Uncovering My Own Cultural Values & Biases Like Layers in a Compost Pile in the Spring

I tried to capture my values in another class through a three-part personal holistic goal using Allan Savory‘s framework for decision making.  It goes like this:

• Quality of Life:  
  • To be a soil life encouragement artist each moment I am on a farmscape.  To imagine creative solutions that lower input costs, enhance the sustainability of agricultural operations, and generate production models that may be implemented by other producers.  To be a contributing member of the community of life (humans and otherwise).  To be open to productive collaborations that enhance the sustainability of agricultural lands within and adjacent to Imagine Farms and to make strategic decisions that allow for frequent, trusted, and timely contributions to the regional food system.
• Forms of Production:
  • Profit from livestock and crops and anything that doesn’t interfere with my values and that complements what we do and who we are.
  • To manage a diverse array of farm-income sources that provides new challenges and opportunities, and encourage members of the farm to work together in order to be financially successful.
  • Renewable forms of energy such as bio-diesel and microhydro that allow our farming partners to enhance their ability to feed people who have connected with our farms.
• Future Resource Base:
  • A space that has access to and utilizes water through irrigation, but continually builds organic matter and allows water inputs to decrease over the years as the water holding capacity of soils increase.
  • Different species and varieties of plants in the form of shelter belts that could have harvestable products within; a great variety of animal life with considerable emphasis on birds [and bats]; great complexity in soil organisms; including fungi and molds.
  • A brittle environment that can be disturbed in ways that meet the testing guidelines, spurs vast populations of microorganisms, and increases the sort of nutrient cycling that promotes early season growth.

Well-communicated, these values will, I hope, draw in people (especially neighboring farmers and ranchers) who might be put off by my personality and/or urban roots.  I’ll be in a rural scene – more rural than I’m used to, which will be alienating.  This is why I’ve concentrated on forming a collaborative holistic goal to work from.

I’m biased in that I think a local/regional food system would benefit the majority of people from good forms of employment where better wages and exercise are the norm; forms that, at least as they’re currently practiced, produce some of the most nutrient dense vegetables that people are keeping minimally processed and some of the most grassiest-fed beef for direct markets.

But if I’m farming in Western Montana near or on a Montana indian reservation, my markets will be automatically split.  Again, I’ll be an outsider in the way I’ve mentioned – sidestepping the supply chain through efforts to better health in communities and individuals.  In doing so, I’ll be one of the many emerging forces working to redevelop the food system instead of using the more “trusted” models that came into dominance in the 1950s, 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s.  But I’ll also be an outsider in another cultural dimension.

Through the Native Food Systems course, I’ve gained a better understanding of why simply treating the motivations of native populations (and the possible solutions to community health issues like chronic disease) as if they’re similar to those of other cultures is a non-starter.  In this I’ve moved a little beyond the ‘cultural blindness’ stage of The Campinha-Bacote Cultural Competence Model.

It’s clear that the principle of self-determination, or in this case setting up a more sovereign food system, will send out the deepest roots of health.  Assisting the tribes in the process of brainstorming what parts of their traditional systems can be restored and which parts can be more or less adopted from other cultures will be important.  And it’s already happening for many thoughtful individuals.  Nolan Johnson is a good example of a tribal member in the Southwest who is reconnecting with traditional food pathways and helping others do the same …

An excerpt from Robert Chanate’s contemplative article illustrates the same willingness to pave a culturally-acceptable way towards improving nutrition … this one involves throwing off the shackles of SPAM in a non-offensive manner.  As odd as his rationale may seem, his manner may move him further towards his own holistic goal (eating better and striking an example for others) than he might by going cold turkey …

Now I am going to make better food choices and I’ll have to add Spam to the list of foods to avoid. I’m sure I’ll have to add other neo-NDN foods to this list at some point and I’ll probably go through the same separation musings with those too.

I recognize not everyone has this option and will continue to eat Spam because it’s cheap (or free) and available. This means I’ll likely encounter Spam again in some Native home. I’ll have to eat it because it’s considered rude to refuse food from our hosts. So if you know I’m coming over don’t feel bad about serving Spam, fried potatoes and fry bread … and some red Kool-Aid … oh, and get some chocolate cake too.

This makes me think, ‘so what if I’m not going to be a dietician.’  Just because I aspire to be a farmer doesn’t mean the social weak links (i.e. the cultural barriers that will prevent rapid movement towards my 3-part holistic goal) won’t be unique to the populations my work (and the future farm) addresses.  It’s important to me that I’ve had this realization, because it is sort of empowering.

