals, raisins, ground flax seed, and tea masala spices over a yogurt base. Later in the day yogurt is perfect for warming a winter evening: hand-mash a baked hubbard squash (you know, the one you've been keeping in cold storage) into your yogurt for a creamy delightful soup.

Which yogurt matters, too. Admittedly, my fridge currently sports 4 different brands of organic yogurt, though Seven Stars Farm yogurt is currently my heart and soul. It wins for its creamy yet not overly consistent texture, its simple ingredients list (milk + cultures), its eastern PA spunk, and its biodynamic organic farming practices. The biodynamic approach to farming integrates dairy and growing operations with composting, biodiversity, and soil/climate knowledge to maximize agricultural sustainability. (In other words, it's so "crunchy" already that you might not even have to add any granola). Milk-making is a year-round sport, but interestingly:

They've discovered that demand for 32-ounce yogurt is seasonal, with slow periods around Christmas and the summer holidays; a schedule that doesn't mesh particularly well with peak milk production, in May and June.

But don't knock yourself out looking for Seven Stars... there are wonderful local producers of milk and yogurt wherever you are in the country. If you're curious about biodynamic dairy, another brand in the Northeast is Hawthorne Valley (upstate NY). And a quick word of caution, avoid fat-free yogurts or you'll be left wondering what all the hoopla is about.

PS- Stonyfield blogs. Interestingly, their most popular blog is about a life on a family farm.

A funny thing happened on the way to the Farmers' Market

2005-02-25T18:41:00.000-05:00

"Gopher Broke," an Oscar-nominated animated short film, considers barriers to local food accessibility. Well, sort of... [full film at Salon, teaser at Blur Studios]

On a more serious note about issues facing local food economies, Brian Halweil, a senior research at the Worldwatch Institute participated in an online Q&A session yesterday on climate change. He recently wrote:

Farming may be the human endeavor most dependent on a stable climate—and the industry that will struggle most to cope with more erratic weather, severe storms, and shifts in growing season lengths.

Food industry consolidation news

2005-02-24T15:21:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, fruit distributor Chiquita bought Fresh Express, the nation's largest salad pack seller [AP]

Last week, Monsanto bought Emergent Genetics, the third-largest cotton seed company in US [Monsanto, AP]

Sigh, if only keeping food companies small was as simple as stroking them daily.

Meet me at the intersection of the Greenmarket and Whole Foods

2005-02-24T11:25:00.000-05:00

The Union Square Greenmarket is the most bustling farmers' market in New York City. If there's local food to be found during any season, it's here. This past Monday boasted breads, apples, eggs, pies, wheatgrass, jams, and hydroponically grown greens. During the warmer months it's not uncommon to find story after story in the NY Times dining section chronicling big-name chefs' daily trips to the market or sharing new food fashions fresh from the farmstands.

So it probably shouldn't have been such a surprise to find a sign across from the southern tip of the park, "Whole Foods: Coming March 2005." New Yorkers, after all, love Whole Foods and the image it sells. Though currently the only locations are in Chelsea and Columbus Circle, you'll find people proudly sporting the bags everywhere in town (and it's not as if the city suffers for health food stores).

So what will Greenmarket and Whole Foods cohabitation look like? Will it bring more people for the one-stop-shopping for all of their groceries? Or will Whole Foods' large-scale, cheaper, and often non-local produce/artisan selection siphon off customers from small-scale marketeers? Price wars between neighboring supermarkets are not exactly unprecedented, and I'm giving my vote for who will have the upper hand to Whole Foods.

Of course, it's not so simple. Whole Foods does try to stock locally when it's available, though they don't always try all that hard considering the price that they offer to farmers. And while many are staffed by family farmers who already have a tough time making ends meet, some stands at the Greenmarket clearly use the nostalgic-factor to exploit consumers (and the market has recently had some of its own issues). More grocery shoppers in Union Square would mean more buyers for farmers, and the expanded access and affordability of local produce is good news for consumers. Beyond money, you still can't go into a Whole Foods and find out about the growing history and flavor of the squash you're about to buy from the person who picked it off the vine.

It's still up in the air which canvas bag will be the one to be seen this summer.

