nibbles: local food and ag in the news

June 1, 2008 by Sara Zoe.

NECN: Local food as a cost-saving strategy in VT
(Anya Huneke, NECN: Craftsbury, VT) - Going to the grocery store is becoming more and more of a pain in the wallet these days as food prices continue to escalate. You might not think of buying local food as a way to save money, but some in Vermont believe that may in fact be a good cost-saving strategy. (short commercial first - )

On the other hand, there’s dairy farming, which in the past 30 years has evolved to require a lot more inputs that are being affected by rising prices. I wonder if we’ll see a shift toward more grass and hay based dairies, v. grain-based feed as fertilizer and fuel prices increase. Grass and hay still do consume fertilizer and fuel, but often less as the cows can do a bit of the harvesting themselves, but it also requires a lot of land and is labor intensive.

Costs Killing Maine Farmers

LEVANT, Maine - Dairy farmer Brian Call doesn’t have a fancy milking parlor. He hand-carries the portable milking machine to each of his 30 cows, wiping their teats with pages ripped from an old telephone book. “Another way to save money,” he comments.

It’s backbreaking work and it never stops. Call’s barn is as it was when his grandfather used it: wooden stanchions, no automatic waste gutters, no computer chips in his cow’s ears. This is farming the way it has been done for generations on the Call farm — since 1820 — and, at least for Brian Call and his wife, Joan Gibson, it appears to be headed for extinction.

“The saturation point has been reached,” Gibson said this week. “The enormous prices now for fuel and fertilizer and grain are just going to push family farms over the horizon, and quickly. America won’t even hear the thud.”

Picture this, Gibson said. “I stand in a vestibule. On one side is a huge, growing demand for local organic goods, swelled by millions of consumers, yearning and beckoning for affordable good food. On the other side is a gaunt weary farmer, surrounded by decaying buildings, run-down land, another long day of drudgery and the only hope of compensation the sale of his heritage: his land, as he bites his arm off to feed himself. This is the reality of dairy farming in Maine. It’s brutal.” read the rest of the article >

And the good news - numbers of small farms are increasing, and you know when Business Week covers it, it is officially mainstream and not a fringe fad:

The Rise of the ‘Locavore’: How the strengthening local food movement in towns across the U.S. is reshaping farms and food retailing, Business Week May 20, 2008

The rise of farmers’ markets—in city centers, college towns, and rural squares—is testament to a dramatic shift in American tastes. Consumers increasingly are seeking out the flavors of fresh, vine-ripened foods grown on local farms rather than those trucked to supermarkets from faraway lands. “This is not a fringe foodie culture,” says Flaccavento. “These are ordinary, middle-income folks who have become really engaged in food and really care about where their food comes from.”

It’s a movement that is gradually reshaping the business of growing and supplying food to Americans. The local food movement has already accomplished something that almost no one would have thought possible a few years back: a revival of small farms. After declining for more than a century, the number of small farms has increased 20% in the past six years, to 1.2 million, according to the Agriculture Dept.

Some are thriving. Michael Paine, 34, who started farming in 2005 on just one acre in Yamhill, Ore., today has six acres of land and 110 families who buy his lettuce, cabbage, peppers, and eggplants. “I like to surprise my families with odd varieties of tomato or an odd eggplant variety, and they love it,” says Paine.

Patrick Robinette saw a growing interest among Americans in specialty beef, and in 2001 started raising 10 cows at Harris Acres farm in Pinetops, N.C. Soon his grass-fed beef was in high demand. He now raises 600 head of cattle and delivers beef to the North Carolina governor’s mansion. He has standing orders from 37 restaurants, three specialty stores, and six cafeterias.

read the rest of the article >

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