Tag: produce

Facebook for Farmers’ Food

  • Bob Gavlak and his partners organize freshly-harvested produce in their cooling truck. (Photo by Julie Grant)

Most twenty year olds use online
networking sites. But most farmers don’t.
Until now. A team of recent college grads
is using their internet savvy to connect
farms and restaurants. Julie Grant reports:

Transcript

Most twenty year olds use online
networking sites. But most farmers don’t.
Until now. A team of recent college grads
is using their internet savvy to connect
farms and restaurants. Julie Grant reports:

Last summer Matt Szugye entered a college business school
competition. His team needed to make a plan for a new
business. They started throwing around ideas.

“It just happened, that the night before I was at a restaurant
talking with an owner, and they were telling me about the
trials and tribulations of starting their restaurant with the idea
that they would serve seasonal, local produce.”

But the restaurant owner couldn’t get food like onions,
zucchini or tomatoes directly from local farms. Szugye’s
team studied the idea. Lots of people in the food business
were saying the same things. Things like this:

“So I’m getting things shipped in from other states.”

That’s Donna Chriszt. She’s the owner and chef at Dish Deli
and Catering. It’s a small, gourmet deli in a downtown
Cleveland neighborhood.

“And the amount of fossil fuels that are coming out of that,
we hated. So, it’s not what I wanted to do for my
community.”

So now that the college team knew there was demand for a
product, they contacted farmers. Eureka. There was also a
supply. Lots of farmers wanted new ways to sell their fruits
and vegetables locally.

The team put together a plan for a distribution business – to
pickup produce from farms and deliver it to nearby
restaurants.

They decided they could use the internet.

It would work a little like an online dating service. Each
farmer could list what’s available and set the price. The
restaurant owners could browse through the list and place
their orders. The college students’ business plan would be
the match-maker.

The team won their business school contest.

After graduation this Spring, they launched an actual
business based on their model.

They call it Fresh Fork.

Donna Chriszt was thrilled.

“I was like hallelujah. Thank God someone will be able to
help a small place like me by doing all the foot work.”

(sound of a factory)

After picking up produce from farmers, Fresh Fork Team
member Bob Gavlak is finally getting back to the distribution
center. It’s 10 p.m. It could have gone a lot sooner, but he
got caught up talking with the farmers about what they’re
growing and how their kids are doing, you know, forging
relationships.

(sound of a cooling truck)

The team now has to move racks of produce in a cooling
truck. Then they organize it all.

“This is where we’re going tomorrow, is Dish Deli and
Catering. And you can see Knoble Farms. They have some
corn.”

When Gavlak and his partners started planning this
business, they didn’t quite get why there was such a fuss
about local food.

They were still college students fueled by Ramen and fast
food.

So they spent some time on the food prep line at an upscale
local restaurant – cutting onions, stirring soup – for hours.
Not pouring soup out of a bag like a lot of places. Gavlak
says he started to understand.

“I would go to the store and I’d have strawberries, and I’d be
like, ‘oh, these are so good’. But then, when we had
strawberries here in the spring and early summer, it’s like I’d
never had a strawberry before. It’s just seeing the difference
that happens between a product that’s fresh and homegrown
and the product that isn’t.”

The team finishes sorting all their fresh produce at midnight.
They’ve got to get up at the crack of dawn to deliver to 8
restaurants, a grocery store, and a hospital.

(sound of Dish Deli)

When Gavlak brings her order, deli owner Donna Chriszt
inspects the cucumbers, rhubarb, and red skin potatoes.

“And our big bushel of corn. And everything looks great. It’s
always exciting when it comes in, because we’re like, ‘what
are we going to do with this?’”

This week, they’re planning rhubarb cobbler, potato salad
and fresh pickles for a neighborhood festival.

Gavlak smiles. He’s says it makes him feel good that the
business he and his college buddies designed, Fresh Fork,
is connecting farms and restaurants and getting people
fresh, locally grown food.

He finishes the order, and then walks into Chriszt’s deli to
have some lunch.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

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Salads Causing Sickness

  • Vegetables in the produce section of a supermarket in VA. (Photo by Ken Hammond, courtesy of the USDA)

During the past 35 years, people have been getting
sick from contaminated produce more often. That’s according
to a recent study from the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention. Rebecca Williams reports:

Transcript

During the past 35 years, people have been getting
sick from contaminated produce more often. That’s according
to a recent study from the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention. Rebecca Williams reports:

After hundreds of people got sick from contaminated spinach and
lettuce, researchers started looking back at three decades of disease
cases. They found that people are getting sick from contaminated produce
more often. Bacteria such as E. coli and salmonella are often the cause.

