The Accidental Agrarian

Posted By Podchef on July 23, 2010

Meet Maple, Claddagh Farm’s latest addition. Maple is a newly born Guernsey, dairy bull calf. His mother, Hazel, has been with us since just after we moved to the farm in late March. Of course, we had been hoping for a nice heifer calf, to help us keep our decisions simple….you see, we would have kept a heifer, for sure. But I’ll get to that in a minute………

By all accounts Hazel was overdue when she had Maple. In fact, I was beginning to panic a bit, because her udder was horribly distended. I began to worry, so a few days before she actually had her calf, I began to milk Hazel to relieve some of the pressure on her udder. This was not an option I took lightly, as the first milk which a cow produces is the all important colostrum–an essential food which a calf needs to have within hours of being born, in order to gain immunity to diseases and share it’s mother’s antibodies. Nevertheless, I began to milk Hazel, and freeze her colostrum for later use. It was also my hope that the process of milking might stimulate Hazel to go into labor. It worked.

A few days after I began milking, Hazel had her calf out on pasture mid-morning. The girl’s found Maple on a regular check of what Hazel was up to and reported back to me, duly excited…. By the time I arrived, Hazel had cleaned up her boy and he was already on his feet trying to nurse–unsuccessfully. He was coated in flies, so I carried him down to the barn to get out of the scorching sun. Hazel seem to be so relieved to be unburdened, she began to graze heartily and had to be coaxed down to the barn with grain and a lead rope.

Despite milkings and frequent udder massages, Hazel’s udder was still swollen. I decided to call in a vet. Unfortunately none were prepared to come to the farm. However, on speaking to one retired large-animal vet, he happened to mention making up some dandelion tea to give Hazel as a diuretic to help relieve her Edema. Sounded good to me. The girl’s and I picked bunches of dandelion greens and steeped them in hot water until we had a rich tea. I meanwhile milked Hazel out and fed her calf some colostrum from a bottle.

Normally one must drench a cow–that is, force liquid into her with a bottle and tube–to make sure she gets the medicine she needs. I, however, decided to allow Hazel to choose the amount of dandelion tea she wanted and put it in a bucket instead. We also began feeding her comfrey & dandelion greens as well–both are diuretics, and comfrey greens have the added benefit of being high in calcium, which should help stave off Milk Fever.

Now, several days later, Hazel’s udder is largely back to normal. Maple will continue to drink from his mother for a few more days. And Hazel is starting to conform, once again, to the routine of twice daily milkings….Her edema, the calf nursing and her post-partum condition aren’t creating ideal milk flow, but were still getting a few gallons per day–most of which is going to the pigs right now until the colostrum is cleared away, and any blood from the trauma of the edema dissipates.

And what of Maple’s future? Maple was unfortunate to be born a dariy bull-calf. There isn’t much use for dairy bulls, and what’s more is they can be dangerous and unruly. If Maple was born on most farms, around the world, he would already be dead. It’s too costly and time-consuming for commercial dairies to raise bull-calves. They are put down immediately. Some farms sell their calves off to large veal concerns, where they spend thier lives chained to a shelter and are fed a mixture of artificial milk replacer and antibiotic. Not so, Maple.

Maple will still be made into veal, here on the farm. The reality is, in addition to being born a bull calf, he is also a diary bull–they just don’t gain like beef cattle. He would need to be raised to 2 years old before having enough meat on him to justify the cost of raising him and processing. That would mean I would need to carry him over two winters. Winter feed is expensive. I would never break-even on the deal–even if we were keeping his meat for ourselves.

No, I feel, the best option this year for a calf, like Maple, is to raise him with love & care and enjoy humanely raised, organically produced veal ourselves. He can be raised on his mother’s milk, and when he’s old enough, have all the skimmed milk he wants. He can graze outside in the sun during the summer–and be free to roam the barn in the fall. His meat won’t be the pale, milky white of what many consider the best veal–little do they stop to consider the horrid condition such calves are raised in. Maple’s meat will be full of flavor, texture and have a Rosé hue to it–hence the British term Rosé Veal. I am fine with that. I know I will give Maple the best, albeit short, life he can possibly have. He won’t need any unnecesary medications or growth promoters. He will be raise naturally on Organic principles and spend his life and death here on the farm where he was born. He will also be honored during many dinners eaten here on the farm. To many, this may sound horrid, cruel or unkind. I don’t know how anyone can possibly see it as that. I offer Maple the same love and respect I do all my livestock–both in life and death. He will be butchered with as little waste as possible.

Am I cold? Am I unfeeling? No. I am a realist who, in these uncertain times, is prepared to do what is best for my livestock, my family, and the cause of good dining.

Technorati Tags: veal, dairy, cows, calf, Hazel, Maple, farming, agriculture, food, cooking, meat

Category: Commentary, Dairy | 2 Comments »
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Posted By Podchef on January 7, 2010

Well…perhaps not start, after all I didn’t breed ducks to lay the eggs which were hatched to get these ducklings, but you get the drift.

