A Rant about Fake CSA's

I wrote this over a year ago but it still holds true

Every now and again I get in my in-box information about selling produce to subscription services. These are services that buy and resell produce to the public and often deliver door to door. Most advertise locally sourced food, though in reality much of it is not local even in parts of the year when they could do 95% local (things like coffee, bananas and pineapples don't grow around here and are usually offered). Most are franchises and not locally owned (though I know of three that are local in SW Ohio) and most, at least the first couple of years, if not longer, do not have enough contacts in the local agriculture scene so they cannot deliver consistent local supply and must depend on the national/international supply chain with locally sourced food generally not making up more than 50% of the offerings.

As a CSA farm I have a problem with these businesses because they obliquely present themselves as a CSA type business. After all, they sell subscriptions of whole foods, most of it is organic and some of it is even local. And to the average food buyer what they do is close enough for them to be confused and think they are buying into a real CSA.

By real Community Supported Agriculture I mean where there is an actual farm (or farms) directly associated, i.e you are buying direct from the farm (or farms) that grows the food and not buying resold product from a middleman. I have run into people who by from these food delivery services who believe they are in a CSA and are rather surprised when I say they are not and explain the difference. For example a real CSA that grows all the members' food will never include bananas or coffee in a share (unless in the tropics or has some sort of wicked great greenhouse system going) because than they are engaged in reselling non local items which does not contribute to supporting local agriculture and specifically a particular farm or group of farms which is pretty much the whole basis for real CSA.

So people buy subscriptions from these places thinking they have joined a real CSA. They are pleased because they get to order what they want. There is little seasonality so tomatoes and other items are available year round, just like what they are used to and it is delivered. Sweet. But it ain't a CSA with which they have contracted. A CSA will have seasonal seasonal food. The offerings each week are completely dependent on the time of year and the weather. This means in spring you eat a lot of leafy greens and asparagus and in summer loads of tomatoes, eggplant and basil and in fall squashes, carrots and onions. For most people this is a strange way to eat because the industrial food system we all grew up with got rid of seasonality decades ago. So most people are quite unaware that there are seasons for foods.

These places are effecting the real CSA's. I have noted that around the country CSA's that have for the past 10+ years filled up with hundreds of members and had waiting lists are not filling up are just barely filling up. I got an email from a local extremely well established CSA in my area that has always sold out by early spring that for the first time has opening in May! I also know that our CSA is way down in numbers this year and there does not seem to be the interest in it this year as there was last year. And I know there are many more of these produce delivery services popping up all the time (because I get in their mailing lists because I am a possible grower for them). And I believe that many people who have either been in a CSA a year ot two or have been thinking of joining on have done just that.

They are making it harder for us small farms to run as CSA as we cannot do what they do (or at least not as well in many respects). I have long thought while interesting and appealing, the CSA as a business model was not very good for Americans because it is so different from what we are used to - 24/7 any time of year food availability. incredible convenience. CSA give us incredible inconvenience-limit availability, shared risk, on farm pick-up, possible work days (and in the old days a member driven "core-group" that made most of the executive decisions and required weekly work efforts)

The Joys of Farming

I was going to post a bunch of pictures of the farm but have decided that I need to vent instead about various things having to do with my profession-market farming.

First off our season is pretty sucky. The weather has been either too wet or too dry and always too hot and humid so we can get less done in a day than is needed. This means getting weeds under control has been herculean task. Even the crops planted on mulch need to be weeded. Today i pulled about 200 pounds of crab grass and purslain from 2 beds of peppers. Still have another 7 or 8 to go. Eugene has been using the wheel hoe to weed the beds that are not cover with landscape fabric whenever it is dry enough to use a hoe but before the ground resembles concrete. I believe we have 4 days with those conditions in the past 6 weeks but, of course it was very hot and humid on those day with highs in the upper 90's.

Because of the hot humid conditions we have loads of Japanese beetles eating and copulating. I have become Ms Coitus Interruptus as I kill any mating JB's I come across and can get my hands (AKA deadly weapons, as far as the past bugs are concerned). We also are getting hit with various soil born diseases on the tomatoes. I did hit them with grapefruit seed extract a week ago and that really did a number on the various fungii attacking the maters but the rain early this morning made whatever was not destroyed by the GSE bloom abundantly so now there are many yellowing mater plants where yesterday there were 3. By many I mean around 50 to 75. At least most the plants have fruit on them so we should get a lot of maters in another 2 to 4 weeks. And I am not too worried about this as we get this blighty ick that is neither early or late blight but still kills the plants by September problem every year.

On top of that our tillage equipment is broken and Eugene so far cannot figure out what is wrong and the BCS manual is of little help other than the fascinating photos of various parts exploded so you can see the individual parts but absolutely no explanation of what they are, do or where they should actually go in order to make the machine run. I would say this is the polar opposite of a Chilton's Manual. Maybe this is Italy's revenge for losing WWII and any other complaints they have towards us Merkins.

So for the past month we have been using hand tools to keep beds weeded and prepped for planting. At some point Eugene will give up on trying to figure the problem(s) out himself and push the 450 pound 2 wheeled tractor up a hill and into the van and take it to the Arcanum Hardware store where they have a guy who works on BCS equipment. Hopefully that person can figure out what is wrong and order the parts needed and than we will wait 2 to 4 weeks for the parts to come in as they come from Italy and it always takes a while for them to send the parts to us.

Betty has been good for a dog her age which means she has not destroyed all the market garden but she is trying. She did in a lot of green beans killing a young raccoon who was doing a huge number on the Latham raspberries the past week. Since the bean patch was the first one of the year and old and we have 5 others just about ready to bear fruit this was not a big deal. And we would rather lose 20% of a green bean bed than 50% of our raspberry canes (and God knows what else) to a coon. But than again the raspberries have been a bit of a disappointment. various things are killing them and we have lost 100' this year to borers, fusarium and perhaps pythium. so that means the raspberry harvest is way down. but it turns out that is not such a bad thing because our sales, despite having the only raspberries in the region and dropping our price 33% are way down this over the past 5 to to years. I guess people just don't want poison free red raspberries anymore, I don't know. But I do know that in the past, the raspberries were one of our main revenue generators for this time of year.

And that bring me to our marketing. our sales are down across the board. we don't get a lot of people coming into the store and more and more the ones who do come buy nothing because the think the prices are too high (and generally are pretty damned rude about it too). If we lower them any more we will be back to making around $2 a hour and will no longer be able to pay the mortgage, gas and electric and will have to get rid of the farm. the CSA is beginning to get more members and it seems that most seem interested in doing it again next year but we have less than half the members we had at this point last year. I really think the fake CSA-companies that buy and resell food, claim to offer local food but rarely do and even when they do it is less than 15% of what the sell-have taken a large share of our market. And the sad thing is I personally know people who have joined them and have told me proudly the are CSA members. Sorry folks, but if you buy food from one of those fake CSA you are not participating in a CSA that grows all of it's food, and the members share in the risk and bounty of their CSA farm. It distresses me that people who should "get it" do not. Some of the people I know who use these services work closely with farmers markets and local farmers. Just makes me shake my head. Such disconnect. But I guess price and convenience always trumps the real deal of picking up food freshly harvested at the farm and getting to talk to the people that grow the food you will eat.

