A botanist has documented what he’s
calling the “fastest flight in nature.” Tana
Weingartner explains:
Transcript
A botanist has documented what he’s
calling the “fastest flight in nature.” Tana
Weingartner explains:
Imagine this: a You-Tube video showing tulip-shaped fungi recoiling and
launching spores like wet cannonballs.
(sound of music)
Nicholas Money is a botanist at Miami University. He and a team of
researchers have used high speed cameras to capture, for the first time, fungi
launching spores.
“Fleas accelerate at 200 g, but we’re clocking these fungi moving at close to 200,000
g in terms of their acceleration. These are astonishingly fast movements.”
Fungi cause billions of dollars in crop damage each year.
Money says knowing how these spores move around can help prevent these
losses. He also says it’ll help allergen and pharmaceutical researchers too.
One environmentalist is arguing that hormones in cows may actually be better for the environment (Photo by Kinna Ohman)
The cow hormone known as rBST or rBGH
has taken a beating in the environmental community.
Injecting the hormone into cows makes them produce
more milk. But some people are afraid the hormone
can find its way from the cow, to the cow’s milk,
and into our bodies. The government insists that’s
not the case. Shawn Allee says one researcher
wants to change the debate about rBST – and convince
environmentalists to support the hormone:
Transcript
The cow hormone known as rBST or rBGH
has taken a beating in the environmental community.
Injecting the hormone into cows makes them produce
more milk. But some people are afraid the hormone
can find its way from the cow, to the cow’s milk,
and into our bodies. The government insists that’s
not the case. Shawn Allee says one researcher
wants to change the debate about rBST – and convince
environmentalists to support the hormone:
Before I introduce you to the researcher who supports rbst or rbgh, I want
you to understand what she’s up against.
It’s well-meaning people like Steve Parkes.
Parkes co-owns New Leaf natural food store in Chicago. He decides what’s
on the shelves.
“A lot goes into making that decision. First and foremost, is it something
I would eat myself?”
And as for milk produced with rbgh, Parkes won’t sell it.
“People have been drinking milk for thousands of years from animals
that didn’t have have rgbh in them, so, I think I’m a little more
comfortable drinking milk from a cow that didn’t have rgbh than I am
from something that is a very, very new technology.”
A lot of people distrust rbgh, and that’s changed the milk market.
For example, some retailers like Starbucks won’t buy milk from dairies that
use it. More and more dairies are asking farmers to pledge not to use the
hormone.
The trend has frustrated researcher Judith Capper.
“People aren’t questioning the science basis of it.”
Capper is with Cornell University. She argues environmentalists and
consumers should take another look at the hormone, and see it as part of the
solution to global warming.
Capper recently co-wrote a study that began with a simple observation – in a
few decades, there will be many more Americans.
“The US population will have gone up from about 300 million people to
377 million people and we wanted to look at the environment impact of
producing enough milk to feed all those people.”
That scares Capper – because producing milk can make the global warming
problem worse.
That’s because feeding cows, and the cows themselves, lead to more
greenhouse gas emissions.
“Okay, there are six major inputs and outputs in terms of carbon.”
I won’t go through six, but here are a few.
First, there’s the feed that cows eat. Tractors have to plant grain. That burns
fossil fuels. Greenhouse gasses. Then feed is trucked to the dairy farm.
More greenhouse gasses. More cows, more greenhouse gasses.
So, you want as much milk as possible from each cow.
“If you give rbst to a cow, it will produce an extra ten pounds per day,
that’s quite an increase.”
And then there’s the other greenhouse gasses. From, um, the ugly end of the
cow equation.
The manure puts off other potent greenhouse gasses. And Cows belch
methane. Cows that use rbst poop and belch, spare the atmosphere even
more carbon.
All this leads Capper to a startling conclusion.
She says if farmers gave a million cows the hormone –
“Using rbst would be like taking about 400,000 cars off the road, or
planting three hundred million trees. Those are really big numbers.”