Michael Lynch is one of the study’s authors. He says Americans are eating
more salads, but that doesn’t totally explain why there are more disease
outbreaks.

“We were a little surprised that that didn’t entirely explain the increase
but what else is contributing to that is not clear.”

Lynch says contamination can happen anywhere between the farm and your salad
plate. He says it’s important to thoroughly wash lettuce before eating it.
But he says that might not be enough to avoid getting sick.

He says stronger controls are needed at every step to try to prevent
contamination.

For the Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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Food Prices on the Rise

  • Produce section of a supermarket in VA. (Photo by Ken Hammond, courtesy of the USDA)

Food prices are going up worldwide. A new survey
by the American Farm Bureau Federation finds supermarket
checkout costs have risen nearly 8% this year.
Julie Grant has more:

Transcript

Food prices are going up worldwide. A new survey
by the American Farm Bureau Federation finds supermarket
checkout costs have risen nearly 8% this year.
Julie Grant has more:

Retail food prices usually increase 3% per year. But over the last year the
cost of flour, cheese, bread, meat, oil, and produce is up – by more than
double the average.

The United Nations has predicted prices will stabilize in the long term. But
that consumers worldwide will face at least 10 more years of rapidly rising
food prices.

Commodity prices for corn, wheat, soybeans and other staples have been
skyrocketing over the past year – to more than double 2006 prices.
The higher costs are due in part to weather affecting crops, and growing
demand in China and India.

Economists also point toward the increased use of grains for ethanol and
other biofuels, putting pressure on food prices.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

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A Closer Look at Chinese Organics

  • Produce section of a supermarket in VA. (Photo by Ken Hammond, courtesy of USDA)

More companies are importing organic
products from China and other countries. But
contaminated pet food, tainted toothpaste,
and unauthorized antibiotics in fish have been
imported to the U.S. from China. Now, some people are
concerned about organic foods from China. Julie
Grant reports:

Transcript

More companies are importing organic
products from China and other countries. But
contaminated pet food, tainted toothpaste,
and unauthorized antibiotics in fish have been
imported to the U.S. from China. Now, some people are
concerned about organic foods from China. Julie
Grant reports:

When you see that round USDA organic seal on a carton of
milk, boxed foods, or bananas , it means that on some farm,
somewhere, something like this happened:

(farm inspection sound)

Inspector: “All righty. Anything under the box on the far
right.”

Farmer: “That’s the burnout. Which I haven’t used for 3 or 4
years.”

An inspector walks around looking at the greenhouse, the
barn and the fields, in the greenhouse, and in the barn. He
works for an agency that’s accredited by the USDA to certify
farms as organic. He’s making sure nothing is happening on
the farm that’s prohibited by the National Organic Standards.

But small farms like this one are no longer the norm in
organics. Organic products have become a big business all
around the world.

So people are wondering… who inspects those farms?

(store sound)

Sheila Rombach is a buyer for a small natural foods store.
Like a lot of people, she’s a little nervous about the safety of
food coming from China. Last year’s pet food scare and
poisonous toothpaste are still fresh in many people’s minds.

Rombach’s customers pay a premium for ‘organic’ foods.
She wonders how the USDA can certify that farms all the
way in China are following organic rules.

“I guess it crossed mind because of all the negative publicity
about things manufactured in China. I want to be sure that
the items grown under the organic label are truly organic.”

It’s such a concern that one large health food chain, Trader
Joe’s, is taking all Chinese imports off its shelves. Trader
Joe’s plans to have Chinese garlic, ginger, and all other
single-ingredient foods out of its 300 stores this spring.

But the U.S. Department of Agriculture maintains if it says
organic, it’s truly organic. Barbara Robinson is chief
administrator of the USDA’s National Organic Program. She
says foreign products go through the same process as those
grown here.

“So, if the product is coming from India, or the product is
coming from Australia, and you want to market in the United States – then
you need a certifying agent who is accredited by us.”

Robinson says all certifying agents accredited by the USDA
should be enforcing the same organic rules. If a product has
that little round seal, Robinson says consumers can trust it
meets the U.S.’s National Organic Standards.

But enforcing the rules isn’t always that easy. The USDA is
having difficulty making sure those rules are consistently
applied on U.S. farms. So how can the agency be so
confident about farms in other countries?

