Harvesting a Local M.E.A.L. - It's Time to Farm!

It's Time to Farm
I planted seeds this week.
Spring is the most optimistic season.
Seeds are faith and hope and life in the future.
Planting made me feel righteous and peaceful and quietly determined to thrive.

A Local M.E.A.L.
Last week, many of us were inspired in Charlottetown by the combination of speaking about and listening to others discuss local food and our commitment to a way of life that serves everyone on this island.  A Local M.E.A.L.(Meet Eat And Learn) was a very satisfying serving of networking, tastes of local food and 10 presentations by and for all of us who like to eat locally and live well!  Please follow this link for more: http://alocalmeal.wordpress.com/. A video of each presentation will be made available through the link.
Here's mine:


A Local M.E.A.L. - John Quimby from nick battist on Vimeo.


I'm excited to mention as a follow up to "A Local M.E.A.L". that I am working with my son's fifth grade
teacher to create a presentation called "Farming in the Classroom" which will feature 3 hands-on project
demonstrations related to local food production and farming. We will be planting and growing seeds in a local school. We will be integrating the results of these student projects into our spring planting on the farm so  students will know that their work is included directly into our farm and will produce food that is available to their families. We want to teach that they aren't just consumers, they can be farmers too!  I'll be sharing more details and photos. This is really an exciting opportunity.      

Here's a Really Good Find!
I've mentioned before that we are increasing the number of open pollinated varieties that we buy, plant and harvest seed from.  Our goal is to always be able to grow non GMO, organic food from our own seed bank.
And I recently found a great resource online.  600 organic/open/heirloom tomato varieties are being offered at: http://www.tomatofest.com/  Our order was filled and returned promptly and I'm pleased now to refer them to you for this spring.

What's So Great About 600 Tomatoes?
As I browsed the choices I realized we could have exactly what we wanted for each of our seasons and customers. I got a small but super early variety (55 days) for our visitor and restaurant customers plus canning for our own needs. A flavourful French slicer for fresh summer eating,  An East German cherry for salads, the dusky and smoky Cherokee Purple for exceptional flavor, and a legendary Italian sauce tomato to mate with our garlic, basil and oregano in pasta and pizza sauces. And Gary Ibsen and Dagma Lacey threw in a bonus package of "Black Cherry" tomatoes for us to trial.  That's the beauty of bio-diversity friends.  You can find a seed for every need.

Local Organic Eggs and Chicken
I also placed orders this week for chicks to raise into laying hens and fresh meat birds this summer.  This is new to us and I'm relying on Joel Salatin's, "Pastured Poulty Profits" to guide us through brooding and pasturing our very small flock this year.  We are certified organic and so our chicken and eggs are already approved to be the only organic product I know of in our neighborhood.  But this is our first attempt!  So we'll need your support when the time comes for us to accept orders for organic eggs and chicken.  If our customers will help us by investing with us, we'll be a regular supplier of fresh, local, healthy, pasture raised, inspected by ACO and certified organic product. We're working for the gold standard in pasture raised meat birds and eggs.

Our chickens will be the primary customers for the organic pasture we nurture and the organic feed grains that we grow here this year.  All of this requires a substantial investment in seed, livestock, machines, time and labor. And we're adding time to teach our children to be part of the work raising chickens for your table. So a new generation will be learning how to grow feed and raise high value food while earning a share of the profits from our neighborhood poultry business. In other words, we're one of several small family owned businesses recreating the small mixed farm model that fed generations of PEI families and trained generations of good PEI farmers.

Your support,  through buying our product,  means that you are investing in your local food security as we keep and carry a small family farm on PEI into the next generation.                        

News Links:

Food Inflation Kept Hidden in Tinier Bags

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/29/business/29shrink.html?_r=2&adxnnl=1&ref=business&adxnnlx=1301403749-7DIP1Gd6QRGZ0J9pMxtiLA

JQ's Final Thought:
Demand-Side food security requires that consumers believe someone or something will always be able to deliver a sufficient and uninterrupted supply of food at a price they can afford over their entire life span.
Supply-Side food security means that you know and support a variety of local producers who put healthy, natural food on your table for generations.