Judith Capper says she expects scientists will challenge her research – and
she welcomes a good debate about rbgh and rbst.
She says that’s better than this vague idea that the hormone might somehow
be bad without understanding the whole story.
“Choose organic, choose rbst-free, whatever, but base it on facts and
science, not on consumer perceptions that may not be factually correct.”
But, Capper’s got her work cut out for her.
Government statistics show consumer fear about rbgh has made farmers cut
the percentage of cows injected with the hormone.
Getting fuel from plants like corn
and sugar cane is not that efficient. That’s
why researchers are working on so-called
cellulosic biofuels. The process turns things
like corn stalks, wood chips, and grasses into
fuel. As Mark Brush reports, some new
cellulosic refineries are breaking ground:
Transcript
Getting fuel from plants like corn
and sugar cane is not that efficient. That’s
why researchers are working on so-called
cellulosic biofuels. The process turns things
like corn stalks, wood chips, and grasses into
fuel. As Mark Brush reports, some new
cellulosic refineries are breaking ground:
The new refineries are being built with money from the federal government. The hope is
to perfect a fuel source that a) doesn’t come from food, and b) is much more efficient
than corn-based ethanol.
The problem is it’s hard to get at the sugars inside the
plants. But the payback could be big. For every one unit of energy going in,
cellulosic ethanol could spit out about five to ten units of energy.
Brian Davidson is with the BioEnergy Science Center. He says industry officials are
hopeful, but he thinks these new refineries are just a first step.
“They believe that those technologies will be more widely applicable, but I actually
believe that we’re going to need further technology improvements to go from these first
few handful of plants, handful of bio-refineries, to make them widespread.”
Davidson says scientists still have not perfected ways to break down the plants in a
cost-effective way.
Will Allen, founder and CEO of Growing Power, Inc. (Photo courtesy of the MacArthur Fellows Program)
An advocate of urban farming will
be able to do more to get locally grown foods
to communities. Chuck Quirmbach reports:
Transcript
An advocate of urban farming will
be able to do more to get locally grown foods
to communities. Chuck Quirmbach reports:
Will Allen founded the group ‘Growing Power’. Allen says the group tries to provide healthful and affordable food to
people who really need it. He says he’s mainly focused on growing and getting food to cities.
“Our rural areas are becoming suburban areas, and cities are getting larger and
growing out into suburban areas. And we have to figure out a way to feed people
with local food, and we need to come up with a just way of doing that.”
Allen says growing food locally and getting better food to people is key to building communities.
Allen is getting help. The MacArthur Foundation has recognized him with one of its ‘genius’ grants. He’ll get a half-
million dollars over the next five years to use as he sees fit.
Eric Rund raises corn and soy on his Illinois
farm but is experimenting with 'Miscanthus x giganteus',
a hybrid grass that could become a major feedstock for
cellulosic ethanol - if the market ever matures.
(Photo by Shawn Allee)
Stephen John is an agronomist with the Agricultural
Watershed Institute, which is helping the area around Decatur, Illinois cut down on soil erosion and fertilizer pollution; he
believes perennial grasses such as miscanthus may be part of
the solution.
(Photo by Shawn Allee)
Gary Letterly dips his hand into a hopper of miscanthus
pellets in the furnace room of his University of Illinois Extension
Service office in Taylorville, Illinois.
(Photo by Shawn Allee)
These pellets were produced from miscanthus grown in
Illinois; they're fed into a modified corn furnace to heat office space.
(Photo by Shawn Allee)
This furnace was originally built to burn pelletized corn, but
Gary Letterly had an Illinois manufacturer modify it to burn miscanthus
pellets; corn and grass (miscanthus and other grasses such as switchgrass)
produce different amounts of ash when burned.
