Great interview with Michel Nischan, founder of Wholesome Wave and long time Farm To Table chef. He tells Louisiana Eats host Poppy Tooker about how and why he created his public role.
http://wwno.org/post/tradition-begs-evolution-changing-federal-policy-reviving-local-customs” title=”Interview withMichel Nischan by Poppy Tooker”
Just saw this documentary-I found it fascinating, fairly reported and with a charming manner. I highly recommend it for any ecological or civic leader. The story of the formation of the Marin Agricultural Land Trust is also included and should be inspiring to farming advocates across the country. I might recommend setting up screenings in your market space on a Saturday night!
REBELS WITH A CAUSE is the story of a regional California effort that grew into an astonishing system of fourteen National Seashores — the result of garden clubs, ranchers, farmers, conservationists, politicians from both parties, widows, and volunteers working together through compromise and negotiation, with the American public coming up as the winner.
From Food Republic:
Life is filled with wonderful things and terrible things. During interviews, however, we pretty much only get to hear about the wonderful things. Ten Things I Hate is a chance for people in the food world to get things off their chest. We ask them what they hate, they give us a list. Next up: Birmingham chef Chris Hastings.
“Experts say one of the biggest reasons for the severity of this algal bloom is excess phosphorus runoff from urban and industrial agricultural lands, as well as from waste water from sewage treatment plants. NOAA notes that this increased runoff into the lake is largely due to poor farming practices, such as high use of fertilizers and presence of livestock near water supplies. Pesticides also impact the blooms, NOAA says.”
Thanks to Wayne Roberts for bringing this report to our attention, which shows that shoppers are moving back to the multiple outlet shopping experience and away from supercenters; 9% of those surveyed do not even identify a primary store where they do their shopping. That may not seem like much, but that number seems to be climbing and is statistically significant for our purposes of encouraging shoppers to add farmers market to that multiple outlet list.
I think there are a few other important points in this study such as that shoppers seek out tandem claims. In other words, if they search for low calories, they look also for low sugar. Those that look for high fiber foods also seek out whole grains.
And here’s an exciting number: 90% of those surveyed said they buy local at least occasionally and that they believe that those goods are better quality and 61% think they offer better taste.
40% of the substantial grocery shopping is now done by men.
The details of how millennials shop is also useful:
•25% of twenty somethings’ meals included items purchased that same day.
•they create their shopping lists right before leaving, which will help those markets that use Facebook, Twitter and email campaigns.
2116 people were surveyed between the ages of 18-74 and supplemented by data from the US Census and the USDA and from 2013/2014 Hartman Group ethnographic research into eating and shopping.
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By Maggie Hennessy, 17-Jun-2014
Not only are today’s consumers less likely to rely on a primary store for food shopping, but they’re sharing shopping duties and planning for specific meals rather than stocking up on food, according to the Food Marketing Institute (FMI)’s annual analysis of U.S. Grocery Shopper Trends, done in collaboration with the Hartman Group.
Link to story
When I read quotes like this from a farmer, I know that the community food revolution is in full swing and in good hands:
We hope that our building of this processing facility, moving forward with obtaining a permit, and completing inspections will create a replicable model for others and will increase the number of small pasture rotation farms in the South. We know that this next step is a big one, not only for us, but for the future of sustainable farming in Mississippi and the health of its families.
Community food system farmers are not simply working to revive the old way of business but cooperating and communicating on so many levels with their shoppers, peers and policy makers. Show your support if you can for these Mississippi farmers leading the way in sustainability.
Growing the Farm – Feeding Mississippi by Beaverdam Fresh Farms — Kickstarter.
This campaign (just down the road from me) has already done amazing work to get the conversation and the organizing started for regional products to be used in the Southeastern Louisiana University campus purchasing process; FYI-this university sits within a very active farming community and many of its farmers sell to nearby New Orleans outlets. The campus student group Reconnect and their academic advisor Dr. David Burley continue to offer as much information and to open as many communication channels as they can to assist Aramark in understanding what the campus wants, but to no avail. In response Aramark has deliberately undermined their efforts with their embargo against meetings and their”food giveaway” tactic! Using markets as organizing wedges can be the best way to keep the pressure on head-in-the-sand institutions; big props to the Reconnect students and to Dr. Burley for keeping these efforts going year after year. If you have any resources or ideas to assist their efforts to put pressure on Aramark, feel free to email them.