Connecting The Dots: Climate, Energy, Global Markets and Food Security

This spring we'll be tackling some pretty heavy decisions to increase and sustain productivity on our farm.
I'm looking ahead to a lot of work and investment to grow, market and hopefully improve our ability to serve a few more of our neighbors in PEI.  It feels good to know we have the chance to add a bit more fresh food to our local supply from our very small farm.

In the mean time I'm reading more and more alarming news from a variety of sources on the current state of affairs in our world.  And I wonder again, as I often do, about the disconnect in the media between the dots (and sometimes "dotty") individual news headlines. It's the big picture that should be getting our attention.

This thread started for me when I heard a news item on the radio letting me know that my local fast food restaurant in Eastern Canada would not be able to serve me tomatoes or peppers because of unusual cold weather in California and Mexico. Hmmm.  

That item hit the news on the same day that oil prices broke 100 a barrel again. We know that the price of oil will continue to rise through spring and summer (driving season) and we know that this will impact consumers and producers alike. We also know that as long as petroleum prices are high, we simply can't grow our way out of economic trouble by using cheap energy to do most of the work. Hmmmm.

We also now know that the same financial houses that created the mortgage backed securities that caused the recent financial panic (a pox on them all!) have also created long term investment strategies in basic food commodities on a global scale. The result has been rapid increases in the market price for staple grains and cooking oil and these increases have hit consumers in the rear pocket and the stomach.

"Beginning in late 2006, world food prices began rising. A year later, wheat price had gone up 80 percent, maize by 90 percent and rice by 320 percent. Food riots broke out in more than 30 countries, and 200 million people faced malnutrition and starvation. Suddenly, in the spring of 2008, food prices fell to previous levels, as if by magic. Jean Ziegler, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, has called this "a silent mass murder", entirely due to "man-made actions.”

 - Johann Hari

Hmmmmmmmmm. Pretty ominous.  But we still don't see the whole picture.

Here is how I connect the dots in these three otherwise unrelated stories. First of all, the shortage of tomatoes and peppers.  This is the second year in a row that there has been a shortage of tomatoes caused by changes in average climate.  Last year (also in the first week in March) it was reportedly caused by frost in Florida. This year, it's frost in California and Mexico.  This is a direct result of climate change.  Argue all you want about normal variables. Farmers don't like risk and they know what the normals are. The fact is that this year and last saw major climate related impact on food crops in the US, Australia, Russia, and Pakistan. And even though a few peppers on your sandwich or a tomato on your burger might seem trivial it is in fact a climate change food shortage in your face. The farmers who lost crops designed to put a tomato on your Whopper will now be calling in their bankers, their crop insurance and their governments for help to avoid bankruptcy. Some probably won't survive losing their investment.

Today's increasing energy costs are about to make the situation worse during the growing season in this hemisphere.  Most people probably don't know that the chief ingredient in our food supply is oil.  Our dependence on fertilizers and chemicals, farm equipment, livestock feed milling, water pumping, trucking, air freight, cargo ships, processing, packaging, refrigeration, storage and delivery are all tied directly to the price of oil.  This dot in the matrix is a big one. Food prices are going up in North America. Major grocery chains are already announcing a 5% increase here.

But why are food prices going up so fast when market supplies in oil and commodities are sufficient and demand is relatively stable?  Let's check in on those wacky, irrational investment markets again:

According to a study by the now-defunct Lehman Brothers, index fund speculation jumped from $13 billion to $260 billion from 2003 to 2008. Not surprisingly, food prices rose in tandem, beginning in 2003.  Hedge fund manager Michael Masters estimated that on the regulated exchanges in the U.S., 64 percent of all wheat contracts were held by speculators with no interest whatever in real wheat. They owned it solely in anticipation of price inflation and resale. 

So there you have it.  Climate change, energy costs and global commodity speculation are now playing havoc with your ability to afford, "what's for dinner". The risk of economic disaster for global food producers is tied directly to wobbles in the global climate.  And market speculators in oil and commodities are engaging in risky behavior that would make an Amsterdam sex worker faint. The "invisible hand" of the market is dope slapping us with lower wages, higher food prices, a wobbly climate and general nausea caused by a growing sense of insecurity. It's a combination that is already driving stable governments and solid financial institutions off a cliff.

