Local Food Advocates Pumped by USDA Initiative

I asked a range of people involved in local food systems to react to the announcements last week by the USDA in promoting local food. Here's what they had to say:

From California, Michael Dimock, president of Roots of Change:

After so many years in the trenches of the struggle to awaken the nation to the value of reconnecting with producers and the importance of food production, it is totally thrilling to see the USDA champion a valued cause. I agree with Secretary Vilsack that "local and regional food systems" are a powerful leverage point for economic, health, and environmental improvement. With this latest initiative, the People's Garden and the White House Garden, the Secretary and Administration are moving the nation into a new era, which I feel will be seen historically as a renewal and renaissance for American agriculture and rural communities, which have suffered degradation for too long. I heartily applaud the USDA, the Secretary and the President!

In the video announcement, Secretary Vilsack did point out that USDA will use "existing programs" to shed light on foodsheds. This is good, but the concept is so divergent from the past trend that we may find soon, that either existing programs will need significant retooling, or that a new, specialized program focused on peri-urban agriculture could be very powerful. But I am open to working with what we currently have, particularly until the next farm bill and given the effort to contain the deficit. The farm bill is the most logical place to reorient resources. I have faith that this Secretary and this Administration will be focused on what is needed to make it work.

From Oregon, Deborah Kane, vice president of farming and food, Ecotrust:

It’s fantastic. Secretary Vilsack posted a youtube video and invited the American people to join him in a conversation about food and the role it plays in our lives. That’s extraordinary. When he first joined the department he said USDA was the people’s department because it was the entity focused on food - something that is so sacrosanct to us all. He drew a subtle but important distinction and reminded us all that agriculture, while perhaps a secondary and nebulous thought to most, is what give us something we’re all intimately familiar with, food. Turns out he meant it. I love seeing him invite us to the table, so to speak, to talk about food as if we all have a vested interest. We indeed do. 

And since he’s invited a real conversation, I suspect he’ll get it from both sides. Remember his confirmation hearing when the diminutive remarks were made about organic hobby farmers? This week Vilsack has legitimized “alternative” agriculture and I suspect will only continue to do so.

The funding announcements are also interesting. So far it looks like repackaging of old programs, which is great because, again, it elevates alternative agriculture and legitimizes it within the Department. Brings it out of the shadows, as it were. I’ll be watching too to see new funding streams come on line as well.

From Iowa, Rich Pirog, marketing and food systems initiative leader at the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture:

The latest announcement further reinforces what has been over the past year and half strong interest and engagement on local and regional food from many of the federal USDA agencies I work with. We've had USDA folks at the national level come out to Iowa and interact with our local groups - it is quite encouraging.

I think a key to making these resources as effective as possible is the strength of the networks that must be built among the state and regional USDA agency representatives and the non-profits, farm organizations, university, and state departments of agriculture and health.

Here in Iowa we have a strong culture of collaboration across these different organizations, and so we are moving forward rapidly to ensure that these resources will be leveraged well with to make the difference with farmers, communities, students, and other groups.

From Pennsylvania, Chris Fullerton, director of consumer outreach, Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture:

It’s certainly refreshing to hear the USDA encourage folks to ‘Know Your Farmer’ – our Buy Fresh Buy Local program in Pennsylvania has been making that call for almost a decade now as part of a nationwide effort led by the FoodRoutes Network – but to back up this slogan with actual bucks? That’s icing on the cake.

Michelle Obama and the Launch of the White House Farmers Market

The White House likes healthy, fresh, local food -- that was the message of First Lady Michelle Obama at the opening of the farmers market around the corner from the White House on Thursday. "I have never seen so many people excited about fruits and vegetables," she began. "That's a very good thing."

She linked the market to the garden on the White House lawn. "When we decided to plant the White House garden, we thought it would be a way to educate kids about eating more healthy. But the garden has turned out into so much more than we could have expected," she said. "This has been one of the greatest things I've done in my life so far." 

She also tied it to the health debate now underway. "I realized that little things like the garden can actually play a role in all of these larger discussions," she said. (Full remarks are here).

It was a celebratory occasion, punctuated by screams and yelps from the crowd. And then after her remarks, the shopping began as the First Lady strolled over to the Farm at Sunnyside and bought some organic vegetables from my friend Emily Cook, who I knew as a farm intern years ago. 

