Ladies of the Land Unite!

My dear friend Erin sent me this link, and I am wondering why I haven’t heard of this film before!  I am usually so on top of the documentary circuit, especially when they pertain to farming, and ESPECIALLY when they pertain to WOMEN and FARMING!  And this movie has apparently been on DVD forever.  So I don’t know where I’ve been.

Well, at least this is good news!

Yay President Obama!

This is very exciting.  I literally had shivers run through me reading this!  Things are going to change, people!

USDA and White House Move on Progressive Food Agenda
By Jim Slama

Local and sustainable food advocates are smiling these days as signals out of Washington indicate major new support for their efforts. The biggest news was the announcement that long-time organic advocate Kathleen Merrigan had been tapped to become the Deputy Secretary of Agriculture, the number two position at the USDA. As an aid to Senator Patrick Leahy, Merrigan was the major force behind the Organic Food Production Act which recognized and regulated organic farming.

This follows the decision by Obama to hire their Chicago personal cook, Sam Kass as assistant chef in the White House kitchen. He will work closely with Executive Chef, Cristeta Comerford. Kass is known for his strong support for local and organic foods and did a cooking demo at the FamilyFarmed EXPO in November.

While in Chicago, Kass was the Executive Chef at the Jane Addams Hull House Museum. One of his projects was called Re-thinking Soup in which he cooked up organic soup and bread and served it to University of Illinois students. The gatherings also included talks from farmers, educators, and foodies. These soup kitchen sessions were held in a historic building at the original Hull House where Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle. I had the honor of speaking about food in the Obama era at the first Re-thinking Soup gathering after his historic election win. At the time, I had no idea I was on stage with the president-elect’s personal chef.

Kass’ impact on the First Family may already be taking root. At a visit to the United States Department of Agriculture headquarters in Washington, First Lady Michelle Obama brought a Magnolia tree to be planted in their new garden. The garden replaces a blacktop parking lot and will include fruits and vegetables, some of which will be provided to local soup kitchens. Mrs. Obama praised a just announced program at the USDA that will be planting such gardens in all their facilities worldwide. “I’m a big believer in Community Gardens,” she said, “both because of their beauty and for providing access to fresh fruits and vegetables to so many communities across the nation and the world.”

Michelle Obama also offered up a unique local food perspective prior to hosting her first state dinner. Marian Burros reported in the New York Times that the first lady invited a group of reporters and culinary students to tour the White House Kitchen, prior to a dinner in honor of the nation’s governors. According to Burros:

The first lady took the opportunity to put in a pitch for local and sustainable food and for healthy eating, a recurring theme of hers during the campaign and since she arrived in Washington.

When food is grown locally, she said, “oftentimes it tastes really good, and when you’re dealing with kids, you want to get them to try that carrot.”

“If it tastes like a real carrot, and it’s really sweet, they’re going to think that it’s a piece of candy,” she continued. “So my kids are more inclined to try different vegetables if they are fresh and local and delicious.”

Vilsack: Not a great choice, but what do you expect?

 Well, while husband and I were working on organic farms in Costa Rica, many things had happened in the States.
Firstly, Obama’s inauguration happened. While I was harvesting bananas not even aware of what the date was, Obama turned president. I went from completely Obama coverage-obsessed to barely knowing if it was still January or not!

And then came the much of the rest of Obama’s cabinet picks.  And like every other organic farmer in the US, I was saddened by his pick for Secretary of Agriculture. Former Iowa governor Tom Vilsack is a darling of the Monsanto and industrial ag world. And he’s pro-corn ethanol to boot. So I know there’s a lot of outrage among the progressive small farm community–but really, what did people expect? Obama didn’t run on an extremely progressive platform.   We all pretty much knew that someone completely revolutionary for the farming world was not going to be chosen quite yet.

That said, I still love Obama and have much faith in him and his administration to do positive things within the food movement.  I have a lot of anarchist comrades that are not happy with the Obama-loving.  But I don’t care.  They are not taking away my Obama-loving ways!  So, regarding Vilsack, I am looking on the bright side.  Ahem.  Bright side, here goes:

1. Obama has praised organic farming, an issue that neither Bush nor Hilary Clinton nor the like have ever even touched. He has a few key quotes displaying his appraisal of small sustainable farms in the media, like this one: “The Good Food movement, the organic food movement, is a wonderful opportunity for farmers to diversify. When they can diversify and get other crops going, we can in fact produce a healthier food. And more profits can go into the hands of family farmers as opposed to the big food processors and mega businesses. Then I think we are doing well for everybody.”

2.  Obama’s pick for Secretary of Energy is Steven Chu, who seems fairly progressive and I know is adamantly against corn biofuel.  This makes me think that there will be some serious sit-down talks going on, leading me to think Vilsack will get some sense knocked into him.

3.  Vilsack, I’ve read, is a listener to the people.  If there is enough support for an issue going one way, he is most likely to listen.  This is very much in keeping with Obama, too.  And a polar opposite of the close-minded, fingers-in-ears Bush mentality. 

So I’m not going to be too upset.  I think we have a long way to go, but hope is definitely on the horizon.  Fear not, my fair progressive farming fans.  This is only the beginning.  Rocky though it might be, it is definitely only the beginning.

It’s freezing outside!

