Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Norma Sutton" <sweetspringfarm@gmail.com>]

Eat Locally « B Bar Blog

B Bar Blog

Ranch reports • Neighborhood news • Items of interest

August 23, 2007

Eat Locally

Posted by BBAR under Uncategorized
 

 

In general, eating local means seeking out food raised as nearby as possible. Ideally, local food means the buyer can meet the farmer, rancher or food maker and find out details about how the food was raised. The push for local agriculture has existed since at least the 1970s. Poet Wendell Berry championed organic farming and community ties. Italian Carlo Petrini founded the Slow Food Movement — which espouses a philosophy of rejecting fast food and respecting local sources — after organizing a 1986 protest against a planned McDonald's in Rome. More recently, the eating local movement has grown about as fast as an unwatched zucchini. Whether scared by stories of contaminated spinach, abhorred at the environmental toll of shipping a head of lettuce halfway across the country or simply seeking a stronger connection to where their food comes from, consumers are increasingly seeking out local sources for produce, dairy products, meat, poultry and more. Sales of locally grown foods jumped to $5 billion in this past year from $4 billion in 2002, according to Package Facts, the market research publisher. The number of farmers markets has grown dramatically too – federal officials counted 4,385 markets in 2006, up from 1,755 in 1994.

Here in our area, the Corporation for the Northern Rockies has taken the lead in promoting the concept of eating locally. They sponsor the Livingston Farmers Market, and host an annual Harvest Celebration dinner that matches regionally renowned chefs with food grown on Montana's sustainably managed farms and ranches. Additionally (in conjunction with the Community Food Co-op and the Gallatin Valley Independent Business Alliance) they created the Montana Farm to Restaurant Campaign, which publicizes the story behind the people, products and services involving local food in the region. We are proud to take part in this year's campaign.

This growing season, we have provided organic garden produce to the 2nd Street Bistro, Capers Café & Catering, Mountain Sky Guest Ranch, the Nova Café, Pine Creek Café and Zac's Montana Kitchen, as well as to the Montana Yellowstone Expeditions summer camp and to customers at the Livingston Farmers Market. Our White Park Beef is on the menu at Norris Hot Springs, and available at the Community Food Co-op in Bozeman, the Real Food Market & Deli in Helena and the Third Street Market in Whitefish. We also purchase numerous local products for ranch visitors, including eggs from a small family ranch in the Paradise Valley, Amaltheia Dairy goat cheese, Miller Pork products, coffee from Montana Coffee Traders and tea from Montana Tea & Spice Trading Co., Flathead Lake whitefish from Mountain Lake Fisheries and breadstuffs from Wheat Montana.

Think globally, EAT locally.