One expert on Chinese agriculture and politics says that’s a
good question. Paul Thiers is a political science professor at
Washington State University who’s been visiting farms in
China since the early 1990s.

“There is some difficulty, I think, in expecting people from
outside of China to really get far enough in and understand
what’s going on in political and economic conditions of rural
China.”

Thiers says many Chinese farms are run by the local
government. Others are run by private managers with
peasant farmers working the land.

“In some places, peasant farmers who were purported to be
part of organic production, who were on land that was
certified, couldn’t tell me what organic was, had no
conception of different production standards. And all they
said was, ‘we just sell our product to the government’.”

Thiers says at that time, five or ten years ago, farmers were
probably using chemicals, even though they were selling
food labeled organic.

Thiers expects that China’s organic farming practices are
improving, though. He says people in Chinese cities are becoming
concerned about food safety and want to buy organics. But
the USDA has to rely on organic certifiers in China. And with
the rapid growth of organic farms, no one is sure they’re
actually meeting U.S. standards.

Thiers says there is one consolation. At least organic farms
are inspected by someone. Conventional farms don’t get
those kinds of visits from inspectors.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

Related Links

Farms Keeping Up With Chefs

  • Jesse Meerman is a 4th generation Dutch dairy farmer in West Michigan. He's the family cheesemaker. Here, he's cutting a big vat of curdled milk into cheese curds. (Photo by Rebecca Williams)

Chefs are always dreaming up the next big dish. Lately, it’s been
trendy for restaurants to showcase locally-grown farm products and meat
from livestock that’s been raised on a pasture instead of in a feedlot.
But Rebecca Williams reports just because something’s hot in the
kitchen… it doesn’t always mean a better payoff for farmers:

Transcript

Chefs are always dreaming up the next big dish. Lately, it’s been
trendy for restaurants to showcase locally-grown farm products and meat
from livestock that’s been raised on a pasture instead of in a feedlot.
But Rebecca Williams reports just because something’s hot in the
kitchen… it doesn’t always mean a better payoff for farmers:


(Sound of water running, dishes clanking)


It’s 11 am at Sweet Lorraine’s Cafe. But it’s not too early for beer.


Chef Lorraine Platman is whipping up the first batch of her new fish
and chips. She’s using locally-milled flour and locally-brewed beer:


“I shouldn’t give you my whole recipe because it’s going to be an
absolutely fabulous beer batter. But it’s got a little baking
powder… the beer is what accelerates it and makes it nice and
crispy.”


(Sound of whisking)


Platman owns the three restaurants that bear her name, so naturally she
calls the shots. For her, this means getting ingredients close to home
and as close to nature as possible. Platman says fresher food tastes
better.


But it’s also about how a product performs when you cook with it. She
swears by the eggs she gets from local chickens that are raised without
antibiotics or hormones.


But Platman says it’s not easy getting local ingredients year round
especially during northern winters, so it means being flexible:


“I have a vivid imagination so I come up with some weird ideas but they
work and the guests really like them. They get very excited when they see
either Michigan grass-fed beef or chicken on the menu, they’re just enthused
by it and we’re buying from our neighbors so it makes us feel good I
think.”


Platman says the restaurant industry is competitive and always
changing. You have to serve food that excites people. She says chefs
pay a lot of attention to what their guests like.


The National Restaurant Association recently surveyed chefs around the
country. Locally-grown foods, organic produce and meats and cheeses
from grass-fed animals all made the top ten list. They’re expected to
stay trendy for at least the next year.


For the farmers who grow these products, all of this can look appealing
on paper. Smaller family farms are slowly disappearing in favor of
much bigger operations. Getting into new markets can mean staying in
business. But many small farmers say there’s a gap between the promise
of new markets in restaurants and the reality.


(Sound of cheese-making)


Jesse Meerman raises pastured dairy cows three hours west of Sweet
Lorraine’s Cafe. His farm supplies the Cafe with organic cheese.
Meerman is the family cheesemaker. He’s cutting a big vat of cheese
curd into millions of tiny pieces:


“Today we’re making Gouda cheese and a variety of it is Leyden, which has
caraway seeds in it.”


Meerman says they used to only sell their milk. But they wanted to
make more money by selling aged organic Dutch cheeses. They sell to
retail stores, farmers’ markets and restaurants. With the help of a
distributor they’re starting to get on menus in Chicago.


