Is that not #RealFood?

Despite being the biggest producer of grains as well as fruits and vegetables in the State of Maryland, the Eastern Shore farming community has seemingly been labeled as not "real food farming."

Last week, the Baltimore Sun ran an article by reporter Dan Rodricks about the purchase of a Kent County farm using tax payer funded "Program Open Space" monies which was discussed by the Board of Public Works who approves such purchases. Besides the fact that the State paid $2.8 million or nearly $11,000/acre, nearly $5000 per acre more than current farmland values, it was also proposed that the farm be leased directly to a lawyer/farmer for $1 per year, bypassing the otherwise required statewide competitive bidding process required for any of the rest of us Maryland farmers to lease state-owned land. The land would be used as part of a "Food Hub" nonprofit also supported by this lawyer turned farmer who has been a noted financial backer to the Democratic party. Thus the Comptroller deemed the deal "sleazy".

My issue is not about the purchase of the farm though do question why outgoing Governor O'Malley would waste taxpayer dollars by paying such a ridiculous amount for farmland. (And go on about how the State out-competes farmers by paying exorbitant prices that would never cash-flow a farming operation and disadvantages farmers by giving landowners artificial economic value.) Rather, my issue is with  the premise that there is a lack of "real food" grown on the Eastern Shore. I dispute the notion that there is not "real food farming" here on the Delmarva. If you are a Marylander who never gets off of Route 50 on your way to the beach in the summer, then maybe that is your impression. Or if you're an urbanite who doesn't know a lima bean from a soybean plant or sweet corn from field corn, you may have no idea what you see as you drive past our farms. If you have never talked to a farmer except at a farmer's market, you may not know the sheer volume of "real food" grown here because farmers like me, do not sell to consumers, but sell directly to companies who make products like spaghetti sauce or who distribute directly to the grocery store.

 The full article is linked here: "Behind 'sleazy' deal, a good idea about food." 

My issue with the "good idea about food" is this (emphasis mine). The article says:

"Separate from the Wick Farm deal, Braver wants to lease land from the town of Easton, in Talbot County, and build a large warehouse-style building where Eastern Shore farmers can bring their fruits, vegetables and meats to be distributed and sold throughout the region. She also wants to create an apprenticeship program for new farmers who will grow things people eat.

Right now, of course, that kind of farming — farmers' market farming — is dwarfed by the soy, corn and wheat farming that goes on here, along with dairy and Big Chicken.

Braver, an organic farmer, thinks we need to move to real-food farming for a bunch of good reasons: Fresh, local food is healthier, in part because it doesn't have to travel as far to market; it doesn't require as much fossil fuel to ship. We could put more Marylanders to work growing our own, right in our own backyard, and eventually become more "food secure" — that is, less reliant on produce or protein grown or raised hundreds of miles away.

"Currently, just 3 percent of the country's farmland is used to grow and harvest fruit and vegetable crops," Braver says, "And it's less than 2.5 percent in Maryland. We are not creating our own food. We want to expand real-food production on the Eastern Shore."

.....As if real-food production doesn't already exist on the Eastern Shore....?

First a few statistics using the 2012 USDA Ag Census:

Between the 9 Eastern Shore Counties, there are 30,023 acres of vegetables and nearly 700 orchard acres. This does not include 200 or so acres of winegrapes that have taken root on the Shore over the last 10 years or so. This doesn't include greenhouse production of which there is quite a bit as well.

By value, fruits and veges add up to a very nice diversification for quite a few farmers. Combining the 9 Eastern Shore counties, the value of fruits and veggies produced on nearly 31,000 acres is over $46 million. Those are some real dollar values to "grow things people eat."

So to illustrate this, here are some folks who "grow things people eat" right here on the Eastern Shore, many who have been at it for generations. 

My farm grew 7.21 million pounds of Roma tomatoes for spaghetti sauce & stewed tomatoes. Furmano's distribution is through the MidAtlantic and East Coast.
Is that not #RealFood?

Chesapeake Fields Farmers Cooperative grow 5.4 million pounds of soybeans for tofu each year. These soybeans are sold to Asian food processors in DC, Baltimore, Philly, NYC & Boston markets.
 Is that not #RealFood? 

The article goes onto note that the Delmarva will be the future source of food for the New York City region.... So Columbia University's Earth Institute apparently is unaware of the current food distribution along the East Coast to know that this is already happening.

