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This is a wonderful project, and one that I would love to join at some point:
http://www.serveyourcountryfood.net/ via http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/009025.html
As we drove from the front of the farm back to the crops, we learned about Sandhill Organics, and the land that they lease to other farmers to give them a safe place to start growing, where they can get support as they run into unforeseen issues in their first crops, and where they have certified organic land so they know the vegetables are growing in untainted soil and they can farm using sustainable practices from the outset of their farming career.
Our farmers grow on the last lot on Sandhill Organics – just over the crest of a small hill, so it feels more secluded than the rest of the land. The farm is much smaller than I had anticipated (5 acres in total), and I was amazed to think that all the food I’ve already seen at the market each week had come from such a small plot of land, and that there was still so much growing on the land that would feed us and the other CSA members for another three months. There was such a variety of plants growing on the land, too: a couple rows of one vegetable growing right next to a couple rows of something else, with flowers scattered throughout. It was such a beautiful farm as compared to large-scale industrial farms that I’d seen on family vacations when I was younger.
Our farmers gave us some scissors and put us to work filling a large box with fresh onions. Supermarket onions and some of the onions from our farm are cured so they can be stored in a cool, dry place for longer periods of time, but these onions would be eaten fresh, so we simply pulled them up, knocked off some of the dirt, trimmed the roots, and cut down the stalk, leaving the scraps to fall back to the ground were they will provide nutrients to the soil as they decompose. After the larger onions, we moved on to the last of the purple scallions for the season, bunching them up and trimming them to be ready for the market the next day.
Our last harvesting duty for the day was helping one of our farmers gather flowers for the bouquets she sells at the market. We got to talk with her then about how they got started with farming, and she told us a little more about their farming philosophy. Both of our farmers are passionate about the food they grow, and about living in a sustainable way and helping to educate others to be similar “future-minded stewards of the land” as they explain on their website. K and I chatted on our way home about how glad we are about our choice of CSA farm this year, and how our visit to the farm further peaked our interest in growing our own food, something that we’re looking into even more seriously than ever before, and that I’ll be writing about later.
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Be sure to check out my previous post in which I discuss helping with the eggs and chickens at Red Tail Farm.
I’ve mentioned before that K and I take part in Community Supported Agriculture (CSA). We paid up-front to receive a half-bushel of vegetables each week over the course of the 20-week growing season. Many CSA farms ask that members come to the farm a few times during the growing season; this wasn’t a requirement of our program, but this past weekend we decided to spend some time on the farm anyway to learn more about how our food is grown and where it comes from.
Red Tail Farm is an organic farm run by two wonderful farmers and their two interns about about 40 miles away from our apartment, a little over an hour’s drive on Chicago’s I-94. On saturday, K and I traced the same path that our food takes each Sunday morning from the farm to the market; not via boat or plane or a semi-truck from another part of the world, but just 40 miles north of the city. I might not be a biologist or physicist, but I do know that a simple 40-mile journey means our food is much fresher, and that much less fuel is burned to get our food to us as compared to the industrial food and even the organic food that is shipped to Chicago from various parts of the world to the supermarket produce sections.
When we arrived at the farm, one of our farmers showed us some of the buildings they use for starting the seedlings growing, curing onion and garlic, hatching chicks, etc. We went into the egg-preparing room (just a little free-standing room with a large two-basin sink, and lots of counter space) where we finished washing the eggs that would be brought to the market the next day, and packed them into cartons. I had never thought before about the care that is put into each individual egg: washing and drying each egg by hand after a very mild detergent is used to remove the initial grime, checking the eggs for hairline cracks or abnormalities, and one-by-one placing each egg into its carton. We also learned an interesting fact: Chickens love to eat eggs! We watched as one of our farmers tossed an egg over to some of the chickens that lived just outside the egg-prepping room and the chickens gobbled it right up, shell and all.
Later in the day we went into the field and got to meet the chickens who laid the eggs, and to collect the eggs that they had laid since the last collection. Most industrial eggs come from chickens living on factory farms with a sole drive on production and no concern for the living-conditions of the chickens; knowing this, it was so wonderful to see all the chickens (maybe 30-50, though they were moving around so much it’s hard to get a good estimate) roaming around their large fenced-in area (more to keep the foxes/coyotes out than the chickens in) just grazing on the grass or taking a break in a shade-tent the farmers built for them, and hoping we’d brought them even more food. The chickens’ area is moved every 2 days to make sure they have fresh grass to graze and that they fertilize the soil more evenly, and their fed and watered everyday by hand. These chickens were happy, and you could tell by the way our farmers loving called them their “sweet ladies” that there was a real relationship here, not simply that of coldly taking the eggs the chickens laid.