Meerman says restaurants are by far the toughest new markets to break
into:


“Being a farmer, it’s completely opposite of the way I am because we’re
connected to the land… this is our place, you know? We want to have our
business right here and we’re so stable and to a fault almost, because
farmers don’t change, that’s one of our biggest flaws. And chefs –
they’re opposite, they’re always changing. And it’s hard to keep up
with them.”


Chefs say they just want what they want when they want it. They’re not
always willing to wait for farmers to catch up.


Rich Pirog is with the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture. He
says farmers need some help to adapt to chefs’ changing needs. He says
more investment in infrastructure at the state and local level would be
a start:


“We need to be able to make the case for investment in these types of
foods and if we can’t make that case then it’s likely we won’t see local
foods be able to scale up to the levels that I think people are wanting them to be
available in every store, at every restaurant.”


Pirog says farmers also need to have something solid to take to the
bank. They need to prove to their banker that these new restaurant
markets are real before they can get loans. They need loans to buy new
equipment that helps them produce more or different products for chefs
– and to keep quality high.


But mostly, whether or not restaurants can become sustainable markets for
farmers depends on the whims of chefs.


For the Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

Food Deserts in the City (Part 1)

  • The Chene-Ferry market was once a bustling center of commerce in this Detroit neighborhood. It closed in the 1970s. There are no major chain grocery stores to serve the community, so many people shop for food at liquor and convenience stores. (Photo by Marla Collum)

Most of us don’t have to think too much if we
want fresh fruits, vegetables and other foods. We
drive to the supermarket or farmers’ market and find
whatever we’re looking to buy. But for many people
living in the inner city, it can be tough to find
fresh foods. Julie Grant reports that can lead to
health problems:

Transcript

Most of us don’t have to think too much if we
want fresh fruits, vegetables and other foods. We
drive to the supermarket or farmers’ market and find
whatever we’re looking to buy. But for many people
living in the inner city, it can be tough to find
fresh foods. Julie Grant reports that can lead to
health problems:



Neighbors having been counting down the days for this store to
open. The bright lights, the shiny floors, 217,000-square feet
of retail and grocery. This Wal-Mart Supercenter offers produce
bins overflowing with dark leafy kale, imported plantains, and a
rainbow of green, yellow and red apples. Mother of two Dionne
Smith says she’s glad it’s here:


“I was looking at the prices. I mean because I was looking at this. In a regular store that’s
like 2 dollars 79 cents. Here it’s a dollar-fifty. So it’s
pretty good.”


“You’re looking at the Velveeta Mac n’ Cheese?”


“Mmm hmm.”


This Wal-mart is located on the south edge of Cleveland. It’s
part of the first new shopping center in the city limits in
decades. But it’s close to the suburbs. Not an easy trip from most
of the low income neighborhoods to the northeast – places where
it’s tough to find fresh foods.


In this poorer area, a lot of people who come to see dietitian
Cheri Collier have problems with diabetes, heart disease and
obesity. Collier says the health center opened adjacent to a
supermarket a few years ago. She planned to show people
firsthand how to improve their diets:


“I was very excited about the idea of having grocery store nearby.
Because I felt it was easier to teach people how to shop by having live
models. Taking you into the grocery store, showing which aisles have the appropriate foods, how to pick food labels, how to shop based on
what’s available for you in the area that you’re living.”


But it didn’t work out. Just six months after the health center
opened, the supermarket closed.


Today Collier looks around at what’s left on the food landscape near her health center:


“We got a couple of beverage stores, check cashing stores. Might
have beverages or food, and snacks in there. We’ve got
McDonald’s, Burger King, Subway, KFC. Those are the main
things we see right away… Lot of stuff you can get that’s
quick. And you have United Convenient Market, has a lot of convenience-type foods. Some snacks, and some alcohol of course, and some pops and beverages. The two grocery stores we had in the area
are closed down.”


Collier takes us to what’s now called the “grocery store” in this
neighborhood. You can buy milk here. And cereal. Juice. But
there is no produce aisle. No fresh fruits or vegetables. Only
canned vegetables. No fresh meat. Collier picks up a can of
something called “potted meat” – and says this is the kind of
food that can lead to her clients’ health problems:


“It has chicken. Pork skin. And that’s my concern because that
skin is high in fat and that’s what giving them a lot of extra
cholesterol and saturated fat. So not only a person may think
they’re getting chicken, they’re actually getting chicken with pork
fat all over it. So it’s not the healthiest option.”


Collier tries to educate her clients about the high fat and salt
content in potted meats, processed boxed foods, and even many
canned vegetables. She says people on limited incomes buy these
foods because that’s what’s available:


“Someone just said earlier, ‘Because I’m in the neighborhood
and I can get to that store and get what I need.’ So to them it’s
like, I can get more of these and still have money left over to
buy something else I want.”