I’d like to think I’ve always understood that It’s truly going to take more than just pumping nutritional foods into town centers of Native American populations like those on the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribe’s Flathead Reservation to resolve tragic ethnocentric actions (e.g. cornering a people onto one land mass with political lines, drawing more lines in the form of private property borders on that mass through Congressional Allotment Acts, and eroding a culture of language and food through boarding schools, and the disturbance of culturally important places where the Bitterroot and American Bison thrived, etc.) taken against them.  But now that my interest and knowledge of the challenges exist in the cultural contexts painted by these courses, I feel I have a responsibility to start hatching a few farm programs of my own to address the issues …

Let the process begin!

Argument for the In-Class SNAPtastic Debate

On Tuesday, our Nutrition and Society class was split in two and instructed to provide sensible arguments (like those that are occurring, we hope, in the halls of Congress) related to the 2012 Farm Bill and specifically the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — better know as SNAP.

My contribution to the Pro-Reforming SNAP group took the form of bullet points, which I’ve included below:

Conservative commentators and politicians, along with more progressive nutritionists are in agreement.  Federal dollars can do a better job of discouraging unhealthy habits like soda consumption while promoting the habits that more affluent families value, have access to, and more likely act on (i.e. patronage of farmers markets, using skills and free time to cook or recreate, etc.).  And we can start by reforming SNAP.

My primary interest in seeking reform comes out of a concern over health care costs, which clearly aren’t borne by individuals.  This is especially true when individuals participate in Medicaid or Medicare programs, but it’s less evident in the role that other people play in determining an individual’s health insurance premiums.  If we’re really serious about reaping the benefits of preventative care – instead of proclaiming what the benefits are in public forums – we would reform SNAP and the food system as a whole to level the playing field between fruits and veggies, and their largest competitor in the marketplace (highly processed foods whether they be in the sugary, fatty, or salty realms).

We won’t solve anything by banning the SNAP-py purchase of this beverage or the colorful edibles above.

After all, “According to the USDA, 70% of recipients spend their own money to purchase a portion of their household food.”  This means that if you want soda, you get soda.  Instead of installing another bandaid atop the lip of the soda bottle, we need a vision for how to use the Farm Bill, and SNAP specifically to channel funds towards low-income people who value nutrition.  They need support.  And so do farmers, who would love to broaden the Occupy Movement to include chapters focused on occupying new farmers markets in urban deserts

[This is pure embellishment, but the point is that a lot of farmers I know would kill to feed more people, especially the hungry, working poor – they just need to see the federal government, local organizations, and citizens step up to the plate by opening up new markets for their goods].

That’s what’s so beautiful about the Double Value Coupon Programs (DVCP) I mentioned in a previous post.  It provides the incentive that, coupled with banning pop and junk food, could send more people to farmers markets than ever.  Check out the growth of farmers markets in neighborhoods where the program was implemented by foundations and non-profit organizations like Wholesome Wave (see table below).

Farmers Market	SNAP Redemption Before DVCP ($)	SNAP YEAR 1 DVCP Programming	SNAP Year 2 DVCP Programming
East Atlanta, GA	300	1,322	2,972
Hope Street, RI	545	1,657	7,618
Billings Forge, CT	328	1,694	4,116
61st Street, Chicago, IL	1,100	5,000	10,118

Imagine if SNAP recipients could:

a) use their rollover benefits OR

b) supplement with their own cash OR

c) use a monthly pay-as-you-go framework …

… in order to afford becoming members of CSA’s.

It’s important to recognize that such “solutions” have probably been suggested and would require breaking down other barriers to ensure success.  But barriers like foodie skill-building (e.g. educating people how to prepare meals or preserve excesses), I submit, are barriers for the wider public and not just inhibitors for the poor.

And unless we release a flood of new programs that allow communities to develop healthier food systems, we don’t stand a chance at discouraging what’s easy and what’s causing chronic health problems that affect us all — that is, the mainstream American lifestyle that so many people recognize as the root cause of the problem.

“Oooo, A Garden [or other foodie project]. Can We Bring One Home, Honey?”

Participation, more than any word in the English dictionary, has the potential to release a current of more food secure places in the United States.  Authors like Robert Putnam, author of Bowling Alone, have chronicled the decaying of participation in this country since the 1960s – it’s pervasive.  You can see it in many arenas, from those that are civic to religious to recreational (like Bowling).  People either don’t have the time to participate or they don’t think they have the time.  But with a packet of seeds or an open burner AND a little encouragement, anyone can participate.

Pockets of isolation in our own lives and in our culture is warranted.  Everyone needs a little personal space – we do live in a capitalistic, individualistic, “American Dreaming” society after all.  Those are the contentious mantras everyone must grip, and at least make faint offerings to, because they’re freaking systemic.  But they’re just premises to work from, not to accept as law.

A parallel might be drawn from the common visage of a struggling mother of three, living in a food desert with little time or access to transit, nor the prerequisite skills or resources required to grow their own food.  We’re not going to address situations like this — or the many roots of disengagement for that matter — with catch phrases.  I’m sorry – we’re just not.