(Photo by Shawn Allee)
The US is in the middle of an
ethanol revolution, or at least it’s
supposed to be. Scientists want to
develop ethanol that doesn’t use corn
– so food prices won’t go up. They’ve
found a tall grass called miscanthus that
can produce loads of ethanol – but they
haven’t perfected it yet. Shawn Allee reports some are trying to grow
miscanthus before the ethanol revolution
arrives:
Transcript
The US is in the middle of an
ethanol revolution, or at least it’s
supposed to be. Scientists want to
develop ethanol that doesn’t use corn
– so food prices won’t go up. They’ve
found a tall grass called miscanthus that
can produce loads of ethanol – but they
haven’t perfected it yet. Shawn Allee reports some are trying to grow
miscanthus before the ethanol revolution
arrives:
You won’t find much miscanthus near Decatur, Illinois.
Nope. Corn is crop number one.
But all this corn-growing has a downside.
Agronomist Stephen John offers to show it to me.
Shawn Allee: “Where are we?”
Stephan John: “Well, we’re near the upper end of Lake Decatur, looking across at
the city’s dredge. Right now that dredge that is sucking up sediment from the lake
bottom.”
John says corn can leave ground bare, and rain washes dirt and fertilizer pollution into
this lake.
“Some of that nitrogen gets into streams and ditches into Lake Decatur, which had
to develop a facility to protect drinking water.”
John wants farmers to protect soil from erosion and use less fertilizer.
One option is to grow grasses that hold soil and use less nitrogen. One candidate is that
miscanthus grass the ethanol industry’s interested in.
Problem is, no one buys miscanthus yet.
“So, the trick is how do you make it economically viable to get those grasses onto the
land, how do you make that attractive?”
John says people are working on that problem.
Farmer Eric Rund stands near a patch of miscanthus grass. He’s a pretty tall guy, but the
grass is even taller.
Shawn Allee: “I’m putting my hand through here.”
Eric Rund: “It’s like a jungle in there, it’s like bamboo growth or something.”
Rund says corn farmers get kinda freaked out by miscanthus. It doesn’t grow from seed,
and unlike corn, it takes years to produce.
He says farmers need to experiment with it.
“And if we do that now, when ethanol production comes along, we will then have a
reliable source of biomass for the ethanol plant.”
Rund says some farmers would grow miscanthus just to protect water and soil. But to
make it mainstream, it’s gotta be profitable.
“That’s the key. No farmer’s going to plant much of it unless there’s a market for it
and there’s no market for it unless there’s a steady supply of it, so the two are going
to have to grow together.”
But what if that takes a while for the ethanol industry to come knocking? Who would use
Rund’s miscanthus?
I meet a guy who’s working on a solution.
Gary Letterly: “What would you like to do, where would you like to start?”
Shawn Allee: “I want to see your furnace.”
I’m with Gary Letterly. He works with the University of Illinois.
He says in corn country, some people heat their homes with corn pellets.
That gave him an idea on how to heat his office.
“And what you see here, it was a corn furnace, and we thought it would be just
great if we could use that furnace and burn grass pellets.
Right next to the modified furnace, there’s a plastic hopper full of miscanthus pellets.
They look like rabbit or hamster food, and they smell like grass.
“Look at high energy costs. This was very competitive with natural gas, and the very
nice thing is being able to keep this value very close to home. The grass was
produced within fifteen miles, the furnaces were produced within five miles, and the
grass was processed into a pellet within 30 miles.”
Letterly says miscanthus offers enough local economic and environmental benefits that
people should look into it now.
It already has potential to be a kind of super-star plant, with or without help from an
ethanol industry may never come.
Steve Mohoney (left), of the Clinton County Soil & Water Conservation
District, gives dairy farmer Dale Tetreault his first look at "Bigfoot". (Photo by David Sommerstein)
Over the last 30 years, plastics
have become indispensable on America’s
farms. They save farmers time and money.
The problem is agricultural plastics are
filling up landfills. In some places,
farmers actually burn the plastic. That
releases dangerous chemicals into the air.