So what can we do about it? Well I don't think the answer is some crazy Communist agrarian revolution where we move hedge fund managers to the farm and make them eat kale. I believe that there are healthy free market alternatives here and around the world that you can invest in. And your investment will help stabilize the big picture.  This is the final dot.

It's time to go and meet your local farmer. Buy into your local commodity market. Stop exchanging a higher portion of your income on low value energy dependent processed and packaged food "products". Live like rich people do. Look to make your profit on the higher quality and higher value food available directly from a wholesale producer. Make an investment in shopping and learning to prepare better meals for yourself. If the current system does not sustain you then don't sustain it. Stop feeding your food dollars into speculation and greed. Start eating healthy meals produced by people you know who will be there when you need them. You'll feel a whole lot better!

Shopping for Food Security - Part 2

Looking for ways to grow local, sustainable, small farms in PEI


Shopping for Food Security - Part 2


In the last blog post, I explained how organic farmers seek and plant organic seeds grown by other organic farmers and how that has increased the supply and diversity of organic seeds available to farmers and gardeners.   I explained that we are also starting to buy, plant and save open pollinated seeds to create our own seed bank at Dunn Creek Farm.  And I closed by promising to explain how food shoppers can protect and expand healthy diversity in the market.  The simplest explanation is that farmers grow seed for the food you buy. If you choose variety and diversity in your diet, you are supporting biological and genetic diversity in the field and in the market.

Thomas Morrison was kind enough to forward his writing on the topic of food diversity and security. I'm pleased to include him as a contributor.


The Importance of Biodiversity in Farmers Markets

Doug Band and the CGI (Clinton Global Initiative) as well as US Ecologist Gary Nabhan have recently come out as strong proponents for crop diversity. Nabhan’s position is that in order to keep the idea of diversity at the forefront of our society, we must apply it to biology of crop diversification. †His theories of promoting sustainability through grocery shopping have become popular. In a recent interview Nabhan said, “in other environmental issues we tell people to stop something, reduce their impact, reduce their damage.” His article Coming Home to Eat published in 200l can be cited as influencing the popularity of green culture, the local food movement, and the increased appearance of farmers markets all over the country.

A host of other organizations have begun to promote sustainability through the act of conservation. Bill Clinton, Doug Band and the CGI (Clinton Global Initiative) have set their sights on emission reduction projects throughout the country. In order to do this, they have partnered up with Donlen, GreenDriver, and Environmental Defense Fund with the purpose of reducing commercial fleet emissions by 20% in the next five years. †The Earth Day Network has brought together local and national conservationist groups and green enthusiasts to participate in an open forum. This forum serves as a space to incite discussion and dialogue on new ways to create a sustainable planet. Individuals can reduce their carbon footprint, create less waste, and stop the unnecessary wasting of water. Gary Nabhan strongly suggests as members of society we take a larger look at the state of our planet.

The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization produced a study with results indicating that a quarter of crop diversity is left and a dozen species provides 90% of the animal protein consumed around the globe. More over, roughly four crop species supply half of the plant-based calories in the basic human diet. Nabhan theorizes that growing food locally will have a massive impact on our planet’s sustainability. The “eat what you conserve” theory says by eating the produce that we are attempting to conserve, we are simultaneously promoting the granular dissemination of a vast amount of plant types.

Agriculturist Marco Contiero adds to the theory by saying, “biodiversity is an essential characteristic of any sustainable agricultural system, especially in the context of climate change.”
According to Conterio, since individuals raise and harvest our own crops and plants, we should purchase the crops harvested and produced by other local growers. If individuals buy food grown and harvested locally, the large carbon footprint associated with the transnational transportation of food is no longer a problem. Both arguments require an active effort toward conservation and sustainability. As the spring approaches, visit your local farmers market to get all the best in seasonal fruit and vegetables. Visiting your local produce stand is also a great way to promote biodiversity, support your local economy, and experience the delicious regional food varieties.

 

Shopping for Food Security - Part 1

    

The farm sleeps under a blanket of snow as we plan our seed orders.     

A Word About Seeds.
The French word for seeds is semences.  Yes indeed the French have brought our fundamental need for thriving procreation to the very ground under our feet. Earthy hmmm? Even in the garden, the French are intimate with making food and, of course, making love.