National initiatives have their place in addressing the severity of the issues we share as a society, and the Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food and Fruits and Veggies Matter initiatives are valiant efforts to focus the discussion.  But the simple knowledge of a program with the moniker My Plate is enough to make one sick with frustration.  Maybe it’s Pollanian to say, but it sure is wild to think that people need to be supported for their efforts to take ownership of what they’re putting into their mouths.

How impactful are PSAs like this?

To put it bluntly and to respond to this advertisement for “Any Organization” USA, we need more people to get off their asses, turn off the TV and do something more appropriate.  That’s been the driving force behind 1,000 New Gardens 1kng — to support a more participatory and inclusive form of local agriculture (backyard gardening) that moves beyond the Serve Me (More Vegetables) paradigm.

So what do we do?  How do we address community food security?  And how can a campaign in every locality that enforces the need of people to participate in something – maybe just one thing that’s meaningful to them – that involves their community’s food system … how could that change the tide?

Maybe it’s not gardens … maybe it’s something else …

The prominent food justice spokesman, Mark Winne, pulled out his trumpet to play a worthwhile note having written that:

The importance of community participation is reinforced by the growing body of literature on social capital – how social networks contribute to a community’s health and well-being (Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam).

In the field of community food security, research on the relationship between food security and social capital by Dr. Katie Martin found correlations between low-income households’ ability to secure sufficient food and their connection to neighbors, friends, and helping services (Food Security and Community: Putting the Pieces Together, Katie S. Martin, Hartford Food System, May 2001). The study, which took place in Hartford, Connecticut, had (several) major findings:

• Low-income families were more likely to be food secure if their social capital, i.e. connections to local social networks, was high

• A high percentage of food insecure families do not participate in food programs (45% did not receive food stamps, 67% did not use food pantries, and 37% who were eligible for the WIC Program did not participate in it)

Gardens, as biological networks of plants, insects, microorganisms, and animals (if manure is used as a soil amendment), also serve to harness social networks in amazingly simple, yet powerful ways.  I’ve seen such things.  In September of 2011, 1kng installed a new vegetable patch in the middle of the street in King Arthur’s Court (a trailer park just West of the city of Bozeman).

And like the stolon of a shimmering strawberry plant, this garden and one of the best new gardeners in the world sent out “runners” down the street, starting with women on either side of their house … and down the block.

By the end of October, we had installed five spaces (some small, some as big as 200 square feet) that would nourish people with more than daikons or pods of peas.

One clear thesis I’ve gripped lately is that food traditions as well as other community traditions of engagement have eroded in past decades.  But there’s another thesis that’s developed in partnership with experiences like the one described above … of cascading new gardens … it’s that food traditions can be rebuilt just as quickly.  If, that is, they’re encouraged through appropriate means – in this case it was a bunch of college yahoo’s coming out to garden.  But gardening is just ONE tool.  Personally, it’s been less a tool, a fascination, or a weekly recreation, but a gateway drug into community-based food and farming issues.

But there are many other — seemingly quaint — ways to get to bring about a more participatory food culture.  Some people will have enough money to afford participation in a local Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm.  For others, volunteering with or eating at The Mobile Farms Stand propelled by the Friends of Local Food group will be just the ticket.  The Bozone Ozone (greenhouse) Bus, another.

The point is, something exists for you.  Get out there and develop the skills needed to spur one more aligned with what you treasure.  Then we’ll actually have a food system.

PSA – Attracting New Eaters to the Gallatin Valley’s Own Food

Hi, the name’s Matt Broughton. And I’m trying to figure out ways to feed MORE people … like you, living in Bozemanand the surrounding area.  I’m a first generation soil life encouragement artist … but you might call me a farmer.

When I’m not out composting, or harvesting eggs and vegetables, I’m working with the Gallatin Valley Food Bank, which now takes in lettuce, radishes, carrots, beets, chard and other vegetables that farmers donate.  The food bank makes all of this available every week ofMontana’s growing season.

This is a great option if you’re having trouble affording or accessing fresh produce.  But there’s something else you should know.  Have you heard of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (or SNAP)?  SNAP enables participating families to spend monthly benefits at the Gallatin Valley Farmers Market as well as the Bozeman Winter Farmers Market.

SNAP and programs like it are particularly impressive because they help introduce me to more people who truly value healthy food and healthy lands.  The folks who fill out applications for SNAP or WIC are doing their part to channel their food dollars to farmers markets, and ensuring that young farmers and ranchers can continue producing some of the best food in the country!

Feeding your family in this way is truly a noble act!  Plus, you can’t overstate the pleasure and adventure of preparing a variety of foods with new tastes!

If you have questions about the many opportunities to obtain fresh produce for free, call the Gallatin Valley Food Bank at 406-586-7600 or stop into 602 Bond Street in Bozeman.

If you see me there, don’t forget to say hello — I’ll be the red-haired guy hefting heads of broccoli, spuds and tomatoes into the building!

