Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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

   "With good jobs hard to come by and rural communities struggling, 
capitalizing on the love of local food seems like a natural fit "

Farming for jobs
US (WI): Can local food movement prove a broader economic engine?
http://www.freshplaza.com/news_detail.asp?id=89814

Marathon County entrepreneur Tony Schultz is bubbling over with thoughts on 
growing Wisconsin's economy. "Honestly, I've got about got 10 micro-food 
enterprise ideas in my mind right now," says Schultz, a third-generation 
farmer who, with partner Kat Becker, runs Stoney Acres Farm near Athens, 
about 30 miles northwest of Wausau. Schultz and Becker grow a variety of 
vegetables and fruits, along with raising pasture-fed beef and pork. They 
also run a successful community-supported agriculture business, or CSA, where 
customers pay in advance for boxes of fresh produce during the growing 
season. Their latest brainstorm involves making wood-fired pizzas featuring 
garden produce. They're remodeling an old barn into a commercial kitchen to 
test out different combinations, with plans to rent space to other farmers.

"The way I see it, every little business we can create is something Dean 
Foods or Kraft or Monsanto doesn't have," says Schultz, 32, who fired up the 
crowd with a local food speech at a progressive political rally, Fighting Bob 
Fest North, in May. From Fifth Season Cooperative in Westby to Will Allen's 
Growing Power urban agriculture initiative in Milwaukee, there is 
unprecedented interest these days in local food. It's hard to find a 
community without a regular farmers' market. Dozens of restaurants boast of 
their commitment to using local ingredients. Businesses like Chicago-based 
City Provisions offer farm tours and dinners to committed "locavores," which 
was named the best new word of the year in 2007 by the Oxford American 
Dictionary. With good jobs hard to come by and rural communities struggling, 
capitalizing on the love of local food seems like a natural fit — especially 
in a state like Wisconsin with deep agricultural roots, varied topography and 
plenty of water. Local food devotees envision the state as part of a regional 
"food shed" running from Minneapolis to Chicago. Some 35 million people live 
in the area, offering the ideal combination of urban and rural landscapes to 
support local food production and "value-added" products that come from it: 
turning strawberries into jam, for example, or making milk into cheese or 
converting grains into liquor.

There's no need to convince Dane County economic development specialist 
Olivia Parry of the growth potential. Parry is heading efforts here to 
develop the Southern Wisconsin Fresh Mart Packinghouse, a large-scale 
processing facility for local food items. Plans call for a 15,000-square-foot 
refrigerated operation where produce can be delivered, sorted, washed and 
prepared for distribution on a wider scale to large institutional buyers or 
retailers. Dane County is currently seeking proposals for the facility, which 
would be located somewhere in the Madison area and could eventually provide 
30 or more jobs. Parry notes that some $1 billion is spent on food each year 
in Dane County alone. "If we can capture just 10 percent, you're talking $100 
million," says Parry. "That's a lot of ka-ching."