Well then, let's consider what the world would be like if only 5 percent of males were eligible to impregnate all of the women. What would be lost? In fact that is what we're facing in our food supply today. Seed diversity and the basic needs of humanity are overlapping in some interesting ways.

Organic Farmers Cover the Cost of Seed Diversity. 

Each year we're obligated by our certification process to buy organic seed whenever possible.  Ordering organic seed supports organic farmers.  But there's more to it than that. This requirement also drives the market of supply and demand to preserve non GMO and non hybridized varieties. This gives us a larger, wider and more dependable supply of clean seed to buy and plant. Organic farmers are investing in having a bank of seed genetics in the market.

Organic Seed is Harder to Find and Usually More Expensive.
One complaint from consumers of organics is that the product is more costly.  This is true in the short term.
We can prove that fresh, clean, nutritious food is more valuable. But higher seed cost is directly related to what it costs to grow, harvest and market that value. As more organic producers enter the market, prices should come down even as food value improves.

Open Pollination and Seed Saving

An open pollinated variety of plant will breed true from it's own seed. So if you plant an open pollinated variety of beans or squash or peas, you can save the seeds from this year and plant more next year.

Open pollinated plants are not owned under patent law, they don't revert to earlier strains and they are proven under specific climate and soil conditions.  When we order organic open pollinated seeds, we can grow 2 marketable crops - produce and seed - and have clean seed to plant the following year. There is natural selection in this process. Seeds that are sound and strong thrive.  Those that aren't, don't.  You should know that not all organic seed is open pollinated.  At Dunn Creek Farm we are making a business decision to open a savings account with our own seed bank.    

   
Seed Diversity = 600 Tomato Varieties, Not 5. 
When we shopped for tomato seed this year, we found a grower offering 600 hundred varieties of heirloom, organic tomatoes that he and his partner produce themselves.  Some had been staples in American seed catalogs a hundred years ago.  Some had been locked behind the Iron Curtain for decades.  All had been common in market gardens in a variety of regions and conditions.  Few are being commercially grown today.       

The Hazards of Limited Diversity
When you see tomatoes in the supermarket, you are seeing about 5 varieties now commonly grown for market.  They are red.  They are firm.  But they are not selected for taste or nutrition.  There are better tomatoes to be found.  But you probably can't find them in your market. And that's not all.  Now that most of the people of the world are dependent on a handful of grains, vegetables and plants for survival, it's not hard to imagine that a plant pandemic could detonate like a bomb in the global food supply.  We need a viable market to keep the alternatives on hand. And this is where today's consumer comes in.  In part two, we'll consider how the grocery shopper decides how much bio diversity there is.  

Some of our Seed Sources this year:


Hope Seeds - Organic Vegetable Seeds & Organic Garden Seeds
Vesey's Seeds

Food Fight in the US Senate - S-510 Stalls - to Conservative Oppostion ?

Lots of notes on this follow up to my last posting.

Preface:

US politics has fragmented in to left/right black/white mudslinging on far too many issues.  And my considered opinion is that Canadian Conservatives are trying their wings with US style Conservative flapdoodle on the "Long Gun Registry".  When something this minor consumes all the air in the room...hold on to your wallet.
It's a diversion used to provide cover for bigger issues. And there's nothing bigger than food on the daily menu of families across the globe.

Meanwhile, so many of the conversations I have with farmers here on PEI focus on distribution.  How do we get our small farm  products into the market? Now we have to wonder, will we all have to do whatever global markets require for traceability of  local products?  

US Senate Bill S- 510

This legislative issue was first brought to my attention by the farmer pirates at "The Small Farmer's Journal".
Independent small farmers have been struggling along only to become more suspicious of the motives of big government and big business.  And the warning was dire - a direct threat to small farming.

I read the bill summary and comment and concluded that indeed there are questions unanswered in a political process too often steered toward big business and away from family farm interests. In the US, Ag. policy has been consistently bad for small farms. So let's say I am suspicious.  Who stands to gain?

Comments On the Blog:

Stephen  Jannise of  Software Advice writes for "The Distribution Blog".Stephen contacted me after reading this blog to invite me to read his post on tracking food recalls.  I did and added my comment.  I encourage you to visit this link for a fascinating look at software and supply chain management of a food recall in the big picture of industrial management.  