Oran Hestermann pictured here holding his neck

Food Diffusion (an Agriculture Supported Community program)

I believe in many of the ideas expressed in the Diffusion of Innovation Model.  The model seems to have formed by someone who appreciated different layers of actors that exist in any community, and the role of word of mouth communication in spreading innovations from one actor to the next.

There are the innovators – you can think of these people as a small group, consistently looking for something trendy to do or something trendy to own and spread.  Then there are the early adopters – those people who are “integrated” in their communities, and spread lifestyle innovations because they’ve earned the respect of their families and peers.  Members of the early majority are “cautious of adopting a new idea or product” while people in this theory’s late majority are quite skeptical and generally are coaxed to adopt something when peers pressure them.  The laggards are just what you’d expect – the last adopters who “tend to come from small families, to be single and older, and to be traditional.”

A community food system expressed graphically. Can you see the innovators, the early adopters, the early and late majorities, and the laggers?

The textbook Community Nutrition in Action describes how a community nutritionist watched a cook being interviewed on TV about a recent heart attack and his plans for developing ways of cooking healthy chow.  The book categorizes him as an early adopter (a respected, credible citizen) within the target audience of the nutritionist’s “Heart-Healthy Living” program.

I’d like to modify a program that sprung from the Rodale Institute – a Pennsylvanian farming organization performing long-term agronomic and organic marketing research.  Organizers call it “Agriculture Supported Community” (or ASC).

Here’s how it’s described:

Well, there are two parts.

The first part is membership. The program is designed to make fresh, local, organic food more accessible for people who can’t afford to pay hundreds of dollars for the whole season up-front.

Like a CSA, ASC members received a seasonal “share” of produce each week. But, unlike a CSA, ASC is pay-as-you-go. Members choose a share size of $10/week, $15/week or $25/week that can be picked up at a local community site…

The second part is education. The ASC program is also a training ground for future farmers. We’re launching an 8-month internship program that will teach people everything they need to know to start their own ASC in their own communities.

My summer program would encourage new participants, and the power of word of mouth communication by requiring every ASC member discuss the challenges and benefits of their vegetable/grain share with three or more new people each season.

This could be done over a home-fixed meal.  Or, if the farm also organizes a harvest dinner, members could invite their neighbors, family and friends to the undertaking.

Farmers Market Got A Brand New Bag

When I hear the word ‘Farmers Market’, a breathtaking image comes to mind …

But I never think: “Why Farmers Markets?  Why not Peoples Markets?”

I suppose that’s not too odd, in itself.  But those who engineered the Double Value Coupon Program (DVCP) sure wondered about the evolution of farmers markets – because they acted.

I couldn’t find evidence that a community needs assessment was completed for the food system program I investigated, but it’s possible community nutritionists have conducted them, and adapted this program as a result.

Fortunately I did find this Heritage Radio interview with Gus Schumacher, a founding member of the Wholesome Wave Foundation.  Forty-seven minutes and forty-five seconds in, Gus recants a story which is one that he’s told a lot.  So much that it eventually got around to other head-haunchos of the Wholesome Wave Foundation, and triggered the Double Value Coupon Program – which in plain English means the doubling of every buck spent by low-income eaters at farmers markets.

Page 6 of this glossy document (prepared for Wholesome Wave by the Harvard Kennedy School of Government) illustrates their mini-Logic Model.

The program’s mission is to increase the health of SNAP-eligible consumers at farmers markets by increasing their buying power, and, in so doing, increase the buying market of local farmers and other local businesses surrounding the markets.

It’s clear this creates a more inclusive system of relationships.  Non-profit organizations are at the table.  Government (at the very least, the federal one) does too.  And they assist the day-to-day functions of a farmers market and the usual suspects – the farmers and consumers.  You’d think that that would be a pretty powerful partnership.

And, according to Wholesome Wave, it is.

They evaluated the effectiveness of existing DVCPs (as opposed to evaluating the difficulties of starting them) by surveying (the methods and sample size are unknown) producers and low-income individuals participants.  The foundation’s analysis on these surveys reveals a substantial impact for communities in the 26 states that have implemented DVCP since 2010.

• 73% of DVCP consumers reported that they would not have come to the market to spend their federal benefits without DVCP (with statistics like this, it’s a wonder there’s no mention of DVCP on websites like this)
• As a result of shopping at the markets in 2010, 87% of DVCP consumers increased or greatly increased their consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables.
• Over 90% of DVCP consumers agreed or strongly agreed that the amount of fresh fruits and vegetables they bought at the market made a big difference in their or their family’s diet.
• DVCP consumers highly value many aspects of participating markets, including supporting local farmers and businesses, the quality and selection of produce at the market, and taking part in their community.

