September 1, 2010 by Debra.

Via our friends at Slow Food Seacoast, the latest news on the current financial state of Maine Organic Milk, also known as MOOMilk:

A grand agricultural experiment — a Maine farmer-owned milk company — is close to folding and will suspend milk production this week as its principles scramble to find investment funding.

 

MOOMilk, which stands for Maine’s Own Organic Milk, processed milk Wednesday but will suspend production on Sunday, as a variety of reasons have combined to force the business toward closure. Only skim and one percent milk are still being processed since the company’s cash flow is so low that it cannot purchase two percent and whole milk car-tons.

 

“We are out of money,” David Bright, MOOMilk’s secretary and one of its founders, said this week.

 

Although the company began with 10 member farmers from Washington, Aroostook and Kennebec counties, that number has fallen to six, threatening the company’s ability to produce enough milk to remain sustainable.

 

Two farmers retired; another sold his herd; and a fourth opted to switch to conventional milk from organic.

Distributed reached more than 49 stores in Maine and New Hampshire. Currently, the company is seeking additional investment funding. Maybe some Slow Money to the rescue?  To read entire article >

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August 25, 2010 by Debra.

The fourth annual Kneading Conference has just ended. This yearly gathering takes place in Skowhegan, Maine, and has been a growing influence in providing our regional food system with locally-produced grains. If you haven’t had the chance to attend, a New York Times article by Marian Burros covers this year’s conference and the Artisan Bread Fair that accompanies it:

Their Daily Bread Is a Local Call Away

 

THE 250 farmers, bakers, millers, scientists and just plain eaters, all of them fanatics about the kind of bread that is so good it doesn’t need butter or jam, gathered here last month for the fourth annual Kneading Conference. They spent two days at the fairgrounds talking about locally grown, mostly organic grains — and how, after 100 years of neglect, breads made from them are beginning to pop up, in limited quantities, nationwide.

 

There were plenty of freshly baked loaves, hot out of an assortment of portable bread ovens, to persuade the uninitiated that nothing tastes as good as bread made from richly flavored varieties of grain.

 

The Kneading Conference is part of a quiet revolution whose center is Skowhegan, a town in central Maine that produced enough grain in the 1830s to feed 100,000 people. As interest in local food has risen, federal and state agriculture departments are underwriting experiments to find the best varieties of wheat, and artisanal bakers are eagerly trying the flours they produce. But it is the conference that has helped turn the scattered movement into the next new thing for locavores, and the practical topics discussed this year — building more gristmills, making old farm manuals available — reveal its progress from infancy to adolescence.

 

To read article, including mentions of Borealis Breads and Stone Turtle Baking and Cooking School >

 

The above photo is from this year’s conference. To see more photos of the 2010 Kneading Conference and Bread Fair >

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August 21, 2010 by Debra.

Frank Harrison of Harrisons Poultry in Candia, a regular vendor at Seacoast farmers’ markets, is the subject of a recent profile at NewHampshire.com. In addition to poultry and rabbits, he produces honey and Sweet Water maple syrup. Find out more about life at Harrisons Poultry Farm: 

Life on a local farm fits Frank Harrison perfectly

 

Taking care of flocks of chickens, guinea fowl, geese and turkeys, as well as rabbits and bees, is a giant commitment. But for Frank Harrison, it’s a way of life he’s glad to have chosen.

 

“I’m the happiest I’ve ever been,” he said. “And I’m the poorest I’ve ever been.”

 

Harrison owns Harrison’s Poultry in Candia, one of the few small farms in the Manchester area.

He began by selling turkeys in 1995 with his brother and moved to his current location on Tower Hill Road in 2005, where he could expand his farming efforts.

 

Visitors may be surprised to find a farm in the middle of a heavily wooded area. Chickens run free through the woods, while others are happy to stay in their pens. Even Harrison jokes that he doesn’t end up with a farmer’s tan because there’s so much shade from the trees.

 

“Everything here is food,” said Harrison.

 

And it takes a lot of time to grow all that food.