My friend Hannah who farms in Caroline County, grew 10 million pounds of cucumbers this year which end up as pickles and pickled products in Vlasic, Mt. Olive, and B&G pickles. These are brands with national and regional regional distribution.
Is that not #RealFood?

Chesapeake Greenhouse grows hydroponic lettuce, 42,000 heads per rotation, year round.
Is that not #RealFood?

Warwick Mushroom Farm in Kent County picks 500,000 pounds of mushrooms per week.
A half million pounds of mushrooms every week!
Is that not #RealFood?

1773 Maryland farmers grow soft red wheat at a $86 million value and supplies Auntie Anne's
with flour for their pretzel dough.
Is that not #RealFood?

Photo: Edwin Remsberg

Godfrey's Vegetable Farm who are my neighbors in Sudlersville grow over 250 acres of fruits and vegetables including asparagus, cantaloupe, peaches, peppers, strawberries, sweet corn, tomatoes, and watermelon and sell whole sale to grocers like Whole Foods in Annapolis. 

Is that not #RealFood?

Arnold Farms, outside Crumpton in Queen Anne's County grows 350 acres of vegetables including sweet corn, eggplant, squash and sells to Whole Foods and Giant.

Is that not #RealFood?

Every year we grow nearly 200 acres of green beans.  This year we grew 22,500 bushels of fresh green beans which are distributed up and down the East Coast  from Florida to Maine and states in between and a variety of grocery stores. In addition we donated 2000 pounds of green beans to the Maryland Food Bank's Farm to Food Bank program providing fresh produce to food bank recipients.

Is that not #RealFood?

Later in the article, it says

"We could put more Marylanders to work growing our own, right in our own backyard, and eventually become more "food secure" — that is, less reliant on produce or protein grown or raised hundreds of miles away.

 So as to not leave my livestock farming friends out because sourcing local protein should not be a problem for consumers....

Photo: Edwin Remsberg

My friend Jen and her family operate one of the few hog farms left in the region. They produce about 2.5 million pounds of pork sold throughout the MidAtlantic and NorthEast region.

Is that not #RealFood?

Photo:Edwin Remsberg

My other friend Jenny and her sons raise broiler chickens, which are mentioned in the article as "Big Chicken". Her farm produces about 2 million pounds of chicken each year. One of the many ways farmers diversify is to add poultry barns in order to have a revenue stream that allows for the next generation of young farmers to return home and make a living farming.

So 

A. Is that not #RealFood?

and

B. Is that not how we raise up the next generation of family farmers by affording them a way to return to the farm?

Are we Eastern Shore farmers not already "growing things people eat"?

I grow #RealFood.

Rain Is A Good Thing.... Well, Sometimes.

Rain, Rain, Go Away.... that's a pretty risky thing for a farmer to say. Its usually the other way around.

I never imagined I'd blog about excess rain, maybe lack of rain, but excess rain is generally only a problem for us on the Eastern Shore of Maryland in the fall when hurricane season picks up and we are trying to get crops off the field.  This year we have the opposite problem, we can't get our crops IN the field to begin with, at least not soybeans. The crops we do have in the field are struggling and fruits and vegetables are beginning to show signs of rot from constantly being wet.

While drought is a difficult thing, so is excess rain. Here's why:

Wheat/Small Grain: See that wheat in the field? Its test weight is dropping because its getting rained on... Let me explain. Wheat quality is based in part on test weights which are done at the grain elevator when the truck pulls in. When wheat dries in the field naturally, it has a higher test weight meaning it has a higher starch content. After a rain, the wheat seed begins to regerminate which uses up some of the starch it created originally, and its "weight" is lower because it has less starch. In some severe instances, the head of the wheat will actually sprout, which again, effects the quality and the test weight.

 Field tomatoes standing in water is never a good thing. They will of course rot if it does dry out. Usually we have to irrigate our tomatoes. This year we have yet to turn on our irrigation pivots.

 Fruit rot in unripe grapes is unheard of. This was what I thought was black rot but was frustrated because I had a really good spray program. Tissue samples determined this was actually ripe rot on unripe grapes which is nearly unheard of. We had 24 days of rain in June and so far in July have had 10 days of rain which means this fruit has had very little time to get or stay dry. Vineyards have a lot of downy mildew as well from the moisture. If they lose their leaves due to mildew, then the fruit will never ripen.