USDA Secretary Vilsack was also on hand, drinking a bottle of organic chocolate milk from the grass fed cows at Clear Spring Creamery in Washington County, Maryland.

But the main attraction was the First Lady. Clearly, the White House is interested in this issue. Clearly, they are trying to do something about it. And hopefully, it will move past symbolism and the snarky criticism of columnists who miss the forest for the kale and retread the same old tired ground. A far more subtle and intelligent reading of this entire event -- and an analysis of the First Lady's message -- can be found in this post by Eddie Gehman Kohan of ObamaFoodarama.  

Grass roots activism started this local foods movement, dramatically expanding farmers' markets around the country, but celebrities and policy makers will push things to the next level.

Among them -- Bernadine Prince and Ann Yonkers, who launched the first FreshFarm Markets 12 years ago in DC and made this White House market happen. Farmers markets have come a long way since then and I expect they have a ways to go.

- Samuel Fromartz

USDA National Organic Program Gets New Leadership, Change Coming?

The USDA announced new leadership at the National Organic Program, which probably comes not a moment too soon. The program, which regulates organic agriculture in the US, has been beset by criticism. Now, with renewed focus, it will hopefully push forward. 

WASHINGTON, Sept. 17, 2009 – Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today announced that Miles McEvoy has been hired to serve as Deputy Administrator of the National Organic Program (NOP). McEvoy assumes his position on Oct. 1. Vilsack also announced that the NOP will become an independent program area within AMS because of the increased visibility and emphasis on organic agriculture throughout the farming community, evolving consumer preferences, and the enhanced need for governmental oversight of this widely expanded program. Organically grown and marketed agricultural products are of key interest to the Obama Administration, and the NOP will be receiving increased funding and staffing in the new fiscal year.

"Miles McEvoy has worked in the field of organic agriculture for more than two decades and has a solid understanding of the challenges and opportunities facing the organic community," Vilsack said.

For more than 20 years, McEvoy led the Washington State Department of Agriculture's (WSDA) Organic Food Program, one of the nation's first state organic certification programs. In 2001, he helped establish the WSDA Small Farm and Direct Marketing Program. From 1993 until 1995, McEvoy was the founding Director of The Food Alliance, a program that blends sustainable farming practices and social welfare components into an eco-label program.

Read the rest of the release here.

USDA's Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food: I Ate the White House Salad Then Followed the Money

USDA Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan and White House Chef Sam Kass

I had the pleasure of dining on a lunch prepared by the White House Chef Sam Kass and so did tens of other USDA employees for whom he was making a salad with grilled chicken, apparently a favorite of the Obama family.

USDA Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan donned a hair net and sanitary gloves to help him while talking with the employees in line. This was an effort - okay, photo op - to play up the local and regional initiatives that the USDA is launching this week in a program called Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food, led by Merrigan.

While the salad was a pleasant change from the usual fare at the USDA cafeteria, what seems far more significant is the program itself.

Nutrition and source labeling at USDA cafeteria as part of Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food

Although the press release mentioned $65 million in grants for the initiative this week, the figure obscures a key memo that Merrigan wrote on August 26 in which it's clear that many more millions -- in fact, hundreds of millions potentially -- could be available for local food systems. (HT to ObamaFoodorama).

But here's the key: non-profits, rural businesses, organic dairy associations (I'm thinking of one in particular), farmers, processors, need to apply for this money. It's there. They just don't know it.

One USDA staffer who has sat in on the biweekly meetings with Merrigan said it wasn't understood in-house that budgeted money could be targeted to build out local and regional food systems, "because no one had ever really thought about it before. We used the money for things like rural fire stations and hospitals or community centers, all really good things that are needed but don't do a lot to build up local food systems." 

Merrigan was a bit more blunt when I button-holed her.  "I understood that some of this money had been used to build fast food restaurants," she said. I got the distinct feeling such projects wouldn't be a rural priority for USDA any more.

So how much money is available?

According to the Merrigan memo (download PDF), one program alone, the Community Facilities Program, had more than $930 million in loan funds and $31 million in grants still available. (The memo lists relevant web sites to apply for the programs).