The positive thing about this season's CSA is our members. I really like all of them and I really enjoy puytting together the shares and news letter for them every week. Oh and despite issues with weather and the garden we have had some really great shares this year (pretty much all of them)

The farmers market in Oxford is taking a turn for the worst. Overall our sales are way down despite the fact we were able to harvest 1/2 of our asparagus full and the other half 30% this year meaning we had about double the asparagus we have ever had in the past. We also grew and sold a lot of lettuce which made May a good month for us. But June and July have not been so good. I think there are several factors going on. 1) there are 2x or 3x as many farmers and no increase in customers walking through the market, because 2) they banned dogs from market which has lead to a marked decrease in customer traffic the past 3 weeks (a lot of people were royally pissed off over this decision by the market board which I agreed with at the time, and I believe are boycotting the market.) 3) The market is getting too crafty/artsy and the farmers are losing importance. It seem that the Oxford Farmers Market Uptown is more of a social event than a place to buy locally raised foods. 4)There are more and more people selling prepared foods at market which is great for the customers but I do not believe many, if any, are sourcing the ingredients locally from us growers so that too is cutting into our bottom line. And finally, 5) we seem to be in an economic depression and people percieve farmers markets as places where food is very expensive. And This is true for some things (usually things you cannot get normally at Kroger's or Wal-Mart, like 45 different kinds of heirloom tomatoes, or other heirloom fruits and veggies that cannot take the handling to be sold at any chain. But for most things the prices are the same or even less for food that is a whole lot better.

These are just some of the joys of farming.

Buy Buy American Pie

Where is Boulder Belt? Or Why Geography is Important

I am more and more amazed at how bad Americans are at geography. Over the years because our farm name has the word "boulder" in it I get a lot of hits on the Boulder Belt Farm Website (not so much on this blog) from Colorado. I understand that when you Google "Boulder farm share" or "Boulder Organic" or "Boulder Farms" you will get links to Boulder Belt Farm. That said, in the Google description it clearly says that BBF is in SW Ohio and yet they still visit looking for local food information for Boulder Colorado. Okay, but when I get emails and better yet phone calls I have to wonder if people have any clue exactly where in the USA Ohio is. I wonder because every page of the website says at the top Eaton, OH.

-Yes I realize the above paragraph will drive Coloradans to this site-

Today I get an e-mail via Local harvest from a person in Lexington, Ky (which is about 1100 miles closer to us than Colorado) wondering about joining the Farm share Initiative. I wrote back to the person and told her we are 3.5 hours north of her and that she would do better to look for more local food venues-a closer CSA or farmers markets. And in the past 2 or 3 weeks I have had a couple of queries from Colorado about the farm share initiative.

This would not be bothering me so much except Dear Abby today was all about Americans not knowing where the 50 states are located or even that states like Minnesota, New Mexico or Delaware are states. I am a bit of a geography nerd-give me an atlas and I am happy for days or even weeks on end. I was the lone person in my field archaeology class who thought that learning to use a transit and than after we used to transit learned how to plug the raw numbers we got into equations (and I have a math phobia so I should have hated this part but loved it) in order to make a topo map was fun with a capital F. As a kid I would sit and draw maps of places (including a legend and a compass rose) that did not exist. I learned my states and capitals early in life along with how to read a map and use it for navigation (I am the person you want with you if you are driving in a strange place-I do great navigation).

So this whole deal with people not knowing apparently zip about basic geography sorely vexes me. And GPS systems ain't helping out one whit. Now there is no real reason for people to have anything approaching a sense of direction. No longer do people need to know how to read a map, much less how to use a compass. Of course, if the system fails I suppose there will be masses of people wandering around completely and utterly lost.

And here is the irony (I really love this) Boulder Belt Eco-Farm is not in the GPS system. We do show up on Google Earth, though the photo is old and very poor resolution. But we will not be found if you use a GPS system to find us. GPS (and Map Quest and all the other such services) will send you to a non existent address south of Eaton.

So if you want to buy food from us you better bone up on your geography skills and learn where Eaton, OH is and how to read and map

Thistle in the Straw

Well color me pissed off. We went over to a nearby organic farm to buy 20 bales of straw yesterday morning and got a good price at $3 a bale (most of the conventionally raised straw around here goes for $5 a bale). Took the straw back home and unloaded it in the market garden so we could start mulching the perennial beds this morning.

I got a fairly early start and broke apart a bale and started putting it down on an asparagus bed. Immediately I noticed thistle down and entire heads of thistle seed. Not good. I shook out a second flake of straw and found more thistle, lots more. Again, not good. Now I had a big handful of the stuff so I ran to the store and got a bag and put the handful of seed into the bag and continued to distribute straw over the bed and grabbing as much thistle down as I could.

Soon the winds went from fairly calm to about 15mph-nice stiff breeze, great for sailing or kite flying but not good for grabbing thistle down. After getting close to 1/2 bale on about 2/3 of the bed I gave up because I noticed thousands of tiny seeds flying to the north west. So now I have distributed lots of thistle seed to the NW section of the garden and I have a bag with about 1/4 pound of thistle seed which I figure could nicely seed a couple of acres. I still have another 19 bales of straw to deal with and because I have to seek and remove as much thistle as I can it is taking about 5x longer to do this job. But if I don't attempt to remove the seed than we will have a much worse problem of asparagus beds rife with thistle and many many hours wasted trying to control it.

In the perennial beds we cannot do a lot of hoeing (much less trying to dig up the roots) and a healthy crop of thistle could out compete the asparagus at worst, and at best make harvesting miserable.

Now I am wondering if we should continue to buy certified organic straw if there is going to be this problem (this has happened before). I mean it kind of defeats the whole purpose of getting organic inputs if they cause bad weed infestations and the possibility of having to use an herbicide to keep the problem in check.

For now I am planning on using this infested straw and will have to make a plan of attack for the thistle that will be coming up in the beds. I have found you can get rid of the thistle if you cut it down just as it goes into flower but that will not happen until next summer (2010) and so we still have to deal with this years thorny growth.

Like I said I am pissed off and mighty frustrated

Like a CSA Only More So

On Facebook today I was asked what makes our farm Share Program "more so" as in "Like a CSA Only More So", good question.

I have noticed as the locavore and organic foods movements gain strength more and more people are jumping on the bandwagon. This is good as long as the people are local producers. But producing all the food you sell is a lot of hard work. So when something is hot there are people who are not exactly honest about what they do. I have seen a lot of this with the USDA certified organics program. Check out the Organic Consumers Association's as well as La Vida Locavore for some eye openers as to how companies thwart the regulations.

Well, I see the same thing is happening with the locavore movement. My first inkling of this was when I was interviewed by Ben Sutherly of the Dayton Daily News last year about Fulton's Farm Market getting into the CSA biz. At the time I was not exactly pro-CSA and was less so when I had described to me how they would do their CSA. It would go something like 10 months of the year and most of the year members would get about 40% of their share from produce grown on Fulton farms and the rest would come from elsewhere. And I was told Fulton's had invested in a fleet of delivery vans to deliver the shares to the member's doors.

