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["Michael Burns" <michael AT fingerlakespermaculture.org>]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/17/magazine/17food-t-000.html?emc=tnt&tntemail1=y

*In New York City,* the push to eat locally can go only so far, allowing
diners the occasional gotcha moment at restaurants that promote their
sourcing. When I tasted the smooth, rich polenta at Roberta’s, a restaurant
in Brooklyn that grows vegetables out back, I was sure I’d caught them.
“Anson Mills, right?” I asked the chef, Carlo Mirarchi, name-checking the
South Carolina gristmill of choice. He’d got me: “Cayuga Pure Organics,
upstate.” O.K. . . . Did the staff forager at Print, an upscale locavore
restaurant, find the nutty freekeh (roasted green wheat berries, a Middle
Eastern specialty) that anchors its vegetable plate at Kalustyan’s, across
town? Cayuga Pure Organics again. The heirloom beans at Gramercy Tavern?
Exactly.

Legumes and grains have come into play in New York in the last year,
altering the lives of a small collective of farmers outside Ithaca along
with it. Farro and polenta are no longer just Italian imports. Flour ground
from organic buckwheat, rye or winter wheat can be found beyond the
health-food store. Black, navy, pinto and heirloom beans like Jacob’s Cattle
are sold at New York City green markets and snazzy grocers. Now that the
missing links on the plate have been filled in by Cayuga Pure Organics, New
York locavores can have their polenta cake and eat it too.

Beans are grown on a large scale in western New York, but they get shipped
off to distributors. And while Buffalo was once one of the largest
grain-milling centers in the country, hard wheat moved to North Dakota as
industrial flour mills sought uniformity and more beneficial weather. So
when the movement to keep ingredients close to home swept the country, the
farmers’ markets drove the supply, even if it meant willing it into being.

In 2003, Erick Smith and Dan Lathwell — men nearing 60 who’d farmed
intermittently when not working at Cornell or teaching elsewhere — thought
they’d hit upon a smart niche when they created Cayuga Pure Organics to grow
pesticide-free feed for the region’s newly organic dairy farms. Two years
later, the Ithaca food co-op and a natural-food distributor asked if they’d
grow organic beans on their land in the town of Caroline. They were also
connected with a local taqueria, and soon the two were struggling to keep up
with the restaurant’s weekly order for 500 pounds of black and pinto beans.
Then, in the fall of 2008, the farm inspector for New York’s Greenmarket
tracked them down in her quest to find a grower to satisfy the demand for
local beans and grains.

“We hemmed and hawed, thinking that going to New York City is a whole step
up in the organizational process,” said Smith, an articulate man for whom
overalls and a graying beard are a natural fit after years of teaching math
education. It also required getting up to speed in marketing, which for
farmers means both self-promotion and literally selling at markets.

“When I was a student in agriculture economics,” Smith told me, “many said
that if farmers would spend less time on the field and more time marketing,
they would make more money for themselves than they would out in the field.
Most farmers tend to fall in that category, including Dan and me.” But they
had a secret weapon: 25-year-olds.

Two years ago, they hired Adrian Smith, then 23, to run the beanery. Soon
her girlfriend, Anne Riordan, was hanging around and lending a hand. Now
Smith is more involved on the business side, and Riordan has taken charge of
the beanery, a restored barn where the harvest from the farm’s 600 various
acres is taken for cleaning, sorting and bagging, using mostly old equipment
that Smith has bought from farms that scaled up years ago.
One of C.P.O.’s employees, a puckish, fast-talking 32-year-old named Tycho
Dan, offered to use his background in retail and activism to set up and
manage the New York market and wholesale division. Now Cayuga Pure Organics
sells its products at seven markets in New York, where it shares warehouse
space with other vendors

Rest of article at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/17/magazine/17food-t-000.html?emc=tnt&tntemail1=y

--
The Finger Lakes Permaculture Institute
offers workshops, apprenticeships, and
permaculture design certificate classes.
http://www.fingerlakespermaculture.org
--