This money is targeted for community projects run by non-profits, local governments or Indian tribes, and it could, for example, pay for a kitchen for cooking classes, where farmers could drop off food. It might also fund farmers markets or community food banks. Last year, these loans averaged $665,229 each -- pretty good stimulus for a farmers' market.

Second, there's a business and loan guarantee program, which basically removes the risk from a private lender in making a loan in these tight-fisted times.

Through fiscal 2012, the USDA will set aside 5% of these loans for local and regional initiatives, such as setting up distribution facilities, or marketing local food. Five percent doesn't sound like a lot except when you consider it will amount to $100 million next year. I know a few regional food distribution co-ops that could use that money. They fall under the program as long as they transport their products no more than 400 miles. Bingo! The ones I'm thinking of probably qualify.

Finally, there's the Value-Added Producer Grant Program, which provides funding to agricultural producers who "add value" to products by processing or marketing them. Like selling to schools that want local food, or helping direct-market grass-fed beef to restaurants. It's aimed at farmers, ranchers, co-ops and other business ventures. Up to $100,000 is available for planning activities and up to $300,000 for working capital grants.

So don't let the programs specifically announced this week obscure the bigger picture. The USDA seems like it's making a multi-year effort to channel program money to local and regional food systems, but remember: it won't be spent if people don't ask for it.

All in all, I'd say Merrigan & Kass's USDA lunch was a success. I only heard a few quibbles about the price -- about 3 bucks more than the standard salad with chicken. As if to make the point, a guy in the check out line in front of me bought a burger and chips and soda for $6.13 (so much for the sign at left). My grilled chicken salad and water cost $11.99. 

While the new vision seems on the mark, obviously there's much more policy work to be done to correct this dispiriting burger/salad disparity.

- Samuel Fromartz

USDA Launches Local Foods Blitz, Bans Fried Foods and Donuts in Cafeteria for a Day

I don't usually get calls from the USDA, let alone the deputy secretary, but there Kathleen Merrigan was on the phone from her car and it wasn't a prank. 

She wanted to talk about the Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food campaign that the USDA launched this week, which centers on building buzz around local and regional food systems and "spurring economic opportunity." Merrigan is chairing the initiative, which comes not a moment too soon.

The USDA has finally recognized how important and vital local and regional food systems are -- and is tapping into the vibrant activity already underway by making an effort to open up its doors and purse strings. 

Among other things, the USDA is 

• loosening rules on interstate meat commerce, to help smaller processors, and making grants on rural economic initiatives.
• making it easier for institutions like schools to buy locally.
• offering grants to improve community food security, to be announced Wednesday.
• emphasizing direct marketing, with the launch of the White House farmers' market, and farmers' markets grants on Thursday.
• pushing the idea that "ag is back" with a new web portal launching Friday and a Facebook web chat with Merrigan.

This sounds like a lot of hoopla -- you can review the press materials at the USDA links above -- but I did get a chance to ask a few questions, most notably, "What is this about?"

Merrigan said she has been quietly heading a task force since May to push local and regional agricultural initiatives. Representatives from various department programs are meeting biweekly to discuss how best to achieve that goal. Like Obama, Merrigan and her team seem impatient about getting things done.

"The secretary told me he wanted me to take on the local and regional food challenge -- it was a top priority of my job aside from the USDA budget," Merrigan said. "And, I'll always be involved in organic."

Given the size of the USDA - 114,000 employees - Merrigan felt it wasn't imperative to create new programs but to increase outreach to existing ones (and perhaps, though unstated, light a fire within the agency on this new priority). The effort also involves tweaking existing regulations and programs to make these goals easier to achieve.

The initiative even extends to the USDA cafeteria, where your intrepid blogger has actually eaten (I recommend the House Cafeteria up on the Hill instead). In any case, the USDA is offering dishes with locally grown products all week long.

Merrigan said the cafeteria is also banning donuts and fried foods on Wednesday and putting a sign on the soda machine "have you considered water, juice or milk?" Sounds almost radical.

"Maybe this will be my last act as deputy," she quipped.

But if staff groan about food police, at least they get to see a celebrity on hand: White House Chef Sam Kass will be doing a cooking demo in the USDA cafeteria on Wednesday. 