This rankled me because one of the reason's one should use the CSA model as a marketing tool is so the members get reconnected with the farm. This cannot happen if everything is delivered off farm. If the farmer is not growing most of the food, well, how can that farmer hope to be able to start the reconnection of eater to their food process. I say it would be getting close to impossible.

This winter via the Cincinnati locavore email list I was made aware of Door to Door Organics which advertises itself as a CSA as well (but at least they don't claim to be a farm). I was also made aware of another such company setting up shop in SW Ohio/Cincinnati area but I cannot recall the name. Anyhoo, I have a real problem with such companies saying they are CSA when they have no connection to a farm. Yes, they may buy from some local farms but this is not Community Supported Agriculture in any way shape or form.

So here we have various example of the CSA marketing model being stretched all out of shape so pinhookers (a term I like for farmers who resell) and non farmers can participate. A model so warped that there is virtually no agriculture left for a community to support. A model so bent out of shape that it is a parody of itself.

And this is why I say our Farm Share Program Is Like a CSA Only More SO. Because, like fewer and fewer such programs, ours is farmed based, does not have any delivery and has activities such as farm tours that, hopefully, will engage our members with the farm they have joined.
When people join our FSP they will be getting food grown on our farm and they will be able to experience a real deeply sustainable working small diversified farm that is there to serve our fellow locavores.

The Myth of HR 875 and SB 425

There has been a lot written and posted all over the world wide web and Internet about 2 bills in congress, HR 875 and SB 425.

Paranoid people with an agenda to kill all government regulation have interpreted this bill as one that will kill organic farming, criminalize the back yard garden, fine housewives for cooking food that they have grown in their own kitchens and make what I do for a living virtually illegal as small farmers will be forced to comply with the draconian regulations that may be imposed on the interstate/international corporate farms and food processors. I have even seen people claim that the NAIS is a part of these bills (it is not).

Amazing what a few writers good at arousing emotions can do on the interwebs.

The trouble stems from two emails that I guess started out life on a couple of anti government/pro farming blogs.

Here is one of them

http://shepardpolitics.blogspot.com/...aw-family.html

HR 875 Would Essentially Outlaw Family Farms In The United States

I get a lot of e-mails each day and one today (hi Cheryl!) pointed my attention to HR 875, a bill introduced into the 111th Congress for consideration. SO, I went and did something that members of Congress rarely do and actually went and read the bill, or more accurately, at least glanced through it which is still more than they ever do. It was introduced by Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT 3rd) and has around 36 co-sponsors including Congressman Andre Carson (D-IN 7th) as of this writing. It immediately strikes me as being terribly bad legislation.

Under a heading described as protecting the public health and ensuring the safety of food it creates a "Food Safety Administration" within Health and Human Services. Oddly, not just adding regulations to the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) which is also under HHS. And don't we have the USDA as well? The bill applies to all manner of "Food Establishments" and "Food Production Facilities" (note the following excerpt).


(14) FOOD PRODUCTION FACILITY- The term ‘food production facility’ means any farm, ranch, orchard, vineyard, aquaculture facility, or confined animal-feeding operation.


The bill would appear to even cover fishing boats and your downtown hot dog street vendors. In fact, the bill probably would also apply to your family garden since no exemption is apparent.

What it essentially does is place a tremendous regulatory burden on all of these organizations and individuals by requiring them to have "food safety plans", consider all relevant hazards [note: I wish Congress would consider all "relevant hazards" or unintended consequences of everything THEY did], testing, sample keeping and to maintain all kinds of records. The bill also allows the government to dictate all manner of standards related to fertilizer use, nutrients, packaging, temperature controls and other items.

This massive bloat in government regulation (and taxpayer expense to support it) would add additional cost and headache to every farm, fishing boat, restaurant, slaughterhouse, processing plant, CO-OP and anyone else associated with growing, storing or processing food. The bill authorizes fines of up to $1,000,000 (one million) dollars for "each act" and for "each day" of a violation.

We'll skip over the concern over how important food production and distribution, largely recession proof, could be if our economy continues to decline and inflation takes hold and just address this on the apparent lunacy that it is. As those familiar with history know, large dominant corporations often will use government to demand industry regulations that force the small competitor out of business or introduce barriers to entry that prevent new companies from starting up to compete. In the early part of the 20th century a tremendous amount of regulation was written by the industries themselves to be enacted into law.

In this case, I think this bill could do tremendous harm to family farms or independent food operators. Only massive companies have the ability to meet these regulations and imagine the legal expenses that could be incurred to defend oneself? Never forget, the government has near unlimited resources where you might have to cough up $200 to $500 an hour for a good attorney to defend yourself, your farm, boat, truck, restaurant, orchard, vineyard or hot dog stand. And what about the increased cost of food associated with the cost of compliance, it's not unreasonable to think that many places would have to hire staff or outside assistance just to comply with the law.

We have an excellent history in the United States of safe food, but as Obama's Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel suggested recently, "You should never want a serious crisis to go to waste." He spoke those words relative to looking for opportunities to do things that people would not otherwise accept without some crisis. We should be very careful not to let the very rare instance of something like the recent peanut problem be used as such a "crisis". There is no impetus to point the bureaucrats of government and the guns they control, their ability to not only deprive someone of life or freedom but to destroy whole families, careers and reputations, at everyone in the country who might be involved in ensuring we have stuff to eat.

We're doing just fine without this legislation.

Here are a couple of diatribes by Lin Cohen-Cole who writes for OpEdNews.com
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Goodbye-farmers-markets-C-by-Linn-Cohen-Cole-090303-287.html

and
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Monsanto-s-dream-bill-HR-by-Linn-Cohen-Cole-090309-337.html

These articles talk about things that these congressional bills do not touch such as seed saving and NAIS (both under the jurisdiction of the USDA and not the FDA). She writes to scare people and get them all in a tizzy about a brand new bill that will not make it in to committee for many months, if ever.

Now here is what Tom Barlow has to say about these bills
http://www.walletpop.com/blog/2009/03/12/will-proposed-national-legislation-kill-the-farmers-market/ he does not see these bills as doing anything close to shutting down farmers markets, criminalizing organic farming etc., etc..

Nor does the Organic Consumers Association which calls this fear mongering "the Internet Myth of the week"

This week, we received numerous calls and emails from OCA supporters who came across alarming YouTube videos and emails circulating on the Internet that claimed a new food safety bill (HR 875) introduced in Congress would make "organic farming illegal." Although the Bill certainly has its shortcomings, it is an exaggeration to say that is a secret plot by Monsanto and the USDA to destroy the nation's alternative food and farming system. In actuality, HR 875, the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009, is a limited-vision attempt by moderate Democrats and Republicans to craft food safety legislation to address the out-of-control filth and contamination that are inherent in our industrialized, now globalized, "profit-at-any-cost" food system.
This being said, OCA does not support HR 875 in its present form, given the fact that, if the Bill's regulations were applied in a one-size-fits-all manner to certified organic and farm-to-consumer operations, it could have a devastating impact on small farmers, especially raw milk producers who are already unfairly targeted by state food-safety regulators. Although the OCA deems this Bill as somewhat well-intentioned, we are calling on Congress to focus its attention on the real threats to food safety: globalized food sourcing from nations such as China where food safety is a joke and domestic industrial-scale and factory farms whose collateral damage includes pesticide and antibiotic-tainted food, mad cow disease, E.coli contamination and salmonella poisoning. And, of course, Congress and the Obama Administration need to support a massive transition to organic farming practices.