That’s one reason why stores sell cheap processed foods in poor
inner city neighborhoods, while the supermarkets with fresh foods
close down.


Getting quality produce often depends on the wealth of your neighborhood. Researchers have found that again and again. Dr.
Ana Diez-Roux is with the University of Michigan:


“It’s like a vicious cycle. Stores offer what people want to
buy, but people can only buy what the stores offer. So it
becomes a self-perpetuating cycle.”


And Diez-Roux says without supermarkets or other ways to get
fresh produce and meats, certain people will face more health
problems:


“In particular, healthy food options are less available in poor
and minority neighborhoods then they are in wealthy and white
neighborhoods.”


Diez-Roux says that’s one reason poor neighborhoods have higher rates
of diabetes, obesity, and cardiovascular disease. She says
public policy is starting to address this problem in two ways: by
educating consumers and providing incentives to stores to carry
healthier foods in poor neighborhoods.


But progress is slow. Eating habits are hard to change. And
stores don’t want to stock perishables that don’t sell.


For the Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

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Food Deserts in the City (Part 2)

  • For many inner-city neighborhoods, access to fresh produce is difficult if not impossible because there are no supermarkets. Farmers' markets attempt to fill the gap, but they're not as convenient as supermarkets. (Photo by Pat Blochowiak)

The loss of supermarkets in cities from L.A. to Detroit to New
York has left many people without access to fresh fruits and
vegetables. In some places, farmers’ markets are helping to fill the
void. But Julie Grant reports that there are still a lot of
barriers to finding healthy food in many inner cities:

Transcript

The loss of supermarkets in cities from L.A. to Detroit to New
York has left many people without access to fresh fruits and
vegetables. In some places, farmers’ markets are helping to fill the
void. But Julie Grant reports that there are still a lot of
barriers to finding healthy food in many inner cities:


When family physician Patricia Blochowiak moved to this
neighborhood six years ago, she didn’t anticipate a problem
finding fresh foods:


“I had thought that since I had a grocery store within walking
distance of my house that I’d be able to get my groceries there.
And it isn’t the case.”


Blochowiak is afraid she’d be sued if she said what she really
thinks about the quality of fruits and vegetables in her
neighborhood grocery store.


JG:”You don’t want to say what you thought? You’re shaking your head no.”


“No.”


So the neighborhood doctor started driving to a nearby farm
market to buy her vegetables. The market building has been on
this corner for 75 years in East Cleveland. This area was once
home to millionaires and to the world’s first industrial park.
These days much of it looks dilapidated, abandoned. But
Blochowiak says she can get free-range eggs, cauliflower from the
next county over, and apples from third generation family
farmers. It’s great for her. But she says a lot of other people
can’t get here:


“It’s very disappointing. You really see first-hand, that those of us
with cars, we can get where we want to go. But those without
cars have a difficult time. So you have to take several buses, or
you have to find a friend who can drive you, or you have to walk
long distances, and for people with a lot of small children, for the
elderly, it just doesn’t work.”


Dr. Blochowiak is president of the Cleveland Academy of Family
Physicians. She says people, especially children, need fresh
foods to perform at their best. But like in inner-cities across
the nation, it’s tough to find and buy fresh fruits and
vegetables.



Even here, at her farm market, farmers can only provide
vegetables in certain seasons. Walking by the market,
Blochowiak runs into an old friend. William Muhammad tries to provide produce year-round:


“Yeah, it is difficult. It’s very difficult to get produce.
Normally, I always have a stand in the wintertime. I have pies
now, but I always have another stand in the winter with produce.”



In the off-season, Muhammed buys produce from a wholesaler and
sells it here at the farm market. But as more retail groceries
close, the wholesalers are also closing:


“It’s difficult to get anything. All you can do is buy where you
can. It’s too difficult for me.”


Grant: “So what do you do?”


“Right now, I don’t know what to do yet. Next month, I’ll see
what I could work up.”


One thing they’re trying to do near the farm market is grow their
own food. Blochowiak has worked on a community garden nearby in
hopes of providing more fresh produce to the neighborhood.