Origin labels: the making of a smaller world

2005-02-20T12:40:00.000-05:00

I passed by a billboard for American Apparel last night in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. The most salient text in the ad is "Made in Downtown LA". A specific neighborhood, not just another [partially] Made in the [amorphous] USA. Many signified meanings spring forth from the American Apparel ad, one being that we should care about specific made-in locations, and it seems more and more people do.

Perhaps we (and especially New Yorkers) feel so isolated and disempowered by the consumerism that is central to this modern world that we yearn for that extra knowledge about where our otherwise commodity good is coming from and a glimpse (or hint to) the story behind it. Perhaps we jump at the opportunity to reclaim moral or just plain consumer control by shopping at the Union Square Greenmarket or buying produce that's marked in big letters as being local. Whole Foods marks its local produce with green signs and big letter noting which nearby state it is from (though they see more of your dollar than the farmer ever does). A recent talk by Amy Lerner about the history and origins of chocolate noted that many high-end chocolatiers are branding certain cacao-producing regions in Venezuela, i.e. Chuao, as embodying certain flavors and essentially a narrative. And it's very common to find coffee branded by its specific country of origin.

It's not a bad thing to want to know more about the story behind the food or clothing we buy. On the contrary, it reminds us that there was a farmer that grew those tomatoes and that our shirt didn't just sew itself together. It's a healthy and normal mindset for ourselves and our world.

Off to the city

2005-02-18T10:32:00.000-05:00

Be back after President's Day, with tales of local from New York City...

Shake your soymilk like a Polaroid picture

2005-02-16T12:00:00.000-05:00

So goes the new warning to lactards (myself included) and vegans who depend on soymilk/ricemilk for calcium. The calcium put into these fortified beverages is insoluble and a study published in Nutrition Today found that 85% sinks to the bottom! It seems to be most problematic with non-refrigerated cartons. Also, the commonly added tricalcium phosphate is less absorbable than calcium carbonate [USA Today]

The many faces of food on the web

2005-02-16T10:20:00.000-05:00

We've been busy on a redesign of Locally Grown Food, a site which functions both as an information source and an auction-style clearinghouse for local food producers and buyers in southern coastal New England. Right now the site feels ridiculously retro, which isn't quite what we're going for.

Capturing all of the wow of a food in a digital image can be a challenge. That's not mentioning the different visual experiences that can be produced based on the artist's pictorial styles and motives. Food sites can seize upon the melody of our meals, appeal to our visceral hunger (i.e. food porn), or be "all the news that's fit to eat".

So, like any other modern designer with access to millions of already-made sites, we've been doing a vibe scan of what's out there to get some examples of what-we-like. There's such a neat range out there:

Too Many Chefs: photos amidst a modern Cartoon Network world
Strong Buzz: simple watercolored-esque greens
Amazon Gourmet Food: utilitarian, similar to what we have now
Trader Joe's: yesteryear-esque narrative drawings (though Annie's makes us shudder)
Domestic Goddess: high on minimalism, high on sugary food porn
Gastropoda: minimalist indeed, and very text-driven

Presentation is key not just on the dinner plate; it establishes the modus operandi for the rest of the visit to a site. Do we go for crisp photos that show just how fresh local is? Or hand-drawn folk art that appeals to the nostalgic "brand" of a farmers' market? Ah, but there is room for a little bit of both, says the postmodern pundit in me. Stay tuned.

Fair-trade chocolate: Talk of the town

2005-02-14T16:12:00.000-05:00

Disconnecting Chocolate from Slavery [NPR's Talk of the Nation]

Make Valentine's Day Fair Trade [Brown Daily Herald]

The dark side of chocolate: Child harvesters toil for little pay [Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star ]

Fair-trade chocolate: a sweet V-Day, indeed

2005-02-13T12:02:00.000-05:00

Sure, your coffee is fair-trade but that only covers one of your addictions. Chocolate is the other bitter wonder in our world. Unfortunately, even the darkest of chocolates can't win a bitterness contest with its own means of production (think child labor, lots of child labor).

Fair-trade chocolate is harder to find than its coffee cousin, but you can probably sniff out some options in your community. If there are no local stores selling Equal Exchange bars, some other tasty morsels that are also child-labor-free includes Green and Black's, Cloud Nine, Tropical Source, and Newman's Own Organics. And, in Providence, kill two addictions with one stone with Coffee Exchange's chocolate-covered espresso beans.

