Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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

A gastronomic renaissance
Farmers markets and local agriculture: age-old systems for the future
Posted by Jim Goodman  25 Jul 2008
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/7/22/203317/520

We often think that farmers markets are products of our times as they spring 
up in cities and small towns across the country. Truth is, a farmers market 
is the traditional way of selling agricultural produce around the world.

The really nice aspect of this transaction is that the farmer receives just 
compensation for his product and the eater can be assured the product is 
fresh, local, and grown in a manner that is acceptable to all. If these 
criteria are not met, the consumer can look for another farmer whose products 
better suit his or her needs.

After the industrialization of agriculture, farmers still sold at farmers 
markets, but it was just a matter of time before supermarkets were developed 
and farmers started selling to large companies that moved food all over the 
world; many Americans stopped planting gardens because it was so much easier 
to get "everything" at the store.

We certainly have gained something through the globalized food system: more 
variety, foods we cannot grow in cold climates, and, of course, cheap food 
that is mass-produced by underpaid farmers and farm workers. Some good news, 
some bad. I certainly like coffee and chocolate, but I want to know the 
growers and workers were paid fair wages and that the crops were grown in an 
environmentally-responsible manner. I would like to be sure all the food I 
need to buy meets those same standards, whether imported or locally grown.

So, we come back to farmers markets -- local, fair, green, and affordable. I 
am, as you can tell, a big fan of farmers markets and it's not just because 
we are vendors at the farmers market in Madison, Wisconsin. I, too, can get 
vegetables that don't grow well in our garden, as well as pork, eggs, fruit, 
chicken, and lamb. I know all the growers personally, where they live, their 
children, and we get to enjoy each others' company every Saturday morning. 
True, getting up at 3:30 a.m. to get to the market isn't always so much fun, 
nor are those occasional cold or rainy Saturdays when few customers show up.

Understandably, not everyone feels the same about farmers markets. One of our 
customers, who we see very infrequently, showed up with his wife the other 
day and said going to the market involved three of his least favorite things: 
getting up early, shopping, and crowds. Well, to each his own.

While the supermarket may eliminate getting up early, it still involves 
shopping and crowds and has little to offer in the way of fresh, local, or 
fair food. Affordable, yes, but we know the affordability of mainstream food 
relies on low-wage farmers, and industrial farming practices that in turn 
rely on heavy use of chemicals, large-scale animal production, and hidden 
costs to the environment.

We also know that the nutritional content of that supermarket food has been 
in steady decline for decades. We know most of our winter vegetables are 
imported and possibly grown in a manner that is not healthy, fair, or green. 
Even the USDA, which touts our food as the safest in the world, (despite 
dramatically increasing numbers of food poisoning incidents) is critical of 
the declining nutritional content.

According to the USDA, Americans are increasingly deficient in calcium, 
potassium, magnesium, and vitamins A, C, D, and E. This lack of vitamins and 
minerals in our diet is indicative of depleted soils world wide, caused by 
industrial farming practices. A comparison of today's soil mineral content 
across the world with that of 100 years ago shows an average decline in 
mineral levels of roughly 80 percent. No wonder supermarket food is lacking 
in nutrition!

Another statistic from the USDA's Economic Research Service indicates that if 
all Americans were to eat in accordance with the dietary guidelines establish 
by USDA, we would need an additional 14.1 million acres for fruit and 
vegetable production and would be short 111 billion lbs. of milk per year. 
Granted, Americans will never eat according to the USDA guidelines, which are 
probably too heavy on milk and meat and way too short on vegetable 
consumption. Still, even the USDA concedes we are a food deficit nation; 
globalization is apparently not working, for we depend on the rest of the 
world to feed us while many of those countries are starving.

While the practices of the industrial "Green Revolution" did increase food 
production, it appears it did little for food quality. Industrial production 
of the cheap food that fills our supermarkets is slowly starving us. It all 
adds up: food safety scares, declining food quality, the world food crisis -- 
all these abysmal failures of food production and marketing will eventually 
bring food production back to the local level. Local producers quickly learn 
that caring for the soil and making it healthy again produces healthy, 
nutrient-dense food for both people and animals.

Could we be entering a renaissance in food production and eating? Many think 
we are, for many small reasons that together add up to the overwhelming 
conclusion that we can no longer ship our food 1,500 miles or more from farm 
to table; industrial farming has crested the hill and is on the downhill 
slide.

Oil will never be cheap again and climate change has made world food 
production very uncertain. Developing countries can produce more food that is 
more appropriate to their cultures if they are allowed to use traditional 
production practices as opposed to industrial farming practices. Local 
producers worldwide know that hands-on farming affords a better way to care 
for the soil and produce healthy food.

Woody Allen's 1973 movie Sleeper speculated on what the future of food might 
look like: from giant chickens to hose-fed, genetically engineered bananas 
the size of cruise missiles. I know, it's just a movie, but Monsanto may be 
working on it. Forget the movies. The future of food is local.

When one farms locally, or supports local agriculture, he or she may, at 
first, miss the convenience of the old cheap, globalized food system. Change 
for the better is seldom easy, but always worth it. There will still be 
getting up early, shopping, and crowds, but in the end, I think, local 
farmers and eaters have more fun and live better for it.