On the morning of a mad September day I hatched out a scheme to raise a flock of ducks with the express purpose of getting some fellow cooks together to learn how to slaughter, butcher & cook said ducks, to make the traditional French winter dish, Cassoulet. Hence was born Duckfest 2010.

What makes this idea even more madcap is that I pulled in my longtime internet friend, Kate Hill, who I had only ever met once–briefly–in a crowded room. Doubly amazing is that she agreed to the plan which brought her from Gascony, by way of Boston, for this New Year’s Day adventure.

And so I launched into an investigation of raising ducks to a standard rarely seen in the US. Not only did I choose a breed which is less than common here, but I also chose to raise them in a slow and natural manner. The Rouen duck is a large slow maturing duck, currently on the watch list for possible extinction, with only around 5000 breeding ducks in existence in the US. To me they seemed the perfect duck for such an experiment.

This was a chancy move on my part, with a little under 4 months from the time the ducklings arrived till the time of Duckfest. To be truthful I cut it close. The ducks we harvested could have been much larger. Rouen ducks usually take 6 to 8 months to reach full maturity and their adult weight of up to 10 pounds. Nevertheless, the birds have been the easiest ducks to care for that I have raised.

As we tried to create momentum around Duckfest, I tweeted a Daily Duckling photo on Twitter to keep interest aroused and share with everyone how the ducks were growing. This soon become more a labor of love than I could have ever imagined. Almost everyday as I fed and took care of the ducks I would shoot off some photos with my iPhone, trying to capture their quirky, odd, and addictive behavior. Of course, the real danger in doing this is in bonding too closely with the ducks, and not wishing to “do the deed” when the time came. But, by keeping the object of the exercise in focus I soon began worrying whether they were going to be large enough? Would there be enough fat for making Confit? In fact, even after I had slaughtered five of them I had nightmares that they would be like chickens with little or no fat on them, or have no meat to speak of. After all I was taking them for use at 4 months instead of 6, or 8….

I realize now, I needn’t have worried. I instinctively knew what I was doing, how I was raising them and why. I could have relaxed and trusted my instincts. In order to raise these ducks in as natural away as possible, in the limited amount of space I had to give over to duck rearing, I moved the ducks around between spaces allowing them to graze, in addition to giving them a home-mixed feed of alfalfa, barley, cracked corn, sour milk & the poultry layer crumbles I use. They spent a month cleaning up the slugs and remaining vegetables and herbs in the polytunnel. After that, I moved them back to a smaller pen outside their house for fattening up. By letting them out of the house everyday–we have too many predators: mink, raccoon, otters, and eagles, to leave them out all the time–they could exercise, in a limited space, and have access to water for grooming. They were fed inside the house on a gruel of cracked corn cooked in whey or sour milk. A month of this regimen left their fat and flesh sweet and tender.

And so came the date–January 1st, 2010. Or, actually a few days before when I had to slaughter and prepare 5 of the ducks so they would be ready to Confit for our kick-off New Year’s Day Cassoulet. The chance to work with the ducks a few days before Duckfest gave me an opportunity to brush off my rusty duck processing skills and to work through the best way to present how to work with the ducks we were going to be using immediately. I also had four rabbits to process the same day, and I will unequivocally say that I much prefer dressing out rabbits than duck. However, once a few tricks were remembered the whole thing went quite well. On the Saturday of Duckfest, Kate and I were able to walk all the participants through the experience and process without a hitch. I am really proud of everyone who attended for getting in there and not missing a chance to participate fully, from slitting the ducks throats to plucking and gutting.

While the ducks weren’t full sized, they were still a respectable 4-5 pounds dressed, which is more than I could have hoped for, given the time frame. Unfortunately they were just undergoing a molt from their adolescent plumage to their adult feathers and colorings, so there were a great deal more feathers to pluck…. Still they cleaned up respectably. Especially after we gave them a Brazilian Wax treatment–painting & peeling poultry wax off helps remove the pin feathers and guard hairs which are otherwise almost impossible to remove any other way than singing.

What we were left with was some amazing naturally raised ducks with fantastic flavored meat. The perfect vehicle for learning about simple flavors and traditional French methods of working with duck. Kate Hill guided everyone through the breakdown of the carcasses and the use of the resulting meat with such clarity and ease that I am confident that everyone who attended walked away with the skill and confidence to work with duck in the future.

As for me, I still have 25 ducks to raise for a little while longer for another project. Many people have asked if I would raise ducks again, if I would raise Rouen ducks again and if I would host another Duckfest again? Too all of which I answer a resounding “Oui, avec plaisir!”

Like most things I enter into–farming, pigs, ducks–I stumble onto them almost by accident and discover that with enough hard work and patience I can find them infinitely rewarding in numerous ways. As always, my challenge now is to find ways to do it better and easier, both for myself and the ducks. I will also consider staggering batches of ducks so I am not trying to raise 40 of the same age all at once. I also plan on studying better ways to deliver their water so we both don’t get so wet.

Be sure to check out the fantastic photos shot by the participants of Duckfest here.