 

His day starts early, feeding and watering what sometimes amounts to 800 chickens. He lets the heritage chickens out, shoveling cages and putting in fresh shavings and cleaning nest boxes. It can take the full morning to make the rounds to all the pens.

 

Afternoons are spent mending, buying supplies and heading out to farmers markets to sell his goods. Evenings are back making the rounds to be sure all his animals are fed, watered and safe.

 

And that doesn’t take into account the gardens he maintains – both on his own property and at other locations – where he grows a variety of vegetables.

 

Once a week he checks his apiary, where bees are busy making honey. Each July and late August to September is the time to get the honey out and package it.

 

Chickens are butchered several times each week, as he meets demand by some customers and for his three weekly trips to local farmers markets.

 

Every spring, he maintains 350 taps on sugar bushes to make maple sugar and syrup, having built his own sugar shack just last year.

 

“The biggest job is just collecting (all the sap),” he said. Once collected, he can produce a gallon of syrup each hour to 90 minutes.

 

Customers, friends and family sometimes pitch in to help Harrison, especially if he needs a day off. And he has a network of friends also in the family farming business through the Seacoast Growers Association and Seacoast Eat Local, which helps promote business and the movement toward “slow local food.”

 

“Sitting down with family and friends with food you prepared – there’s nothing like that,” said Harrison, describing a meal he prepared almost entirely of food he personally grew.

 

Harrison is well aware of what life is like for most people, having spent 20 years as a CAD engineer, drawing the artwork for microwave circuits. As the business started to cut back, he thought more and more about going into farming.

 

“I’ve never worked as hard,” said Harrison. “Today, there’s a sense of purpose in what I do, helping people have a better life.”

 

Learn more about Harrison’s Poultry Farm at www.harrisonspoultry.com, or call 587-0323. He can be found at the Hooksett Farmers Market on Wednesdays.

 

To read article online >

 

Harrisons Poultry may also be found at the Exeter Farmers’ Market on Thursdays. 

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August 19, 2010 by Debra.

Imagine 380 500 million eggs — that’s the number of them now being recalled. We’re often asked about the price of local food compared to those found at the supermarket, and this latest recall perhaps helps to reframe the question to: How is it that industrial food can be produced and made available so cheaply? The hidden and not-so-hidden costs are many, and salmonella is just one of them.

Two recent interviews further explore the issue of cost. One with Michael Pollan, with prescient timing, asks “A Dozen Eggs for $8?“

WSJ: Is eating well just an indulgence for people who can afford it?

 

Mr. Pollan: If you’re in the supermarket buying organic versus not buying organic, you are going to spend more. But buying food at the farmer’s market, if you compare it to the prices at Safeway for stuff that’s in season, it actually beats the prices in my experience. People shouldn’t assume that they are going to go broke at the farmer’s market.

 

WSJ: What do you wish people here understood about their food that they don’t now?

 

Mr. Pollan: We’ve been conditioned by artificially cheap food to be shocked when a box of strawberries costs $3.

 

But it’s important to know that farmers aren’t getting wealthy. When you see strawberries being sold for $1 a box, picture the kind of labor it takes to pick those strawberries and the kind of chemicals it takes to produce those kinds of strawberries without hand weeding.

 

Eight dollars for a dozen eggs sounds outrageous, but when you think that you can make a delicious meal from two eggs, that’s $1.50. It’s really not that much when we think of how we waste money in our lives.

 

To read full Pollan interview >

The other, with a program manager at the Intervale Center in Vermont, discusses what goes into producing local meat:

And now for the question we’ve all been waiting to ask … why are local meat prices so high?

 

I get this question a lot! It’s funny how many people think that all food is the same and perhaps it should all have a comparable price. I know when I shop for a new car or a can of paint I have the understanding that the product that has a higher price is almost always of a higher quality. I’m surprised that more skeptical people don’t wonder how they can buy non-local meat at such a low price.

 

So why are many local meats priced higher than standard meats at the supermarket? In most cases you’re looking at a superior product: see if you can taste the difference or decide if you derive value from the other attributes like grass fed, humane treatment or paying a VT farmer a better wage.

 

Processing for a small-scale producer can cost more; slaughtering animals and cutting and wrapping meat is a significant component of the final sale price.