Food and water watch has this to say about these bills:

Food & Water Watch’ s Statement on H.R. 875 and the Food Safety Bills



The dilemma of how to regulate food safety in a way that prevents problems caused by industrialized agriculture but doesn’t wipe out small diversified farms is not new and is not easily solved. And as almost constant food safety problems reveal the dirty truth about the way much of our food is produced, processed and distributed, it’s a dilemma we need to have serious discussion about.

Most consumers never thought they had to worry about peanut butter and this latest food safety scandal has captured public attention for good reason – a CEO who knowingly shipped contaminated food, a plant with holes in the roof and serious pest problems, and years of state and federal regulators failing to intervene.

It’s no surprise that Congress is under pressure to act and multiple food safety bills have been introduced.

Two of the bills are about traceability for food (S.425 and H.R. 814). These present real issues for small producers who could be forced to bear the cost of expensive tracking technology and record keeping.

The other bills address what FDA can do to regulate food.



A lot of attention has been focused on a bill introduced by Rep. Rosa DeLauro (H.R. 875), the Food Safety Modernization Act. And a lot of what is being said about the bill is misleading.

Here are a few things that H.R. 875 DOES do:

-It addresses the most critical flaw in the structure of FDA by splitting it into 2 new agencies –one devoted to food safety and the other devoted to drugs and medical devices.

-It increases inspection of food processing plants, basing the frequency of inspection on the risk of the product being produced – but it does NOT make plants pay any registration fees or user fees.

-It does extend food safety agency authority to food production on farms, requiring farms to write a food safety plan and consider the critical points on that farm where food safety problems are likely to occur.

-It requires imported food to meet the same standards as food produced in the U.S.

And just as importantly, here are a few things that H.R. 875 does NOT do:

-It does not cover foods regulated by the USDA (beef, pork, poultry, lamb, catfish.)

-It does not establish a mandatory animal identification system.

-It does not regulate backyard gardens.

-It does not regulate seed.

-It does not call for new regulations for farmers markets or direct marketing arrangements.

-It does not apply to food that does not enter interstate commerce (food that is sold across state lines).

-It does not mandate any specific type of traceability for FDA-regulated foods (the bill does instruct a new food safety agency to improve traceability of foods, but specifically says that record keeping can be done electronically or on paper.)



Several of the things not found in the DeLauro can be found in other bills – like H.R. 814, the Tracing and Recalling Agricultural Contamination Everywhere Act, which calls for a mandatory animal identification system, or H.R. 759, the Food And Drug Administration Globalization Act, which overhauls the entire structure of FDA. H.R. 759 is more likely to move through Congress than H.R. 875. And H.R. 759 contains several provisions that could cause problems for small farms and food processors:

-It extends traceability record keeping requirements that currently apply only to food processors to farms and restaurants – and requires that record keeping be done electronically.

-It calls for standard lot numbers to be used in food production.

-It requires food processing plants to pay a registration fee to FDA to fund the agency’s inspection efforts.

-It instructs FDA to establish production standards for fruits and vegetables and to establish Good Agricultural Practices for produce.

There is plenty of evidence that one-size-fits-all regulation only tends to work for one size of agriculture – the largest industrialized operations. That’s why it is important to let members of Congress know how food safety proposals will impact the conservation, organic, and sustainable practices that make diversified, organic, and direct market producers different from agribusiness. And the work doesn’t stop there – if Congress passes any of these bills, the FDA will have to develop rules and regulations to implement the law, a process that we can’t afford to ignore.

But simply shooting down any attempt to fix our broken food safety system is not an approach that works for consumers, who are faced with a food supply that is putting them at risk and regulators who lack the authority to do much about it.

You can read the full text of any of these bills at http://thomas.loc.gov

___________________________
Sarah Alexander
Senior Food Organizer
Food & Water Watch

1616 P St. NW Suite 300
Washington, DC 20036
salexander@fwwatch.org
www.foodandwaterwatch.org

So you can see these bills while they need the wording tweaked a bit are not the death knell to small organic farms selling their products direct to the public.

All that said, NAIS Is a real threat to small farms that raise animals and NAIS is in committee and can be commented upon right now here is where you do that http://www.regulations.gov/fdmspublic/component/main?main=DocketDetail&d=APHIS-2007-0096

Vilsack To Head the USDA-Obama What Are You Thinking!??!

I do not do a lot of political posts even though I feel food is a very very political thing and I am fairly politically active (I write/email my reps and I vote).

So I was incredibly disappointed and even disillusioned by Barak Obama's pick of Tom Vilsick for Secy of the USDA. I know I did my best to suggest far better people to head the USDA and be leaders of real change, people such as Jim Hightower. I was encouraged several weeks ago to learn that Vilsack had been deleted from the short list (or so the Obama people told the Organic Consumers Association and the organic food and farming community. Was that his first big lie to us foodies?) The Obama people said they were intersted in appointing someone who would change the USDA and make it much more firendly to eaters and farmers and not so friendly with Big farma, corporations and biotech farming.

Well Obama, you have nominated a man who is in lock step with everything that has made our national food and farming system so unsustainable and dangerous. You have shown me that, at least as far as the very very important sector of food, (far more important to our collective well being than energy-that we can live without but we cannot go more than a few days without food before nasty riots break out and no more than a few weeks before the riots die down becuase of all the starvation that is killing off anyone who was not killed in the food riots) you will be doing business as usual which is not good for the eaters and farmers of this great nation. But this will be wonderful for Monsanto, Cargill, ADM etc..

I voted for change and so far have seen very little indication there will be any. I had faith that Obama would at least listen to his constituants but I don't think he is listening to we the people and the websites that allow us to put in our thoughts and opinions are simply ruses. Something to keep us busy and thinking we are making a difference. I hope I am wrong and this is an anomaly but it is not looking good from where I stand.

I should have voted for Nader. This appoujntment soo pisses me off

A Farmers or Crafters Market?

Eugene finishing setting up the market stand. We brought a lot of lettuce, that's what's in most of the bags.

Yesterday was farmers market day in Oxford (as well as Miami U's graduation-congrats to any graduates who are reading this). It was a beautiful sunny morning but the market was pretty dead early on. And even in mid morning when the attendance got better not a lot of produce was selling.

The market had 27 vendors yesterday and only 2 of us, Locust Run and Boulder Belt, were selling vegetables plus Downing's which has cider and apple butter and will soon have fruits and veggies. We also had two meat vendors, 5 people selling plants and 1 selling goat cheese. So we have 11 farmer types selling at this market out of 27, a farming minority at the farmers market. You would think that with so few produce vendors at this market we would both sell out. That did not happen for any of us. All of us took quite a bit of produce home. I did hear the craft people did great sales, though.