Technorati Tags: duckfest 2010, ducks, poultry, waterfowl, livestock, farming, agriculture, meat, food, cooking, podchef, Kate Hill, gascony, confit, cassoulet

Category: Farming | 2 Comments »
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Posted By Podchef on November 2, 2009

Whew! I’m finally feeling like I have a little chance to breath. Last week I slaughtered our annual pig and this weekend I butchered and processed it. Right now I am in a tiny window of rest before the remaining 7 pigs I have been raising are slaughtered here on the farm and taken away by the butcher to be processed to their owners’ desires. On that day I will be dealing with a glut of offal, heads, trotters, lard and anything else my customers don’t appreciate and would otherwise go to waste.

One of the reasons I go to the trouble of slaughtering my own pig, is so I can scald and scrape it on-farm, in the traditional manner. This is easier for me to do where I live and far less stressful for the animals, then hauling them to a mainland slaughterhouse. It is awfully hard work and I was very grateful this year to have the help of my daughter Oona, an intern, Danielle from a neighboring farm, and a Porkshop 09 participant, Greg, to help with the physically demanding scraping. It is a real challenge and learning opportunity for all–including me, each time I do it.

Why do I go to the trouble? Why bother? Because I believe it is valuable to preserve traditions, and I have put so much effort into raising my animals I hate to see waste. Normally, when a butcher skins an animal a high percent of lard is lost with the hide. On my pigs, which have a nice 1 inch layer, this is a crime. By preserving the skin on the pig until it is chilled and the lard firmed up, nothing is lost. I also prefer to leave my hams whole and cured in a brine and smoked in a traditional way and I like to leave the rind on my bacon and pork roasts for crackling–for all of this, the skin is essential.

In addition to all of this, this year I have done one more thing with the rind. Something I would never have considered doing before–I put it in sausages. In order to make the Duckfest 2010 as authentic as possible here on my farm in the Pacific Northwest I am making traditional French sausages out of self-produced ingredients. Cassoulets usually use two sausages in them, in addition to pork rind, and duck confit. Two of the more common sausages are the Saucisse de Toulouse and the Saucisse de Couenne. This second sausage is made up from pork rind, back fat and lean shoulder meat.

And so I found myself on Saturday morning, while preparing a range of sausage fillings, boiling up pork rind in a well seasoned chicken stock to make it more supple before grinding it. After it had chilled, I cut it into large chunks and ran it through my grinder alternately with the back fat and some shoulder meat. What I got was a sticky forcemeat, unlike any other I have dealt with. I then mixed in the other ingredients as suggested by Kate Hill, my accomplice in the Duckfest, via twitter:

@Podchef Saucisse de Couenne: cook the rind in a well-seasoned bouillon for 2 hours. when cool (cold) run through grinder.

@Podchef add lean pork and leaf lard to match weight of rind. season w/parsley, chives, clove, thyme, bay, coarse salt & pepper.

@Podchef place loosely in casings, tie. grill or poach to cook. or use in extra special #cassoulet!

I was a little confused as to the exact ratio, so another exchange a short while later:

RT @KatedeCamont: @Podchef Saucisse de Couenne<–do you know what size these are? Savelloy? banger?

@Podchef fat little boys. shorter than long. they plump and crack apart with gummy goodness. each butcher makes them differently. 4-5 inch.

@KatedeCamont Kate thank 4 Saucisse de Couenne recette..I think I’ve got it figured out. Equal amts of pork, rind & back fat, right?

@Podchef more like half rind and 1/4 fat, 1/4 pork meat. well season since the cooked rind is more about mouthfeel then taste. #pork

Here, then, is the recipe as I concocted it from what I had on hand:

• 960g Pork Rind–cleaned, hair singed off, boiled 2hour in richly seasoned stock
• 400g backfat
• 600g lean meat/shoulder-I cut back on fatback due to fatty nature of the shoulder I was using.
• 8g white pepper
• 30g salt
• 1 bunch fresh Italian parsley
• 1tsp ground clove
• 3 fresh bay leaves
• 1 bunch chives
• 1 tsp fresh thyme leaves
• Slosh of Cognac

After grinding the 3 meats together the first time, I mixed in the remaining ingredients–leaving the herbs fairly chunky–and then reground everything. It was only after the second grinding that I felt things were a bit gummy, so I sloshed in the Cognac to loosen it all up a bit.

I then filled some hog-middles, a slightly larger casing than is used for bangers, and left the filling fairly loose in them to allow the rind some room to expand during cooking–the sausages are pictured above. I tied off the links in approximately 4 inch lengths. I now have them in my outdoor airy meat cupboard for a few days–the weather has turned perfectly cold and damp for this–so the sausages can lose the moisture acquired from soaking the casings and to allow the flavors to mingle. Once they have tightened up a bit I will be trying one.