Friday - S 510 Comes Up For Discussion.  Google Gives a Tell?

As I mentioned to Stephen, our political world has been polarized into paralysis.  To get a clue I often look into who supports or sponsors a bill.  Who sponsors or participates in the debate?  In this case,  I found the  the water getting murky pretty fast.  This important legislation isn't as easy as guns, gays and God.

The bill was was proposed by senior Senator Dick Durbin (Democrat) of Illinois. Co-Sponsors include respected senior Democrats and Republicans Including "Liberal Lion" Ted Kennedy and Liberal leader Tom Harkin plus Conservative leaders Orrin Hatch and Michael Enzi. Weirdly enough in our political climate, this is a bi-partisan bill.  But when the bill came up for discussion Friday - it was faced with Conservative opposition including Tom Coburn of Oklahoma as reported by "PCT Media ".  PCT stands for "Pest Control Technology" and is a website sponsored by,  "Dow Agro Services, Bayer, Syngenta, BASF, DuPont and Univar".  All are big pesticide makers. Univar is the largest chemical distributor in the US. I found this report through Google.  

Supporters and Opponents

Follow the "money trail" and you find that supporters of the bill include:

• Grocery Manufacturers Association
• National Fisheries Institute
• General Mills
• National Restaurant Association
• Produce Marketing Association
• Kraft Foods North America
• Consumers Union
• American Frozen Food Institute
• Center for Science in the Public Interest
• Food Marketing Institute
• American Public Health Association
• Center for Foodborne Illness Research and Prevention
• Consumer Federation of America
• International Bottled Water Association
• United Fresh Produce Association
• National Association of Manufacturers
• National Confectioners Association
• National Consumers League
• Pew Charitable Trust
• Trust for America's Health
• Snack Food Association
• Safe Tables Our Priority (STOP)
• American Bakers Association
• American Beverage Association
• International Dairy Foods Association
• International Foodservice Distributors Association
• National Coffee Association
• American Farm Bureau

Meanwhile...

Specific Organizations Opposing S.510

• Weston A. Price Foundation
• Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund
• National Independent Consumers and Farmers Association
• Raw Milk Association of Colorado
• Farm Family Defenders
• American Grassfed Association
• Small Farms Conservancy
• National Family Farm Coalition
• Carolina Farm Stewardship Association

 (Information provided by Open Congress)

 So...why would conservatives line up in opposition, with such groups as, The Raw Milk Association of Colorado?  And why would liberals join in support of General Mills and Kraft Foods?

Senator Coburn Presents His Objections

In his detailed objection the Senator outlines the overlap over Federal agencies tasked with food safety and his belief that this bill is not "deficit neutral" -  It will cost tax payers more to implement than it takes in. All play to his Conservative principles. But there is little or nothing in his objection that addresses regulation to protect public health and safety.  Presumably these would fall under his objection to "burdensome regulations".
This comes even in the face of broad support from liberals, conservatives and business.  Opposition comes from independent farmers, small special interests and...chemical manufacturers?

Frankly, I am at a loss to explain the position of either side.

(Update)

Objectivity suggests this excerpt from Sen .Coburn should be included here:  


Burdensome New Regulations
There are 225 pages of new regulations, many of which are problematic. While some regulations are potentially onerous, but perhaps reasonable – such as requiring every facility to have a scientifically-based, but very flexible, food safety plan—others give FDA sweeping authority with potentially significant consequences.
While it is hard to pull out just 1 or 2 regulations in the bill that make the entire thing unpalatable, on the whole this bill represents a weighty new regulatory structure on the food industry that will be particularly difficult for small producers and farms to comply with (with little evidence it will make food safer).

I hope we're seeing here from Dr. Coburn a realization that regulation of flawed production models such as factory farming chicken, won't make the product safer or better.   

And Finally, Why This Debate Is Not The Real Issue

CBC Radio's, "Quirks and Quarks", the national science radio program in Canada, aired a segment today entitled,  "Empires of Food".