Connecting Students and Farmers—Still Trying | FoodAnthropology.
My pal Corbin Evans has made his way (going the long way from New Orleans to Philly to Brooklyn and maybe a few other stops in there since) to Oxford, Mississippi. His new lunch place there with seasonal locally sourced products is a hit this summer, which is no surprise as he is an award-winning chef and a well-liked guy everywhere he goes. He served as the Board President of Market Umbrella in New Orleans after the federal levee breaks and did tons of other unheralded support work around town to build food producers and so I was able to work with him throughout all of his New Orleans years. Chefs like Corbin are willing to give support to farmers markets in many ways and should be invited to assist whenever possible.
I think of him as a little brother while at the same time, as a teacher and leader in sustainable regional food production. This is a lovely film from the great Southern Foodways Alliance detailing his latest effort. Do take a road trip to Oxford and the Delta to see it for yourself anyway and make sure to stop and see Corbin in his alley. You’ll like him.
Oxford Canteen from Southern Foodways on Vimeo.
The NOLA Locavore group was started after Hurricane Katrina and the Gulf Oil Spill when the hardships of the seafood industry were each day on the front page of the news. After reading “Plenty” by Alisa Smith and seeing the reality show based on the book where a community in Vancouver went 100 days on a 100 mile diet, lead organizers Lee Stafford and Dr. Leslie Brown decided this was a good time to begin an Eat Local Challenge in Louisiana.
Nola Locavore
This is for the June Eat Local Challenge in New Orleans
I’m returning to the idea of worker ownership and cooperatives on this blog again after reading the excellent interview in the most recent Orion Magazine shared with me by Stacy Miller, freelance researcher and project advisor at Farmers Market Coalition. I believe that the future of community food systems depends on us rescuing traditional work and community structures and creating some new ones too. We cannot expect the small businesses we work with to thrive when being asked to return to the industrial production or delivery systems of the mid 20th century that bankrupted them and helped to isolate all of us before.
Cleveland Ohio was my original home and so I follow the exciting news from there on issues like Evergreen Cooperatives, as well as the many, many other worker-owner hubs across the state (like Athens). I also appreciate that the author points out the battle for local ownership of energy grids in Colorado which has been happening in Ohio for decades, along with the expansion of aggregation for buyers to band together to purchase electricity at the community level. Those kinds of policies are allowing consumers more knowledge of real energy costs and to be actively engaged on issues of expanding renewables. All of these issues in the article show the need for citizen engagement to go beyond the voting booth and cooperatives of all kinds accelerate that action.
So as we discuss the needs for food work in our communities, let’s research and include ideas like cooperatives and worker-ownership right up front.
I found a great piece on LinkedIn by Wolfram Alderson, Founding Executive Director at Institute for Responsible Nutrition on the excellent return on investment in farmers markets. His call for infrastructure is spot on, although we need to counsel our stakeholders that their money will not always best used for permanent market structures or cooperative kitchens (see a link below to one story that is about a permanent market structure).
However, when our community food system does need permanent infrastructure, we want to make sure that direct marketing producers are welcomed inside along with their intermediate and wholesale producers brethren and sistren. All sizes of family and community farms will be more profitable if they don’t each need to build processing plants or storage facilities and having those facilities between the farm and the market city (rather than always in it!) would help market, intermediate and wholesale sellers and buyers alike.
This has been one of the issues facing open-air markets seeking lasting financial support; if the investor can’t see a building being built or rehabbed with their money, how can we offer a return on their investment? I suggest that we need to refine and expand our language on the measurable benefits that these markets provide to investors such as investments in new businesses, deepening awareness of the value of regional goods to family table and intermediate buyers, an open laboratory for piloting innovative ideas around food access and other civic ideas.