Here is a “Year in Pigs” slideshow to get you from the winers I bought in February to the above forcemeat:

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

Technorati Tags: duckfest2010, porkshop09, podchef, pigs, pork, meat, butchery, livestock, farming, animals, cooking, food, charcuterie, sausages, French food, cassoulet, Kate Hill

Category: Farming, Livestock | 6 Comments »
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Posted By Podchef on September 23, 2009

I’m not quite sure how this happened. I seem to get myself stuck in the middle of things quite often. Perhaps I am too good natured. Perhaps I am too game for fun & a lark. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. All I know is I find myself raising ducklings this Autumn when not a duck had been on my horizon all year. But don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a bad thing. This is fortune taking a turn into interesting & uncharted waters. This is Social Media–and Twitter–working its magic. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me explain why I have a Rabbitry floor covered in 40 ducklings….

One morning on Twitter, as it so often happens, I was having one of many conversations. This time Kate Hill (@KatedeCamont) & I were discussing Confit, Cassoulet & ducks. When I discovered Kate was coming here from Gascony in the New Year, an idea hatched in my head that we should do one of her confit workshops here. But where to get the duc…hey! Wait a minute! I could raise some here. Before I knew it I was asking Kate all sorts of questions about how the French raise the ducks she uses, and what breed was best and within the hour I had purchased 40 Rouen Ducklings. I flitted back & forth between the calendar and the ordering page to make sure they could be ready in time for a New Year’s Day workshop, aka Duckfest, and I ordered them to arrive as early as possible.

As I readied a place to brood the hatchlings, I naturally tweeted about the venture to build a little excitement about it. Once the ducklings arrived I began photographing them and posting a “Daily Duckling” photo each morning as I walked back from milking and passed by the brooding house. A few people noticed and commented on the ducklings, some noticing that they seemed to have grown. This wasn’t really obvious until this morning when a second batch of ducklings arrived and I could see one week old ducklings next to two day old ducklings. (I ordered two batches of ducks from two different hatcheries so that I could maximize my chances of having unique breeding stock…) After I had posted this morning’s Daily Duckling, two separate people (tweeps in the vernacular) commented that I should keep it up. In answering @GaryGlen I decided that since I was going to keep a few ducks alive after the Duckfest, and selling the extras, his suggestion that people getting attached to the photos wasn’t such a bad thing. Perhaps people could name their favorite duckling/duck? I’ve already thrown out that one might be called Cassoulet and another Margaret–a play on the French term for duck breast: Magret. @PatInOz suggested I name one Kiwi after her nationality.

Here are some daily ducklings for you to view (this will keep updating as the ducks get older…):

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

So, the idea is I’m going to keep up to 4 hens and a drake. Hopefully the best of the flock. These will hopefully become my breeding stock, so that I don’t have to buy day-old ducklings again for a while. Your part in this adventure is to use the power of social media–Twitter especially–to help pick the best names for the ducks. There isn’t a prize for this Herculean effort, just recognition, and perhaps a chance to meet the ducks should you ever drop by the farm. To participate, be sure to follow @duckfest2010 on Twitter, and check out and use the #dailyduckling hash-tag there. You will also be able to keep up to date on the Duckfest’s goings on and catch the adventure of the workshop once Kate & I begin on New Year’s day! For more information about the Duckfest and my other workshops please look here.

Technorati Tags: ducks, ducklings, poultry, waterfowl, rouen duck, livestock, farming, food, meat, confit, cassoulet, french cooking, Kate Hill, twitter, social media

Category: Farming, Livestock | 3 Comments »
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Posted By Podchef on August 19, 2009

As a small-scale, artisanal pork producer I work hard to raise a quality product for my customers. From start to finish it takes almost a year for me to raise pork to the quality I like to offer.

This often means coaxing piglets through February frosts, seeing to their comfort on a scorching July day, and picking tons of apples for them in the Autumn so they can be finished on apples and barley.

With all of the care and attention I spend on creating a product which is both quality and affordable to my customers, and is profitable to me I want my pigs to have as good a death as they had a life. Calm, non-stressful, quick and clean.

To me this means the pigs must be slaughtered on the farm. They are in the comfort of their pasture up until the minute they cease to live and become meat. I am fortunate to live in an area where on farm slaughter has an active history and is currently growing in status. However, this is both a blessing and  a curse.

The business model I use to sell my pork is to sell the animals to my customers live¹, I help them arrange to have a custom slaughter company come to the farm, slaughter the animals and then take the carcasses away to their shop for hanging, cutting and wrapping. Because each customer owns the animal before it dies, it is theirs and their meat comes from it. This means the custom slaughter company does not have to have a USDA inspector at the point of slaughter. It also means that the meat coming from the transaction cannot be sold to restaurants or into the retail market. This helps keep the cost down and works well for those people wanting a whole, half, or quarter animal to stock their freezer with.

There is currently another option for on-farm slaughter which does allow for retail, Farmers’ Market and restaurant sales of locally produced, artisanal meats–the mobile slaughter unit. This is a USDA licensed and inspected slaughterhouse on wheels. It rolls on to the farm with a USDA inspector to supervise the slaughter and assure quality standards are maintained through the butchery process. The carcasses are then taken back to a USDA licensed facility for hanging, cutting and wrapping. I am fortunate to live in the San Juan Islands where the first of these units was developed and the idea is gaining in popularity around the country.