David Sommerstein reports
on a new effort to bale plastics and recycle
them:
Transcript
Over the last 30 years, plastics
have become indispensable on America’s
farms. They save farmers time and money.
The problem is agricultural plastics are
filling up landfills. In some places,
farmers actually burn the plastic. That
releases dangerous chemicals into the air.
David Sommerstein reports
on a new effort to bale plastics and recycle
them:
Farmers must have been paying attention when Dustin Hoffman got that
famous piece of advice in ‘The Graduate’.
“I just want to say one word to you, just one word.”
“Yes, sir?”
“ Are you listening?”
“Yes, sir, I am.”
“Plastics.”
Plastics are all over the farm today. Plastic greenhouse covers. White sheets
to wrap hay bales. Black plastic feed troughs.
(sound of moving troughs)
Dale Tetreault shakes a tall pile of the feed troughs on his dairy farm in
northern New York State.
“They’re a hard plastic and they hold molasses and minerals.”
Tetreault says the plastics are handy – essential, really – to keep feed fresh
for his 500 cows. But the material’s hard to re-use because it gets dirty and
tears easily.
So Tetreault’s left with a decision – spend a thousand dollars a year to truck
them to the landfill. Or burn them, polluting the air and water.
“Yeah, exactly, I mean, we’re not talking about some light piece of plastic
here. We’re talking about heavy duty plastic.”
A new machine is giving Tetrault a third alternative. It goes by the name of
Bigfoot.
(sound of motor starting up)
Bigfoot is a portable hydraulic press. It crushes used plastic and ties it up
in bales.
“Quite an interesting contraption, that’s for sure.”
Tetreault’s been saving up used farm plastics for a couple months for this
test run.
“Alright, we ready to try this?”
That’s Steve Mahoney, a farm educator with the local soil and water
conservation district. He bought Bigfoot with a $35,000 state grant.
(sound of engine running)
Mahoney and some farmhands stuff dirty plastic sheets into the baler, then
Bigfoot crushes it down. That makes room for more.
(crushing sound)
“Okay, so go on back up.”
Mahoney teaches the farmhands how to run Bigfoot. With the help of the
local farm extension office, he’s baled plastics at nine farms so far. He
wants all of the area’s farmers to share Bigfoot, to keep plastics out of the
landfill or burn pile.
“It’s an obvious problem on the farms. It’s necessary, but the disposal of it
is a problem.”
The big plan is to recycle the plastic. Mahoney’s coordinating with a
recycling firm in Minnesota to pick up 40,000 pounds of plastic bales. They
could be made into plastic lumber or shingles or road filler.
The thing is, there isn’t much of a market for low-grade, dirty plastic right
now. Lois Levitan directs New York’s Ag Plastics Recycling Project at
Cornell University. She says as fuel costs rise and more farmers bale their
plastic, that might change.
“Markets want to know that there’s a certain quantity of product at a
certain level of quantity and they’re going to become increasingly interested
when they know there’s a steady stream.”
(sound of Bigfoot machine popping out a bale)
“Ok, that’s it, that’s the finished product.”
Steve Mahoney presses a button and out pops a thousand pound bale of
plastic. Farmhand Lennie Merculdi brushes his hands.
“Put it this way, trying to put it in a dumpster, to the barn, and never having
enough room for the garbage, that’s not good either. What’s a few minutes?
You get rid of the plastic, it’s convenient, you tie it up and away it goes.”
For The Environment Report, I’m David Sommerstein.
Today’s cattle are much bigger than they were back in the 1920s. They’ve been bred to
big and beefy. But, it turns out, you can actually produce more meat with the smaller
cattle.
(Photo by Keith Weller, courtesy of the USDA)
Because of feed and energy prices,
some cattle farmers are scaling back.
They’re not reducing the size of their
herd. They’re reducing the size of their
cows. Kinna Ohman reports:
Transcript
Because of feed and energy prices,
some cattle farmers are scaling back.
