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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Get to Know Your Farmer

I love it when I get asked to guest blog for another site.This month I was asked to guest blog for "Stone Soup", the guest blogging section of Food and Nutrition Magazine of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.  I hope you'll read it. Its a remake of a blog I wrote called "Locavore" or "Globavore".  Its features some of my favorite  women farmers, who like me, are passionate about agriculture and the food they raise for consumers.

They, like me, won't have our faces on the products we provide at the grocery store, so I hope this helps connect the reader to the fact that of the plethora of food choices you have on the grocery shelves, the majority of it was grown by farm families like ours.

Get To Know Your Farmer

Do farmers have the winter off?

I had someone tell me the other day "it must be nice to be a farmer and have all that time off in the winter." Wow, that's sort of a sad impression but I guess not unexpected if one doesn't have anything growing in the fields and doesn't have livestock then we must sit around eating bon-bons right? I wish!

Once the equipment has been cleaned up and put away, we dive into the long neglected piles of paperwork that we didn't have time for during the growing season. While the winter is a bit "slower" as in we may actually sit down as a family in the evening and eat dinner together, I would say that we are finally able to keep "bankers hours" like a lot of people working "9-5" so to speak. We can do a regular 8 hour day, instead of a 12 or 14 hour day.

So what's going on on the farm right now?

1. Crop Insurance: compiling the paperwork and all the years of records that the insurance adjuster needs to verify our claim on wheat, corn, and grapes. Yes, we have claims in all 3 crops this year. Which is better than last year, when we had claims in 5 crops. Crop insurance requires demonstration of all your harvest records, amounts planted vs amounts harvested... for 4 years so they can determine your "average" to calculate your "loss".

2. Field records: particularly here in Maryland where nitrogen and phosphorus are regulated nutrients, all your applications must comply with your mandatory nutrient management plan so we dot our "i's" and cross our "t's" when it comes to filing our annual implementation report. Also, we are analyzing our field data to show what areas of various fields were productive, what areas were under-productive and what can we do in the coming season to improve our farming operation. Farmers do a pretty indepth "self-analysis" of how the year went and what they can improve upon it each and every year. We look at what we did to that field, from how we prepared the seed bed and what type if any conservation tillage we performed, to how many seeds we planted per acre, to what type and amount of fertilizer that field received, to the yield data where we try to connect what we did to the performance of the crop.

3. Bookwork: especially this year with the "fiscal cliff" we are trying to plan our family business so as to protect ourselves from the whims of the government and the policy makers who don't understand farming to begin with. Yes, I know that's a jab, but frankly, its the truth. Secretary Vilsack said in an interview recently on AgDay that the rural population is being marginalized. This is so true. We don't have the population base to influence policy makers or the votes. We have little representation in government particularly at the state and federal level who "get" rural America. So this bookwork I speak of is to plan our finances as best we can so that we can continue to farm inspite of the policymakers and government officials.

4. Volunteer service/ meetings: Here is a list of the agricultural organizations that my husband and I serve as volunteer board of directors: Maryland Soybean Board, National Association of Conservation Districts, Maryland Association of Soil Conservation Districts, Queen Anne's County Soil Conservation District, Maryland Farm Bureau Specialty Crops Committee, Queen Anne's County Farm Bureau, Chesapeake Fields Farmers Cooperative, Maryland Grape Growers Association, U.S.Wheat Foods Council, Maryland Grain Producers Utilization Board, and Queen Anne's County Right to Farm Committee, and the Governor's Commission on WineGrape Industry. Between December 1 and mid-March, we have multi-day board meetings or annual meetings to discuss the business of these organizations.  This list doesn't even touch upon the community groups we are involved with or the groups who ask us to come be a speaker at one of their meetings because they want to hear from a farmer. Service to others is a core value for us.

5. Professional Development: yes, we farmers do pursue continuing education to further our knowledge about our businesses. As a dietitian, I'm required to get a certain number of credits in order to maintain my credentials. While farmers don't have a required nubmer of credits, we typically attend several  courses or conferences to keep up with what's new in agriculture.  My annual training has been to  attend the Executive Women in Agriculture conference in Chicago where I get to learn with other farm women how to improve our family businesses. We try to find areas of learning that we would like to improve on such as no-till farming techniques or our knowledge of computer software that helps us be more technologically advanced on our farm. We are intentional about continuing to learn so that we are practicing continuous quality improvement on our farm.