The only problem with this second on-farm slaughter option is it has been a victim of it’s own success. The Island Grown Farmer’s Cooperative–the closest of these units to me–has been full for years and has been turning away new memberships. You must be a member to use the mobile unit’s services. Additionally, the memberships as it stands now keeps the mobile unit running at capacity and there has been trouble getting slaughter dates. This is great for the business model, bad for farmers and customers crying out for their services.

From my perspective, there are two additional problems with the unit, both of which are related. The original Mobile Slaughter unit was developed to be able to travel out to the San Juan Islands. To keep the cost of bringing the unit on the ferries, the size was kept down. This, however, means that the capacity is also lower than ideal to keep the Unit cost-effective. Quite often farmers in the islands have to pool their slaughter dates and transport animals around the islands to other farms to be able to take advantage of the unit’s availability, and to keep the unit operating at maximum efficiency. Hardly maintaining the ideal of on-farm slaughter.

There is also the issue of cost. Because of the size of the Unit and the associated ferry fares, and the USDA inspector, having meats processed by the Mobile Slaughter unit cost almost 40% more than using a non-inspected Custom Slaughter business. This is fine if you can then charge a premium for your meats and pass the cost on to the retail market by selling individual cuts at the Farmers’ Market or a restaurant. For those of us who sell by the whole, half or quarter it really pushes the margins to use the Unit. For me, keeping my quality meat affordable for everyone is paramount. I am already charging more than commodity pork prices, to then add an additional $2.40 per pound would alienate my core customer base causing me to search further a field for buyers and costing me more of my profits in the long run. At the moment I have a waiting list for  my pork which is growing year by year, I would hate to loose that momentum.

Such is the problem of living on an island. If I were on the mainland I would have more of an option of either trucking my livestock to a slaughterhouse close by, using one of the other Mobile Slaughter Units which as cropped up in recent years, or use the Custom Slaughter company which just informed me they are no longer going to serve the islands. And there is the crux of the matter. As local meats gain popularity and as more people invest in raising some animals of their own the Custom Slaughter companies are no longer looking for work. The business I have been most happy with–after trying and rejecting several over the years–is also working at capacity, so much so that coming to the island for 7 pigs once a year isn’t worth the trouble for him. Usually there are other farms on the island who need to slaughter around the same time and the custom slaughter truck can make several stops, this allows the farms to share the cost of the ferry trip, making it more affordable for everyone. But the point is the good butcher shops are in demand on the mainland and they know it. They can afford to be a bit more choosy leaving the rest of us in the lurch.

When I got the news last night that my preferred butcher was no longer going to serve the islands I was dumbfounded. I had called him early enough to assure a November slaughter date–one of the Custom Slaughter shop’s busiest times. Now it is getting late in the game to go calling around. I googled butchers in the area and came up with several, unfortunately not  all of them serve the islands, not all of them offer custom slaughter, the list is incomplete and I have already rejected several of the companies due to quality, or lack of, issues or cost. For the moment this has me stymied. I feel like the carpet has been pulled from under my feet. I am sure if I pick up the phone I can get two different companies to come, they always seem to have time and that is the problem….I don’t care for their quality, operating procedures or costs. It would be a compromise of my values, but the deadline is looming and my customers are going to want their meat soon.

No doubt I will come up with a solution, and I will of course share it with you. But for the moment I am left scrambling and wonder about the future sustainability of raising affordable meats on my farm if I have such troubles getting to my customers in an acceptable way.

Technorati Tags: butcher, custom slaughter, on-farm slaughter, artisanal pork, meat, livestock, farming, agriculture, pigs, mobile slaughter unit

1. or in the case of a large animal, sell it in shares of half or quarter to several people [↩]

Category: Commentary, Farming, Livestock | 6 Comments »
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Posted By Podchef on April 28, 2009

Perhaps I live in a bubble. Perhaps I have just been incredibly lucky in many ways. Farmers Markets have, in one way or another, been a part of my life. And no, before you go thinking that I was some sort of market stall brat at the hems of my farming parents, nope…I grew up in middle-class suburbia on Wonder-Bread and Yodels.

Both my parents were children of the Depression. Both were farm kids from large families. I am fortunate that farming is in my heritage, although far from the manicured lawns, oriental carpets and Hepplewhite days of my upbringing. These things aside, I grew up on the outskirts of a rural community and could bike through farmer’s fields as  a short-cut to school. As a teen, my summers were spent picking crops for local farmers who generally sold them from farm stands at the corners of their properties.

When I was much younger–in the early 70’s–my mother participated in a food co-op. These buyers clubs are quite common now, but as I think back on it now, it was very odd back then. Once a month we would go to the city warehouse district and buy produce from vendors and bring items back home to share out among neighbors. Deep in suburbia, this didn’t last too long, but long enough to leave an impression on me. The trip to the terminal, the divvying up of goods. It was odd, yet some how normal. These were housewives taking charge of their budget and food in an old-school way, long before it was out of fashion or an acceptable norm.