They’re not reducing the size of their
herd. They’re reducing the size of their
cows. Kinna Ohman reports:
Today’s cattle are much bigger than they were back in the 1920s. They’ve been bred to
big and beefy. But, it turns out, you can actually produce more meat with the smaller
cattle.
Richard Gradwohl has been breeding miniature cattle for more than forty years. He
says with today’s larger beef cattle on five acres, you can produce 2400 pounds of
meat. He can raise as much as 7000 pounds of beef on that same five acres.
“It’s surprising to me how many large cattle breeders call me almost every day
because they’re interested in reducing the size of their animals to achieve more
feed efficiency.”
Gradwohl thinks the emphasis on breeding large cattle might be reversing.
The Getz’s think their cows can help make decisions on their farm.
(Photo by Kinna Ohman)
Steve and Karen Getz found out their cows prefer spending hot days in the shelter, instead of out on pasture. The cows will then graze during the night.
(Photo by Kinna Ohman)
Family farming is in trouble. The country has lost thousands
of small family-owned farms over the last twenty years. Some researchers
say that’s because the agricultural industry and government policy favor
corporate farms. That makes it difficult for smaller farms to survive.
So some small farmers are trying a different way of farming. Kinna Ohman reports that it can all start with a little ingenuity:
Transcript
Family farming is in trouble. The country has lost thousands
of small family-owned farms over the last twenty years. Some researchers
say that’s because the agricultural industry and government policy favor
corporate farms. That makes it difficult for smaller farms to survive.
So some small farmers are trying a different way of farming. Kinna Ohman reports that it can all start with a little ingenuity:
(sounds of farm)
Steve and Karen Getz run a dairy farm in central Vermont.
They’re the type of people who think outside of the box. Not only do they let their cows
out on pasture (and that’s rare among dairy farmers) they also let their cows be part of the
decision making on the farm. They think their cows have some pretty good ideas.
It all started on a hot summer day a couple of years ago. The Getz’s noticed after the
morning milking, their cows didn’t want to go out to pasture. Instead, the cows stood at
the gate that led into a large indoor shelter they call a ‘pack’.
The Getz’s built this ‘pack’ for the winter – so their cows could get out of the harsh
winds. They didn’t know why their cows would want to use it in the summer, but Steve
Getz says they gave it a try.
“And what we did was to open the gate to see what would happen. And what we
found was they’d come in and sleep in the pack in the blazing hot heat. And it
started to cool down in the afternoon. They went back out and grazed all night
long.”
Steve Getz says there’s been no loss of milk production. And all this makes a lot of
sense. But he says they never read about this in any book or farm magazine.
So Steve and Karen Getz thought they’d see if their cows had any more good ideas.
And the cows did.
Karen Getz says they were told their cows needed to give birth in an area separated from
the herd. So they built a fence around a corner area of their indoor shelter. But soon they
saw their cows didn’t like this – they wanted to be with the herd. So Karen Getz says
they let that happen too.
“She can go off into a corner somewhere and calve and have enough space. And
then she feels comfortable because she can get up and eat with the herd, she can be
nursing the calf. But she’s not separated. That’s less stress for the cow. You know,
we let them choose.”
It’s this kind of creativity that could help small farming come back to rural communities.
That’s what Martha Pickard thinks. She’s a grazing specialist.
She says many farmers only know the industrial model used by large farms. So when
they see families like the Getz’s grazing their cows, saving lots of money on feed, and
letting the cows make decisions on their own, it gives them other options.
“It’s such a huge deal to change your style of management. It’s like you getting up
in the morning and having a different job. So it takes a certain personality type,
someone who’s willing to think outside of the box, someone who’s willing to have
their neighbors stop by and say, ‘why are you doing it that way?’ It’s tough because
they’re usually on their own.”
Martha Pickard wants those small farmers to realize they’re not alone. And to know
there are others who are also rejecting the industrial way of farming.
Darrell Emmick, who’s with the Natural Resources Conservation Service, says he’s seen
progress.
