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Local farms, local food
Richard Cornish, The Age
DEALING directly with the food grower has always been part of my life. We sold milk to our neighbours from our family’s hilltop dairy on the Mornington Peninsula. They would dip a jug into the icy-cold vat of rich milk and fill their glass bottles. They’d leave a few coins or a dollar note in a small tin. It was a deliciously clandestine arrangement. Later, as a pre-teen, when the Red Hill Community Market started, I’d buy apples from orchardists’ wooden boxes, a few ears of corn from the neighbours’ old card tables or the odd pullet to restock the chook yard.
Thirty years on and the idea of buying my food straight from the farm, be it for sentimental or ethical reasons, is still a strong one. Weekly visits to farmers’ markets partially fill this need, but when I heard news earlier this year of a direct-from-a-single-farm buying scheme, I jumped at the opportunity. In March I subscribed to a CSA – a Community Supported Agricultural scheme – with Fernleigh Farm, an organic farm in central Victoria. In a CSA, the customer shares the risks involved in food production by paying the farmer upfront to grow vegetables. Every week the farmer delivers a box of their best vegetables. The benefits work both ways. There are no middlemen, so farmers receive a larger percentage of the food cost, and they get paid earlier, which improves their cash flow.
(12 Sep 2006)
A good introduction to the highs and lows of the Community Supported Agriculture concept. -AF
A radical, but old, idea: Local food system for Maine
Paula Day, Kennebec Journal
Recent front page news chronicled the end of the last dairy farm in Waterville. It is sad. It is also a little scary, and when you think about it for a minute, it’s more than a little bit absurd.
Farms mean food, something we have to have with great regularity to survive, and in Maine we spend 3 billion dollars a year on food. Ninety-six percent of that amount flows through our supermarkets and out of the state to processors and producers we don’t know. Our food travels, on average, 1,700 miles before it reaches our stores, and we know virtually nothing of where it came from, how it was raised, what it was sprayed or injected with before it got here, nor who handled it and how. …
Imagine the impact of a local food system. Retaining 50 to 80 percent of that $3 billion we send out of state annually for food would mean the equivalent of a brand new $1.5 to $2.4 billion a year, in-state industry. Experts estimate we could produce 50-80 percent of our in-state food requirements. As far as I know, there are no economic development plans underway to bring any new enterprise into the state at that level.
(17 Sep 2006)
Organic Farms Make Healthy Plants Make Healthy People
Dr. Eva Novotny, Institute of Science in Society
Organic foods are richer in minerals and vitamins and relatively free from harmful chemicals and additives.
The importance of good food and good soil – a page from history
People in the industrialised Western world rely increasingly on ready-prepared meals and packaged foods. For increased shelf life, some of the ingredients will have been refined, with the most nutritionally valuable components (such as the germ and bran of grains) discarded, and extra chemicals added as preservative or as flavouring or colour. At the same time, there is rising incidence of heart disease, cancers, diabetes, allergies and other disorders. Could there be a connection between diet and disease?
The British doctor Sir Robert McCarrison had asked this question 80 years ago while working in India, and his experience was described in a book by GT Wrench first published in 1938, and reprinted twice since [1]. McCarrison was struck by the marvellous health of certain native peoples, especially those living in Hunza, and wondered why that was the case. (A disheartening footnote must be added to the story of the people of Hunza. Already in the 1930s, with increased exposure to Western ways, their remarkable health had begun to decline. ) The natives enjoyed freedom from disease and life-long vitality despite their exceptional longevity. Their healthy mental state was reflected in their freedom from quarrelling and exceptional cheerfulness.
The Hunzakuts were an agrarian people, cultivating terraced fields. The numerous small fields were irrigated from a glacier. They enjoyed fresh, nutritious and unprocessed foods, and everything that originated from the soil was returned to the soil.
(7 Sep 2006)
Farmlet.co.nz
Aaron Newton, Groovy Green
Let’s face it, change is a comin’. Energy issues and environmental degradation are beginning to make switching to a more sustainable lifestyle even more attractive. As with any change it’s not the nuts and bolts that are scary but the idea of change itself. Transitioning away from hyper consumption towards conscious living is about shaping your mind and changing your behaviors. To do so it helps to have sources of inspiration. Here’s a new source. Farmlet is married couple, Kevin and Rebecca, who’ve decided to live, “an environmentally conscious, low impact, self sufficient life”. If you interested in doing the same they invite you to watch as they live and learn.
Link: Farmlet
(17 Sep 2006)
The early days of a new project.
Apple Orchard visit
Matt M, Fat Guy on a Little Bike
We visited an apple orchard last night. We had to hustle so we weren’t able to take any pictures, but it was great! My wife and kids had gone before with some of her girlfriends, but this was my first time. I wanted to share my thoughts about it.
(15 Sep 2006)
Nice reflections on getting more connected with your food. Matt has just become a regular writer over at Groovy Green. -AF
