CONSERVATION

more cost-effective to subsidize their access to these foods rather than pay rising health
costs later as a result of the absence of such foods in the diet.
5. Citizen scientists can be organized at the neighborhood, community or regional
scale can help to observe the conditions under which these heritage foods grow best; we
need to build a community of “amateur experts”: who exchange their insights regarding
how to best propagate, breed, manage, harvest, process, store and utilize these foods.
6. As the recovery and production of a heritage food ramps up, it will be important
for a community to plan and invest in milling or processing facilities, storage facilities
and food distribution hubs that allow these foods to move through short but efficient
supply chains.
7. It is critical to seek out mentors, specialists and technicians who have helped recover
similar heritage foods so that we do not reinvent the wheel each time. They can
help you develop a grow-out toolkit as Chefs Collaborative did following its 2009 and
2010 grow-outs in New England that guided farmers, gardeners in how to best meet
the horticultural needs of rare heritage plants and to form partnerships with chefs and
farmers markets necessary to bring these varieties to the marketplace.
8. It is also worthwhile to develop tasting protocols as American Livestock Conservancy
and the Slow Food Ark of Taste Committee have done to provide a vocabulary
for describing, evaluating and ranking a foodstuff’s flavors, fragrances and textures,
and for exploring its best culinary uses.
9. While avoiding price fixing of any kind, it is important for producers, processors
and chefs to share data on the true cost of producing, marketing and using a heritage
food in scarce supply, and to collectively come to an agreement about an acceptable
price range. It is also critical to understand that as supply and demand change
through time, that the collective spread sheet will undoubtedly need reworked.
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