Winter 2006 Issue |
Contents: International Exchange Forums From Field to Plate New Products from Field to Plate Field to Plate Donates Proceeds to Sustainable Causes |
 McClendon’s Farm, Peoria, AZ |
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 The new Cardinal's Stadium (Phoenix metro) |
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 Eeking out a living against encroaching development (Phoenix metro) |
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One Bite at a Time
Where there is passion, there is progress. My colleague, Mark Mulcahy, always carries seeds in his pocket. Some stay there. Some he gives away. Seeds remind us of new growth; new possibilities. In this Winter season, I share that the seeds of a sustainable future are taking root, sprouts are showing, people are excited and that one bite at a time, one community at a time, people are understanding that how we spend our food dollar is changing our landscape.
I was fortunate enough to be invited to present at the Fancy Food Show in San Francisco on behalf of Chef Kjeld Petersen (Sustainable Foodservice LLC). Kjeld had the foresight to understand that the specialty food customer may also be a sustainable foodways advocate. My presentation attracted growers, producers, marketers, journalists and more. Who would have thought that the gourmet of food shows would attract like-minded sustainable thinkers. It did!
While in Francisco, I had the opportunity to visit the Ferry Building Marketplace, a forum dedicated to the promotion of great foods, great flavor and superb producers. This visionary place recreates the live market feel of yesteryear and helps locals and visitors alike get in touch with “food” again! Also while in San Francisco I received and invitation to participate in a beer, wine and cheese tasting at the Rogue Ale House. The selection of American cheeses available for sampling rivaled anything I have tasted in Europe, and if there is one trend I would like to share, it is that artisan bread is now mainstream, but artisan cheese is on its way. We have yet to understand in America just how great the next generation of cheese will be. The future of diary is indeed, cheese.
Crowning the entire San Francisco trip, was an evening of flavor (Winemaker’s Dinner) spent at the Millenium Restaurant (Chef Eric Tucker) with a focus on mushrooms. Here is a restaurant and a menu that defies any meat eater to say they didn’t feel like they missed the meat! In an evening dedicated to revealing the deepest flavors of the mighty mushroom, vegetarians and carnivores alike celebrated the passionate and adventurous cuisine style of this culinary team. I have always maintained that the nirvana of food and food education is when you can taste the soul of a grower or a chef in their food. Eric’s soul is in his cuisine. The fact that he is an avid forager speaks even more deeply to the flavors that you sense in every dish.
But next to all this flavor, I feel sadness and yet hope. The sadness I feel is when I visit the Sonoran Desert and see the fertile lands around Tucson and Phoenix, AZ evaporate into fields of concrete. I am sad that as I watch our reservoirs sink in the Rockies, and the water table sink to almost irretrievable levels in the desert, that the children of our grandkids may never know the Sonoran Desert. Imported grasses create new undergrowth that easily ignites in this parched land, endangering the mighty saguaros that have never known this threat. In the natural desert, grass is a misnomer. But yet there is hope as I watch the Tohono O’Odham Community Action Program grow its harvest of native foods, providing nourishment and sustainability to the Desert People (formerly Papago). And there is hope as I watch the Native Seed/Search organization spread its message, and its products of hope and heritage. And there is hope as I watch growers under the Phoenix sun continue to nurture soil, raise product, sell to community markets. And there is hope as Northern Arizona University reaches out to help Arizona producers create “a sense of place” with their products. One day at a time, one meal at a time, one bite at a time, we can change the way America eats.
Reflections from the Land
In this edition I have chosen to share the reflections of two writers and colleagues whose observations stopped me in my tracks when I read them and when I re-read them, I stop again. Rather than tell you how I know these writers, I prefer to let their words express their feelings. They are located on two continents, North America and Africa. Regardless, they are united in their belief that a sustainable future is not only possible, it is a must. Take time to absorb their observations, their thoughts and their passion.
The Eye of the Storm
The Sustainable Farming Association has declared a state of peace. We are taking back our food, celebrating its whole, fresh integrity, and actively sharing it with our friends and neighbors.
In a world of food turmoil, sustainable farmers exist in the eye of a hurricane. The furiously fast and unsettling news about mad cow disease, hormone implants, coast-to-coast obesity, nutrition-related diseases of epidemic proportions, fast food lawsuits, the vast Gulf of Mexico dead zone (we cringe at the cause--our Mississippi’s effluent), “troublesome, backward thinking” Europeans that resist our exports and our American appetite for genetically modified foods, “low cost” high mileage food with a staggering environmental price tag, hunger in our land of plenty, and a rapid consolidation and integration of our food supply to ownership by a very few and powerful multi-national corporations. Americans are plagued by overwhelming food dis-ease. With all of our vast knowledge, technology and resources, it is increasingly difficult to feed ourselves well.
Riding out the storm is what sustainable farmers are best at. With a compass trained toward an unshakable set of values, we have survived incredible odds to be 1% of the 1% of our population caring for the land.