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Check out Part 2 of our visit, in which K and I harvest onions.
A friend pointed me to an interesting article earlier this week from the New York Times entitled A Locally Grown Diet with Fuss but No Muss. I wanted to cover this article more in-depth than just a link in my Friday News Roundup, and after reading through some of the comments from No Impact Man’s post about the article, I had even more to say about the topic of the “lazy locavore.” I encourage you to check out the article first, then come back to read my thoughts. I’m sure others will have more to say, so please add to the conversation in the comments.
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While the article points to a rise in the demand for local, organic food – a shift that many see as incredibly important in reducing our negative impact on the planet, getting healthier and fresher food to our tables, and spurring local economies – my worries about the “lazy locavore’s” means of participating in a localized food-system are manifold:
(1) that having a third-party work one’s private land does nothing to engage the land-owner in a relationship with the land through which he or she might learn more about the fragility of the earth and how to take care of it;
(2) that while the Modern Era marked a time of specialization, calling for different tradespeople to attend to different tasks, this system has shown itself to be largely unsustainable and a Postmodern Era ought call for more self-reliant or cooperative living in which people grow their own food or have access to land on which individuals have a hand at growing publicly-available local food;
(3) that while I applaud those who are helping build the service economy, a focus on the service described in the article increases the supply of local food only to those who can afford it; focus should be put instead on services that can increase the supply of local food for all;
(4) that while it could perhaps be said that the system in which the “lazy locavore” takes part is a stepping-stone to a more thoughtful system, I think it more likely that it is a means of taking part in a movement without actually taking action to progress that movement, making it, perhaps, malproductive.
Again, I realize there is so much more to be said about this topic, so please leave your comments below.
The Real Dirt on Farmer John is the documentary of a man’s journey from being the son of an industrial farmer in the 1950s to becoming a celebrated organic farmer and operator of one of the largest CSA farms in the US. Through his narration, Farmer John (John Peterson) recalls the many struggles he faced as he reconciled his connection with the land on which he was raised, and the uneasy relationship he endured with his community.
After inheriting a multi-generational family farm when his father died, a young John Peterson attended Beloit College and returned to his farm accompanied by a barrage of hippie subculture. John’s farm became a haven for those interested in art, expression and a desire to connect with the land, but as one of the women of the local community explains: they didn’t know how to work the land, so they did a whole lot of nothing. John’s farm later succumbs financial hardship, and he is forced to sell all but a small portion of the land. As the film continues, however, it becomes clear that while John will not have an easy time re-creating what land he still owns into a profitable organic farm, nor at reaching an understanding with a community that has oft demonized his eccentric lifestyle, he will not give up.
The filmmakers were fortunate to have a plethora of material from John and his mother, who documented their lives on film since John was a young boy. From these clips, the viewer gets a clear, honest vision of the changes that occurred both in John’s life and on his farm. The documentary does a good job of showing the viewer the important connection between people and the land on which they live and depend, and of showing the potential struggle one might face should his or her ways of connecting with the land differ from the social norm; a message that I feel is incredibly important to understand in a time when many people seem to have a total disconnect from the land, and when forging a true relationship with the land can seem to many an unnecessary eccentricity.
So much news is being published about environmentalism and climate change these days that I couldn’t possibly keep up with it if I tried to write about it all, so I’ve decided that Fridays are probably a great time to post a brief roundup of relevant news headlines from the week that I’ve come across or have been forwarded to me.
Monday, July 14:
- Bush Lifts Drilling Moratorium, Prodding Congress
- Candidates Weigh In on Offshore Drilling
Tuesday, July 15:
- Country, the City Version: Farms in the Sky Gain New Interest (thanks to “srw” for the link)
- Wildlife: A Luxury we can live without?
Wednesday, July 16:
- Amory Lovins: Expanding Nuclear Power Makes Climate Change Worse
- A Prophetic Approach to Energy Efficiency
Thursday, July 17:
- Gore: Reliance on Fossil Fuels Poses Threat to U.S.
- Pope says young inheriting scarred, squandered earth
Friday, July 18:
- Climate change puts U.S. way of life at risk: EPA
Have a great weekend, everyone! Give the A/C a break for a couple days while you do something fun outside!