Note: Interesting bit of certification politics going on between Ben and Jerry's, which uses fair-trade coffee in some ice cream flavors, and TransFair, which is a certifier:

For our Coffee Heath® Bar Crunch and Coffee Coffee Buzz Buzz Buzz® flavors, TransFair waived the requirement on the chocolate ingredients, as Ben & Jerry’s does not source these chocolate ingredients directly.

Ben and Jerry's used to have a fair-trade chocolate flavor. Not sure if it's the case with the new organic-certified flavor that replaced it.

Weekend reads: Land O'Corn, Open-source GE, Whole Foods profits

2005-02-12T12:14:00.000-05:00

Michael Pollan on our corn nation and staying optimistic [California Monthly]

Recycle those pesky yogurt containers [Stonyfield]

Review of The Fate of Family Farming: Variations on an American Idea," by Ronald Jager [Montpelier Times Argus]

Make it all organic? [Prairie Writers Circle]

Is GE okay if the methods are open-sourced? Less Monsanto, but is it more filling... [NYTimes]

Whole Foods continue to rake in the big bucks [AP]

Food insecurity and local farms

2005-02-11T09:51:00.000-05:00

A new report evaluates the effectiveness of USDA surveys aimed at quantifying food insecurity in America. [via US Food Policy]

Food security for a household means access by all members at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life. Food security includes at a minimum (1) the ready availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods, and (2) an assured ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways...

Food insecurity can occur with or without hunger, which is defined as uneasy or painful sensation caused by a lack of food [involuntary] .

A concern voiced by the report is that since the survey is based on household data, it may miss those living in group-settings - those institutionalized or homeless, for example. The survey also does not take into account the presence of children in a household or the time length/frequency of food insecurity.

Locally grown food availability is closely linked to food insecurity issues in many areas. The presence of nearby farms (and farmers' markets) can determine a community's access to fresh, quality produce in neighborhoods that otherwise only have access to "second-rate" produce amidst aisles of junk, or the many that are devoid of supermarkets altogether. Also, many food pantries get donations of veggies/fruit that have not sold at a farmer's market or that may have dropped onto the ground. But that can't happen if there are no local farms.

Fair-trade coffee

2005-02-11T00:29:00.000-05:00

Knowing that coffee is one of the most pesticided food crop in the world, I have my a pact with myself that when I seek out its deliciously bitter warmth, that it must be fair-trade. That means living wages and Fair-trade tends to go hand-in-hand with organic growing methods. And shade-grown beans, when available, are preferred for the habitat support they provide for migratory birds -- the same ones that eat many of the insects that cause increases in pesticide use.

I take fair-trade coffee for granted here in Rhode Island and especially in Providence. Coffee Exchange roasts dozens of blends from coffee farmers that the owner has met and developed relationships with on past trips to their lands. Many of these farms are not certified organic or fair-trade, either because they are in the process of a transition or due to the often cost-prohibitive certification process for these standards. Many times these small farms or cooperatives can't even afford the pesticides that corporate-backed coffee plantations coat on the plants. So knowing the length that Coffee Exchange goes to in order to seek out sustainable and fair practices, I appreciate that my freshly brewed cup comes from sustainable farms that have developed face-to-face relationships with Coffee Exchange's owner. And I'm sure that the farmers appreciate the guaranteed customer they have in Coffee Exchange -- have you ever seen how packed the place gets whenever it's a sunny day! But if Coffee Exchange isn't your cup of tea, in Providence, you're still surrounded by New Harvest Coffee at AS220, Seven Stars, Olga's, Pastiche's, and White Electric, among many other eateries, and you'll find Brown's cafes and Hudson Street Market stocked with Equal Exchange.

But a summer in NYC dispelled my myth of a fair-trade world order (in fact, there's way too much supply of the fair-trade beans relative to the demand). It wasn't that you can't find freshly brewed fair-trade coffee in the city that never sleeps. There's Jack's in the West Village and Gorilla Coffee in Brooklyn and a health food store I found on the UES that always has Jim's Organic brewing. But no such luck in the neighborhood coffee shops. You really have to seek it out, and even in places where you might expect it, there's always fear of a bewildered glare if you ask the otherwise friendly person behind the counter. There's just a total lack of awareness. And I suppose that as long as people haven't a clue about fair-trade and aren't asked about it, it will remain bewildering jargon. ("Free-trade? Well isn't everything free-trade?")