By finding our place in our food-producing ecosystem, we have sustained ourselves with much less economic reward and a lot more work than most of society would tolerate. We are rich with healthy soil, good food, water, innovation, resiliency, experience and contentment. We are especially wealthy in our relationships, not only with animals, plants and wildlife, but with family, community and Creator. We see and live the connections.
With slick ads and snappy sound bites, we might lure more people to our peaceful oasis. Marketing is often tricky, costly and time consuming for sustainable farmers. Power and money reside elsewhere, and our primary focus must be growing food. It’s what we do best and love best, yet we need sustainable food consumers as much as we need the spring rain. Sustainable consumers go beyond the ease and convenience that American consumers have come to expect to find real food, grown sustainably.
We welcome sustainable food consumers to a peaceful and satisfying relationship with food and the people who grow it. Join us this growing season at field days and farmers markets, online and at your co-op. Join the Sustainable Farming Association of Minnesota. Join us in this growing eye of peace until the storm is quelled. Food—it’s in our hands, and we offer it to you. Eat and be satisfied, healthy and strong.
Mary Jo Forbord, Executive Director
Sustainable Farming Association of Minnesota
Note from Amanda: Mary Jo is an inspirational farmer and dietitian in MN. She lends her wise perspective to so many of us as we struggle to interpret the impact of agricultural policy and developments on our food systems. Mary Jo and her husband are dairy farmers with stories reflecting both tradgedy and success in farming. Her words are always compelling
Sustainable Food Crisis
Once again the news media are reporting about the 'food' crisis in Sub-Saharan Africa, this year worse than the other years' crises, but all the same, another annual crisis. We hear about rationing of food aid, the need for hundreds of metric tones of maize, and the potential for thousands of people to starve. The list of culprits includes drought, floods, poverty, not enough seed and synthetic fertilizer inputs, lack of government action, or the effects of HIV. Unfortunately, this is a pattern that continues year after year, with the exception that each year it gets worse. It seems like our development and relief structures have at least succeeded in creating a sustainable food crisis.
With the chronic pattern of food insecurity in Sub-Saharan Africa, are we really rethinking our strategies toward reversing this trend? Are we learning lessons from these patterns? It doesn't seem like the majority are. Instead of re-thinking the solutions, programs are continuing with the same activities but just spending more money and time on them - it is like yelling the same message again, but louder, to a person who doesn't speak your language; it won't help, you just lose more energy in the process and confuse and possibly irritate the other person. Instead you need to learn the other person's language.
Much to the glee of industrialized nations' subsidized farmers who produce too much and need to move it out and to the companies who make synthetic fertilizers, programmes continue to handout food aid, seed, and synthetic fertilizer to address the food crisis and its list of contributing problems. There are thousands of people spending millions of dollars and expending massive amounts of energy and time on the wrong things.
People Often Blame the Weather
Granted, climates are changing, but the floods and droughts aren't solely the weather's fault. Low rainfall doesn't always cause a drought nor does heavy rainfall always cause a flood. It depends on the conditions on the ground as much as how much rain falls. Much of Sub-Saharan Africa is naturally a low rain climate - and it can be sporadically dry followed by a heavy rain, then dry and heavy rain again - that's the weather's pattern at our time in history and we should be planning for it.
I recently had an e-mail conversation with a group of people who make the maps of the rainfall in Malawi. They had sent me the map showing that almost the whole of Malawi, except for the Southern tip, had a normal rainfall pattern this last growing season. I asked them if there was a mistake, saying that I thought there was low rainfall as the media had reported 'drought'. They replied that the map only shows the rain for the whole season, it doesn't take into account the timing of the rain - the pattern of heavy rain followed by dry spells pattern. So I replied again saying "Then the problem was not the amount of rain we received; the problem was what we did with the rain when we got it."
So what are we doing with the scattered rain that we receive? Unfortunately, our shift in agriculture and life styles has drastically altered our environment, damaged our soil, and removed the diversity of plants and animals that used to help us cope with high and low amounts of rain. Areas that used to soak up rain and allow it to sink into the ground water, cleaning it and filtering it through the earth's layers, are gone. Areas are now cleared of plants, trees and animals and ploughed every year, or paved with roads, or covered with buildings, or as is popular around Sub-Saharan Africa, swept and burned rock hard. In these conditions when there is only a little rain, the soil, plants, and tress become dry very quickly resulting in drought, and when there is a lot of rain, the soil can't soak it up fast enough and the plants and trees aren't there to help, resulting in flooding.
Last year at our house, which is also a demonstration plot for sustainable agriculture and other sustainable living systems, there was drought on all the pieces of land around us, but our land had no drought. Instead, it grew into a jungle of a wide variety of different foods, medicines, and building supplies. Our harvests were abundant when our neighbors suffered. We also spent less money, time and energy on our farm. Why? What was the difference between what we did and what our neighbors did?