We are back in Chicago on the farmer hiatus. We are staying at my parents’ house, living like shut-ins, not only not leaving the house, but not leaving our flannel pajamas as well. I can’t believe it’ll ever be warm again! I am also really regretting not buying those lined cartharts back in Wisconsin. I know it’s the organic farming cliche to wear them, but they’re going to be necessary, I think. It’s cold now. And it’ll be cold in April. I know you, Chicago, you wiley little thing! I remember this! Ah yes. I remember this well. It’s Father Winter I speak of!

So while husband and I try not to lose our minds at not having a place of our own, waking up late, and looking out into the black-and-white world outside until it becomes completely dark, we are trying to keep busy. We have lots of farming books to read. There’s lots of Coleman, Jeavons and other organic gurus to boggle us down. Not being outside for most of the day is getting to me.

Tommorrow we are having our interview with the incubator farm we are most likely going to take. I hope it’s not too ugly. I’m bracing myself alittle…this is Illinois, afterall. There are seas of flat cornfields everywhere, looking plain and shaved right now, with short, brown stalks remaining. I guess now they’re under snow. Point being there aren’t going to be many forested areas we’ll be driving through tommorrow. And miles of cornfields truly depress me. But, we are in the midwest. The gritty, corny midwest. It has its perks and downfalls for me.
Wish us luck!

And now for another winter…

Well.

It’s the wind-down time of this season and this internship and I have documented practically NOTHING.

I do plan to post pictures anyway–although there aren’t many.

So instead, I give you the newsletter I wrote in September:

On the day of this writing, it has officially become Autumn. Soon there will be that cool bite in the milky air and the sky will be filled with the treetops’ fireworks of red and yellow. It’s that transition time where your CSA boxes are full of early Fall Harvest treats and last-of-the-Summer goodies. It’s a time for new beginnings and tying up loose ends.

Part of the new beginnings for this year in particular is that of election time. In November we will have a new president elect. A key issue for many people that has had a looming presence over the election this year has been that of climate change. How can we alleviate our dependency of fossil fuel? What alternative forms of energy are best to invest in? By now, many of us know it is not just enough to screw in CFL light bulbs. We need to do more than that, and a big issue people need to talk more about in terms of combating climate change is food. What we chose to eat is every bit a part of fighting climate change as the daily bike ride to work.

According to the Pew Center for Global Climate Change, one-third of the world’s human-made greenhouse gas emissions stems from food and agriculture. That includes industrial farms’ pesticides, herbicides, and factory farm runoff. Even many packaged “organic” foods are a part of the culprit. How much energy did it take to process that organic General Mills’ cereal, and how long did it take to assemble that lengthy list of ingredients into one final product?

Eating local and whole foods is a crucial way to fight climate change. For many of us, by being raised on a steady diet of fossil fueled food and media-driven images telling us what we want to eat, the consumption of meals throughout the years has been confusing journey. But the vegetables in your CSA box are not only local and grown organically; they’re also 100% whole. So rest assured; there is no malodextrin in your kohlrabi, nor is there any dextrose in your tomatoes. What you have in your box has not been processed and never seen the light of a factory’s interior. Its purity intact, there is no energy required to develop such food into a final food “product”, unless you count the energy of one of our hands picking it from the vine/ snipping it from the plant/ pulling it from the earth.

How does one begin to counter our damaging mainstream food system? Joining a CSA is a great start, but don’t stop there: shop at your farmer’s market. Rip up your lawn and grow your own mini-farm and get a plot at a community garden. If you eat meat (or cheese or eggs), buy locally-raised, grass-finished meat from family farms. Minimize the amount of frozen food that you buy in cardboard boxes with huge paragraphs of ingredients. Preserve your CSA or garden veggies for the winter. Also, compost your kitchen scraps instead of just throwing them out in the garbage; the food that ends up in landfills are big emitters of greenhouse gases.

These food choices are not just for personal health’s sake, but for the planet’s health’s sake as well. There are many things we can do and need to do about climate change. Food choices are just the tip of the melting iceberg. And, on the brighter side of things, it’s also a delicious starting point.

 

We are Farming!

Our reasons for leaving Austin to become Wellspring interns in woodsy southern Wisconsin were simple: to not be boiling hot for a summer, to be close to family, and get a real taste for what it was to run a manageably-sized CSA farm.

We are an engaged couple to be married this summer. For a long time now, one of our goals has been to run a small CSA together. With fossil fuels rapidly depleting and the environment degrading from industrialized farming, we’ve developed a fiery passion for localized agriculture. We strongly believe in supporting local farmers financially and directly, cutting out the middleman. We also believe in community-building, and knowing the origins of a community’s food. We think this is where the future lies, and that CSAs’ popularity will only escalate with time. Not only will CSAs become increasingly desireable, but most likely also very necessary.

Wellspring provides us with an adequate model for the kind of CSA the two of us would like to run someday. It is truly a team effort here, complete with some shareholders who work either for a day or every week. The vegetables are truly loved, each planted with loving care. Everyone at Wellspring, including the shareholders, is taking a part in the good fight. Modern agriculture has made a beeline toward disaster. But CSAs are working to counteract this industry and reconnect people to the land and locally grown food. Right now the two of us are just learning all we can, stashing it away for later use when we someday have a place of our own. So far this year we’ve had some disappointments (drowned-out spinach) as well as nice surprises (carrots re-seeding themselves after tilling). But learning to cope and problem-solve is all part of this way of farming. CSAs are very much grassroots efforts, complete with the roots’ clumpy soil that sometimes needs shaking off. Wellspring’s community should be proud, because we are all part of something big. As long as community-based, sustainable modes of life exist, we are not without hope.