Even though there’s been a net loss of small dairy farms in his region,
Emmick’s also watched farms with alternative grass based systems survive. He says
that’s hopeful.
“Twenty-five years ago, we’d pretty much gotten away from this. But today,
farmers putting cows on pasture. Finally, we have that on the radar screen. And if
I have a success story to share, that’d be it.”
Those small family farmers have realized the conventional wisdom pushed by the
agricultural industry might hurt more than help them. And people like Pickard and
Emmick want to help those farmers to learn from each other. They hope it means more
farms will survive being taken-over by corporate farming.
Dan Macon, owner of Flying Mule Farm, and his mule, Frisbee (Photo by Tamara Keith)
With fuel prices through the roof,
many people are changing their routines to
save money. Tamara Keith brings
us this story of a farmer who’s abandoned
his tractor for something much more fuel
efficient:
Transcript
With fuel prices through the roof,
many people are changing their routines to
save money. Tamara Keith brings
us this story of a farmer who’s abandoned
his tractor for something much more fuel
efficient:
“Step up.” (kissing noises)
Meet Dan Macon and his mule Frisbee.
“Frisbee is a 7 year old mule and she was born here at our place. And she got
her name because I promised my oldest daughter, who was then 3, that if she got
up with me when the mule was born she could pick the name.”
“Step up. Good girl.”
On this day Macon and Frisbee are plowing to prepare a patch of land to plant
for the fall. Macon’s Flying Mule Farm is in the California foothill town of
Auburn. And he says it’s 100% animal powered.
“We have a sign now in our farmer’s market stall that says mule powered
vegetables. We use no pesticides, no synthetic fertilizers and no petroleum in
producing our vegetables. And we joke with them that we haven’t harmed any
tractors in producing their goodies.”
He sells his squash, kale, potatoes and other produce at two local farmer’s
markets. He also supplies restaurants in nearby resort towns.
At this point Macon is only farming a quarter of an acre, but hopes to expand
soon. He holds a pair of leather reins as he follows Frisbee in circles around
the small field. He directs her movements with vocal cues, kissing sounds and
pressure applied to the reins. And it seems to work, some of the time.
Tamara Keith: “Seems like it could be a matter of debate as to who’s in
charge.”
Dan Macon: (laughs) “Well as I tell people who have seen pictures of us
doing it, the mule’s the one with the long ears and the guy in the hat is the
jackass.”
Macon has been farming for 7 years and, until this year, he used a gas and
diesel powered tractors. He made the switch for philosophical reasons rather
than economic ones, but it’s penciling out financially too.
“And then diesel went to $5 a gallon and it seemed like a really good
decision.”
And Macon isn’t the only farmer doing this. Animal powered farming,
particularly with horses, is growing in popularity nationwide.
Lynn Miller is editor of the Small Farmer’s Journal. He says 400,000 people
are using animals to farm, and only half of them are Amish.
“I’m predicting within two to three years an additional quarter of a million
people will join the ranks of those who choose animal powered, not as a
throwback, not a return to a nostalgic past, but because it is a practical and
viable option for the future.”
Macon uses organic farming practices, but Frisbee kind of fertilizes the soil as
she goes – if you know what I mean. So, his produce can’t be certified
organic. Macon says he isn’t concerned about his lack of certification.
“I think knowing your farmer is far more important to food safety than any
regulatory program. And if you know your farmer, and your farmer stands
behind what he or she is producing for you, then you’re going to be insured of a
safe product, and that’s how our relationship works with our customers.”
There are other advantages to farming with a mule, says Macon. He’s not
much of a mechanic, so when his tractor broke down in the past he’d have to
call someone to repair it. Now if his source of traction has a problem, he can
just call his wife. She’s a large animal veterinarian.
Bob Gavlak and his partners organize freshly-harvested produce in
their cooling truck. (Photo by Julie Grant)
Deli owner Donna Chriszt is pleased with the quality of the beans
and other produce. (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.