On Thursday, the action shifts to farmers markets, when the one down the street from the White House opens. Merrigan will be on hand. The USDA will also announce a series of farmers' market promotion grants, and research monies aimed at local food systems in the northeast. 

Finally, on Friday, it is trying its hand at internet democracy and launching a web site that includes outreach to citizens for their ideas. Not sure how this effort at crowd-sourcing will work out, given what happened when the White House tried it. But I gotta say, this is a sea change from the last team in charge. 

- Samuel Fromartz

Alaskan Salmon and the Birth of a SeaSA

This summer, I had the opportunity to travel to Alaska to check out the Copper River salmon fishery and I'm happy to say I came back with more than a story. 

There, I met a fisherman Bill Webber, pictured above, who sells direct to customers. The proposition made sense when I saw fisherman got only $1.85 per pound for Copper River sockeye salmon. This was the same stuff -- or actually a better grade of fish -- than I was buying at Whole Foods for at least $15 a pound this summer. The middlemen can move a lot of fish, but it also creates opportunity for fishermen who want to sell direct to people like me who want a really fresh fish.

I also learned that Alaska has extremely stiff fishing regulations that extend to boat ownership. They require commercial fishermen to be on their boats, preventing one fisherman from owning a fleet of boats in the same fishery. The hundreds of boats in Cordova, Alaska, where I was visiting, were all small businesses protected from industry concentration. (When I mentioned that to a farmer, she said that would do wonders for agriculture).

These fishermen also depend on distant markets, because a few boats could probably feed the entire town for a year -- easily. In fact, without distant markets, there wouldn't be a town since there's hardly anything else going on aside from fishing. Okay, maybe moose hunting.

So I decided to buy fish direct from Alaska, to support the fishermen and the remarkably sustainable fishery up there. 

I told my friends here in DC and we decided to buy seven fish -- 64 pounds total. Last Monday, on Labor Day, Bill went out gillnetting for Coho salmon, which run around 9 pounds each. On Tuesday, he put the chilled fish on an Alaska Airlines jet. On Wednesday, I picked the box up at DC's airport -- just in time to get snarled in traffic because Obama was giving his health-care speech on Capitol Hill, around the corner from my house. Forgot the streets would be on lockdown.

Anyway, I finally made it home, then spent the next two hours filleting the fish listening to Obama on the radio (and cheering him on).

The fish were a big hit. As one friend said in an email, "We love our Salmon! It is not only tastier but the texture is very much better than the supermarket or fish market equivalent." We also had a lot of carcasses, which some people passed on. Too bad. There was a lot of meat on them, which one friend made into a fume (stock) and then risotto. Another friend salted the carcass and kept it in the frig.

I think I'm going to pick the meat off the bones and make salmon burgers, then make fume with the bones, leeks, and fennel. I'm using the tail portion of the fish for gravlax. We've already had grilled salmon and salmon aoili sandwiches on ciabatta rolls.

Now, I know, some will say, you're flying fish from Alaska? But if you're going to eat fish, I think the most important thing is the sustainability of the fishery -- and on that score, Alaska is a leader. Plus, this was a first step. I will be looking at nearby sources, too, in the future. But for me, the health of the fishery is more important than the locale when it comes to fish.

With shipping, we ended paying less than retail (though I did cramp my shoulder from all the filleting). Still, it was worth it.

If you missed it, check out the short video I shot on Bill's boat.

- Samuel Fromartz

Baking Baguettes in Paris - The Afar Story

 

It was surprising, shocking, that in the depths of the recession I got a chance to travel to Paris and work in a boulangerie making baguettes. This was a long-held dream of mine, since I've been baking bread at home for a decade.

It came thanks to Afar magazine, which launched last month and highlights "experiential travel." Aside from my article, there's terrific reads on bog swimming in Wales, a piece about Berbers in Morocco, and oh yes, South African bunny chow -- a national dish. All in all, Afar is a kind of a hipster's National Geographic.

If you want to check out my article, here it is ("Time to Rise" pdf). In it, I recount my experience and explain why French bread went downhill for a long time before it came back in the early 1990s. (It also features Paris bakery recommendations by David Lebovitz, with whom I had the pleasure of spending an afternoon.) 

