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.

Related Links

Use of Corn for Ethanol Production Increases

Every few years, the amount of corn being used to produce ethanol doubles in the United States. That’s causing concern that too much of the country’s corn crop is being taken out of food production. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Erin Toner reports:

Transcript

Every few years, the amount of corn being used to produce ethanol
doubled in the United States. That’s causing concern that too much of the
country’s corn crop is being taken out of food production. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Erin Toner reports:


Demand for ethanol is increasing as more states start requiring the corn-
based fuel to be blended with gasoline, and Congress has required that
the amount of renewable fuel used in the U.S. triple in the next six years.


Keith Collins is chief economist for the USDA. He’s says he’s not
worried about a food shortage. He says there were record corn crops in
2004 and 2005, and there’s 35 million acres of cropland in reserve in the
U.S.


“Some of that has to stay there because its environmentally fragile land,
but some of it could come out if demand for food goes up, and demand
for fuel goes up. I think we have a very strong resource natural resource
base that can produce a lot more agricultural commodities, both for food
and for fuel.”


Overproduction has kept corn prices as low as they were in the 1950s,
but Collins expects corn to get more expensive over the next few years as
ethanol production increases.


For the GLRC, I’m Erin Toner.

Related Links

Biotech Companies Agree to Regional Moratorium

Several biotech companies have agreed not to grow genetically modified crops in Corn Belt states, including Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, parts of Kentucky, parts of Nebraska, and Minnesota. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Natalie Walston reports:

Transcript

Several biotech companies have agreed not to grow genetically modified crops in Corn
Belt states, including Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, parts of Kentucky, parts of
Nebraska, and Minnesota. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Natalie Walston reports:


Twelve biotech companies including Monsanto and Dow agreed to the moratorium. In
states where the corn might contaminate nearby fields planted with crops for human
consumption.


Lisa dry is with the Biotechnology Industry Organization in Washington, D.C.
She says the companies won’t grow corn and safflower used for medicines.


“This is pharmaceutical production, it is not agricultural or food production. We are
taking every single possible precaution to make sure that it stays in its intended use
channel and does not end up in the food or feed.”


Dry says commercial grocers, exporters, and food processors have been concerned about
the Starlink scandal of 2000, when genetically modified corn approved for animal feed
turned up in 300 varieties of taco shells, tostadas and chips. The biotech companies say
they will grow crops in non-traditional areas such as Hawaii, Arizona, and Puerto Rico.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Natalie Walston.

Ethics of Human Pesticide Tests

Pesticides are designed to kill pests – and so – by their nature are toxic substances. They wouldn’t work otherwise. While that poisonous nature is useful for certain jobs… most people would probably hesitate before knowingly taking the chemicals into their bodies. But the Environmental Protection Agency is now looking at the issue of testing pesticides on humans. As bad as that may sound, the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Greg Dahlmann reports there are some people saying it’s what we need:

Distancing Ourselves From Our Food

Not too long ago, the fall harvest season was celebrated for its bounty of locally grown fresh fruits and vegetables. Thanks to the globalization of our food system, we can now buy fresh produce 365 days of the year. Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Suzanne Elston says the end result is that most of us have no idea where our food actually comes from:

Transcript

Not too long ago, the fall harvest season was celebrated for its
bounty of locally grown fresh fruits and vegetables. Thanks to the
globalization of our food system we can now buy fresh produce 365
days of the year. Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Suzanne
Elston says the end result is that most of us have no idea where our
food actually comes from.

As a kid I grew up near the Okanagan Valley near Canada’s west coast.
The area was famous for its fruit trees. During harvest time, my
parents would stop at a roadside stand and buy a basket of cherries
and put then in the back seat for my sister and I to entertain
ourselves with. The first thing we’d do is look for double hung
cherries to hang over our ears like drop earrings. Then we’d bite one
of the cherries and use the sweet juice to paint our lips and cheeks.
We’d throw back our heads and do our very best Marilyn Monroe
impression before diving into the remaining fruit. We’d fill our
mouths to the point of bursting, and then spit the pits at each
other, giggling and laughing in a fit of harvest bliss.


This delicious ritual remains carefully etched in my mind because
it’s so rare today. My kids can eat fresh fruits and vegetables from
around the world on virtually any day of the year. They’ve already
tasted things that I didn’t even know existed when I was a kid –
kiwis from New Zealand, exotic star fruits and Jamaican plantain for
example.


On the surface, this seems like a good thing. Thanks to international
trade and modern storage technologies, we are no longer restricted by
local growing seasons and soil conditions. But in having so much,
we’ve actually lost sight of the process of growing food. Most of us
are about three generations away from having to go to the henhouse to
pick up the eggs on the family farm. And if our ancestors didn’t
actually grow their own food, they purchased it from a neighbor who
did.


Today instead of going out in the back garden and picking a tomato
for dinner, the tomato that ends up on your supper plate may have
traveled thousands of miles by truck. It’s then delivered to a
distribution center, shipped by yet another vehicle to your local
supermarket, and then given a ride home in the back of the family
van. This idea of being removed from our food source is something
called distancing.


Distancing not only adds to the cost of food, but it also places a
heavy toll on the environment. Trucking fresh produce across vast
distances burns a whole lot of fossil fuel – a major contributor to
both global warming and smog. Some of the countries that we import
produce from don’t have the same strict guidelines that we do about
pesticides. The result is that along with fruits and vegetables, in
some cases we’re also importing chemicals such as DDT that we banned
decades ago.