This hay has been on the ground for 2 weeks. Its moldy and actually slimey and will get baled for mulch. We normally get 3-4 cuttings of hay off of fields each year. This year some fields havent been cut once yet. We are telling customers that hay will be very short this winter and to look for other sources because we have so little in the barn for sale, as do most of our neighbors who also make hay.

 Just a picture of one of my downspouts to illustrate how heavy it rains these days...

We still have nearly 300 acres of soybeans to plant. Excess rain is more disasterous than drought. If you can't get your crop planted you will have absolutely no income. At least with a drought you can get your field work done and your crop planted and have a small expectation of a crop this season.

If there was a way for me to send excess rain to the drought stricken areas, I would absolutely do so.

Eating Local Foods Exclusively Year Round?

I recently read a Facebook post that advocated for the closing of all grocery stores so that people would simply have to buy all their food from local farmers.... A response posted said "What a great idea!", so I started to really think about this in a literal sense, NO grocery stores!  What do I as a farmer have to provide the millions of urban neighbors in the Baltimore/DC/Philadelphia metro region who need to be fed all year round?

The nearest grocery store to my house is 5 miles away. I get the majority of my food there because since I work on our family farm, I have little need to drive any further. All other grocery stores are 20 miles away. I tend not to go there unless I am needing to do other errands in that town.  I highly value my time and my fuel, so the closest grocery store gets 99% of my grocery business. I don't traipse all over looking for "deals" or special items. I shop in one place and get what I need and get out. (By the way, I hate shopping, period).  I would never drive 6 or 8 places to get "all" of what I would need to feed my family. I wouldn't go to the dairy farm, then the beef farm, then the pork farm, then the grain farm, then the fruit farm, then the chicken (broiler) farm, then the chicken (layers) farm, then the vegetable farm.  I don't have the time, nor do most of these farms have direct to consumer sales in January or February.

Eliminating grocery stores throughout our country would leave a lot of hungry people in the winter.  Below are pictures from my farm in Maryland in February along with 2 of my neighbor's farms. None of us have products to sell this time of year. While there are some farms who have year round greenhouses, there is not enough supply to replace grocery stores entirely. It would also mean a huge shift in infrastructure needed on local farms to support the damage that cars and customer traffic create. I personally prefer my farm without parking lots thank you very much, but if we need to feed everyone because there are no grocery stores, then paving over farm fields for parking lots would be necessary. After all, our lanes are not paved and people shopping for food after work in dress shoes don't like to step in mud or manure.

So what do we have growing in the winter? Below are some pictures of our current crops... or lack thereof:

 Rotting tillage (daikon) radishes.... yum?? We do have folks come pick them, 

obviously before they begin to decompose. 

We grow these for cover crop, not for food.

Winter wheat crop, ripe for harvest in July, not now.

No grape harvest till September. 

Our neighbor's peach trees... no fruit till July.

Our neighbor's blueberry bushes, no fruit till summer. 

Which also means the Maryland Food Bank gets no food until harvest.

My neighbor's CSA has cabbage, kale, and leek seedlings... 

but no harvest!

Our farm still has some corn, soybeans, and wheat in grain tanks. Theoretically, we could sell these to folks to make their own meal, flour, and tofu. My guess is, less than 0.05% of the US population has any idea of how to go about this. I also think that 99.5% of the US population would not want to make their own meal, flour, and tofu. Who frankly has that kind of time? 

For 2 years after college, I lived in the Southern African nation of Botswana. We had no running water or electricity. We spent a lot of time on a daily basis hauling water from the community hydrant, collecting wood to start fires which we used to heat water and cook food, and pounding sorghum or corn into meal to use for cooking. This grinding process used a hollowed out tree trunk and solid, thick tree branch to pound the grain into meal. Sort of like a mortar and pestle. Incredibly time consuming and backbreaking and was a DAILY chore. Pounding grain, every day, day after day. 

I would also miss the items that we have grown accustomed to in our diet such as orange or pineapple juice and bananas. None of these grow here in Maryland.  While I "get" the local food movement, I don't believe the average American has any concept of what it would take to source all their dietary needs directly from farmers.Nor the time required to do so. Nor the resources required to do so. Not every one has a farmer's market nearby. Many farmer's markets couldn't support the mass of people who would need to be fed without grocery stores. And believe it or not, not all farmers want to be retail operations. How would I find enough people to buy the 8.5 million pounds of Roma tomatoes that we grew last summer? We'd never be able to sell 20 tractor trailer loads of tomatoes a day on the fresh. local market, which is why we grow them for a cannery, so that consumers eat them in tomato products year round!

