THE FOOD CO-OP - Port Townsend Food Co-op

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THE CO-OP COMMONS a bi-monthly newsletter of The FOOD CO-OP PORT TOWNSEND established 1972 www.foodcoop.coop 414 Kearney St. Port Townsend, WA 98368 Store 360-385-2883 OPEN DAILY Mon-Sat 8 am - 9 pm Sun 9 am - 8 pm MISSION STATEMENT Seeking to uphold the health of our community and world, The Food Co-op, a consumer cooperative, serves our membership by making available reasonably priced whole foods and other basic goods and resources by means of our life a rming democratic organization. PRINCIPLES 1. Voluntary & Open Membership 2. Democratic Member Control 3. Member Economic Participation 4. Autonomy & Independence 5. Education, Training & Information 6. Cooperation Among Co-ops 7. Concern for Community MEMBER-OWNED no annual fees one time $5.00 $2 payments every month you shop until $100 capital investment achieved, a paid-in-full membership! memberservices@ ptfoodcoop.coop EDITORIAL COMMITTEE: Brwyn Gri n, Editor Deborah Schumacher, Copy Editor Mindy Dwyer, Graphic Artist editor@ptfoodcoop.coop SUBMISSIONS of interest to the community are gladly accepted. Please drop o articles for consideration at the Co-op c/o The Co-op Commons. Include your contact information. Submissions may be edited for length or content. writer@ptfoodcoop.coop The CO-OP COMMONS is printed by The P.T. Leader using recycled paper and vegetable-based inks. Opinions expressed in this newsletter are the writer’s own and do not necessarily re ect Co-op policy or good consumer practice. Who are the farm workers? Who is going to grow the food? In 2007, of 2 million U.S. farmers (down from 6 million in 1910), only 119,000 were under 36 (“Life on the Farm”). Mechanization has helped make this reduction in the U.S. farming workforce possible, as well as our reliance on migrant workers from other parts of the world. Even so, when family farms pass from the hands of older farmers and not into the hands of their children or other young farmers, that farmland can end up being developed for non-agricultural purposes or added to the large acreages of the country’s largest farms. The benefi ts that come from the continuity of family farms and farming communities is a loss for all of us. After all, who wants to plow the fi elds, worm the sheep, milk the cows, feed the chickens, manure the fi elds, pick the fruit, pick the vegetables…and do it all again next year when you can make loads of money in high tech work? Farming is not for the faint-hearted—it’s hard work. Few people stop to wonder who grew the asparagus they’re eating let alone appreciate the farmer that tended the fi eld where the asparagus grows. But we are seeing a new trend in farming. The good news It might be that people entering the workplace for the fi rst time or who have found their corporate careers disappointing or disappearing are turning to farming as an alternative. When we asked Aaron Strich, a 30 year old FIELD intern at Solstice Farm in Chimacum, the reason he chose farming as a fi eld of study, he said, “I could be in a high tech job, earning big income. But every day on the farm is about life and death. Everything you do matters. I don’t think I would feel the same working at a desk.” It seems that we are beginning to enjoy a kind of reversal of fortunes in the U.S. “The most recent USDA agriculture census,” according to “Life on the Farm,” shows that “from 2002 to 2007, the number of farms increased 4 percent, and the new farmers are younger, with an average age of 48. And in one big way, their farms are very different: they’re half the size of the past. Farms founded since 2003 are an average of 201 acres, compared to the overall farm average of 418 acres.” That’s very good news. cover cont. . . Camille Cody , Aaron Strich and Nance Castner (back turned) trimming hooves. photo by Mindy Dwyer Why the change? Farm interns like Camille Cody, a 22 year old 2010 FIELD intern at SpringRain Farm in Chimacum, puts it like this: “I chose to become a farmer because it is a dying wisdom. With the majority of our nation’s farmers being over the age of 55, the generational gap between the old and new farmers is discouraging to say the least, and disparaging at its worst. Even if complete self-suffi ciency isn’t obtainable, any degree of separation from complete dependence is a good thing when it comes to the food you eat, the clothes you wear, the way you raise your children and how you make your living; being a farmer encompasses all of these things.” Asked why she chose farming, Camille replied, “I farm because I value family and the ways my ancestors lived in the mountains of North Carolina, with frugality, yes, but also with inventiveness, resourcefulness and awareness. When everything you’re working with is real and tangible, you learn to respect and honor life, death, bad years and good years. I farm because you can always sow another Idealism and enthusiasm are good things to have when entering the fi eld of farming, especially when coming from a nonagricultural background. It can sustain you during the hard times, which farming has never been short on. Beginning farmers fi ght the usual suspects: weather, pests, drought, fl ood, crop failures, crop losses in the fi eld or at market. But they also struggle with inexperience, lack of family or community support, lack of access to farmland, and an industrial agriculture system that currently has a hold on the market. And for the kinds of farming that inexperienced farmers without a lot of capital and without much land usually practice, there’s not much fi nancial support. Farm subsidies go, not to kale and beet farmers in Jefferson County, but to corn and soy farmers in Nebraska and Iowa. The day we visited Solstice Farm, the interns were worming and trimming the hooves of Solstice’s herd of sheep. Working together, the four interns, with the guidance of farm owners Jim Rueff seed.” cont. on page 6 “Man is so made that when anything fires his soul, impossibilities vanish.” - Jean De La Fontaine THE FOOD CO-OP COMMONS www.foodcoop.coop 2 July / August 2011