Let’s start to get smarter about how to ask for strategic investments that allow our organizations and businesses to keep doing the unique and important work of direct sales that lead to these other investments without always adding more projects to our to-do list. That way when those food hubs and kitchens are built when and where needed, we will still have a public place for shoppers and sellers to meet directly.
The ROI of Farmers' Markets and Food Hubs | LinkedIn.
The article also links to a story of an exciting ballot measure in Marin County to support a 20 million dollar permanent market to replace the parking lot market that has been there over 30 years and run by the Agricultural Institute of Marin,a non-profit led by long time Farmers Market Coalition board member Brigitte Moran:
“The building will be funded privately by the Agricultural Institute of Marin, the nonprofit that runs the Civic Center market as well as six other Bay Area farmers’ markets. Taxpayers will pay $2 million to upgrade the vacant lot and make other infrastructure improvements, as part of a broader overhaul of the Civic Center campus.
The Board of Supervisors is solidly supportive of the measure.
“It’s part of our continued commitment to local agriculture,” said Supervisor Steve Kinsey, who represents West Marin. “Plus it’ll help us launch the renaissance of the entire campus.”
Just remember, the pressure will not end. The idiocy of whining about what is thrown away when that has never been measured before and that making these changes meaningful will take a whole systems approach will need to be pointed out again and again and again and again and again….
These are excellent audio snippets from Colleen Donovan, Washington Small Farms Program Research Coordinator at WSU about some benefits of farmers markets.
Community Impact of Farmers Markets
These are so well crafted that anyone could embed them into their website to show the impact of markets and market farmers, no matter where they are located.
What is most useful about Washington’s work is that it uses the context of organizational capacity to gauge if and how those multiple benefits are being forwarded to shoppers, farmers and the larger community. For reports that offer data without explaining that a volunteer-led effort managed it or that markets are often doing complex projects with part-time labor, I recommend to them that they consider adding it to any future analysis or funder report. The Farmers Market Metrics work we are doing at FMC and University of Wisconsin right now will add that piece into any resources or templates that we design, I promise you that!
In any case, associations in Washington and Michigan are truly the leaders right now in doing excellent analysis and resource development and then spending time sharing as well. (And if it was up to me, I’d give Illinois the rising new star award.)
Colleen did a webinar with FMC in fall of 2013 on the results of this report which is found on FMC’s YouTube site. Yes that is me (talking too low) introducing Colleen:
Link to YT recorded webinar
Thanks to Richard McCarthy, our Slow Food USA leader for sharing this opinion piece from Dan Barber, the chef and co-owner of Blue Hill at Stone Barns. Stone Barns Center just outside of NYC proper, is easily one of the most important sites we have for learning and piloting good agricultural stewardship in the US: Read more here about their work. In this piece, Chef Barber talks about buyers needing to be more aware of the possible when working with growers, rather than just aware of the obvious. His identification of labels like Farm to Table as being limiting (and maybe even industrial) seems right on to me.
…Diversifying our diet to include more local grains and legumes is a delicious first step to improving our food system. Millet and rye are an easy substitute for rice or pasta. But that addresses only the low-hanging fruit of Klaas’s farm. More challenging is to think about how to honor the other underutilized parts of his rotations — classic cover crops like cowpeas and mustard, which fertilize the soil to ensure healthy harvests in the future.
Today, the best farmers are tying up valuable real estate for long periods of time (in an agonizingly short growing season) simply to benefit their soil. Imagine if Macy’s reserved half of its shelf space at Christmas for charitable donations. A noble idea. But profitable? Not so much. By creating a market for these crops, we can provide more value for the farmer and for our own diets, while supporting the long-term health of the land.
In Klaas’s field, I bent down and ripped off a green shoot of Austrian winter peas. I took a bite. Inedible? No, delicious! Thirty acres of the most tender and sweet pea shoots I’d ever tasted. (Harvesting the leaves would somewhat reduce the amount plowed back into the soil, but the plant’s soil benefits would remain.) In the distance I could make out a field of mustards. Klaas plants Tilney mustard, similar to the spicy green you find in a mesclun mix. I realized I wasn’t just looking at a cover crop. I was looking at a salad bowl.
Helping Farmers Markets Grow 