But there’s concern here that such efforts are barely tipping the
scales. They’re not a dependable, accessible source of fruits
and vegetables for most people. Kevin Scheuring sells spices at
the market. He says a lot of people forego fresh fruits and
vegetables and opt for mac and cheese or canned food from the
convenience store because getting fresh food in the inner city is
such a tough row to hoe:



“Not that they wouldn’t make a better choice if it was easier.
Again, you’ve got to get on a bus with a bunch of groceries and
go really far away and haul stuff, especially in the winter. Or
you can just go – ehh – maybe tomorrow and just go down the
street and buy a can of beans or something. And call it a day.”


Scheuring says a lot people want to do better for themselves and
their families, but it’s just becoming too difficult to get to
the few remaining places that do sell fresh food in the inner-cities.


For the Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

Related Links

Safer Bags of Salad

There’s growing concern about the spinach and lettuce in your crisper. There have been
several recalls of bags of salad produce after they hit the grocery stores. The federal
government recently noted that food safety has become one of the biggest ongoing
problems facing agencies responsible for inspecting food. The result is a debate among
growers, food processors and conservation groups over how to better protect the food
supply. But environmental groups say some of the safeguards can harm wildlife. Chuck
Quirmbach reports:

Transcript

There’s growing concern about the spinach and lettuce in your crisper. There have been
several recalls of bags of salad produce after they hit the grocery stores. The federal
government recently noted that food safety has become one of the biggest ongoing
problems facing agencies responsible for inspecting food. The result is a debate among
growers, food processors and conservation groups over how to better protect the food
supply. But environmental groups say some of the safeguards can harm wildlife. Chuck
Quirmbach reports:


During the last year, people have died and hundreds of people have gotten sick because
of E. coli bacteria contamination of some produce. Farmers and food processors are
fighting in court over what officially caused the contamination. But in the Salinas Valley
of California, an area known as the nation’s Salad Bowl, the food processing industry is
trying to show consumers they can be confident about the safety of commercially-
produced leafy greens. Even processors who were not linked to last year’s E. coli scare
suffered a drop in sales. They’re anxious to show off their facilities and the safety
precautions they’ve taken.


Inside this large processing plant a million pounds of lettuce come through every day.
It’s washed in chlorinated water, some of it is mixed in with other raw vegetables and
packed into bags that are sent to grocery stores across the U.S. This plant is operated by
Fresh Express, a company owned by Chiquita Brands. Plant manager Phil Bradway says
the plant is sanitized daily:


“You generate organic material buildup and its extremely important on a regular and
consistent basis to remove that organic material before you continue to process a food
safe product and that’s why we’re rigorous about the seven-day-a-week sanitation activities in
our facilities.”


Fresh Express vice president Bill Clyburn says this salad bagging plant ships out a
product that is better protected than vegetables that are sent unbagged to the grocery
stores:


“We’re taking the precautions to wash the lettuce and make it clean. You take commodity
produce of any type, go into a grocery store and watch how many people pick it up,
breathe on it, put it back down and take another head of lettuce and how many people still
don’t wash that. You never hear about people getting sick on commodity lettuce ’cause
there’s no label to go back at.”


And Fresh Express says it’s not just conditions at the plant that they and other processors
are trying to control. In the last year, California growers came up with a voluntary
program to try to develop better agricultural practices. Things such as protecting farm
fields from contamination from animals. Fresh Express insists that its growers exceed the
standards so that no wildlife urine or fecal matter come into contact with the produce, but some farmers say the food processors have some unrealistic ideas.


(Sound of sprinkler)


A sprinkler waters crops at an organic farm. Grower Andrew Griffin says some food
industry giants want more fences around farms to help keep wildlife out of the fields. But
he says those won’t make a difference:


“Absolutely not. It’s ridiculous. You can’t fence out the birds. You can’t fence out the
sky… I mean I don’t know what they’re thinking.”


Griffin says a better solution would be reduce the growing concentration of agri-business
and not send so much of the Salad Bowl’s leafy greens through just a few processing
plants:


“So, if there’s a contamination of say the blade on the cutting machine, you have an
opportunity to contaminate salad that’s gonna feed a whole nation. Whereas if it was
diffuse, if we had a diffuse system and you had small farms in different places, you
wouldn’t have that same broad spectrum problem.”


And the skeptical farmers have allies in groups such as The Nature Conservancy.
Spokeswoman Chris Fischer says the new restrictions in the farm fields are affecting
wildlife habitat along streams and river. She says people across the nation who eat salads
should care about what happens to the environment of the Salinas valley:


“As both a consumer and a conservationist the sustainability of our farming and
watershed health and ultimately our water quality and public health is all wrapped up
together and unsustainable, unhealthy farm practices ultimately aren’t going to serve us
well.”