I have noticed since last year when several people on the board decided that there should be more crafters at this market (which I hesitate to call a farmers market any longer) the ratio of craft people and bakers to farmers is skewed away from this market being farmer friendly. When I helped to create this market we established a rule that there could be one craft vendor for every 5 (or maybe 7) farmers. We made this rule to ensure that this farmers market would be a FARMER'S market and not be taken over by the arts and crafts crowd. Last year with a new bunch of people on the board that rule was tossed out and "Artist Alley" was created. Now we had a market that had about as many crafters as farmers. Not a good trend in my mind, and I did question this move with several board members and felt like I was blown off by them.

Move forward to 2008 and now we have more crafters than farmers and we also have space issues in the spot where the market is held due to a building going up next door. This has lost us about 7 spaces. So far this season every space has been filled and I know that there are at least 4 farmers who will be coming in later on this season. Will the board tell the crafters there is no space for them (after they have paid their annual fee?) or will the growers be left out? It's gotta go one way or the other (unless the market is moved to larger quarters) because space is very limited.

My issue is that we created a market for farmers to sell their wares when the Oxford Uptown farmers market was born. And now it seems that this market is becoming a weekly craft show. I have read of several markets that went this direction and eventually the farmers were kicked out. I do not want this to happen in Oxford. I do know when you have too many crafters people going to the market start spending their money on the craft items and do not spend their money with the farmers and quickly the situation is a winner for the crafters and a losing one for the farmers. I was hoping this was not going to happen in Oxford but from the looks of things I do not see encouraging things for us growers. Hopefully this will change and what I have been seeing is the strange buying patterns of Oxford's Graduation/Mother's Day weekend and in the coming weeks/months people will be coming to the farmers market to buy food

Eugene and I are lucky because we have a store here on the farm and after 2 years the locals are finding us and shopping here. Sales are up 500% so far this year. The store is not yet supporting itself but it is going in the right direction. As the industrial food system continues to fail I expect we will get a lot more business and in a couple of years will be able to quit going to the Saturday market altogether (man it will be nice not to have to get up at 4:30am in order to get to market by 7am, which we rarely do. We seem to always be late). We plan on sticking with the Tuesday market which, so far, does not have this out of whack farmer to crafter ratio problem. And since I still have a lot of influence with this market, should not for many years to come. I love going to the Tuesday market because it is so laid back and it has a wonderful mix of vendors, all of whom I like a lot. Oh and I don't have to get up at 4:30 am to get there on time.

I just may have to run for the OFMU board this fall, even though we really cannot afford the gasoline to get to Oxford for the meetings. But something has to be done to get the board away from this craft takeover of the farmers market and back in the farmers' corner. Otherwise, we growers may well lose what should be a spectacular market for us.

Getting Things Done

It rained early yesterday and we ended up with 1.5 inches which filled the market garden with water. So we got a day off from planting things in the garden. Instead I pricked 200 pepper seedlings (out of about 450 seeds planted-fairly bad germination) into 2" soil blocks and Eugene planted French and galia melons along with replanting zucchinis because the first bunch I planted had terrible germination due to me using old seeds. I got 6 seeds out of 100 (maybe more) to germinate.

Later we investigated the new to us Coke and Pepsi fridges and decided they needed professional help so I called up Lowman's in Eaton and made an appointment to have their commercial refrigeration guy come out early Monday morning to see what's wrong with them. This visit will likely be expensive but we need to get the fridges up and running before we open the store April 23rd, that's just 11 days away.

We also did thinking about our signage. We have a couple of big signs we bought from a Dunkard who used to sell/repair Howard Miller Clocks. He sold them to us many years ago for $50 IIRC. They have been sitting around posing as tables for several years and now we are finally able to deal with them. So now we have to come up with a design and find someone who will either put a vinyl design on them of someone who will paint a design on them. I am leaning strongly towards hiring a sign painter rather than someone who uses computer aided design to create signs. Not to mention, I feel vinyl is more toxic than paint (I am probably very wrong on this, I should ask my brother who knows his paints and toxins). As a person who was raised by real artists and has more than her share of art talent (which means you would think I could design and paint the damn signs myself but I keep running into creative blocks so the task keeps not getting done) I would be more comfortable using an artist and not a technologist to do the signs. the down side is there are not many sign painters left in the world-this craft is being destroyed by the vinyl sign industry which is sad.

Boulder Belt is NOT in Colorado

Just a note to my Colorado visitors. I am happy you have come to read this blog but know
Boulder Belt IS IN OHIO.

I see from my blog statistics that I have a lot of hits from people in Colorado looking for all sorts of local foods. I am not local to you people in the SW USA.

Not to mention, yesterday there was a message on the answering machine from a person in Boulder Colorado looking for hens (and no we do not raise hens, not for eggs, not for sale, not for anything). I have also had a call from a lawyer asking my opinion as a CO farmer about fighting cocks, Coloradians looking for raw milk, CSA's, etc.. He was rather embarrassed when I told him I was in Ohio. I was even told by a farming colleague that he has gotten calls from Colorado enquiring about his organic livestock feeds due to people reading this blog.

Sorry, but I cannot help you. But you can help yourselves by carefully reading the side bar where such information as location are situated (my location is clearly spelled out in my bio on the top of the side bar).

All I can say is get a clue about geology and know that Colorado and especially Boulder Colorado does not have the monopoly on Boulders and that people in other parts of the USA and the world at large can and do use the term BOULDER to describe their localities.

At first this was funny to us here at the farm but now it is getting tiresome.

Wake Up America

This is written by a cyber friend and fellow farmer Alan Bishop who has a diversified farm in Southern Indiana. You can respond directly to him (and visit one of the better farm/garden forums on the world wide web at Home Grown Goodness

Wake up America!
Your local farmer, produce suppliers, and mom and pop stores need you more than ever, and chances are your going to need them!

A call to end “Big Box” mentality in America!
Written by: Alan Reed Bishop of Bishop's Homegrown and Hip-Gnosis seed development.
February 28, 2008


Hey America, it’s time to wake up! Your dollar value is dropping, your waists are expanding and you’re a generally unhappy bunch of folks from what I have seen. And that my friend is from the mouth of an American himself. Alan Reed Bishop.

I’m not here to berate anyone, surely what I’m about to say even applies to myself and I’ve got a lot to learn so that I too don’t sound like a hypocrite. What I’m here to say is something that probably won’t set so well with many blue collard American folks, but it is the truth. A hard truth that if not faced will bare the consequences of an even more uncertain future.

What I’m here to ask, is just exactly how long will it take the fact that we are destroying our own culture, food supply, and future by shopping at the corporate owned big box stores, to set in? You may not realize it, but every time you drive to your local Wal-Mart, Meijers, K-mart, Home Depot or whatever and drop one of those dirty dollars on the counter, you are further eroding the very culture and substance of the American way of life. How many news reports about poisonous toys and unsafe food do you have to hear before you get it? It seems so obvious. Many of you may think that loosing the mom and pop owned five and dimes is of little consequence to your bread and butter, but look what happened to their bread and butter when you took your dollar elsewhere, and guess what, other consumers suffer due to your bad decisions as well, being forced to pay higher prices for lower quality products and food. A damn shame if I do say so myself.