I would be remiss not to point out that fair-trade availability at Starbucks and Whole Foods is making it an option known in wider and wider areas. Speaking of which, back in November, a Starbucks in Barrington, RI even had the fair-trade coffee listed as the blend of the day (it was out of exhausted desperation while on the East Bay Bike Path, though as far as corporations go they're not so bad)... but they had none left during my visit. Tired and irrational, I skipped out, irked by the chutzpah to stop brewing the fair trade coffee at noon(!). Don't despair though. As I grew more desperate for the caffeine boost, my biking buddy Stella agreed to stop at a random convenience store along the trail in Warren. They had a single cup's worth of coffee left in the pot. All I cared about at this point was that it was caffeine-laden. So imagine my surprise when the side of the cup said fair-trade. In summary, I [heart] RI.

Trickle-down farm subsidies

2005-02-09T14:08:00.000-05:00

Sell your eBay stock now!

This morning over breakfast I was reminded by my friend Brian that many of the Midwest farms that reap the biggest benefits of federal subsidies use said funds to purchase shiny new John Deere tractors on a regular basis. But since they've only got room for so many brand new tractors on their thousands of acres, they put the "old" ones up for sale on eBay. This isn't just a hunch; at a RI Division of Agriculture roundtable meeting last year, a few of the small farmers extolled the joys of this version of trickle-down economics made possible through low-cost eBay purchases.

Cut those subsidies and eBay stands to lose thousands in commission on each lost sale.

Farm subsidy impressions & future politics

2005-02-08T22:33:00.000-05:00

1. Not to be outdone by the basic newspaper round-up,
2. Read extensive coverage at U.S. Farm Policy,
3. And then there's always the conspiracy theories.

The farm subsidy issue is so interesting in that it centers on regional interests, with Bush going against his geographic base. It's no surprise that the senators from states with the most highly affected big ag industries (corn, wheat, cotton, rice) would be the most vocally opposed. But the issue's ability to bulldoze over partisan "principles" is indicative of what I see as a more extensive political realignment that is in the works. Politics inherently involves compromise (credit to Tony Kushner), but after the lesser of the two evils mentality that has been at work in the past two presidential elections, the time is coming when voters may finally expect more, forcing Democrats and Republicans to wake up and smell the issues of the 21st century. How the nation feeds itself can and should be one of these issues, something that has the potential to unite the Whole Foods shopping yuppies with the family farmers with the ever-expanding population of overweight Americans. Making food an issue is up to us.

The snow-covered fields of a New England farm

2005-02-07T10:00:00.000-05:00

Last night we farmsat at a friendly organic farm in western Rhode Island, making sure the dog, cats, and rabbits got the attention they deserved while the owner was on a much-deserved getaway. In the summer, the fields are covered in herbs, wildflowers, squash, and greens of every sort. In fact, the greens are planted on a weekly rotation so there's always something new coming up. But nowadays there's just a vastness of silence, barely disturbed by the pitter patter of melting snow. The sky was a clear blue, which let the deep color of barns' reds and tractors' rusts, and pines' greens.

And the food! Though there will always be an envy of California's seemingly limitless harvest, New England has its own variety of winter wonders. If we were constantly bombarded with fresh local avocados and peaches, we would never experience the flavor that time imbues upon those fruits and veggies lucky enough to be cold-stored, canned, dried, or pickled. Carrots and squash, which sweeten as the months pass, are a due reward for patience and planning. The farm and later our tummies were stuffed with the summer and fall harvest: supersweet yellow carrots, hubbard squash, pumpkin, dried heirloom corn (which made for an irresistible nutty-flavored popcorn), kimchee, pickled zucchini, frozen blueberries. A white bean soup with parsnip, kale and spinach, the latter two perfectly frozen for the occasion, and a stock made from onions and celery slow-cooked for hours. Warm blueberry-apple-apricot pie with a kamut-spelt crust topped off with pecans. Aged cheeses, homemade yogurt sweetened with beets, arugula pesto. And, well, fresh slices of avocado and orange brought back from a friend's visit home to her family's grove in... California. Everything organically grown and bursting with flavor.

The weekend was the epitome of homemade and it tasted damn good.