When I returned from Paris, I came up with a home-baked baguette that topped bakeries in DC in a blind tasting competition and caused a bit of a stir on the Net (see Bittman and Wild Yeast blog). The winning baguette recipe is here for those who want to try it, but it calls for a bit of sourdough starter. Happy baking.

- Samuel Fromartz

The Class Trip to the Slaughterhouse, Yes, Really

This guest post is by Joe Cloud, who co-owns T&E Meats in Harrisonburg, Va., with Joel Salatin, the farmer in Michael Pollan's book, The Omnivore's Dilemma.

Image: Joe Cloud at T&E Meats

By Joe Cloud

It is no secret that a lot of the energy driving the local food movement is connected to schools. Much of that energy has coalesced in the past several years into organizational focus and legislative action to get more locally produced whole foods into local school systems. At the same time, institutions of higher learning are experiencing an unprecedented push from within the student body to offer more local foods in the dining halls. The breadth and depth of the energy driving these movements is astonishing, prompted by concerns about childhood obesity, climate change, farmland preservation, nutritional density of foods, animal welfare, and local living economies, as a short list. 

This movement has certainly affected our work at T&E. We have begun sending local meats to the dining services at Washington and Lee and Virginia Tech universities. Last year, the Harrisonburg School System built its annual local food meal around 1,000 pounds of locally-raised ground beef from T&E (produced by a Holstein steer from a farm in Elkton, Va., and a Holstein cow from an organic dairy in Dayton, Va. – how’s that for knowing where your food comes from?). This spring we hosted a group of students – both graduate and undergraduate - from the University of Virginia, who are part of a large multi-year project studying local food systems in central Virginia. They spent the afternoon touring the plant and learning about the potential and limitations for production of locally processed meat.

Recently a group of high school students from a local private school connected to Eastern Mennonite University came through. That week was a mid-semester break for them, and a teacher was taking the opportunity to teach a week-long class on local food systems. They went around to local farms, dairies, poultry plants, distribution centers, and T&E. The students came through on a day when we were running the kill floor. They joked around nervously as we put everyone into process-room hair nets and butcher wraps, as required by our sanitation procedures. I led them through the process room and the coolers, and their eyes got big looking at the hanging carcasses and the meat cutting underway. Then we went on to the high point of the tour – out onto the kill floor where, that day, we were slaughtering pigs.

Naturally, there is a fair amount of blood, some neat piles of offal in trays awaiting inspection and disposal, and a few warm carcasses about to be pushed into the cooler. There is a warm biological smell, difficult to describe – the smell of blood? of offal? – that permeates the air. The odor can be faintly nauseating at first and yet simultaneously attractive at some atavistic caveman level. Some people find the smell intolerable, so I told the students that if they did, they should walk out then and there, and there would be no shame in that.

But in fact they all stood their ground, fascinated. Our kill floor is small enough that an observer can witness the entire process from beginning to end from a single vantage point. Due to the compact footprint of our building, our rail line is not linear, but moves through an S-shape from the knock box to the cooler door. Right after the group walked onto the floor, Phillip knocked a large hog using the fixed-bolt stunner, which caught the group’s attention immediately. A blank .22 cartridge fires the stunner, so the noise is inescapable. Playing tour guide, I explained the entire process, but there were few eyes on me. Everyone gazed in rapt attention as Phillip stuck and bled out the hog, and watched as other hogs were being skinned and eviscerated. 

We proceeded to the large carcass cooler where beef and lamb carcasses were hung, along with the hogs. There we discussed anatomy, pointing out where the actual cuts of meat found in supermarkets came from, but I noticed that half the class lingered at the cooler door or listened for the sound of the bolt gun discharging. The death of any animal is profound, whether it is a beloved pet, a barnyard friend, or simply an anonymous pasture denizen. That this process can be executed in an atmosphere of simple respect is revealing. The fact that our government meat inspector literally touched not only every animal, but also did a simple autopsy on all major organs was also revealing, both for the concern for the consumer but the animal itself. 