In my profession I’ve seen it time and again. The local produce business can be quite fickle at times, particularly when it comes to un-informed customers. Now, don’t get me wrong, people will have to eat regardless, and I will be able to stay in this business on that fact alone, however the hurt is really being put on the local farmers and co-ops by the Wal-Marts and Jay-C-Food stores of the world and their supposedly “organic” produce, and perhaps more importantly, you the consumer are feeling the burn as well. Prices on organic food keep on sky-rocketing while quality keeps sinking. Perhaps you believe that the much coveted “organic” label actually means something to the big companies who use different names to market “organic“ versions of their products? If so, you‘d be dead wrong. You see, the USDA and the Corporations of the world don‘t care about what the word “organic“ means as long as it equals money in the pocket. That‘s why there are 35 non-organic substances allowed in the production of USDA “Certified Organic“ food production. Thirty five substances which may or may not be any better for you than conventional products. Thirty Five substances which may or may not have been outlawed in other countries around the world due to their links with rates of cancer and environmental damage. Thirty five substances that mono-culture farms half the world away and in your own backyards would rather you never know about.

I’m not here to bash “Organic farming” at all, as a matter of fact I consider myself to be an Organic farmer in the truest sense of the word. In that my produce and products are produced and protected using only the most natural of methods and minus gas to local venues and diesel for my tractor, my carbon foot print on this farm is pretty small. The USDA, big box stores, and corporate agriculture however don’t see “Organic” in this way, as a matter of fact their measure of the word “Organic” would be much easier summed up in monetarily inspired numbers. As anybody knows, self sustainable, nutritious, and organic food is right up my alley and I try my hardest everyday of my life to further improve my systems of delivery, production, and self sustainability in an attempt to treat the earth and it’s inhabitants with the utmost respect and dignity while also providing a premium product LOCALLY, and therein lies the problem.

You see, when you walk into Wal-Mart and see those big blue organic labels, your looking at a lie. Your looking at a money grubbing scheme to both take your money for a sub-par product, run local farmers out of business, and further erode the meaning of the “organic” label, while at the same time making you feel all warm and fuzzy inside because you just bought something “organic”. So, what’s the problem with that organic food? Well there are a lot of problems with it. Much of that “organic” food comes from other counties around the world, particularly third world countries where “organic” standards are much less observed and regulated. Another problem is that there are several organically approved, yet none the less dangerous chemicals that are allowed to pass as suitable for “organic” production systems and in the preparation and processing of those foods, mostly because the USDA Organic law is catered to large mono-culture farms. And last but not least, most of the “organic” food that your buying on those nasty, dollar inflated Wall-Mart shelves that is actually grown in the USA is grown by large corporate farms, owned by multi-million dollar companies that you already know well by their more common brand names, in systems that would make a septic sludge pond look organic, by folks who have little to no respect for local farmers and business and the local economy,environmental concerns and health of the consumer, and to boot the food is then shipped hundreds, sometimes thousands of miles away to those big ugly boxes, effectively leaving a carbon foot print so large it should immediately affect the value of that food as “organic” to any clearly thinking human being. And yet many people continue to shop in these huge emporiums of low-grad crap.

Do you know how many times that market farmers hear the phrase, “well, I’ll go to town and buy that at Wal-Mart cheaper.” ? Does that even make sense to anyone? You’d rather eat poisonous food from 1,000 miles away than to pay an extra $0.25 for quality, local products that you know support the local economy and that you can trust? Not to mention the fact that you are only lowering the value of the dollar and putting wealth and power in the hands of countries which are not exactly on friendly terms with us? I mean to me it doesn't make any sense, you would rather buy food from someone you don't know from a thousand miles away than to actually talk to and see the face of the very person who grew the food? This country is a long strange trip indeed!

I can understand now why so many little mom and pop stores have shut down. People stop supporting them and drive to town, paying more for gas, inflating the economy of the rich corporate stockholders and countries with horrible track records like China, while depleting our own country of natural resources, a healthy lifestyle, community, and yes even culture. For as much as a mom and pop store, a farmers market, or a local feed mill is a source for material goods it is also a source of knowledge and local and regionalized culture. Not only that, but I get a distinct impression that the materialism of this country drives one even more so to go out and buy the latest fashions and gas guzzling vehicles, so one can be trendy and “fit in” while at the same time pretending to “know“ and “care“ about global warming, politics, and the economy. Well America you go ahead and keep drowning our economy, keep pumping yourself full of dangerous chemicals, keep saying that the big box stores are good for us, keep thinking that you need all that crap that you waste your money on, keep playing into the game, keep destroying your history and culture, just keep right on conforming. Soon we can just go ahead and close down all the mom and pop stores, replace everything with “organic” McDonald’s and Taco Bells, put a big Wal-Mart on every street corner and change the name of the United States of America to The Amalgamated states of Conformity. Me, well, I’m going to do the best I can to inform myself and those around me to make the right decisions while meanwhile continuing the god given work that I am doing and not pretending to be anything I am not. I’ll be your valuable market farmer, the source for your healthy food and lifestyle, your alternative to “New America”, I’ll just keep right on being the plant breeding, worm ranching, truly organic, seed saving, hill-Billy, ridge running farmer that I have been, and when the shit hits the fan, I’ll be sure to plant a little more for the extra needy and pray that those of you that have caused this can take the crash course in survivalism to protect yourselves and your families from the terrorism that you have inflicted on your own country.

So, here is my question, who are you going to turn to when things take the deep downturn we are headed towards? Is it going to be the mom and pop stores you put out of business? The farmer that couldn’t afford the tools he needed to get the job done?

Really, we have no one to blame for our health, our economy, our loss of morals and our horrible leaders other than ourselves. We have lost sight of what made this country great. Local culture and ideas. Self sustainable family owned business that care as much about the community as they do the money that they make. Independent people with independent ideas who stand up for what they believe in! When the last family farm falls, will you be there to say, this is our fault?


P.S. If you don’t believe that this country is in a sad state then take the time to rationalize that instead of working on national issues, congress is currently more interested in holding hearings regarding steroids in sports. You tell me, where are the priorities?

Shake Up at Seed Savers Exchange

Yesterday I got an email from an organic gardening list I subscribe to saying Kent Whealy had been fired from SSE and felt wronged by the abrupt dismissal. I was told there was an 8 page letter written by him and sent to all the listed members in the SSE yearbook. I was intrigued. What was in the letter? Why was Kent fired? What will happen to SSE? I spent a lot of yesterday and today trying to find a copy of the letter and someone finally posted a link to the letter over at Alan Bishop's Forum (a really good farm/garden forum, if you like participating in such go there now and register and get involved). I downloaded the pdf of the letter and now I am pissed off about this whole thing

Here is the pdf link here of Kent's letter. Read it and weep.

610kb file.

http://www.mustangmods.com/ims/u/1016/1377/217012.pdf


also, here's the latest response from SSE...

"To anyone looking for a response in this forum to a recent letter that was sent to SSE's Listed Members:

http://seedsavers.forumco.com/topic~TOPIC_ID~104.asp

There are legal issues, as well as PR issues, involved in responding to Kent's letter, which has made an immediate response difficult. SSE is preparing a response and it will be available within the next day or so, both on Seed Savers' website (www.seedsavers.org) and here on Seed Savers' forum (seedsavers.forumco.com). We appreciate your understanding and patience in the meantime.