When I was in the Fifth Grade, my teacher, Mr. Sturgeon, was a farmer. Our maths lessons in April and May revolved around laying out a garden and placing an fictitious order from the Burpee seed catalogue.  That summer he invited us to his farm for a class picnic. It was rural, idyllic and wonderful. Rows of corn, the soft fruits, and other crops. I don’t remember what we ate exactly, but it was mostly from his small farm. Rare.  Many times that summer my mother and I would visit Mr. Sturgeon at his stall in the Hartford Farmers’ Market near the center of the city. It was the mid-70’s.

Throughout college, I was fortunate to live in the countryside outside my university and regularly bought food at farm stands and weekend markets. Produce, rabbit, berries–it was all part of living cheaply and exercising a lifetime of habit. When I traveled to Ireland, the second time, I leapt at an opportunity to work the occasional day at a small farmers’ market during the winter months. Set up in a vacant lot, adjacent to the local supermarket, the Midleton Farmers’ Market is always well attended and has an amazing amount of variety throughout the year. To me it has become the epitome of what, at the very least, a market should be.

Against this backdrop, then, I read with growing ire, this article about how to avoid the pitfalls of farmers’ markets and their cheating ways. Now, I am not blind to the faults of farmers’ markets. I have been to good, bad, and horrid markets in many places. I have written before about what I feel makes a good stand, and how customers and producers need to help each other. The Smart Money article portrays the range of farmers’ markets  as something to avoid. This is not good. Obtuse writing like this does a great deal too much to harm good farmers and good markets everywhere. The Every Kitchen Table blog does a good job countering some of the worst flaws in the piece, item by item.

To be sure, there are some Farmers’ Markets which pander to the lowest common denominator. Slyly trying to trick customers into thinking their food is fresh, local, organic and grown by small farmers when it is not. These markets, I hope, are few and far between and easily identifiable by the complete absence of knowledgeable, farming, sellers. Sure, it is a bit of a hassle to, as a consumer, have to weed out the good and bad producers at each market you visit. But isn’t that part of the mystery of sourcing your own food? Or is that, perhaps, the point? That consumers are really just looking to replace their supermarket experience with the feel-good greenness of a farmers’ market, in as painless and simple a way as possible? Ms. Barron seems to think so. Other markets have become the elite dens of Foodies and the well heeled, there to see and be seen. These places have there own buzz and are worth the visit, but are not for the everyday.

There are bound to be bumps in the road to forging a new, local, food system. One in which quality ingredients are the centerpiece and not big name farmers, chefs and raconteurs. It is going to take consumers some getting used to. Slowing down, paying attention to ingredients, quality, and flavors is not a bad thing. Learning about vegetables, growing conditions, variations, varieties and seasonality can only make us better cooks and better people. The key is openness. And farmers, producers, agriculture interns working at farmers’ markets….If you are only there to make money, then find another outlet for your wares. You will never make it. The Farmers’ Market cuts out the middle-man, replaces the warehouse and supermarket buyers protection. When you are at the market selling, you are on stage. If you don’t want to engage customers, talk the talk and show your passion, then you will be at a loss. Either find someone else to do your marketing or pack it in. As a chef I have looked over many market stalls with a critical eye. I have asked questions about produce, meats and how to cook them to learn what the producers themselves knew. If the answers aren’t up to scratch I buy from someone else–sorry. Lost sale. You should be willing to have samples of your foods for people to try–and yes, there will be those annoying people who come to make a meal of your freebies and never buy anything. Suck it up. If your market won’t allow samples, find somewhere else that will. Customers will want to try before they buy and your wares had better be up to snuff. Be prepared to answer questions about your farm, how you grow, and what you do for fun. Be prepared to invite people back to see your system of production. If you find the customers annoying, a hassle or you don’t want strangers tramping about your farm, you are in the wrong place and the wrong business. Transparency isn’t an apple variety–it’s a way of succeeding at business.

Another thing I find odd is someone who complains about the picking, packing and driving, to get their goods to the market. You do want to sell this stuff don’t you? You are looking to get a better price than selling it wholesale aren’t you? Don’t complain or seem to complain to the customers. Talk with pride about what you do. “I was up at dawn cutting these asparagus so you could have the freshest available. Try some, isn’t it worth the price? Have another dozen spears….” As a market producer, stall holder, whatever you are calling yourself, you should be looking to organize with the other producers at the market or the market board to make sure the market is advertised correctly. That it remains a Farmers’ Market and not some quasi-vegetable fueled craft fair–unless some of the crafts are made from products from your farm…. The more positive a face Farmers’ Markets have, the more educated the public can become then the less chance articles attacking Farmers’ Markets will have weight.