"... what caused the downfall of great empires throughout history, from the Mayans to Mesopotamia to Rome. Warfare? Invasions? Political infighting? Well, according to a new book by a Canadian researcher, it was famine. Dr. Evan Fraser makes the case that we are what we eat; and when the crops fail, the fields erode, or the temperature changes, that's when great civilizations fall.  He also thinks we just might be headed for such a fall ourselves."

Listen to the segment at 30:35 into the show...

What if the issues and the stakes are much bigger than big politics or big business? What if the question evolves into, "Where does food come from in an era of collapse"?

If this becomes the question,  then the answer is to make friends with your farmer.

US Senate Bill S 510 - Food. Safety For Whom?

We have an old family recipe that directs the cook to use a "slow fire" when preparing the ingredients.

I can only picture my great grandmother starting her work by taking a stick of kindling and warming the back-end of the reluctant child who didn't fetch enough fire wood for her to make her recipe on the wood stove.

I can now take the same recipe to my electric stove and have perfect control over heat, time, sanitation and preparation while my reluctant child watches TV and asks for Kraft Dinner. And I can do both at the same time.

It was just a few generations ago that most of my family farmed in New England and the Mid Western States. Food was the center of farm life.  Knowing how to grow, prepare and preserve the bounty of the farm was the business of each family - not the government or private enterprise.

Now we live in a world where huge farms in Wisconsin, North Dakota, Alberta, Uruguay and Brazil can contribute their produce to the same pound of ground beef processed and packaged for sale by a nameless group of sub-contracting slaughter houses, processors, packagers and shippers. Our food passes from hand to hand in country after country under conditions we hope are safe at each step.

But we don't really know.

And that's what makes it so disturbing when one company can sell and distribute a problem to 20 million people and then say, "Sorry".  Meanwhile, hundreds of small local producers and packers are forced out.      

When so much of our food comes from people and places we can't see and don't know on a scale we can't comprehend we need increased regulations, inspection and safety standards to keep our global food supply safe. Or we need more local alternatives, supported by our communities that must answer directly to neighborhood  consumers, their farmers and their concerns. But clearly there are forces opposed to this. 

So the question is, where does your concern about food safety really center? Is it your concern to regulate the nameless and invisible stops on the international food chain? Or should new regulations be made to equate your neighbors and individual local producers, with an international giant?

That is what is up for debate in US Senate Bill S 510.  And you can read all about it here:
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s111-510


I am not one to rail against conventional farms.  We need all of our farmers in North America to have healthy, successful businesses. I simply believe we have to be able to decide for ourselves what food choices we want.  All of us have a human right, based on 10,000 years of human agriculture, to grow and consume natural food.  But a recent FDA decision in the US declared that manufacturers using Genetically Modified Organisms would not be required to identify their contents. And now a company here in Canada is trying to market a genetically modified fish clone as food.  That might be fine, but I want my community to have an open, organic choice. Policy that would make it legal to sell unlabeled clones as food, but illegal to sell heirloom tomatoes threatens more than the integrity of a single species.       

It seems to me that the food safety issue and the proposed regulation as presented here is designed to provide safety for the industrial food marketer/manufacturers at the expense of independent farmers across North America.  And before you suspect my motivations, please consider that I already pay more and produce more documentation for the organic certification of my farm than would be required of small producers under the proposed US law.  
   
The time may come when the producers of synthetic food products will demand restrictions on the producers of natural food.  Conventional growers need to see this for the threat it is and join in support of independent and organic farmers in opposition to this legislation.  The time is now.

Is Home Grown Food Subversive?

We spent the weekend selling fresh vegetables and herbs at the 70th annual Dundas Plowing Match in Eastern Kings County PEI. It's a lovely old time affair celebrating local Agri - Culture and the local traditions and skills of farming. We go there each year to sell a bit of our organic produce, meet the neighbors, watch the horse teams and plowing competitions and generally enjoy a traditional country fair.

Today, at our market table, I was slicing off samples of our just-picked cucumbers, tomatoes and fresh herbs.
I offered a taste of our finest produce followed by a dab of fresh herbs...just to give fair goers a chance to put the taste of fresh, real, whole food on their palates.

A darling young girl of about 8 years came up to the table and looked over our selection. Then she shyly asked if she could have a slice of cucumber.  I said, "of course".  She picked one up, popped it into her mouth and scampered away.