Steph Hughes
Seed Savers Exchange"

Web Politics

I am looking at the ElectionVine Polling Place widget on this blog and I am noticing that Kucinich is still on top but losing ground to Ron Paul quickly and that Hillary Clinton hasn't even made the cut.

This is not a reflection of non-Internet political reality which has Obama and Clinton going head to head whilst Kucinich is lagging far, far back in the pack. It also has Ron Paul at 28%, not the 10% he's garnered in one caucus and one primary.

I see why pollsters take the data from the web with a big grain of salt. It seems there are a lot of netizens who love voting in on-line polls but when it comes time to disconnect from one's computer, go outside, and get over to the polling place to cast a real, legit vote too few ever exercise their civic duty to vote in state, local and national elections.

What would happen if all these net voters got registered to vote in real elections and than actually did so and people like Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich won the race for President (or at least the nomination in their respective parties). I mean, what if 99% of the registered voters went out on election day (and there will be two national elections in every state-the primaries going on now until June and the national election in November) and voted for their favorite (not the person they feel can "win" based on who the corporations want to see in the Whitehouse-which ain't either Paul or Kooch). I believe we would see a much different political landscape in the country and a government that is closer to the ideal of by the people and for the people, instead of our reality; by the corporation and for the corporation.

FYI I like participating in on-line political polls and forums but I also am registered to vote and vote in most elections, even the local ones with only one issue or candidate on the ballot. This is a civic duty I take seriously and I wish far more people in the USA would too

BND So Far

I am about mid way through Buy nothing day. So far I did not get up at 3am in order to make it to one of the various box retailers for the "Door Buster" savings. I have not been within 25 miles of a mall nor have I purchased anything on-line or at a local retailer.

What I have done is make strawberry pancakes, coffee, played games, read several interesting blogs, posted on a few forums, cleaned popcorn, washed the dishes, washed a load of laundry, made and ate lunch. I just might make some nut brittle this afternoon (I actually have everything one would need for such a project except white cotton gloves) and perhaps hamburger (from pastured, local cattle).

Oh yes, and I have watched both local and national news and their accounts (encouragement) of Black Friday activities. All I can say is anyone participating in Black Friday is participating in a insane event. Even the descriptions of Black Friday-Shopping Frenzy, stressful, full contact shopping, etc..-are not the descriptive terms of a sane activity. Okay, these people are getting good deals on stuff but do they really need this stuff? Most likely not and it will soon enough either be landfilled or end up in storage or maybe yard sale fodder.

Pity, especially when we are at a point in history when we really cannot afford such craven and unnecessary consumerism. It is healthy for no one.

We are Women Dammit

This morning I have a rant.

For several months, perhaps this has been going on for a couple of years, I have noticed that people on TeeVee have replaced the term "Woman" with the term "Female". As in, "that female over there screwed my boyfriend". This is most prevalent on the news and the afternoon shows (Judge Joe, People's Court, Maury, Jerry Springer etc.. ) Yeah I watch a lot of crap when I don't have to other things to do in the afternoons. I'm a TeeVee addict like most citizens of the USA. I'd like to say I watch only PBS (and I do watch a lot of PBS) but I can't take most of the kid shows they have in the afternoon.

I assume this is coming straight out of cop speak as in the "female perp"... which is fine for the police. But now this way of referring to Women is creeping into common language. No more than creeping, it is galloping into common usage, thanks to bad TeeVee

I hate it when the local news does a live interview and a woman, for Christ's sakes, uses the term "Female" to describe what some woman did (it could even be herself she is describing). Dammit, use the term Woman when you are talking about a woman. Are the women of this country so afraid of their womaness that they will not use the word woman? Using the term Female, to me, is neutering the whole idea of Woman (maybe spaying is a better term than neutering). We are fast losing any empowerment the feminist movement of the 1970's and 80's gave us by using this awful term to refer to our sex

We are humans, therefore we are women, not females. FYI kids, female refers to any species so you could be talking about a dog, horse, iguana, bee, slug (okay slugs are hermaphrodites), a toad, a cow, a tree, etc..

I notice men are NOT referred to as males, they still will use the term Man when referring to the male of the human species. And this is despite the cops using the term Male when referring to a suspect/perp/etc who is a man. Maybe what I am seeing is the death of feminism. I hope not but it seems that too many women out there do not appreciate being a woman and the power we women all have if we are will to find it and tap into it so the refer to themselves as females.

Women are smarter (That's right the women are smarter) and we have impressive powers. Our breasts alone contain strong powers few men can resist. Ladies, we need to tap into our powers more than we seem to be doing these days and quite referring to ourselves as females, We are Women dammit! So quit referring to you and me as Female.

Of Melons and Business

Because it is Sunday we had the farm store open from 11am til 5pm. The past several Sundays (127 yard sale excluded) we have had next to no business. Maybe one car would stop but often the people would not buy anything. This has gotten us rather depressed about things (well, that and the damn drought which gets worse and worse each day). This has made us start questioning the wisdom of doing this farming thing for a living (okay we have been doing this full time for over ten years and our sales at the farmers markets are doing very well).

Last week we had a lot of cantaloupes for sale and sold not a one at the store. I was very hot and we had little fridge space for the 'loupes. This meant that by the time the Tuesday farmers market rolled around we had a lot of over ripe "eat 'em right now" melons to sell. So we did a half price on the over ripe cantaloupes and unloaded all of them.

Fortunately today several people stopped at the store and bought melons, among other things and the store made some money.

What I must remember is it takes time to cultivate this kind of business. It took us many years to make $300 in sales at farmers markets (something you really have to do if you do this full time and it is your sole source of income). I takes a while to build up a customer base and of course when we started we had no idea what we were doing. If we did we probably would not have stayed in farming. We had a very steep learning curve as far as growing organically on a small commercial scale went. That and all the wrong equipment. But over time we learned what he hell we were doing and accrued the proper stuff, eventually buying he most important piece of all-a farm of our own.

So now we have this farm and it is on a busy highway (albeit at the top of a hill that has a nasty blind curve on it) and it has a barn and good land and the Farm Store. And because the farm store is not wildly successful from the git go we worry about it. We forget that we have several repeat customers, that we have spend zero funds for advertising (with the exception of $4.95 a month to keep adds off of the Boulder belt Farm web site and buying the domain for that site) and than Preble County is not exactly the center of the local and organic food world (but I am working on that) and that it just takes time to get something meaningful going.

So I end the day in better spirits than I began simply because we had a few people stop and they all bought cantaloupes and watermelons. It would be even better if the threatening clouds would produce some actual rain

Tue Mkt Treated Badly by Oxford, OH

Yesterday I found out just how much Oxford, Ohio values is farmers markets-Very little.

Tuesday has been farmers market day in Uptown Oxford for the past 12 years-That's right, 12 years. We set up this market on the north side of the Memorial Park and have so for as long as he park has been in existance. We have filled out and filed with the city the proper permits to do this market legally.