The solutions are (1) to take care of our soil and (2) to create systems that can withstand the natural pattern of weather - and this is true for all areas around the world, the only difference is in the designs; each design will match its own local conditions. The soil must eat a wide variety of foods for it to be healthy - just like we need to eat a wide variety of foods for us to be healthy - and this cannot be achieved with synthetic chemical fertilizers or mono-cropped agriculture! Synthetic fertilizers are similar to a multivitamin pill or medication - they treat the plant only, but do not feed the soil; if the plant, tree or animal is left in a deficient environment, it will become unhealthy again. Mono-cropped agriculture provides us with a very limited nutrient base for our bodies and our soil, so each year both are depleted.
The key concepts we need for designing our areas are:
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Conserving the soil by covering it with organic matter (alive or dead) and reducing any disturbance to the soil structure, such as digging;
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Feeding the soil by having a wide variety of plants, trees, animals and insects living on it then returning to the soil at the end of their lives;
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Avoiding any synthetic poisons or chemicals that will disturb the things living on or in the soil;
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Choose a wide variety of plants, trees, and animals that are appropriate to the weather patterns in the area and to provide us with a wide variety of useful products (foods, medicines, clothing, etc.)
The Solutions Are All Around Us — Wherever We Are
Start looking more closely at the environment around you, starting at your own home and moving outwards. There is a lot of waste that we send down the sewer, into drains or into trash piles that could be re-designed to be a resource to help buffer low and heavy rainfall. There are a lot of ways that we can design our living areas, such as:
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Using a variety of different useful trees lining the roadsides, instead of just ornamental species;
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Creating road designs that harvest water along the edges instead of pushing it downhill to accumulate at the bottom and eroding as it goes;
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Planting parks full of useful species where people can pick fruits as they enjoy the park;
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Filling agricultural fields with many different species including inter-cropping with trees and other permanent species;
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Reducing the digging of soil by inter-planting with species that dig deep (trees for example) or wide (yams for example), species that dig to different depths in the soil, and by using mulching;
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Designing office complexes, schools, homes and other buildings to harvest water and to reuse water as many times as possible;
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Reducing and eventually eliminating the use of synthetic poisons and chemicals and instead using improved designs to prevent disease and insect damage and to boost harvests;
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Converting decorative flower gardens and patches of grass into decorative edible landscapes;
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Working with your community to harvest all the organic waste at the open market, the supermarket, restaurants and other food selling and eating places;
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Instead of sweeping the dirt, design walkways and use the dirt to make gardens appropriate to your area;
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Share writings like this with your colleagues along with a personal note from yourself;
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Try a new local food once a week (maybe you will like it so much that it will continue to be part of your diet!);
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Add a local seed variety, along with education, to the packets that you provide to farmers/gardeners.
The ideas are endless and they are feasible! You can add new ideas in small steps to your own life and then start sharing the ideas and results with others. If you are tired of the sustainable food crisis, join us in redesigning our plants, trees, and animals to achieve health and wealth.
Stacia & Kristof Nordin, Milawi, Africa
Note from Amanda: Stacia and Kristof have been tireless volunteers with the Peace Corps.They serve both as an inspiration to me as well as a cultural sanity check. I frequently ask Stacia for her views and her perspective when I am struggling to understand food, policy and politics!
Exchange Forums from Field to Plate
You may have noticed that we have almost filled our Exchange Forum workshop program in France in April this year. If you are still interested at this late hour in joining us in France, please contact us immediately (301) 865 4607. So many of you have expressed your enthusiasm and support for this event and for events in the future. We thank you.
With this in mind, we are looking to the future and are considering two future events for 2007 and 2008. We would appreciate your feedback and thoughts on these events: email amanda@fieldtoplate.com.
2007 Proposed Exchange Forum:
Comparative Approaches to the Graying of our Population with a focus on food, health and long term care.
Location: Provence, France.
Contributing Countries: USA, UK, France, Italy, Switzerland
2008 Proposed Exchange Forum:
Comparative Approaches to Wellness with a focus on cancer and cancer prevention.
Location: Innsbruck/Stubaital, Austria
Contributing Countries: USA, France, Austria, Switzerland, Italy
New Products from Field to Plate
Our magnetic seasonal guides will be released in late Spring. The magnetic guides which measure approximately 2” x 7” will be sold as either a fruit or a vegetable series and will contain 4 magnet strips to be placed on your refrigerator. Simply refer to what’s in season before you head to the store or market. Change out the magnetic strips with the change in season.
Also coming in the Spring, a new store with lots of purchasing options:
- Gift certificates
- Print on demand posters – select from our own gallery of beautiful images
- Customized notecards: compile your own notecard set from our notecard series
- New authors to choose from
Field to Plate Donates Proceeds to Sustainable Causes
Beginning in 2006, Field to Plate will donate a portion of the profits from sales of its products to non-profit organizations and community initiatives that:
- Promote sustainable food systems,
- Preserve and promote heritage foods
- Promote educational, culinary programs dedicated to sustainable principles.