A Francophone couple from New Brunswick came to the table and I offered them tastes of our lightly flavored Mediteranian cucumbers, our orange cherry tomato, and a bit of fresh basil.  The gentleman came back a few minutes later and asked me if he could have another basil top, "Because it smell so good!"


A bit later, a couple with several young children came up.  I offered them a taste of a just-picked ripe tomato,
a bit of fresh cilantro and a taste of basil. I joked with the parents that I was "subverting their children".  I said,
"Once they learn what fresh food tastes like, they won't want anything else."

I was kidding.  Until I thought about it.

Maybe it really is subversive, an act designed to overthrow the establishment, to offer fresh, clean, naturally grown food to people.                 

Powerful forces in our economy and our governments are continuing to move against small producers. And new legislation is pending in the states that could make it impossible for homestead and market garden producers to supply their neighbors with healthy local food.

The premise of the new regulation is food safety,  as though selling a few hand raised tomatoes to a neighbor is as risky as shipping e-coli tainted hamburger to 12 states. It seems to me that the real risk is that we will continue to reduce the number of producers until no small farms are left and government has only a handful  of "too big to fail" producers to support as rural communities die. I've met senior farmers who nearly go to tears when they tell me that after 5 generations, they are retiring off the land because the kids don't want the farm. In many places today, its just too hard for our young people to make a go of it.  

 
But that all seems too grim on a day when local people stepped up to buy a few beans, some herbs, a bit of squash and to take a moment to share the news in the Farmers Market at The Dundas Plowing Match.   
.

The Island That Couldn't Feed Itself

A remarkable thing happened last week and it was detailed in an article by Jonathon M. Katz in the Huffington Post.  Bill Clinton is continuing his work in Haiti to help direct the humanitarian assistance following the earthquake and develop plans to improve the perennial "Failed State" status of this troubled country. 
Katz Reports:

Decades of inexpensive (food) imports – especially rice from the U.S. – punctuated with abundant aid in various crises have destroyed local agriculture and left impoverished countries such as Haiti unable to feed themselves. 


It looks to me like Haiti is the reverse of Cuba.  Isolated by trade embargo and the collapse of Communism, Cuba was forced to feed itself - without petroleum based agriculture.  Katz Continues:

...world leaders focused on fixing Haiti are admitting for the first time that loosening trade barriers has only exacerbated hunger in Haiti and elsewhere.

They're led by former U.S. President Bill Clinton – now U.N. special envoy to Haiti – who publicly apologized this month for championing policies that destroyed Haiti's rice production. Clinton in the mid-1990s encouraged the impoverished country to dramatically cut tariffs on imported U.S. rice.

This is remarkable since it is a 180 degree reversal of global trade policy that included NAFTA, which Clinton campaigned for and the US, Canada and Mexico signed into law in 1993.  Clinton said:

"It may have been good for some of my farmers in Arkansas, but it has not worked. It was a mistake," Clinton told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on March 10. "I had to live everyday with the consequences of the loss of capacity to produce a rice crop in Haiti to feed those people because of what I did; nobody else."

Local farmers were put out of business, told they could not compete. And the island, which had not been dependent on rice or imported food aid before, is now importing 51% of all the food it consumes. Many local farms are gone and the farmers have moved to the cities. 

Clinton's goal was to import cheap food to feed a poor population while creating a market for US rice farmers. But now, there is nothing for Haiti to build a sustained economic recovery on. So this week, Clinton will go to the UN to seek millions to invest in rebuilding local agriculture to end reliance on imports.

Even Haiti's most powerful food importers have joined the push for locally produced food.

"I would prefer to buy everything locally and have nothing to import," said businessman Reginald Boulos, who is also president of Haiti's chamber of commerce.

The effort will also be part of a new UN backed initiative to support local agriculture in poor countries.  But what about us? 
Is our farming economy any better off than Haiti's?  How much food do we import now? What has happened to local beef, hog, egg, chicken and dairy producers as cheap imports have flooded our markets?  And how much money will it cost to rebuild what we are allowing to die through neglect?  Haiti raises those questions.  And Bill Clinton, the man who says that he alone is responsible for bringing us to this point, is looking for the answers.