Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>]

Posted on Mon, May. 26, 2008
Small farmers profit from buy-local interest
BY SUSAN SALISBURY
http://www.miamiherald.com/business/story/546093.html

Rising food prices along with concerns over food safety and the environment 
are fueling growth in old-fashioned, local agriculture, and South Florida's 
small farmers are profiting.


James White has a farm where he raises chickens, ducks and geese. He sells 
the birds and the eggs to people who want to avoid foods from factory farms.

It's something he has done every day for 60 years.

''This is like giving ice cream to kids,'' White says, throwing handfuls of 
corn feed to several dozen honking, hissing geese crowding around him on a 
recent morning.

Because White, 80, runs White Enterprises, a farm off Old Dixie Highway in 
the middle of a residential neighborhood in Lake Park, the casual observer 
might think he's a quaint holdover from a time long past.

But looked at another way, he actually is the face of the future.

Long before the ''buy local'' movement started becoming trendy, White was 
raising local food. And these days, he can't keep up with demand.

''People buy everything I've got,'' he said.

In the past year, the clamor for the eggs from his free-ranging chickens, 
ducks and geese -- and for the birds themselves -- has reached deafening 
proportions.

Goose eggs fetch $2.50 apiece, and brown chicken eggs are $2 a dozen. Live 
birds can be had for $10.

ENDLESS DEMAND

''I can't raise enough of them,'' said White, who also donates dozens of eggs 
to a local church each week.

``People know they are good eggs. They taste so much better.''

Nationwide, swiftly rising prices for food at the supermarket coupled with 
worries about food safety and the environment are contributing to the growth 
of the buy-local movement, local advocates say.

More people want to eat fresh, seasonal foods as part of a healthy diet and 
to support small-scale growers, said T.A. Wyner, who operates green markets 
in Palm Beach County and heads a local Slow Food chapter.

The number of Local Harvest members in Florida, which includes farmers 
markets, family farms and other sources of local foods, has jumped to 250 
this year from 68 in 2004, said Guillermo Payet, founder and president of 
Local Harvest, which is based in Santa Cruz, Calif.

More than 14 are in Miami-Dade and Broward counties, according to the 
organization's searchable online database.

U.S. membership is more than 13,740, almost triple the 5,412 members in 2004.

RIPE MOMENT

''I've been saying for years that the buy-local movement will really take off 
when the price of agribusiness-produced and long-distance-transported foods 
goes up substantially due to high energy prices,'' Payet said. ``That's 
starting to happen.''

Oil prices are in the $125-a-barrel range, having doubled in the past 12 
months.

''At what point does it get the upper hand? At $150 per barrel of oil?'' 
Payet said. ``Who knows? But I think we're close.''

FEWER CHOICES

Despite an enormous demand for locally-grown, organic produce in South 
Florida, buyers in Miami-Dade and Broward counties don't have as many options 
as people in other regions, said Cliff Middleton, owner of Three Sisters Farm 
in South Miami-Dade.

''There are not a lot of little local farms because land costs $100,000 bucks 
an acre,'' Middleton said, adding he gets calls and e-mails almost daily from 
folks wanting to buy produce. On five acres, Middleton grows 260 fruit trees, 
interspersed with crops of callaloo, cassava and other crops that appeal to 
niche, ethic markets.

Three Sisters is member of a Redland-based group of some six farms that sells 
subscriptions of organic, mostly-local produce delivered weekly to about 350 
South Florida families.

Old-timers such as White, whose family moved from Belle Glade to West Palm 
Beach in 1924 and raised vegetables near what is now known as Prosperity 
Farms Road, say food produced and sold locally was once the norm.

In the days before agriculture became larger and more industrialized, just 
about everybody had a small farm or backyard garden, or had a neighbor who 
did, he said.

URBAN INTEREST

Now, what's actually nothing new is being reinvented, with more people 
interested in producing food, even in urbanized areas such as South Florida.

Take the Shirley family of Jupiter Farms. The Shirley children's business, 
Veggie Kids Farm, began three years ago as a way for the four children, now 
ages 4 to 12, to learn about gardening.

They gave the overflow of green beans, lettuce, radishes and squash to 
neighbors, and some of those people paid for the produce. Now the Shirley 
children sell their vegetables to the community as well, such as in green 
markets.

Veggie Kids Farm's vegetables range from 99 cents to $1.99 a pound. Iceberg 
lettuce is $1 a head, and other lettuces are $2 a head. Eggs produced by 
free-range chickens are $3 a dozen. Cantaloupes recently sold for $1 each.

HEALTHY RETURNS

''Growers who are wise are going to make good money. Our operation is an 
example,'' said Steve Shirley, 48, the children's father. ``Many of the 
products the kids sell are a bargain.''

Much of the more than $239 billion in crops and livestock the U.S. Department 
of Agriculture says the nation's farms produce each year is trucked great 
distances so that consumers can have what they want around the clock, any day 
of the year.

Most U.S. produce is picked four to seven days before being placed on 
supermarket shelves and is shipped an average of 1,500 miles, Local Harvest 
says.

The industrialized farming model is adding to the cost of food and 
contributing to air and water pollution, said Tony Corbo, legislative 
representative for Food & Water Watch, a Washington-based advocacy group.

''With local foods, you are reducing transportation costs considerably,'' 
Corbo said. ``Setting up local supply chains may be the wave of the future.''

Food prices are up 5.3 percent in the last three months, according to the 
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, and staples such as milk are up 13 percent 
in the past year, partly because of record fuel costs.

The renewed emphasis on local food and the economic crisis have brought one 
farm family back into the business.

Mary Semple and her husband, Ruben Arias, raised herbs in Loxahatchee in the 
early 1990s for about five years.

Now, they're taking another stab at it. In September, they founded a farm 
called The Sweet Habanero.

BETTER USE OF LAND

Arias, a Realtor, figured that with the downturn in Florida's real estate 
market, farming again made sense.

They're growing specialty herbs, such as several types of basil, on 1 ¼ acres 
in The Acreage.

They deliver directly to wholesalers and restaurants, produce flavored 
vinegars and plan to fashion some salsas.

Semple sees a definite increase in interest since the earlier venture.

''I think the buy-local movement is bigger now,'' she said.

In recent months, after she posted on the Local Harvest website, her business 
has been inundated with e-mails, she added.

Other producers in the food chain have noticed, too.

Veteran chef George Mastroni founded Boca Organics in Boca Raton three years 
ago.

He buys produce, milk and other products from farms such as Seabreeze 
Organics in Fort Pierce, Glazer Organic Farms in Miami and Farm Fresh Direct 
in Tampa, all of which have delivery routes to businesses.

It's a ''big movement,'' Mastroni said, and one that appears to be growing.

''Consumers are worried about our Earth,'' Mastroni said. ``They are starting 
to get more green every day.''

Miami Herald business writer Monica Hatcher contributed to this report.