6. Vineyard pruning: winegrapes get dormant pruned in the winter so we are actually in the field pruning our grapevines which prepares them for the next season's crop. Our goal is to have all the vines we have and those we are hired to prune, done by the end of March. This level of diversification helps us keep our employees working through the winter as well.

So in fact, we have very little slow time on the farm during the winter to eat bon-bons...

Cowboys and Politicians: A Cowboy Named Bud

I can't take credit for this and in fact saw it posted on quite a number of social media sites. It may be tongue in cheek, but its  unfortunately true when it comes to our government officials and those who make public policy with no background or experience on the topics they are deciding. It does tell us how imperative it is for average citizens to be proactive with your local, state, and federal representatives. Tell me what you think!

A cowboy named Bud was overseeing his herd in a remote mountainous pasture in Montana when suddenly a brand-new BMW advanced toward him out of a cloud of dust. The driver, a young man in a Brioni® suit, Gucci® shoes, RayBan® sunglasses and YSL® tie, leaned out the window and asked the cowboy, "If I tell you exactly how many cows and calves you have in your herd, will you give me a calf?" Bud looks at the man, who obviously is a yuppie, then looks at his peacefully grazing herd and calmly answers, "Sure, why not?" The yuppie parks his car, whips out his Dell® notebook computer, connects it to his Cingular RAZR V3® cell phone, and surfs to a NASA page on the Internet, where he calls up a GPS satellite to get an exact fix on his location which he then feeds to another NASA satellite that scans the area in an ultra-high-resolution photo.  The young man then opens the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop® and exports it to an image processing facility in Hamburg, Germany ....  Within seconds, he receives an email on his Palm Pilot® that the image has been processed and the data stored. He then accesses an MS-SQL® database through an ODBC connected Excel® spreadsheet with email on his Blackberry® and, after a few minutes, receives a response.  Finally, he prints out a full-color, 150-page report on his hi-tech, miniaturized HP LaserJet® printer, turns to the cowboy and says, "You have exactly 1,586 cows and calves."  "That's right. Well, I guess you can take one of my calves," says Bud.  He watches the young man select one of the animals and looks on with amusement as the young manstuffs it into the trunk of his car.  Then Bud says to the young man, "Hey, if I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my calf?"  The young man thinks about it for a second and then says, "Okay, why not?" "You're a Congressman for the U.S. Government", says Bud.  "Wow! That's correct," says the yuppie, "but how did you guess that?"  "No guessing required." answered the cowboy. "You showed up here even though nobody called you; you want to get paid for an answer I already knew, to a question I never asked. You used millions of dollars worth of equipment trying to show me how much smarter than me you are; and you don't know a thing about how working people make a living - or about cows, for that matter. This is a herd of sheep. Now give me back my dog.

AND THAT FOLKS IS WHAT THE PROBLEM IS ALL ABOUT.

Harvest Interrupted

I'm so proud of our guys! Harvest time on any farm is a very busy season. Because of our diversification, we harvest 7 months a year, beginning in May, and ending, hopefully, in November. Soybeans are always the last crop to be harvested and it requires a lot of management on our part because we grow food/tofu grade soybeans, seed-grade soybeans, and feed-grade soybeans. (See my December 17, 2011 blog called "The Many Faces of Soy"). Equipment needs to be diligently cleaned between varieties and tracking which beans go into which bins and to which elevator. Its a bit of a juggle and something we try to get accomplished with minimal interruption.

As with any farmer, we are anxious to be finished with harvest as soon as possible. We no longer have to worry about weather and the hand that Mother Nature deals us once everything is "in the bin". That's why I'm so proud of our guys who interrupted harvest on Friday, November 23, 2012.

No, we did not go Black Friday shopping!