And yet yesterday afternoon when we showed up in Oxford a 4:10 pm (we were a bit late as we were planting some sweet potato slips we had grown) the park was being used for a 3rd of July festival (why this was not done on the 4th is beyond me) put on by the Parks and Recreation folks. And the market was banned from setting up in he park. his would not have been so bad if someone from the Parks and Recreation dept had contacted either me or Debra Bowles about our site being used for the day. If they had we would have either cancelled or better yet, asked if we could be a part of the festivities-afterall what is more American than a farmers market? And I do not know why this did not happen as there has been a partnership formed between the P&R dept and OFMU, the Tuesday market's governing body. So in theory, if the P&R was really taking the farmers markets in Oxford seriously, we should have been involved in his event. Bu obviously the Oxford P&R (and I believe the City as well) are not taking the farmers markets in Oxford seriously and that is a shame as they are totally missing the point that farmers markets are always an asset.

Okay, so we get here, Debra sees us and tells us that we are to set up in the back of the public parking lot where we have our Saturday market. Don Schwab is already set up there. He tells us a tale of getting rudely kicked out of the park by the P&R people (who should be welcoming us, especially since they are stepping on our toes by usurping our rightful territory). I later find out that the City had made no contingency plan for the Tuesday market and wanted to just cancel us.

Fortunately Oxford has Diana Durr who runs the Visitors and Convention Bureau and is a champion of Farmers markets. She told the city they had to allow us to set up in he public lot since we had permits and OFMU does pay to use the lot. So she got them to okay the parking lot at the last minute and we were allowed to set up our market. She is also the only person to apologise for the mix up (which was not her fault). It would be nice to also get an apology from the P&R people where were less than pleasant to the Tuesday market and who also did not tell us that there would be a conflict. Wotta bunch of Maroons (as Bugs Bunny would say)

So here we are set up away from he festivities, barely allowed to set up our farmers market signs so that our public could find up now that we are a 1/2 block away from our normal haunts (and studies show moving a market just 100' will mean a major decrease in sales). The market was set up 45 minutes behind schedule and sales were slow-the slowest in 4 or 5 years. A few of our customers did indeed find us bu mos did not and so we pretty much wasted our time sitting out behind a big festival that we should have been included in had anyone associated with this event had a functioning brain.

Call me very pissed off about this whole thing

Boulder Belt is in Ohio Dammit

I was googling myself, really Boulder Belt Eco-Farm, and found BBEF is listed on a Boulder Colorado site as a local farm. They had a link to my Local Harvest store but not this blog or my farm website. This explains why, in the past several months, I have gotten the occasional call from Boulder, CO wanting local food or, in one case, a guy wanting to sell me plastic to package chickens in.

In the past, many people have assumed Eugene and I are from Boulder because of our farm's name, we are not. Neither of us has even visited the state of Colorado. I do not know why it is so difficult for some people to realize that Boulder, CO does not have a monopoly on boulders, that they do exist right here in SW Ohio. On our farm even, hence the name Boulder Belt, named for the Bloomington Boulder Belt that cuts a NW to SE swath through Preble county.

Boulder Belt is in Ohio, Dammit!

A Food Rant

I recently started a subscription to Acres magazine after a 1 year hiatus from it. I see it has a new format and a lot of articles on the state of raw milk with several anonymous mentions in a couple of issues of the farm I hold 2 cow shares with. It seems the Streits are the only cow share farm left in southern Ohio. With a new governor and head of the ODA things are looking better for raw milk sales in Ohio. But nothing is writ in stone and things could stay the same (ODA's intense hostility towards all cow share programs) or even get worse.

After all, this raw milk deal is stepping lightly on the toes of Big Dairy and Big Dairy has an incredibly low tolerance for having its' toes stepped upon. So they start smear campaigns and get the state dept of Ag goons out there to stop any and all farms from selling raw milk and thus taking a small piece of the dairy sales pie (of which Big Dairy wants 100% ).

I fear what we are seeing with raw milk will soon enough start happening with those of us who grow and sell produce. The e-coli, salmonella, campybolactor (what a fun disease to say), etc., etc.. outbreaks in our veggies I believe is designed to scare folks off of local produce. Oh sure, all of these outbreaks (that's right 100%) have occurred only on produce megafarms and zero % have been from organic farms, despite the lies coming out of the corporate owned which in almost every case in 2006 wrongly blamed organic produce for contamination. But there have been whisper campaigns that are questioning the safety of locally grown food. The argument claims that the big farms/packing plants have HAVC protocols in place and get their produce tested for contamination all the time and the small farms do not. The fact of the matter is the big farms are supposed to have HAVC protocols in place but as it turns out most do not and most farms do not send samples of their produce out for testing on a regular basis. The other argument is because small farms are so small they do not have a customer base large enough to tell if they were contaminating their customers. Whereas the megafarms, with millions of people eating their produce will know instantly if they have a contamination problem. Instantly, that is, if your definition of instantly is 6 to 12 weeks.

Face it, eating food produced in large quantities is a real crap shoot. All it takes in one worker with dirty hands to contaminate tens of thousands of pounds of spinach or lettuce. A lot of these produce farms are sharing aquifers with mega dairy farms and that means the irrigation water is likely contaminated with bovine fecal matter. the proof of this is the fact we keep seeing the same kind of contamination-E-coli 157H7 which comes from two sources-cattle fed grain, either from a feed lot or an industrial dairy-and humans. the spinach that was found contaminated in the fall of '06 was grown on a farm that abutted a large dairy farm. the "experts" can tell us that the source of this contamination is from wild pigs but any sensible person can plainly see that the contamination came from other industrial agriculture (i.e. the factory milk farm next door)

Now, eating food from a small farm is quite safe in comparison. On our farm, for example, because we do not use raw manure for feeding the soil the risk of contaminating our food with any of the industrial contaminants is nil. Granted, a bird flying overhead could hit a tomato or head of lettuce but that can easily be washed off (actually most of that produce is never sold, we eat it ourselves). And because we minimally process our food and sell most of it within 24 of harvest the vectors for contamination are simply not there (one theory of why e-coli was so bad on the spinach was because it got to incubate for 10 days before it was sold).

But there are plenty of shills on the web and writing news releases saying the opposite. they tell us locally raised food, especially organically raised food is dangerous. They are lying through their teeth but that is what they are paid to do. because like Big dairy Big produce does not like seeing any of its' profits, no matter how small, taken by us little guys and eventually they will get the State Dept of Ag to act in their favor.

The number one reason produce gets contaminated and not fit for eating is because of bad practises by the consumer. Too many people will use the same knife and cutting board that had raw meat on it to cut up their veggies. DON"T DO THAT!!! It is worth it to have several knives and cutting boards on hand if you are cooking both meat and produce. A $100 investment can save you tens of thousands of dollars and weeks of feeling like you will die.

The good news is we humans are not nearly as weak and sickly as the news media and Big Pharma would have us believe. I am willing to bet all of us have been infected by some form of food born pathogen and did not even realize it. If we had symptoms at all they were almost unnoticeable. We have to realize that as long as our food is grown outdoors and processed by underpaid workers (almost everyone who works in agriculture is underpaid) there is going to be some microscopic critters on our food that have the potential to make us ill. But as long as our immune system functions well we have little to worry about. Of course, in these days of the Big Pharma drug dealers trying to convince us all that we need to be taking a cocktail of pharmaceuticals several times a day and being fairly successful we have fewer and fewer healthy humans who can ward off sickness caused by food born pathogens and thus we get more and more serious and far reaching outbreaks.