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Posted By Podchef on April 13, 2009

Imagine if shoe manufacturers only made their styles in a few sizes. You might have difficulty finding a pair which fit your feet at different stages of your life. The one-size-fits-all approach would certainly be cost effective for the shoe industry, and because every one needs footwear, the customer base would be captive. Consumers needing different sizes, or having special requirements would be out of luck. Many people would have to go without shoes all together. This is the sort of situation that several new bills before Congress seek to leave our food system with–a one-size-fits-all system geared towards the majority, large scale AgriBusiness’, while leaving the rest of producers faced with adopting an oversized system or being out of luck and out of business.

However, there is no one solution to our current food safety issues. In fact, our current food safety issues are so unique, and so problematic that they have rarely, in history, been faced before. How is it that the size and scale of the most recent food borne illness outbreaks and product recalls keeps increasing? Why haven’t such problems been faced before? Sure, there was the problem with the meat industry back in 1906 which Upton Sinclair brought attention to in The Jungle¹ but since then American’s have had a relatively safe, secure food system. What has changed and why?

For one thing, the farming situation has changed. The source of raw ingredients comes from fewer and bigger farms. Ingredients for manufactured foods are treated less like nutritional foodstuffs and more like commodities, such as steel or coal. Imported ingredients have made their way into a food chain that never needed to import anything before. The more steps in the process, the more potential for problems to arise. The more substances and ingredients in food, the more manufacturing which goes on, the more chances for disease, industrial hardware, or rat feces to enter the product. Hence the cry of “Regulate! Regulate! Trace, Track and Tamper proof!”²

But how is a one-size-fits-all approach going to help? How do my free-ranging organically raised hens and their 250 eggs a year equate with a commercial battery farm, egg factory which produces 250 eggs a second? My flock of, at most, 30 hens is easy to manage, gets quality care, fed a variety of low-impact feeds in addition to some grain, and is kept clean, healthy and alive for longer than one year. The egg factory is so far from the realm of natural reality that it defies reason. Why should the meat I raise and sell locally, to customers who know me personally, and have seen how I keep my livestock, be treated in the same manner as if the livestock had been shipped hundreds of miles, mixed with other animals and then ram-rodded through a production chain at one per minute? This is commodity versus food. Abstract industrialism versus food with a face, story and connections.

Somewhere along the way personal responsibility and common sense have left the building. Rules such as “no livestock within 2 miles of a vegetable production facility” make no sense in any way other than reactionary. This rule was brought in after the 2007 Spinach fiasco when wild animal dung was blamed for a massive salmonella outbreak. The fear of manure, soil and germs has become epidemic.  Bio-dynamic, organic, and small, diverse mixed farms could never follow this rule. The break up of farms into corporate owned entities, devoid of a real face–a known farmer with a reputation willing to stand behind his crops–has led to an era of food-irresponsibility.  While I advocate and see a need for a return to agriculture that is “the scale of a (wo)man”³ I fully realize this is going to take time, as we have to re-train a whole generation which has been removed from the farm. I also realize that even in this Locavore movement of small farms there need to be stringent safety requirements for the food produced. But I also strongly feel that these regulations must be scale-appropriate. One-size-fits-all does not work. Not in shoes, clothing, or food standards.⁴

Rather than build a robust, secure food system, one which can withstand climate and fuel fluctuations, these proposed rules seek to limit the power of creating such a resilient situation in order to repair and maintain a flawed status quo. Worse yet, many of the proposed rules are so broad and open to interpretation that they may, at best, achieve nothing, and at worst, tilt the tables further in favor of Industrial Agriculture at the expense of small scale, local producers.⁵ We need open dialogue and solutions for the problems our food system faces. It is time for our policy makers to change tack and alter a course for sanity by involving more organic, sustainable & alternate-method farmers in the discussion. I am hopful that the time has passed when the food industry could pull the wool over consumers’ eyes. I am hopeful that the time for transparancy in corporate America and our Federal Governement is Now. But we can’t wait for these things to become a reality. As farmers, consumers, backyard growers, we need to weigh in on these issues if we want them to go our way. We need to organize. To study the proposals and not stop shouting until our voices are heard.

Technorati Tags: hr875, food safety, food security, local food, locavore, farming, food regulation, scale approprite regulation

1. a problem which was solved, but not fixed by congress allowing the meat packing industry to police itself and write its own rules–rules they largely ignore..The reaction to The Jungle eventually led to the formation of the FDA. Large Slaughterhouses are still in the news, both for working conditions and animal health. [↩]
2. Traceability is a joke. How can we trace ingredients through the entire chain of manufacturing? Meat from animals through the slaughterhouse, cold storage, shipping, grocer or restaurant to consumer? The tag is only as good as the record keeping, the honesty and practices of the middle-man. The farmer in good faith raises a product. The consumer in good faith buys the product. Cut out the middle-man–or reduce the steps between farmer and consumer–and traceability is solved, not by software and hardware, but by real human interconnection and networking. [↩]
3. The amount of land one person and his immediate family can work without recall to extra full-time labor and machinery which cannot be paid for with the proceeds from one season’s harvest. [↩]
4. Wasteful food grading requirements in the EU led to the rejection of tons of perfectly edible vegetables based on rigid standards for how the vegetables should look. [↩]
5. Although at this point the chance of backlash is so great that lawmakers should look to a future beyond their own terms and tread carefully. [↩]

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Posted By Podchef on April 9, 2009

In an excellent article on the New World Order Capitalist Powergrab, the point is made that the ensuing class struggle may well lead to a sort of neo-Feudalism. There will be the Haves in their gated communities and Have Nots, or Serfs, outside, poor, exploited, and powerless. A glance at the comments to the post show the post itself to be tame in discussing the problems the world is facing.