My husband, brother-in-law, myself, my son, daughter and nephew all joined together with others from our church and headed out on a mission trip 2 hours south to Deal Island, Maryland which was hit by Hurricane Sandy, but only recently (finally) declared a disaster area by the federal government.

Friday was a gorgeous day. A PERFECT day for soybean harvest... and our combines stood still. Unheard of! We knew that the needs of these folks in Somerset County were falling through the cracks and want to contribute to the relief effort. Their needs took priority over our harvest. We're so happy we could help.

There is a lot of need up and down the Eastern Seaboard. If you would like to contribute, you can donate $10 by texting "RESPONSE" to 80888 and reply "yes" to the text you receive from the United Methodist Committee on Relief. While there are many wonderful relief organizations, 100% of your donation to UMCOR goes to disaster relief and not administrative overhead. For more information or to make a larger donation,  visit The United Methodist Committee on Relief

Some of the men who went on this mission trip, my husband in the center wearing a green sweatshirt and my brother-in-law on the far right.

My daughter & son loading a trailer full of wet, moldy furniture, carpet and other unsalvageable items.
Both are members of our church youth group.

Cleaning up downed trees was one of our main jobs and these girls work hard!

Our group of 18 did a good job tamping down the hump of roots left over from a fallen tree!

My nephew on the right spreading tar on a metal roof to help stop the leaks. 

I call these "The Hurricane Kids" from our church youth group which I lead.
This is the 2nd hurricane relief mission trip we have done in as many years.

Brine It, Grill It. The BEST Turkey Recipe!

I have a tradition which is to cook my Thanksgiving turkey in a pretty non-traditional way. I charcoal grill it. I discovered this recipe 6 years ago while reading an issue of Yankee Magazine. The recipe was provided by Chef Geoff Gardner of Sel de la Terre Restaurant in Boston which has been named one of the top 100 new restaurants in the world by Conde Nast Traveler magazine. On a whim, I decided to try this recipe and it has changed my whole Thanksgiving turkey perspective! I LOVE the flavor this brine gives to the turkey and the moistness of the meat. Combined with the smokey grilled flavor, this is by far the best turkey recipe!  I have tried this recipe with both store-bought and locally-raised turkey and it works well with either.

Marylander's have lots of options to purchase local turkey. I would encourage you to find a turkey farm near you that does direct to consumer sales and give them a try. Click here for the list of Maryland turkey farms:  Find a Maryland Turkey Farm If your not a Marylander, google your state's department of agriculture which should have a listing of turkeys and other products that farmers in your area sell directly to consumers. Try to support your local farmers whenever possible!

Ingredients:

2 cups sea or kosher salt

2 cups sugar

2 T dried thyme

1 T dried rosemary

2 T whole black peppercorns

1 clove garlic, chopped

2 gallons water

12-14 lb turkey

5 bay leaves

1 orange sliced in half

1 apple sliced in half

In large stockpot, combine 2 gallons water, salt, sugar, dried thyme & rosemary, peppercorns, and garlic. Bring to a simmer and stir to dissolve salt; remove from heat. Fill sink with ice water, then lower pot into sink to cook brine. When brine is cooled, submerge turkey in brine. Cover and refrigerate for 24 hours.

Heat grill to medium (about 375-400 F). If using charcoal, build fire on one side of grill. Remove turkey from brine and discard brine. Rinse and pat turkey dry, place bay leaves inside cavity, rub skin with sliced orange and apple, then place in cavity. Place turkey breast side up in a large disposable aluminum baking pan and place on grill. (Blogger note: I also place the turkey in a cooking bag which I think helps keep the flavors and juices inside).  If using charcoal, place pan on opposite side of fire for full circulation of heat. Cover grill tightly. The grill does need to be placed out of direct wind or you will never be able to maintain the temperature of your grill. DO NOT place your grill in your garage or other enclosed space due to carbon monoxide poisoning!

Check turkey every 30 minutes and baste with any pan juices. Charcoal grills may need to have extra charcoal added to maintain heat. Be careful not to let grill flare up. Grill turkey about 2 hours or until meat thermometer inserted into thigh registers 170 F. Let turkey rest at least 30  minutes before carving.

 

Enjoy & have a blessed Thanksgiving!