 

Many grass-fed animals may be carried through the winter on stored feeds before the animal is ready for harvest. That means more money for feed, more time for the farmer and more space taken up in fields or the barn. Compare that to a Midwestern feedlot steer who is fed surplus corn on an accelerated growth plan. Corn is cheap in those parts of the country and, after all, time is money!

To read full Intervale interview >

 

For farm-fresh, local eggs  and some of the places to find them, see our guide to local food, Seacoast Harvest.

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August 18, 2010 by Heather.

A recent article in the New York Times tells the story of three clinics in Massachusetts that are “prescribing” local farmers’ market purchases for youngsters. “Eat an Apple (Doctor’s Orders)” by Natasha Singer details what Boston mayor Thomas Menino says could be the first of its kind:

Doctors at three health centers in Massachusetts have begun advising patients to eat “prescription produce” from local farmers’ markets, in an effort to fight obesity in children of low-income families. Now they will give coupons amounting to $1 a day for each member of a patient’s family to promote healthy meals. . . The pilot project plans to enroll up to 50 families of four at three health centers in Massachusetts that already have specialized children’s programs called healthy weight clinics.

To read the entire article click here.

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August 13, 2010 by Debra.

Exciting changes are afoot for Blue Moon Market & Cafe in Exeter, as it becomes Blue Moon Evolution. Though the market will be closing, the cafe will expand into a full-service lunch and dinner restaurant featuring locally sourced food. The opening date is set for 10/10/10 to coincide with 350.org’s Global Work Party — A Day to Celebrate Climate Solutions. Read more about the evolution in Rachel Forrest’s report at Seacoastonline.com.

The restaurant will also be hosting a new food-related cooperative buying club. For those interested, the next organizational meeting will be held on August 25th at 7 p.m., at Blue Moon Market & Cafe, 8 Clifford St. in Exeter. For more information, contact Blue Moon Market & Cafe at (603) 778-6850.

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August 5, 2010 by Debra.

New Hampshire Magazine has just published their annual Best of NH, with Brookford Farm winning the most votes for their farm-fresh milk — congratulations!

Got (the best) Milk?: The Mahoneys produce clean, healthy raw milk and cream on their certified organic Brookford Farm in Rollingsford (70 Sligo Rd., brookfordfarm.com). Raw milk is not homogenized or pasteurized with high heat. Their small herd of happy, healthy Jersey cows is pastured on 280 acres. They never receive antibiotics or growth hormones. You can purchase milk and meet the girls at the farm or find it (without the girls) at select health food stores and farmers markets.

And if you’re planning to stop by the farm this Saturday, here’s the chance to tour Brookford’s pastures, barns, creamery and farm store, complete with hayride:

Bring your friends and family out to the farm on Saturday, August 7th at 4 pm for a hayride and farm tour. Kiss the cows, pet the chickens, and walk the rows of cucumbers and corn. RSVP at brookfordfarminfo[at]gmail.com.

 

This event is free and open to the public. Additional information may be found through their website, and at their blog. 

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August 2, 2010 by Debra.

Along with the summer crops, bees seem to be thriving this year. Here’s a short video from the White House Blog on the bees kept with the White House Kitchen Garden, via the Seacoast’s Victory Bees (which can be found here and here):

When White House carpenter Charlie Brandt told some of First Lady Michelle Obama’s staff about his latest hobby in beekeeping, Chef Sam Kass was quick to ask him if he knew how to make honey that could be used in the White House kitchen. Fortunately, not only did Brandts know how to make the honey, but he also had a spare beehive at home that he was happy to donate to the White House. Now Brandt is the White House’s official beekeeper tending a hive of approximately 70,000 bees near the new Kitchen Garden.

 

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July 26, 2010 by Debra.

Congratulations to Cheryl Dixon for winning a national award of excellence for her work as the food service manager at Kittery’s Horace Mitchell Primary School! In addition to teaching good nutrition and promoting healthy eating habits, Dixon’s award-winning program includes a Farm to School initiative to provide schools with farm fresh foods, and a third component on composting and recycling. As reported by SeacoastOnline.com:

Kittery school has nation’s best: Food manager takes top award for initiatives at Horace Mitchell

First it was state recognition. Then it was regional acclaim. Now it is national notoriety.