Farmers participating in the program also had overwhelmingly satisfactory responses to survey questions.  Most interestingly to me:

• 63% of the farmers responding to the survey were women
• 46% are under the age of 45 (national average is 57), and
• 50% reported that DVCP was very important or important to their sales at the markets

These results show a bit of change.  The majority of market managers, farmers and consumers are happy with the way its structured, and feel it broadens the base of support for farmers market.  In this way, the different farmers market players view their DVCP as a force for stabilizing their local food systems.

My sense is that this program helps us visualize the many external benefits to increasing consumer choice.  By (finally!) offering a subsidy for fruit and vegetable purchases, the costs of these products come in line with the goliath’s acting in the food system – the commodity food programs. The program has many foundation and corporate supporters which have drawn up this script and are narrating a new story with new players and new dynamics.  [sidenote: it’s interesting to see the various supporters scroll along the bottom of the screen on Wholsome Wave’s site]

The backers provide an open monologue, beginning with the question: “what would the food system be like if” … and allows you and me to fill in the blank with our own statements about, say, the farm bill or the markets in our own communities.

That said, it’s easy to concede that many challenges go unremedied when an outside force simply flicks their wand and two times the radishes appear.

But the good news is: some of the more obvious barriers (read: how many people know about this program and does anyone still know how to cook fresh vegetables?) are being addressed at markets where the Double Value Coupon Program has been implemented.  Community-based coalitions are forming to provide the type of outreach into neighborhoods so that people hear about and people come for the veggie deals.  It seems natural that once more people enter an outdoor space with good vibes, the more likely that space will feature things like cooking demonstrations and gardening workshops and climbing walls (read: things that vibrant communities use to encourage deep forms of health).

All of this says a lot.  It shows what a sudden infusion of capital can catalyze in a formerly black-topped parking lot.  It’s not just monetary benefits.

Just to prove a point, I’d like to see what the East Atlanta, Georgia farmers market looked like (pictures, pictures, pictures!) when SNAP was bringing in $300 so that I could compare it to when the DVCP was implemented in year one and two when $1,322 and $2,972 in SNAP benefits were redeemed (and doubled).  How did this money ripple, visually, throughout the market?

My imagination tells me that this sort of transformation takes a simple farmers market and turns it into a better partnership between rural and urban communities – a Peoples Market of sorts.

The market I grew up in ...

Putting on Your Policy Wonk Pants for Food’s Sake!

AH, THE VERY BASICS

Nutrition and food system policies are enacted through a web of interactions between administrative or legislative policymakers at the local, state and national levels and citizens and groups of citizens that hold stake in a particular issue.

In Community Nutrition In Action, the process is described pictorially …

… and is guided by changes in attitudes and levels of involvement among policy-making participants.  The textbook emphasizes this point that this is a dynamic process in a chapter titled The Art and Science of Policy Making.  “Policies in the food and nutrition arena will continue to evolve as our knowledge of foods and their relationship to health expands and the issues of public concern change.”  Several examples of federal agencies that enact policies to address the plate tectonic movements of food and nutrition issues are the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Agriculture.  Coalitions of organizations in the business and non-profit worlds are aligned to influence these agencies, and the legislators that hold purse strings.  These coalitions affect one or more circles within the policy making model above.  And they’re not static either.  Individual organizations or their coalitions make shifts depending on their effectiveness in promoting policy change and whether they’re in it for the long haul.  That is, for policy evaluation and reformation.

Policies are evaluated from many different angles.  One policy that’s drawn my ear to the soil was released for public consumption by the Department of Agriculture last month.  It’s called the Land Contract Guarantee Program, and it’s detailed in this statement by the Farm Service Agency (FSA).  Evidently the program had several precursors (in 2002 and again in 2010), which is a testament to the severity of the problem that’s been defined.  It’s undoubtedly also a testament to the lobbyists in organizations like the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition as well as the legislators and administrators at the federal level who have, seeing its merit, worked to expand it.

This program, as previously mentioned, is an example of a policy that was implemented on a smaller scale, and apparently passed what you might call the seedling (or evaluation) stage.  One online source (I’m having trouble backtracking to find and link to it) spoke disparagingly about the outcome of one of the pilot projects.  The good news: they portrayed the FSA’s response to the program, and its advertising as something about as effective as a dude with a sandwich board on Main Street.  Luckily, it seems, the agency has gotten the message this go-round.  Take a quick gander at a google search for the program.  The word is spreading.  Not to mention, loan officers are now allowed to take into account more than just experience when distributing guarantees.

How does this fit into the policy action model and which steps have been actualized to date?  Here’s my analysis …

Step One: PROBLEM DEFINITION

The food system is greying. And the vitality of family farms is jeopardized by the average age of farmers and ranchers in the United States: 57.  Organizations like the Future Farmers of America (FFA) perceive the challenge of assisting the transition of land ownership from one generation to the next, and turn tail (as evidenced by the interview linked above).  They see themselves as the saviors of a nourished universe.  And they’ve defined several thorns in their vision for American agriculture.

