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A tool producers and distributors can use to inform the markets and scale of production they should pursue based on their stage of development.

Thank you Ellen Kahler from Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund for explaining this concept to me on my independent project 5th day!

Triangle of Development_Batson

Through our 5th days and in my work at the Agency of Agriculture, I can’t help but think of what would happen if non-profits and philanthropic organizations didn’t exist. Our food system would be much messier than it already is.

While taking time to appreciate the role these organizations play, I also can’t help but think what could happen if the philanthropic money runs out–do we go back to a screwy food system motivated solely by profit margins?

I propose that we generate ideas as to how non-profits can be composed of two arms, one that makes a profit and the other that does good.

In the long-run, these organizations need to become financial stable once food systems, food access and Farm-to-[blank] programs lose their “sexiness”. Following something like the Shelburne Farms model, non-profits should look to diversify their business to include for-profit businesses that maybe cater to the wealthier tourists and second-home owners that come to Vermont. I personally wish that we wouldn’t have to tie tourism to agriculture, but let’s face it–tourists come to Vermont because of the agrarian landscape.

That being said, farmers never receive any tourist dollars unless a tourist visits the farm or eats in a Farm-to-Table restaurant. The service industry (hotels, retailers and restaurants) reap all the benefits Vermont’s farmers work so hard to produce (not to mention that these industries don’t recognize the business farms bring them and still demand lower food prices). So why tie the service industry to our farms, our food education programs, etc. Instead of making producer co-ops, let’s make real community supported agriculture with producer-consumer relationships that are truly mutually beneficial.

We could tie together a couple of restaurants, a couple of hotels, a few schools, maybe a bakery and a few farms. All would initially invest in the farm at the beginning of the year and have access  to the food it produces. If the farm produces more than it had planned for its co-op partners and markets, the additional food could be distributed in-kind or sold to create a dividend, where the farm acts like a company with a number of investors. This way food production would have decreased up-front costs, risk management and the assurance of a few, key, guaranteed markets. Such a system would allow the profits restaurants and hotels make on tourists to be invested in the farmers that bring them their customers and sustain the system.

For my Independent Fifth Day, I wanted to experience the rural side of Kentucky. FoodWorks Louisville looks closely at the urban food system, while the Middlebury group is getting a well-rounded understanding of the rural food systems in Vermont. However, you cannot understand the urban food system in Louisville without looking at where that food is coming from in the countryside.

I visited Barbour Farms in Hart County, Kentucky. The farm is owned by fourth generation African American farmers, with three generations of the Barbour family currently living on the land. During my day with them, I wanted to learn about the past, present, and future of the farm while also exploring how the family envisions their role in improving access to fresh, local food in Louisville for people of all socio-economic statuses.

Barbour Farms is located on approximately 150 acres of land, where they raise beef cattle, dairy cows, pork, poultry, vegetables, tobacco, and soilage for feed, along with several fruit and nut trees. Their meat is processed by Fairplay Meat Processing and another processor in Bardstown, KY. Their dairy is Grade A dairy sold through Dairy Farmers of America. Andre Barbour is now in charge of the vegetables on the farm. Their current markets for the food from the farm are mainly their CSA program and a permanent farmers market in Nashville, Tennessee. They are starting to break into Louisville markets by selling to the organization New Roots for their Fresh Stops, which provide fresh food to people in low-income areas.

I asked Andre how the farm has changed in the past several years. His answer was “So much.” When his father was managing the land, the farm was mainly for tobacco. When Andre returned from college and work, he convinced the family to diversify the land more since tobacco is no longer very profitable. Now, one acre of vegetables can be five to six times more profitable than one acre of tobacco. There are still eight acres of tobacco that the father is in charge of, but most of the remaining land is managed by the children. They are in the process of modernizing their techniques and experimenting with a wide range of activities to see what will support their farm the best.

One interesting aspect of Barbour Farms was the partnership between themselves and four other farmers all within an hour of each other. They provide for their CSA boxes together, so some farmers can provide meat and dairy, while others provide the vegetables, and a third provides honey and cheese, for example. A great quote from one of the partners, TJ, was “You can’t run a CSA by being a single farmer…Community supported agriculture?! But you’re only one farm!” They were striving to form a community of providers alongside their community of consumers.

We had a conversation about how they envisioned changing the food system in Louisville so that there is more equitable access to the food coming from farmers like them in rural areas. They talked a lot about providing food in bulk to NGOs in Louisville. If organizations are buying large quantities at one time, both the farmer and buyer can benefit. The farmer will be guaranteed a large sale, while the buyer receives a lower price. They were critical of farmers at farmers markets who are trying to make the maximum profit off of each individual fruit or vegetable. They also see a need for increased food literacy, which would take the form of community gatherings that would bring together chefs and farmers. The farmers would provide the fresh food, while the chefs would be cooking dishes with the products beside the farmers. It sounded just like what New Roots is doing, but a bigger scale is needed to reach everyone in the food deserts of Louisville.

Andre and TJ were asking me where I see myself in ten years. I flipped the question onto them to ask where they saw themselves in ten years and who they wanted to be selling to at that time. TJ immediately responded with “Walmart!” We chuckled, but then he told us he was serious about that answer. He believes Walmart is going to lead the industrial food system into fresh fruits and vegetables and be the main way that people are going to have access to fresh food. Andre responded with “Doing what we are doing with supplying to New Roots.” I asked what was attractive to him about New Roots, and he said that he enjoyed the feeling when he delivered food to the Fresh Stops and meeting the community members who were excited and interested to see their food and see who was producing it.