Local food is great and benefits the local economy in season, but a number of our US growing regions do not support year round food production to the extent that it would replace grocery stores.

Support local farmers, in season! Remember that farmers also grew the items you buy at the grocery store so that we have a wonderful selection year round!

Check Off: Farmers Fund Research & Education

A couple weeks ago, I got to participate in my first "funding" meeting of the Maryland Grain Producers Utilization Board. I was appointed to the board in 2012 as a Director At Large and proud to say I am the first female farmer to serve on their board of directors!

The funding meeting was fascinating in that we had grant proposals to review every 15-20 minutes for an entire day and a half! We had nearly 65 proposals submitted for consideration and 18 hours to hear the presenters pitch why we should fund their project. On the 3rd day of our meeting, we awarded the funds based on their merit. It was quite a learning experience for me to see all that our check off dollars get spent on.

For those of you who do not know: "Check off" dollars are essentially a farmer-funded research and promotion account where farmers contribute a half of a percent of the net value of their grain at the time of sale. This money is pooled together and is administered by volunteer farmers who serve on commodity boards such as the Maryland Grain Producers.  There is also soybean check off administered by Maryland soybean farmers and the famous "Got Milk" program is the dairy farmer funded program for dairy research and promotion. 

The benefit of the check off program is that by pooling our money together, we can fund a lot more research and do more outreach and promotion than farmers could ever do on their own. Our Maryland Check off dollars help fund research that is Maryland specific and has a direct benefit to Maryland farmers and Maryland consumers. These funds went not only to University research projects like irrigation studies, nitrogen and phosphorus utilization improvements, groundwater quality projects and other agronomic research, but also to 4H and FFA programs, tractor school training, farm emergency training, and oyster recovery. Check Off dollars show what farmers can do working together for the future of agriculture and the benefits consumers receive from farmers funding their own research and promotion of the healthy foods we grow!

Below is the press release from the Maryland Grain Producers about our recent funding meeting.

Maryland Grain Farmers Award $1 Million in Grants and Elects New Officers to Board

The Maryland Grain Producers Utilization Board (MGPUB) has awarded over $1 million to organizations across the state to increase the profitability and viability of Maryland grain production, expand the utilization of grain, and to improve the understanding of agriculture.  Grant funding is made possible through the Maryland grain checkoff program, whereby grain farmers contribute funds to support market development, education, and research.

“The checkoff program is all about farmers helping their own industry and those consumers that benefit from our products,” stated Marion Wilson, grain farmer and immediate past-president of MGPUB.  “Funding projects for our region’s grain farmers means we get answers to address issues specific to Maryland, whether it be protecting crops from pests such as the stink bug, or finding the best farm management systems to improve our environment. This year we funded research projects that address both those areas, as well as ways to better market our products and educate consumers about Maryland-grown products.”

Funds for the 2013 grant period were allocated to projects in the areas of education ($312,675), research ($309,305), and market development ($420,272).  Funding for projects that scientifically assess management practices and improve stewardship have always carried a priority.  “Even though Maryland agriculture accounts for just 5% of the land use in the Chesapeake Bay watershed and contributes only 7.75% of the total nitrogen load, we want to do all we can to make as little impact as possible, while still providing for the food and fiber our consumers need,” comments Wilson.

At the annual funding meeting, Board members elected Tom Gannon as President of MGPUB.  Gannon has been a farmer all his life and currently raises corn, wheat, soybeans and hay in Queen Anne’s County.  Paul Spies of Cordova was elected Vice-President; Allen Davis of Galena was elected Treasurer; and Steve Ernst of Clear Spring was elected Secretary.

Maryland’s checkoff program has been in effect since 1991 and collects a half a percent of the net value of grain sold.  The MGPUB administers the funds through a board consisting of regional grain farmer representatives and advisory members representing the University of Maryland, Maryland Department of Agriculture, and agribusinesses in the state. Funds are spent in the same proportion on each crop as they are received, and are specific to the needs of Maryland's grain farmers. 

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