One is that farmscapes, as highly capitalized businesses, are out of reach of people who share an interest in purchasing them but have meager access to the credit offered by traditional lenders.

Riley Pagett, National FFA President

In response to this crisis, the FFA’s current leadership has confidently articulated the interesting priority of connecting the next generation to careers “in biotechnologies and other support systems in agriculture.”  Riley Pagget’s position brings images of a poorly spirited soccer player who consciously employs deception – lobbying hard for penalty, faking an injury at this turn and that, abandoning ship on a stretcher, and ultimately leaving behind collaborators in a final act of ill-natured dissent.  All of these actions demonstrate – to me – either an intriguing brand of cowardice or the absolute inability to bring the problems our generation faces into focus.  I just don’t can’t tell which it is …

Step Two: AGENDA SETTING  

Under the oversight of Secretary Vilsack, the USDA has reacted differently than the supposed leaders of the young farming community.  His focus has been to tweak and scale up existing models of government assistance that support new farmers in an effort to catalyze more progress.  And, no doubt, informed by more than 1,000 young farmers (surveyed by the National Young Farmers’ Coalition), the pieces of an agenda began to fall in place.

The NYFC reported the following findings in “Building A Future With Farmers”:

• 78% of farmers ranked “lack of capital” as a top challenge for beginners, with another 40% ranking “access to credit” as the biggest challenge.
• 68% of farmers ranked land access as the biggest challenge faced by beginners.
• 70% of farmers under 30 rented land, as compared to 37% of farmers over 30.
• 74% of farmers ranked apprenticeships as among the most valuable programs for beginners.
• 55% of farmers ranked local partnerships as one of the most valuable programs, and 49% ranked Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) as a top program.

The real nitty gritty of their report was on page 30, where they used the results of the survey to lay out policy recommondations for congress and the President, states, and “you and your community” to propel young farmers.

Step Three: POLICY DEVELOPMENT

The recently released Land Contract Guarantee Program includes little ditties for people like me who’ve yet to step out of the shadows of the College of Agriculture and on-the-job trainings in the form of farm apprenticeships and/or practicums.  We are eligible, as farmers were in the pilot states, for two forms of support …

1. Prompt Payment Guarantee: A guarantee of up to the amount of three amortized annual installments plus the cost of any related real estate taxes and insurance; or
2. Standard Guarantee: A guarantee of 90 percent of the outstanding principal balance under the land contract.

… But the language governing who is eligible seems to have changed in order to bring more people under the farming tent.  The Farm Service Agency, which administers loans, is now allowed, legally, to take many factors into account.  Moscow, Idaho’s first generation farmer Marci Miller is now eligible for credit, as long as she and her hubby convince an old-timer that the land contract options described above fit into his/her holistic goal more succinctly than a deal with a real estate agent.  Miller must also meet these criteria:

The buyer of the farm or ranch must be a beginning or socially disadvantaged farmer or rancher; not be larger than a family farm (in which most of the management and labor is provided by family members); have an acceptable credit history demonstrated by satisfactory debt repayment; be the owner or operator of the farm or ranch when the contract is complete; and be unable to obtain sufficient credit elsewhere without a guarantee to finance actual needs at reasonable rates or terms.

These clearly defined parameters gives non-profit programs like Western Montana’s Community Food and Agriculture Coalition’s Land Link, as well as FSA agents, a population to channel their efforts.

It’s clear that the work of Severine vT. Fleming in producing The Greenhorns (see a trailer here) and its complement, a weekly radio program on the dreams and struggles of the young farmer community, have been influential rallying cries.  These cries have worked in tandem with the National Young Farmers’ Coalition, transmitting stories and helping to grow the third leg of the “iron triangle” of policy development.  That is, the interest groups, congressional committees or subcommittees, and administrative agencies.  Together, these legs of public policy – from education at state schools to loan guarantees – are beginning to stroll for young farmers like Marci Miller, who explains her pathway into farming:

We started apprenticing on organic farms – my partner Greg and I – when we were still in college.  We took some academic courses in agricultural entrepreneurship, which (helped us figure) out what we wanted to do and how we were going to get there.  We apprenticed at both the University of Idaho … and the Washington State Univerisity (organic farms) and both of those were great introductions into vegetable production … On top of that (we continued) to educate ourselves and take courses through County Extension and through another local non-profit called Rural Roots … We’re actually enrolled in a course called “Planning For Profit,” and it’s just for small-scale farmers who are looking at different enterprises or expanding enterprises they are currently involved in.  So education has been really key for us.