Slashing corporate welfare for factory farms

2005-02-07T00:20:00.000-05:00

Good Bush? The president's new budget will apparently propose a reduction in the subsidy max by over 75% to $250,000 (still a lot, IMHO). Actually getting the bill past the president's friends in Congress may be a pipedream.

Gift horse to small family farms or just a dead-on-arrival political moment?

Maple syrup and climate change; farm subsidies; feedlot secrets

2005-02-04T13:31:00.000-05:00

Effects of climate change on maple syrup industry in VT, NH, ME [Environmental Defense report]

"Nearly half [of federal farm subsidies] goes to operations with sales of $250,000 or more," according to a Citizens Against Government Waste report [US Farm Policy]

Print-out cuisine (brings new meaning to strawberry jam?) [NYTimes]

More love for the local in the blogosphere.

You can't handle the truth [about feedlots], say North Dakota legislators. [AP via US Farm Policy]

How do you say "low-carb banana bread with added whey protein" in Cunieform?

2005-02-04T11:24:00.000-05:00

Yup, agriculture spurred human civilization. And it's no surprise either that version 1.0 was all locally grown. Subsequent trade brought the West access to beloved cinnamon and saffron-flavored vanity of the East. And furthermore, it quite literally spread seeds of joy in the form of tomatoes, easily grown in the Mediterranean climates Italy and France once they got over that whole deadly nightshade thing. And don't forget Europe's fling with another lovable nightshade, the potato.

Sharing the tasties is all good and fun until someone gets hurt. Could the first agrarians have even imagined the ConAgra and Monsanto future that awaited their descendents? (And let's not even go down the invasive species road...)

Winona La Duke recently wrote about the modern perversion of agriculture from an Ojibwe perspective.

Only green-striped, pink-flesh lemons for me

2005-02-03T09:22:00.000-05:00

Variety is the spice of life. And quite literally, for a green zebra versus a brandywine tomato, the subtle taste difference (or not so subtle, depending on who you ask) is in essence owed to natural flavors that no spice cabinet can reproduce. A green zebra (or a yellow pear or a Matt's wild cherry or...) is a no-assembly-required treat that stands on its own flavor merits in a world filled with deli-ready Red™ tomatoes.

Small family farms and local knowledge have allowed for the survival of varieties like green zebras amidst the monocultural status quo. And perhaps these heirloom varieties, inherently not mass-market and too delicate/inefficient to grow on big faraway farms, will now return the favor and help save the family farm. In September 2004, the NYTimes featured a story about increasing demand for garlic such that hundreds of different flavors of garlic were being grown on farms in upstate New York. Yesterday in the paper David Karp explored the public and growers going gaga for off-beat lemon varieties:

"When I started here in 1995, growers only wanted to produce large quantities of uniform lemons," said Tracy L. Kahn, curator of the Citrus Variety Collection at the University of California, Riverside. "Now the specialty market is much more important, and people are talking about flavor and unusual characteristics."

Yet not all of the citrus growers experimenting with offbeat lemons are small farmers, and the article even quotes an ag guy extolling the virtues of pre-ripe lemons, which are tough enough for long-distance travel and can later be artificially ripened with ethylene gas. So, do heirloom and variety foretell only more of the same, or do they hold hope for keeping small farms financially afloat?

Root cellar recipes!

2005-02-02T13:56:00.000-05:00

Today's ProJo reviews Stonewall Kitchen Harvest: Celebrating the Bounty of the Seasons, with ideas for putting your potatoes, mushrooms, and scallions to good use. Written by Kathy Gunst, Jim Stott, and Jonathan King, it's a cookbook with plenty of winter recipes to keep you warm. [Stonewall Kitichen]

While we're still talking winter, Urban Green's own Ilana Friedman shared her brother's deliciously simple recipe for your winter squash in the January edition of the local buying club's newsletter. When she's not teaching kids in Olneyville about gardens and food, Ilana's busy roasting squash...

Wishingstone Winter Delight
1/4 pound shallots
1/2 pound yellow onions
1 pound butternut/delicata/your-favorite-other squash, halved lengthwise and seeded
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1/2 teaspoon salt

Preheat over to 400 degrees F. Bring a medium pot of water to a boil. Cut the tip and the root end of the shallots and blanch for 1 minute. Peel them to the bowl. Cut each squash into triangular wedges. Add them to the bowl with the shallots and onions. Toss with oil and salt. Spread on a parchment-covered baking tray and roast about 45 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes, or until the veggies are well browned.