Fischer says some of the new restrictions on growers are based on the best available
research, but she’s concerned food processors are adding extra requirements that aren’t
based on good science. Recently news reports added to the debate about safety of leafy
greens that end up on your table. The Associated Press reported federal inspections of
both growers and processors of salad greens only happen about once every four years.


For the Environment Report, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.

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Community Supported Farms Cropping Up

  • The Sippel Family Farm has over 120 varieties of 40 crops for their shareholders. (Photo courtesy of Ben and Lisa Sippel)

Late summer is the time residents of the
agriculture belt see an abundance of locally-grown
produce. Farmers’ markets in urban areas and farm
stands along rural roads bring growers and buyers
face to face. A fairly new idea in farming is geared
toward turning this seasonal connection between
farmers and consumers into a year-round
relationship. Christina Morgan reports:

Transcript

Late summer is the time residents of the
agriculture belt see an abundance of locally-grown
produce. Farmers’ markets in urban areas and farm
stands along rural roads bring growers and buyers
face to face. A fairly new idea in farming is geared
toward turning this seasonal connection between
farmers and consumers into a year-round
relationship. Christina Morgan reports:


Ben and Lisa Sippel are among a few hundred families
in the US who approach working the land differently
from other farmers. Like any farming, their days are long during the growing season, the work is hard and the weather is the big variable. Unlike most farmers, the
Sippels receive money from consumers before the first
seeds are planted.


These consumers pay up front for a share of the year’s
crop, and the Sippels supply them with produce for 30
weeks. That is how Community Supported Agriculture
works. Lisa Sippel describes it as an adventure:


“We’re both very happy here and can’t imagine doing anything
else.”


Ben Sippel is more pragmatic:


“A little bit of romance is a good thing for sustainable agriculture, a
heavy dose of reality is also a good thing for agriculture.”


Ben Sippel is on a mission. He majored in
Environmental Studies and Geography in college. After
hearing about all the problems facing agriculture, he
set out in search of solutions. In Sippel’s view,
agriculture must be sustainable in 3 ways:


“We feel strongly that sustainable agriculture has to be sustainable ecologically, basically respecting the
eco-system that is our farm, but it also has to be sustainable
economically. You can rotate crops, you can not use chemicals, you can do all this stuff, but if you can’t
afford to do it or you have to get money from an outside source to continue doing it,
then the sustainable system if you will is flawed.”


Sippel believes social sustainability is just as important
as ecological and economic sustainability. He says
farming should allow families to take an occasional
vacation, set aside money for retirement and pay their
children a fair wage for work they do. Sippel says
farmers too often end up selling their land to finance
their later years. That land might also go out of farming and into development. Ben and Lisa Sippel want to make sure their son Charlie, born in February, has a chance to continue working their farm if he chooses.


While the typical farmer plants and harvests a henful of crops, the Sippels plant 120 varieties of 40 crops. They harvest at least three times per week so they can deliver to
their 175 subscribers. Harvests and deliveries go on for 30 weeks each year.


Looking over the acres of carefully cultivated produce and peering into greenhouses where hundreds of tomato, pepper and other plants flourish in the ground, it’s easy to imagine how exhausting and isolating this work is. But standing with Ben Sippel at a farmers’ market where he visits with subscribers and carefully measures out this week’s produce, it’s equally easy to see the connection between grower and consumer.


These consumers are sharing the risks of
food production. But in return, they know how and
where their food is grown. They’re encouraged to visit the farm. They know if the produce is organic.
And they know Ben Sippel is aware of the impact his
farm has on the environment. This year, shareholders
paid 560 dollars for their produce from the Sipple
Family Farm. Shareholder Andy Ingraham Dwyer puts
that in perspective:


“It’s a little more expensive, but I honestly think that expense is worth it, so long as I can actually look the farmer in the eye when I’m taking it from him. That means a whole lot to me.”


Ben Sippel says closer ties to consumers are an important part
of overall sustainability. In turn, some of the subscribers are
happy to find a local grower, so they don’t have to contribute
to the burning of fuel to ship food from other states or other
countries. Isiah Harris says buying local produce saves energy,
and he thinks it also means better food for his table:


“Oh yeah, it’s right out of the ground. I mean, some of this stuff was probably picked this morning. The nutrition is going to stay in tact a lot better when it’s not shipped so far.”