And then there’s the produce itself. Although it’s technically fresh,
it has to be picked long before it’s ripe in order to survive the
journey. Then it spends several days – or perhaps even weeks – before
it shows up on store shelves. Sure it looks great, but for those of
us who have experienced the taste of freshly picked fruit, it’s not
even in the same ballpark.


Which is perhaps why cherry is now my least favorite flavor. It’s so
far removed from the delicious cherries of my childhood, that I’d
rather not taste it.

CUBA SETS EXAMPLE FOR ORGANIC FARMERS (Part 2)

  • Cuban growers examine their crops. Farmers in Cuba have been successful in growing their own crops after the Soviet Union collapsed ten years ago. Photo by Mary Stucky

Cuba is in the midst of an unprecedented experiment in alternative agriculture… an experiment that’s attracting the attention of farmers in the Great Lakes. When the Soviet Union collapsed ten years ago, so did Cuba’s economy. Lacking money to import food or the chemicals to grow it, the Cuban government made a bold move — embracing organic farming and natural pest control. In the second of a two-part series, the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mary Stucky takes a look at the lessons farmers may learn from Cuba’s organic experiment:

Transcript

Cuba is in the midst of an unprecedented experiment in alternative agriculture… an experiment that’s attracting the attention of farmers in the Great Lakes. When the Soviet Union collapsed ten years ago, so did Cuba’s economy. Lacking money to import food and the chemicals to grow it, the Cuban government made a bold move – embracing organic farming and natural pest control. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mary Stucky takes a look at the lessons Great Lakes farmers may learn from Cuba’s organic experiment.


The agricultural transformation in Cuba is striking. In a land only recently dependent on imported chemicals, much of the farmland is now cultivated without chemical fertilizer or chemical pest controls. In a land where people were once starving, a vast system of urban gardens are producing more than half of the fruits and vegetables consumed in Cuba, completely without the use of chemicals. So while certain foods like meat and milk are in short supply, the United Nations reports that most Cubans are now consuming enough calories for a healthy life.
There’s a pride in proving alternative agricultural methods can feed a country’s people. Fernando Funes made that point in the busy lunchroom at the agricultural research facility he runs near Havana.


“In the whole world we are a handful of people trying to go ahead with this struggle and we have to show that we are producing more healthy products that is healthy for nature. I don’t know what will happen in the future but I guess in my opinion, we are not going to come back because we have been proving very well that this paradigm is going to substitute the other one.”


Funes is out to spread the message that even the most chemical fertilizer and pesticide dependent farming can be transformed. Folks like the University of Minnesota’s Bill Wilcke are listening. Wilcke was recently in Cuba studying its agricultural innovations.


“Their solution is ‘what do we have to fix the problem,’ trying to make use of their natural resources and their own human resources to make this work.”


It’s not that they don’t use any fertilizer, or pest controls – they do. It’s just that they involve far less chemicals. For instance, Cuba’s approach to fertilizer involves the production of worm humus in so-called vermiculture facilities – where staff regularly invites curious American farmers to visit.


“We use commonly just manure, but also the kitchen residues and many other organic matters. They eat double their size.”


This Cuban farmer explains how they feed manure or garbage to the worms, which then transform it into a richer, more potent fertilizer. That fertilizer has been used to dramatically improve yields for some crops in Cuba.


(Ambient sound from lab)


Throughout rural Cuba there are more than 200 centers for the production of natural pest controls – including bacteria that devour insect larvae. That’s an inexpensive – and largely effective – alternative to chemical pesticides. Alternatives such as these are well known in the United States. But because of the ready availability of chemicals and because alternatives don’t work well on some big cash crops, they’re little used in the U.S. right now. Still, developing alternatives makes good sense to the University of Minnesota’s Bill Willcke.


“I don’t know if we need to advocate abandoning technology, but I think we need to think about what some of our options are and we have to think about the scale of our agriculture, the kinds of technology that we use.’


Some economists say it’s foolish for countries like the U.S. to imitate Cuba. They say, why go back to what some call medieval farming methods, why use valuable urban land to grow food. But Minor Sinclair disagrees. Sinclair lived in Havana in the 1990’s, representing Oxfam America, a charity working on food policy. Sinclair says Cuba may be sitting on a gold mine, with the increasing demand for organic food.


“Will Cuba’s agriculture be able to be a lighthouse for other developing countries in the region, and in some way even for farmers here in the United States. I hope so.”


Maybe someday, but most experts do not expect to see a system of organic farming and urban gardens widely embraced in the U.S. any time soon, at least not without a food crisis of Cuban proportions.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Mary Stucky.

COMMENTARY – &Quot;FRANKENFISH" TO HIT STORE SHELVES?

Canadian researchers have developed a genetically altered
salmon. Dubbed "Frankenfish" by the public, the designer salmon grow
about eight times faster – and as much as 37 times larger – than normal
salmon. While fish farmers are hoping to bring their latest catch to
a dinner table near you, Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator
Suzanne Elston finds the whole thing rather unappetizing:

Commentary – Giving Farmers Their Due

In late March, Canadian farmer
Nick Parsons drove his tractor over 3,000 miles across the country. His
goal was to reach the nation’s capital in Ottawa to ask for financial
support for Canada’s farmers. Great Lakes Radio Consortium
commentator Suzanne Elston thinks we should be giving farmers a whole
lot more:

Can Biotech Feed the World?

This month the number of people on Earth reaches six-billion. Food
experts say feeding the world’s population will put more pressures on
the environment unless existing farms can increase production. … but
experts argue about the best way to do that. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Lester Graham has more:
crop management, yield, yields, technology, biological research, food,
food production, pollination, climate, natural capital, population,
population growth, world growth, genetics, genetically