And there's still time ('til Thursday night) to put in a local order for Rhode Island milk, eggs, apples, honey, tortillas, and roasted coffee at UrbanGreens.com...

Plastic for Dinner

2005-01-31T21:04:00.000-05:00

Following up on a previous Q & A about Nalgene water bottle plastics, Umbra Fisk delves further into which plastics are lesser evils in Grist Magazine.

Florence Williams explored related health matters and the effects of accumulated levels of petrochemicals on future generations in a recent article, Toxic Breast Milk?, in the NYTimes Magazine.

Brain break to ponder the parallels between the public fear that brought environmentalists (very much including the organics industry) so much success and the fear-driven culture that now rallies behind the War in Iraq and the Patriot Act. Too simplistic, yes, but still...

Farm-to-college; tourism industry; healthy kids; Maine potato problems

2005-01-31T15:30:00.000-05:00

Schools like Brown, Bates, and UC Santa Cruz have all seen success with their local food initiatives, and Yale's program is so popular that it has now been expanded into all of its dining halls [Newsday]

Fiji hotels find it hard to balance a desire to use locally grown foods with tourists' requests for year-round tomatoes [Fiji Times]

Welsh schools are incorporating more farm-fresh produce and meats and reducing processed foods to combat obesity. [Western Mail]

Last week's Northeast Regional Healthy School Foods Marketplace conference served up nutritious ideas for schools in the Northeast. [Providence Journal]

Maine potato stores devastated by rotting due to too much rain. In tandem with low prices -- "65 to 70 cents per 10-pound bag" -- many farmers are expected to go out of business [AP]

Community Food Security Trainings

2005-01-29T11:49:00.000-05:00

The Community Food Security Coalition has posted a list of training events across the country for 2005. Some dates have passed, but there are upcoming workshops in Portland (OR), New Orleans, Milwaukee, Des Moines, Corneilius (NC), North Deerfield (MA), Gambier (OH), New York, Hartford, Brooklyn, Atlanta, Springfield (MA), and others planned for Maine and the Southeast.

Also noted are farm to school workshops being planned in CA and that the Southern Sustainable Agriculture Working Group (SSAWG) offers free technical assistance and consultation for Southern groups.

The Oil We Eat

2005-01-29T11:44:00.000-05:00

Richard Manning, author of Against the Grain: How Agriculture Has Hijacked Civilization, follows the food chain back to Iraq in Harper's Magazine, originally published February 2004.

Our National Eating Disorder

2005-01-29T11:42:00.000-05:00

Michael Pollan, a journalism professor at UC Berkeley, comments on the America's unhealthy love-hate relationship with food in a NYT Magazine article originally published October 17, 2004.

The Energy Dossier

2005-01-29T11:36:00.000-05:00

Food News comments:

Despite the hype about the need for energy efficiency, energy use is up, green house gas emissions are rising and all this just as the Kyoto Protocol is set to come into effect on February 16th. The deregulation of transport sectors facilitate global sourcing, making it rational in economic terms, for the ingredients of a container of yoghurt to travel 3,500 km. M. Muhlstein suggests that this trend can be countered in part by defining transit as a public good in order to link its social with its economic functions and limiting urban sprawl, encouraging denser urban habitats.

Read the full article The Energy Dossier - Transport: time to stay still by Philippe Mühlstein in Le Monde diplomatique.

Weekend Roundup

2005-01-29T10:30:00.000-05:00

Study: buying local foods from locally-owned establishments essentially doubles the money that stays in the community [Life begins at thirty]

The need for a new Family Farm Bill [Farm Policy]

Notes from the ‘GMO-free Regions, Biodiversity and Rural Development’ conference in Berlin [Slowfood]

Too Many Chefs' weekly summary of newspaper food sections notes a recipe for homemade ice cream that calls for 8 cups of local snow, a rundown of which huge corporations own which California winemakers , and more evidence that whole grains are the new black. PS- Don't forget to eat your kale and collards... they're in season (in MD/DC)!