Step Four: IMPLEMENTATION

Beginning and disadvantaged farmers are one call/visit/email away from seeing that this policy is implemented (i.e. receiving support from their local FSA farm loan manager).  I have plans to contact Fred Smith, the manager working in Lake County, where I’m pursuing farm ownership.  This document is a living representation of how a program is implemented.  The umbrella department – in this case the USDA – puts out word to sub-departments like the FSA, instructing agents of the policy who interpret documents like this (including the handy dandy powerpoint links) and direct actions accordingly.  Their actions to promote the program and work with beginning or disadvantaged farmers/ranchers could shift the values and ecosystem designs of producers who make up the food system as the current class of landowners formalize agreements with the next generation and welcome the Land Contract Guarantee Program’s incentives.  Unfortunately we won’t see the policy’s effect until it’s fully implemented and evaluated for its efficacy in all 50 states.

Stepping Back:

HOW COULD UPPING THE EYES-TO-ACRE RATIO 

IMPACT THE HEALTH CARE SYSTEM?

Look at this image from a North Carolina Crop Mob – from the wheelbarrow load in the foreground to the conversations about soil processes OR direct marketing of raspberries (?) to consumers in the back-40.  The entire scene reminds me of a field of ruminants.  You know how there seems to be one cow who’s ready to meet your gaze, and to watch over the herd’s interest.  The same animal doesn’t give you the stink eye throughout the day.  But there’s always one or two that take on this role.  To me, the eye-locking that appears in the background tells a similar story.

This is agri-CULTURE at its finest.  Bodies moving, and a collection of minds actively devoted to improving the food system our generation has inherited.

The good Lord of food knows they eat well.

And I’d assume they have better relationships with food than their cubicle counterparts.  They may even know how to prepare simple, healthful meals!  My point is not to draw attention away from other meaningful policy proposals outlined in chapter 6 of Community Nutrition in Action.  The authors point out, rightly I think, that the health of this nation isn’t served by fortune cookies with one liners like “cost containment” and “universal access.”  Health and preventative care are, instead, linked to our diets.  And in order to improve society’s diet, “a coordinated strategy for health care, political will, and active collaboration of both health care professionals and consumers of health care services will be required.” As they put it, our system lacks the necessary behind-the-scenes work:

Community nutritionists need to educate the payers of health care about the inherent value of including nutrition services in their policies.  In arguing for reimbursable nutrition services, highlight its benefits:

• Nutrition services are attractive, progressive health benefits that are relatively inexpensive compared with other types of benefits.
• Nutrition services benefits enhance the insurance product (the employee benefit package).
• Nutrition services have a preventive component (they help keep employees healthy)
• Nutrition services attract healthy subscribers.
• Nutrition services are manageable – they can be easily documented.
• Nutrition services help patients become more self-reliant by helping them fight disease, avoid hospitalization, and reduce the use of other, more expensive medical therapies.
• Nutrition care speeds recovery.

 But for food’s sake, how many of the lads and lasses pictured above – would you imagine – will develop cardiovascular disease or obesity?

We won’t know until the next National Young Farmers’ Coalition survey on health and farmers, sure … or until we become a nation of farmers again, and national health assessments reflect a farmer’s diet.  But I submit that it’s not just farmers that eat well when the USDA initiates policies that invest in new family farms.  Communities that provide many food access points for consumers and processing outfits for producers will also benefit, now and into a future that won’t exactly look upon mono-cultures, CAFO’s, or other high-input systems with a glowing expression.

That is, as long as the young farmer friends I know and love, and the ones I’ve listened to weekly on The Greenhorns Podcast, are representative of the new agriculturalists who aspire to cultivate small-to-medium scale pastures across the country, then there is a powerful movement building from an unshakable foundation; a foundation that seeks to improve the way humans relate to nutrition and the sustainability of agroecosystems.  If you aren’t convinced, I suggest you read this manifesto by Trace Ramsey, which journals how many of us are pulling a string that’s attached to a lightbulb … finally …

Farming was at best some idyllic retirement scheme, never a seriously considered career possibility.

But then something happened. In the previously steady route of our lives, a shift occurred. The soil moved under us somehow, got stuck in the creases of our pants, in the ridges of our shoes, in the lines of our palms. Suddenly white picket fences, situation comedies and mutual fund returns didn’t seem so interesting anymore. The big ball game and the driving range became distractions from the reality of a new love affair. We got hooked on the possibilities of growing our own food and also providing that food to others.

The epiphany was likely different for many of us. Maybe a friend took us to a farmers’ market. Maybe someone had a plate of local hamburgers or collards at a picnic. Maybe the news of some global food disaster made us question the monocultures piled high on our plates. Maybe a real life farmer entered our life.

For a few of us, those with farming in our past – a childhood spent in the fields of the big farms or the family plots, throwing rocks into the hedgerows for little or no pay or watching over milking machines in the stench of industrial sized barns – there was no love, no kind of encouragement, no appreciation for our part in the dynamics of food production. We were simply limbs and calluses then, small gears in a giant cranking clock. We left the farm to pursue something else only to be pulled back hard when it became apparent that we could abandon everything that farming once meant to us. We could make it ours.