It was refreshing to meet the farmers who have been growing the food that I have been eating from the Fresh Stop shares this summer. Also, I enjoyed seeing a family-owned farm that was rooted in place and space, but also striving to modernize and provide affordable fresh food to their fellow Kentuckians in urban areas like Louisville.

My independent fifth day in Louisville most closely relates to ecology, but also ties in topics of sustainability and food safety. The health, natural and otherwise, of Foxhollow Farm (where I am employed this summer) depends primarily on soil quality and vitality. When this biodynamic farm was established in 2006, a large effort was successfully made–over time of course–to restore life to the soil, increasing quantities of microorganisms and nutrients that had been depleted during prior decades. Ann Curtis helped me to get in touch with someone working to improve soil quality in a different context.

John Cullen, CEO of Lock Up Lead, works to commercialize soil remediation technology for lead-contaminated soils. He explained to me that lead exposure usually goes unnoticed, but has dire social, economic, and health consequences. Human activities and previous land usage contaminate soils as well as groundwater. While plant uptake of lead is minimal (a surprising fact for me), the real danger is in direct contact with soil, such as gardening without gloves or tracking soil into your home. Through extensive research, child lead exposure (which interferes with brain development) has been identified as a cause of attention disorders, learning disabilities, and increased violence. A more fundamental problem might be that while a regulatory level of lead in soil, measured in parts-per-million, is required under federal law, most people understand this limit as “safe.” John explained that a “safe” level of lead would approach zero.

As for solutions to lead contamination in soils, Lock Up Lead’s goal is to make their liquid spray technology (which converts lead particles on a molecular level to a form that the human body is unable to absorb) a cheap and preventative product. They convince people that prevention is a worthy investment by making lead contamination a relevant problem. By using data evidence, the company connects the dots for policy makers and leaders, demonstrating the costs of dangerous lead. Lock Up Lead inspires people to act.

Lead contamination may be an afterthought for an excited Louisvillian who started a community garden with the primary goal of growing and providing produce for a neighborhood through a collective project. But after talking to John, I believe that lead presents a real danger and should be taken seriously. Lock Up Lead has the potential to bolster Louisville’s local food economy through prevention, remediation, and awareness. It presents a huge opportunity that ought to be better utilized.

For my final presentation, I will talk about food hubs and distinguish between the different models of food hubs in Vermont. For a brief introduction, I added the images below.

A basic infographic on how food hubs connect producers and consumers

A map from the USDA of food hubs around the country

Independent Fifth Day

Click on the link to see pictures and to read about my independent fifth day. My exploration addressed the theme of nutrition and education. Enjoy!

Jen

I most definitely see myself teaching in the future, at least in the short term. In about 2 weeks I start a job as a part-time instructor at a mobile kids’ cooking school in Denver, CO (while taking classes for grad school). This will involve supervising classes of students and campers of all ages throughout the city. I worked at a kids’ cooking school last summer, in NYC, but I expect this one to be quite different–we’re bringing the lessons directly to the classroom rather than requiring that kids’ parents transport them to a single location. The latter type of set-up is exclusive, I realized, since it limits classes to children of wealthy parents and those attending schools with the funds for transportation costs, mostly private schools.

Even last summer teaching classes with a lack of diversity in terms of social class (all campers were kids of wealthy Manhattanites for whom signing up their kids for summer camp is a competition, since there’s so many people vying for a limited amount of spots) there was much diversity in other respects. Kids were from all different ethnic backgrounds which undoubtedly shaped their food preferences. And of course they varied in energy levels and temperament–some kids were silent while others were hyperactive. It was tough striking that balance between strict discipline and supporting an upbeat classroom environment. I taught a class where there was one girl who did not even speak English; she was from France and her mom put her in the camp thinking that cooking was “all visual” and she’d follow along easily. Fortunately I knew some french, or else she would have been completely lost during the break activities like pictionary and “chef says.” And I taught kids of various levels of pickiness, which posed a challenge. Some outright claimed to hate food altogether (except for sushi–for some reason all NYC kids LOVED sushi) and one 12-year-old even asked for permission to wash dishes rather than participate in cooking activities. Then there was the kid who loved everything, sneaking a taste of every single ingredient behind my back (flour, lemon juice, baking powder, you name it). Above all, the job required flexibility and adaptation. I had to be able to think on my feet and improvise ways to engage problem children on the spot. There was only so much you could plan ahead–catering to food allergies, preferences outlined by parents via email–the rest had to be dealt with as the camps progressed. I imagine if schoolteachers themselves taught children nutrition and culinary education and integrated the subject into their curriculum, they would have the benefit of knowing the kids much better (in my case last summer kids were only in camp for a week at a time, and with my new job I’ll teach one class at a time so it will require even more spontaneity since I really won’t know the kids beforehand).

How can you cater to this multitude of differences among kids to get them engaged when you only have a day to get to know the kids? It’s widely believed that digital technology has had a negative effect on classroom learning by decreasing attention spans, but I’m convinced it can also be invoked in a classroom setting to facilitate conveying certain concepts to students with different learning styles and backgrounds. I know this might seem hypocritical to use modern technology if you’re trying to incorporate a food curriculum that gets students to “slow down” and live more intentionally with awareness of food sources, but multimedia tools and hands-on activities and demos can help visual learners and students who need to experience things to learn. Google earth can be used to show kids where a certain dish originated (and get students interested in geography), youtube videos demonstrate concepts to students less proficient in english or who simply prefer observing to listening. So why do we so often resort to traditional methods of teaching—lecture and seminar—when there are so many more engaging alternatives? I think food education is the perfect opportunity to experiment with these different approaches to teaching and learning.