from page 2 and Linda Davis, were sloshing around in urine-soaked hay in a small corral where 40 sheep were penned in for their mandatory spa treatment; some sheep even got foot baths. At one point, the farm interns all had their heads bent in concentration on one lamb when co-owner Linda Davis pointed out a castration that had become infected. Not work for the faint of heart. Alternative agriculture Many people “in their 40s [are]… entering farming as a second career, after an early retirement or a layoff” (“Life on the Farm”). Nance Castner, another FIELD intern at Solstice Farm in Chimacum, was celebrating her 60 th birthday the day we met. When asked why she chose farming, Nance said, “I was definitely called by the natural world to learn about farming. It’s important to listen to your natural self because you’re going to like it! I walked away from corporate America when I realized it wasn’t for me: all the florescent lights and frenetic work that took away the sweet side of things; getting rewarded for ‘knocking things out’ and working fast. I wanted to be more physically active and work outside with plants and animals. In fact, I would have made a good Amish, their lifestyle calls to me: Living simply.” Young farmers unite Enter The Greenhorns, a documentary film that “explores the lives of America’s young farming community—its spirit, practices, and needs” and shares “the stories and voices of these young farmers, [to] build the case for those considering a career in agriculture,” (see the film’s trailer at www.thegreenhorns.net) It’s a kind of recruitment film to enlist enthusiastic young people to join in their campaign for agricultural reform in the most direct way possible: by farming. What a great way to change the food system. In our county over the last decade we’ve seen our own farming community grow, many prompted by these very interests and concerns. Most recently, we have a new farm apprentice program, the cover story cont. . . FIELD program (see Mar/Apr Co-op Commons to read more about FIELD), that is bringing in hopeful young farmers-to-be from around the globe and locally. They are working on our local farms helping to bring the food we eat to market while they learn in a formal and structured way how to farm so they can go forth and be farmers, too. Solstice Farm is one of the partners training interns in the FIELD program. There even seems to be federal support to develop programs to train new farmers. In 2010, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack called for “100,000 new farmers—and loan programs that start to put money where his mouth is” (“Life on the Farm”). The USDA introduced the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program and in October 2010 gave $18 million in grants to recipients like Colorado State University, who partnered with land-grant universities in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Utah, New Mexico and Nevada to secure a $750,000 grant to offer short courses in farming. The good, the bad and the ugly The USDA itself says that “Enlisting and supporting new farmers is essential to the future of family farms, the farm economy and healthy rural economies” (http://afsic.nal.usda.gov) and progress is definitely being made. Even though “most small-farm households typically…get substantial off-farm income from wage-and-salary jobs or self-employment” (“Life on the Farm”) to supplement farm income, the USDA predicts that income for U.S. farmers “probably will jump 20 percent” (“Life on the Farm”). Whether that trickles down to farmers struggling to make a decent living on small farms in Jefferson County remains to be seen. And as a young farmer wrote recently on the Slow Food USA blog, “As we work to build a business around our love of farming…we encounter one scary part of growing up: realizing how deeply critical our own health is to the viability of the farm. As young farmers with brave muscles and big dreams, we invest our best physical years in finding, setting up and capitalizing a farmstead…But when the operation of all these interlocking systems relies for its longevity on the physical strength and resilience of an individual body, the body of the young farmer turns out to be one of the weakest links in the new food system” (Severine von Tscharner Fleming, founding member of the National Young Farmers Coalition and director of Greenhorns). This young farmer is suggesting that affordable healthcare is needed for an organized labor force of farmers and farm workers. There’s no denying that they, like all of us who work, must have access to medical care. But when she writes that the system “relies for its longevity on the physical strength and resilience of an individual body,” I’m reminded that traditional farming relied on the combined strength and resilience of the young and the wisdom and experience of the old. Solstice Farm owners Linda Davis (seated) and Jim Rueff training interns Camille Cody (L) and Jennifer White (red cap) in trimming hooves. photo by Mindy Dwyer “Zeal without knowledge is fire without light.” - Thomas Fuller I’m also reminded of the importance to respect the hard work required in farming, the deep wisdom and knowledge needed to be a successful farmer, and the special connection to the Earth that farmers seem to share to make the healthy, fresh, local food on our tables possible. Paying a fair price to the farmers for our food is essential, and valuing the presence of programs like our local FIELD program to train interested new farmers, whatever their age, needs to be supported by our community. Sources: “Life on The Farm Attracts Green Spirited Entrepreneurs,” CNBC.com Slow Food USA, http://www. slowfoodusa.org/index.php/slow_ food/blog/ USDA website, http://afsic.nal.usda. gov THE FOOD CO-OP COMMONS www.foodcoop.coop 3 July / August 2011
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Page 5 and 6: Thursday July 21 8 am-9 pm Thrifty
Page 7 and 8: DEBORAH SCHUMACHER, Interviewer sta
Page 9 and 10: healthy people & healthy pets Fired
Page 11 and 12: Sweet Creek Chili Pickles Grown in
Page 13 and 14: Preserving 1: Jams & Pickles Hot ne
Page 15 and 16: Composting Heats Up & a word about
Page 17 and 18: Bottled Water The New Uncool DEBORA
Page 19 and 20: Fiddle Tunes! at Centrum! Printed b

THE FOOD CO-OP - Port Townsend Food Co-op

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