Ben Sippel says some people come to realize that the weather on the farm as a direct impact on the produce they receive:


“On their computer desktops, they have our zip code in to check the weather, they know where the farm is and they’ll look at the weather on the local news and they’ll say, ‘We didn’t get rain but it looked like you got rain, did you get rain?'”


Community Supported Agriculture is complex hard work — with benefits. Consumers receive fresh, quality food and a
better understanding of what goes into growing that food.
Farmers Ben and Lisa Sipple have a chance to get to know
their customers and the freedom to seek solutions for some of
the many problems facing agriculture.


For the Environment Report, I’m Christina Morgan.

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Growers Cover Up Local Produce

  • If the hydroponics trend continues, strawberries could be available locally everywhere. (Photo courtesy of the USDA)

It’s the middle of winter and you’re craving some fresh,
juicy strawberries. Go to your local grocery store and
you’ll find lots of packaged strawberries shipped from the
west coast or down south. For locally grown strawberries,
you have to wait till June if you live in the Midwest. But
that’s starting to change. Jennifer Guerra has the story:

Transcript

It’s the middle of winter and you’re craving some fresh,
juicy strawberries. Go to your local grocery store and
you’ll find lots of packaged strawberries shipped from the
west coast or down south. For locally grown strawberries,
you have to wait till June if you live in the Midwest. But
that’s starting to change. Jennifer Guerra has the story:


I like strawberries. A lot. There’s strawberry rhubarb pie
for starters, strawberry and spinach salad, strawberry
shortcake. But I’ve been on this kick lately of trying to
buy only locally-grown produce, which is admittedly hard to do when you
live in the Midwest, especially with strawberries. Most of
the year, they’re shipped in from Florida and California,
but there is one place in Michigan were you can still pick
strawberries as late as October.


(Guerra:) “The redder the better…that’s too green”


It’s snowing out. I’ve got on the winter coat, the hat, the gloves,
and I’m picking strawberries with Kelly Bowerman.


(Guerra:) “So, which one is this?”


(Bowerman:) “This is a tribute. We have aroma, diamante, and
tribute. Aroma is a nice big berry, diamante’s even a bigger berry,
but it just don’t turn red, it’s oranged-colored, and tribute is smaller with a lot more
flavor.”


(Guerra:) “Alright, let’s get all three. Let’s get a
variety.”


Bowerman calls his strawberries three finger berries, which
he says are roughly the same size as the ones shipped in
from California


(Bowerman and Guerra try strawberries)


And frankly, the strawberries better taste
good, seeing as how Bowerman spent 60,000 dollars on them.


Well, not on the actual berries themselves, but on the
hydroponics system he uses to grow the berries. With
hydroponics, he still grows his strawberries outside, but
instead of planting them in the ground, the runners sit in
pots above the ground in a solution of warm water and
minerals. And since there’s no soil, the strawberries can
grow from June to October without the roots freezing over at
the first sign of cold weather. Still, there’s only so much
a hydroponics system can do on its own:


“He’s gonna find out that people want strawberries at
Christmastime, and so the next step will be to put a
greenhouse over that system and then we have 12 months.”


Merle Jensen is a professor of plant science at the
University of Arizona and he knows his hydroponics. He
knows growers all across the country who’ve started moving
their hydroponics systems inside greenhouses so they can
artificially light the crops. That way, they can produce
year round. But wait, there’s more:


“All of our leafy vegetables – high value fruits like
strawberries – will all be under cover in the next 5 years.
I’m sure of that. It’s a rapid expansion, not only in the
United States, but we see it in Canada, Mexico. So, this is the wave
of the future.”


A future that Jensen swears will taste delicious:


“You know what? I can say that because we can control the
nutrition, the salinity within the root system such that we can
program that product to have more acid and more sugars and better
flavor, and we can do that through hydroponics at will. And local growing is
becoming bigger and bigger all the time. It’s just got an
image of being better.”


Of course in the Midwest, “local” is still pretty relative.
Our Michigan farmer, Kelly Bowerman, says he gets people
from up to 50 miles away to pick his strawberries:


“One guy bought $28 worth of strawberries, and he said that ain’t
no big deal cause it cost me $40 worth of gas to
get here and back.”


And he’ll have to continue putting in that kind of travel
time if he wants to eat locally grown strawberries in the
middle of winter. Unless of course Jensen’s right and
hydroponic greenhouse systems really are the wave of the
future. If so, it might not be too long before Bowerman’s
strawberries show up year round at your supermarket.


Oh, and by the way, I liked the tribute strawberries the
best. They were my favorite.


For the Environment Report, I’m Jennifer Guerra.

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