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/17/magazine/17food-t-000.html?emc=tnt&tntemail1=y

In New York City, the push to eat locally can go only so far, allowing diners the occasional gotcha moment at restaurants that promote their sourcing. When I tasted the smooth, rich polenta at Roberta’s, a restaurant in Brooklyn that grows vegetables out back, I was sure I’d caught them. “Anson Mills, right?” I asked the chef, Carlo Mirarchi, name-checking the South Carolina gristmill of choice. He’d got me: “Cayuga Pure Organics, upstate.” O.K. . . . Did the staff forager at Print, an upscale locavore restaurant, find the nutty freekeh (roasted green wheat berries, a Middle Eastern specialty) that anchors its vegetable plate at Kalustyan’s, across town? Cayuga Pure Organics again. The heirloom beans at Gramercy Tavern? Exactly.

Legumes and grains have come into play in New York in the last year, altering the lives of a small collective of farmers outside Ithaca along with it. Farro and polenta are no longer just Italian imports. Flour ground from organic buckwheat, rye or winter wheat can be found beyond the health-food store. Black, navy, pinto and heirloom beans like Jacob’s Cattle are sold at New York City green markets and snazzy grocers. Now that the missing links on the plate have been filled in by Cayuga Pure Organics, New York locavores can have their polenta cake and eat it too.

Beans are grown on a large scale in western New York, but they get shipped off to distributors. And while Buffalo was once one of the largest grain-milling centers in the country, hard wheat moved to North Dakota as industrial flour mills sought uniformity and more beneficial weather. So when the movement to keep ingredients close to home swept the country, the farmers’ markets drove the supply, even if it meant willing it into being.

In 2003, Erick Smith and Dan Lathwell — men nearing 60 who’d farmed intermittently when not working at Cornell or teaching elsewhere — thought they’d hit upon a smart niche when they created Cayuga Pure Organics to grow pesticide-free feed for the region’s newly organic dairy farms. Two years later, the Ithaca food co-op and a natural-food distributor asked if they’d grow organic beans on their land in the town of Caroline. They were also connected with a local taqueria, and soon the two were struggling to keep up with the restaurant’s weekly order for 500 pounds of black and pinto beans. Then, in the fall of 2008, the farm inspector for New York’s Greenmarket tracked them down in her quest to find a grower to satisfy the demand for local beans and grains.

“We hemmed and hawed, thinking that going to New York City is a whole step up in the organizational process,” said Smith, an articulate man for whom overalls and a graying beard are a natural fit after years of teaching math education. It also required getting up to speed in marketing, which for farmers means both self-promotion and literally selling at markets.

“When I was a student in agriculture economics,” Smith told me, “many said that if farmers would spend less time on the field and more time marketing, they would make more money for themselves than they would out in the field. Most farmers tend to fall in that category, including Dan and me.” But they had a secret weapon: 25-year-olds.

Two years ago, they hired Adrian Smith, then 23, to run the beanery. Soon her girlfriend, Anne Riordan, was hanging around and lending a hand. Now Smith is more involved on the business side, and Riordan has taken charge of the beanery, a restored barn where the harvest from the farm’s 600 various acres is taken for cleaning, sorting and bagging, using mostly old equipment that Smith has bought from farms that scaled up years ago.

One of C.P.O.’s employees, a puckish, fast-talking 32-year-old named Tycho Dan, offered to use his background in retail and activism to set up and manage the New York market and wholesale division. Now Cayuga Pure Organics sells its products at seven markets in New York, where it shares warehouse space with other vendors

Rest of article at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/17/magazine/17food-t-000.html?emc=tnt&tntemail1=y

-- 
----------------------------------------------------
Gay Nicholson, Ph.D.
President
Sustainable Tompkins
109 S. Albany St.
Ithaca, NY 14850

www.sustainabletompkins.org


607-533-7312 (home office)
607-220-8991 (cell)
607-216-1552 (ST office)
607-216-1553 (ST fax)

gay AT sustainabletompkins.org