Still others came to farming from DIY and anti-authoritarian backgrounds, building urban community gardens or putting up food in anarchist collectives. Gardening always had a community aspect to it, but we wanted something more. We knew that we could do the work, that we had the right vision and skills. We just needed the access and the resources to get started. 

A B&W of Trace Ramsey Himself

If this passage is the least bit genuine, programs like the Land Contract Guarantee Program have the power to transform this food system.  They won’t do so without a little commitment to hard labor, but by ensuring that an intelligent crew of kale and kamut growers have access to soil … and channel that access ethos into their distribution model, marketing whole foods through regional networks at least semi-directly to eaters.

Link

A New Fascination with Mothers and Food

Several quotes I’ve read in the past day have focused my attention to the importance of Women and Infant Children (WIC) in truly nourishing health throughout an individual’s lifetime.  They are simple quotes.  But they are potent.

“The family, not suprisingly, exerts the most influence over an individual’s health; it is the first social group to which an individual belongs, and it is usually the group to which he or she belongs for the longest period of life.”

 

Preferences or likings for certain tastes and foods appear to develop quite early in humans.  Not surprisingly, parents and their children tend to have similar food preferences.

(Boyle, Holben 2010)

I think about how profound these statement are, how they really aren’t surprising, and how  I absolutely identify with them in my own life.

Basically the only deviation I’ve made in my life, diet-wise, was dependent on education I received out of the home.  Becoming a vegetarian was a decision that my parents encouraged, but did not stimulate.  But most everything else – the value of consistent mealtimes shared with other people, the importance of growing one’s own sustenance and preparing it with a partner, the incorporation of vegetables (dark green, sometimes sour – i.e. brusselsprouts – ones), meats (wild, lean ones) and grains (whole ones) at most every meal – was determined by 18 years of reinforcement by what I now deem a healthy food culture.  Even my late-night dining, and the pension for sweets seems to owe its existence to my parental units.

And it wasn’t like when I stepped out of my home one day (to live in the college dormitories) and went on one monstrous binge for new foods.  I was sort of repulsed by a few of the foods prepared in the University of Montana cafeteria.  Luckily they offset the majority of their purchases by promoting a rich spread of vegan, freshly sourced ingredients . . . everything a young kid from my home was used to (with the exception of wild game meat).

But these points really highlight my interest in working with mothers new to the game.  As a future farmer, I hope to target this population, participate in any programs they do (like WIC, which, in Montana alone supports 19,279 mothers), and support any commitments they are willing to make on behalf of future life-forms in their bellies.  Because it’s the glorious ideas of pregnant women that have the power to translate, once children are born, into a household that has many of the values I find important, and into dorm rooms and eventually into new households.  For the first time, it seems, I truly grip the connection between mothers and nourishment.

A little background data suggests that many mothers are already taking advantage of the WIC program and using it to connect with possibly the healthiest food around.  Nationwide, 2.3 million participate in the farmers market sub-program, and are recipients of vouchers that can be appropriated to producers in their communities.  I wonder if this population (or many more) would be more interested in a program that supported more of a routine.  It seems like the CSA (community supported agriculture) model is ripe for experimentation.  This direct farm to consumer system, which allows consumers to  pay a one-time fee (another benefit to the federal government is this inherent simplicity) at the beginning of the season and to pick up a weekly basket of seasonal vegetables (~$25 of produce per week).

There is information (statistical and qualitative) that can be gleaned from past research that focuses on this target population.  But it relates specifically to the WIC farmers market benefits.  I would collect data from WIC participants that helps develop a picture of the challenges farmers and consumers must overcome when dealing through a CSA market. What support rings in a CSA member’s ears the most, or would be the most effective use of our time.  Farmers spend so much time growing, washing, and delivering produce.  It’s important that we understand what types of support we can provide, and which type(s) are the most useful to low-income mothers?  Is it culinary support (recipes, workshops, etc.)?  Would more direct delivery assist mothers in using their time to cook instead of pickup the food?  Would special involvement in crop planning OR openness to requests (in terms of what vegetables are grown) produce deeper results?

I would collect this information using focus groups to allow mothers to rally together, bounce ideas off of, and empower, each other towards a goal that I could record, and eventually, hopefully fulfill.  I might also assess a much larger sample size through a survey.

I do not believe data exists on this subject, specifically, although I would submit that the reasons more people are not involved in CSAs are many-fold.  The reasons may include the following:

1) They may not know about them.

2) Their close circle of friends and family may not be able to relate any experiences about CSAs, because they are themselves, not members.

3) They may have trouble breaking the supermarket food sourcing pattern – a pattern they observed as children.

4) They may find food preparation challenging for many reasons.