 

Cheryl Dixon, food service manager at Horace Mitchell Primary School, has had quite the summer.

 

Having already received the Maine School Food Service Association’s Louise Sublette Award of Excellence for 2010, Dixon was then selected as the regional winner from the six New England states and New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

 

The accolades then cast her into the national spotlight, and Dixon hasn’t looked back.

 

On July 11, before thousands packed in the Dallas Conference Center in Texas, Dixon received the National Louise Sublette Award of Excellence. She was chosen out of six regional winners.

 

Dixon was honored for her work teaching good nutrition and promoting lifelong healthy eating habits among the students at Mitchell School.

Her award-winning program combined the elements of two existing nutrition education programs in her school: the 5-2-1-0 Program, which teaches students to eat five servings of fruits and vegetables a day, watch less TV, exercise more and eliminate sugary beverages; and the Farm to School Initiative, which provides schools with farm fresh foods.

 

Dixon also added a third component to the program to teach students about composting and recycling.

 

“I don’t think my feet have hit the ground,” Dixon told the Herald during a recent interview. “This honor is not just for me, but it’s for my school and Maine…”

 

She said perhaps the most rewarding experience aside from the award was realizing that students actually learned something from her project.

 

Having never been taught the importance of nutrition and healthy living when she was in school in the 1970s, Dixon said the role she plays in the schools these days is just as vital as that of educators.

 

“The award is wonderful and it’s totally awesome, but I’m really hoping that somehow, someday, I made a difference for these kids.”

 

To read full article > 

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July 10, 2010 by Debra.

A profile of Dr. Tomato and Healthy Home Harvest appears in in this month’s issue of New Hampshire Magazine: 

Dr. Tomato wants you to grow a garden. The reasons are deeply seeded in his social conscious and eating fresh, healthy food is just the start.

 

David O’Connor, aka Dr. Tomato, came of age in the late sixties and is still singing the praises of the dawning of the Age of Aquarius. Where most hipsters, counter-culture types and readers of Mother Earth News have long since succumbed to the siren call of big box homes with picket fences, O’Connor has stuck to his guns.

 

Not that the medieval castle keep he and his partner Loretta Salazar built in Barrington is fortified, but it has all the other bells that would make a 10th-century lord and lady comfortable, except, of course, for the serfs. For O’Connor, his lifestyle and his castle are part and parcel of his basic philosophy of life — tread lightly upon the earth — and at every turn possible be self-sufficient. And he walks the talk. The castle was built with no outside help, is kept warm by super insulation, solar panels and wood stoves, and is surrounded with lush gardens.

 

Gardening has been a lifelong passion for the couple. They want other people to know the joys of working the soil and enjoying the fruits of their labor. Just as important for them, small gardens could be a step to solving the pickle of food, social and environmental concerns.

 

“Forty-two percent of homes had victory gardens during WWII,” says Salazar. O’Connor adds, “Personal gardens and community gardens are the only way for a community to be self-sufficient. Food from all the town’s farmers markets would not feed everyone in the region.” Is it time to localize our food supply?

 

The Eat Local movement had its roots in the early ’70s but the groundswell of information and interest is just peaking. The time is ripe and the concerns are in the news everyday — will careless mismanagement of our environment lead to our doom? O’Connor is making one small step for mankind and asking you along on the journey.

 

O’Connor and James Cavarretta started Healthy Home Harvest LLC in Northwood almost two years ago for a multitude of reasons. Foremost, they wanted to prove they could extend the growing season without energy from the grid. And more importantly, offer the know-how and supplies to individuals for growing their own produce…

Find out more about Dr. Tomato, Solorganics, the Mother Ship and MycoAngelo Mushrooms, along with Dr. Tomato’s tips on container gardening in the July issue of New Hampshire Magazine >

Healthy Home Harvest and their many wares can also be found Thursdays at the Northwood Farmers’ Market, and Saturdays at the Newmarket and Wentworth Greenhouse Farmers’ Markets.

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