A cookbook for all seasons offers a recipe for pear turnovers that can be frozen from fresh 'til winter... or if you get your apples/pears from a place with cold storage, like UG and Hill Orchards... [Gothamist]

Air pollution at factory farms in the news

2005-01-28T13:45:00.000-05:00

EPA offers air-pollution immunity to factory farms [Grist]

Tyson Farms will pay $500,000 for air monitoring at KY chicken farms to settle Sierra Club lawsuit [AP]

Getting your local food groove on in the winter

2005-01-28T11:24:00.001-05:00

In Providence, your best bet is the Urban Greens buying co-op. They've been getting organic, locally grown squash, apple, kale, cauliflower (to name a few) and local milk and eggs. You can order online and orders come every other week.

Supermarket-wise, Whole Foods seems to be doing a decent job produce-wise; their Waterman location in Providence has savoy cabbage from RI, among some other locally grown delights. But you'll need to go to Dave's/Stop-n-Shop/Eastside/Shaws/more for Rhody Fresh milk and other local dairy products.

In NJ, Princeton's Whole Earth Center (360 Nassau St.) always has a list of what produce is local written on a board when you walk in.

Give a call and you might be happily surprised (or at least get a tip on where else to look). Such is the case at Merrick Farm in Farmingdale, NJ. Susan and Juan run a CSA during the summer, and this winter they have been growing lettuces, cilantro, fennel, garlic, brussel sprouts, and more in their greenhouse. Right now they're just barely covering heating costs, but as the word get out, they're hoping to be able to expand the varieties and amount of what they grow. Local greens in the midst of a snow-covered Northeast!

Obesity and kids

2005-01-28T10:51:00.000-05:00

NY Assemblyman Felix Ortiz is proposing to include weight ranking of children on report cards sent home to parents. I wonder about the implications on eating disorder developments, as well as the fact that BMI score doesn't take into account the wide variety of body types and metabolisms. Also of note, Ortiz has put in bills to tax junk food. [Newsday, via Gothamist]

In September 2004, the NJ legislature voted to ban junk food in schools. [School Nutrition Policy, NYT, Motley Fool]

Food insecurity: diabetes, heart disease, and other obesity-related diseases are replacing homicide and AIDS as top killers of young people in impoverished urban areas. [NYT]

Random musings: Biodiversity Conference

2005-01-27T23:16:00.000-05:00

"Biodiversity Conservation: From Knowledge to Action," a conference at Shippensberg University (in PA) on March 9 looks to have many interesting sessions, but none of them seem to offer a connection to agriculture. Where's the workshop on the pitfalls of monoculture and GE crops? What about discussing the need for small family farms, heirloom varieties, and seed saving?? Sigh. For more info or to register, see the Kings Gap State Park site.

Monsanto buys seed-maker Seminis for $1B

2005-01-26T09:56:00.000-05:00

Big ag gets swallowed by bigger ag, as the agro-chemical and GMO king looks to widen its reach in the fruit/veggie seed market. Seminis produces over 3500 varieties of seeds (Asgrow, Petoseed, and Royal Sluis brands) and itself has a 20% share of the global market. The merger will make Monsanto the world's largest biotech/seed company, and it reflects the company's desire to reduce its reliance on GE crops due to increased consumer resistance/marketability and high research costs. According to the NY Times, less than 1% of Seminis' sales come from GE crops. [NYT, AP, Seminis]

Organic Conundrum at Bouchaine Vineyards

2005-01-26T08:47:00.000-05:00

Nothing in life is perfect, including the often worshipped 'Organic' label. Inspection costs can be significant for small farmers, and there can be questions of economic viability after production costs are taken into account. Furthermore, since it enforces the same requirements across the varying climates, soils, pests, crops, animals, planting and havesting methods that occur in food production, it's not always the most optimal solution for the environment, labor, or food quality.

Such was the conundrum faced by Remi Cohen, the vineyard manager at Bouchaine in CA's Napa Valley. She has tweeked the operations on the vineyard's 100 acres to be more sustainable in a holistic manner that mixes organic methods with other low-impact techniques:

"You drive a tractor -- it hits the vines, and possibly damages the vines, and it combusts a lot of diesel," she said. "And you need to follow up with shoveling under every vine," which is painful work and contributes to soil erosion.

Owl and bluebirds keep pests out. And the soil is revitalized with compost from restaurants. Full story by T.J. Foderaro in the Newark Star Ledger. [Bouchaine Vineyards, Napa Green Farm program]