Several days later I had a chance encounter with the teacher again. He told me that the day after their tour at T&E, the class had visited a large poultry plant. Rockingham County has the reputation as the birthplace of the modern turkey industry in America, and is home to a number of major poultry plants, operated by the usual suspects: Tyson’s; Cargill; Pilgrim’s Pride; Purdue; as well as some independent plants. These are very high volume plants, with thousands of birds going through the line every day.

After that visit, he asked that class what they thought of the difference between the mega-plant they visited and T&E. He said the answer was summed up by one student when she said: “After today, I never want to eat turkey again, but after yesterday, I would be happy to eat any meat that came from T&E.”

With Tomatoes Failing, Why Are Mine Alive?

I've seen many articles about the tomato blight hitting the northeast, though what I find curious are the plants that avoid it, like the sungold tomato above. It's a hybrid variety though not immune to late blight.

In my community garden, many plants have succumbed to the disease but several in my plot are growing, the tomatoes maturing, including heirloom varieties. My yield though is down from last year.

In my sheltered backyard, where I grow sungold and heirloom chocolate cherry tomatoes in large pots, with nary another tomato plant in sight, I've no blight at all. Is it the variety? Is it the sheltered location? My friend, Jim Crawford, a Pennsylvania organic farmer, says: "No question, location makes a huge difference."

George Ball, who heads up Burpee Seeds, argues on his blog that heirlooms are least resistant to the disease:

If the spring and summer of 2009 is followed in succession by similar seasons in 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013, we could face a complete extinction of many—not all—of the old-fashioned heirlooms and open-pollinated tomato varieties that folks in the Northeast have come to enjoy since those varieties were reintroduced in the early 1980s.

Now Burbee sells a lot of disease-resistant hybrids, which gardeners must buy each year because they are not open pollinated. But I see no reason why open-pollinated versions will fail to develop resistance on their own. Why not get a healthy heirloom standing tall in a field of failed plants and then breed it?

That's exactly what Crawford is doing. "We've got one field of Brandywines, which went completely brown, but in the middle are four plants that are green from top to bottom," he said. He's saving the seed for next year -- something you can't do with hybrids.

This dovetails with something Jim Gerritsen of Wood Prairie Farm writes about in his seed company's newsletter:

I know organic seed growers and breeders often prefer open pollinated varieties because type selection is fully within their control. This allows a practical and decentralized way of developing regionally adapted varieties that excel and resist disease pressure and certainly that's what we need as was made very clear by this year's cold wet conditions in the Northeast.

Who knows. Maybe one's even growing in my backyard. 

- Samuel Fromartz

Postcard from a dairy crisis: Anatomy of a farm sale

Barry Estabrook over at Gourmet.com has a poignant piece on a sixth-generation Vermont dairy farm that went under the auction block, unable to cover its costs. It starts this way:

Last Friday, for the first time in 144 years, no one at the Borland family farm got out of bed in the pre-dawn hours—rain, shine, searing heat, or blinding blizzard—to milk the cows. A day earlier, all of Ken Borland’s cattle and machinery had been auctioned off. After six generations on the same 400 acres of rolling pastures, lush fields, and forested hillsides tucked up close to the Canadian border in Vermont’s remote Northeast Kingdom, the Borlands were no longer a farm family.

The story is well-worth reading. For another perspective, check out Lisa Hamilton's op-ed piece on the dairy crisis at Christian Science Monitor. 

Organic in France - La Vie Verte

If you want a green view of what's happening in France, check out the blog La Vie Verte by my friend Denise. She covers a wide range of topics, with a recent post on how farmers in the rural southwest of France are faring with the organic label. It seems that for some, the costs and inspections aren't working and a few are letting their AB (Agriculture Biologigue) label lapse in favor of a more local emphasis. In many ways, it mirrors some of the issues faced by small farmers in the U.S.

She also talks about an exquisite French flour milled on site by a local farmer -- the baker in me is pining for it but shipping flour from France doesn't make a lot of sense. Plus, we have great artisanal flour here from places like Anston Mills, which any serious baker should try.

And while you're at La Vie Verte, get a load of that black gascony pig.

- Samuel Fromartz

Video: Where the Copper River Salmon Come From

Here's a short video I shot while in Alaska, giving a thumbnail sketch of the Copper River salmon fishery.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PY2i1xRubAE&w=448&h=272]