In many ways, we are already Serfs of the New World Order. But, if the world were to devolve to a sort of Feudalism, I am not so sure those in power are as powerful as they think. Cloistered away in their gated communities with private armies, power and wealth will do them no good when the functions of gated communities–the infrastructure–are in reality run and controlled by the serfs. Who will cut their lawns, grow their food, drain their septic systems, provide them with starched collars? Should it come to class warfare, the breakdown of civilization as we know it, a new era of slavery, will the elite actually be up to the challenge they are setting themselves?

12th Century feudal lords were used to a hard life. They earned their castles through warfare and distinction. How will an AIG Executive fare in ordering a new peasantry to grow his food, shield him from gunfire, man the gates of  the cul-de-sac? If enough serfs revolt, the reign  of corporate power would be over. The quickest way for the serfs to seize power would be to lay siege to the gated communities–stop the Nieman Marcus  delivery vans, the bottled water company, the shop-at-home grocer. Cut the phones, the power, back up the septic. Those within can have all the ammunition they want, all the video-security systems, and toys they need, they can still be starved out. The well-healed corporate raider, for all his vainglorious self-image of power, is useless in real-world applications of survival. I fear they realize this, which is why control over farmers, blue-collar workers, and liberal thinkers has always been at the heart of power struggles.

Let’s hope it never comes to this. Let’s hope some common sense and sanity return to the world and the motto, “Live and let live” rules the day. Until then, let’s work to make sure this never happens, let’s prevent “them” from bankrupting our future any more, and let’s learn to be a bit more self-sufficient  just in case.

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Posted By Podchef on March 30, 2009

In a discussion that erupted on Twitter today, I think I may have come across as some sort of neolithic agrarian rube. It is certainly hard to maintain clarity or explain rationales in 140 characters or less.

While I do tend towards being a Luddite, I am actually in favor of technology. I use technology every day, especially as I sit here typing on my computer, connected to the internet. However, I do feel that at times technology has taken over our lives in an addictive way. We don’t need technology often, we just think we do. I don’t need a microwave to re-heat coffee, thaw frozen meat or boil water. Sure, it’s convenient, but there are other, perhaps better or less costly ways of achieving the same results.

Now, when it comes to agriculture the issues of technology, sustainability and ability to feed the world become extremely obscured. Perhaps we need to come to some hard-and-fast definitions of what “technology” and “sustainability” mean in this circumstance. The question was put out there, “Do you consider Agriculture a “high tech” industry? Why or why not?” To which I answered “NO!” Because I feel “High Tech.” is non-sustainable. It became clear through some back-and-forth that how I view, “High Tech.” is not shared by others. Perhaps we all just don’t understand what we mean by “High Tech.” “Technology” or “Sustainability”.

To further add to the confusion, I was asked whether I would “consider the Amish sustainable? They use high technology selectively in agriculture.”  While I have very little understanding of the Amish way of life, I do know they embrace appropriate technology when it doesn’t interfere with their values. How the Old Order Amish make this choice is a mystery to me, but it seems a bit odd when you realize the technologies which tend to be accepted are those which stand to make the most money. But again, I don’t understand such matter….

I tend to take the view of Heidegger. Technology isn’t good or evil in itself, but by its use it can affect others in good or evil ways. It can be a force for freedom or enslavement. It is here that we must, now, define what I understand by “technology.” Clearly technology is all around us. It makes life possible. Always has. Technology has been in agriculture since day one. The first tool for digging earth was a technological advance. The plow was technology light-years ahead of the first flint hoe…. These are mechanical technologies. They can be produced from common materials and anyone with ability can create advances or adaptation of these “technologies.” There will always be a place in agriculture for improvements in machines, energy use, crop yield and harvest where farmers can adapt and make these improvements themselves, if they are so minded. In order for agriculture to survive today’s turbulent times it must be adaptable, sustainable, and be able for anyone to participate in.

Sustainability, as a base definition, means the ability to “to maintain a certain process or state.” When applied to agriculture,  it can mean the”ability of a farm to produce food indefinitely, without causing severe or irreversible damage to ecosystem health.” This is why I do not feel that “High Technology” can be allowed to carry on in agriculture without some severe limitations. “High Technology” is the antithesis of sustainable agriculture. How so?

I think of “High Technology” as those sciences which create improvements in crops, agricultural chemicals, or animals and crop management which the farmer not only cannot participate in the creation of, but is actively excluded from. This includes such “tools” as GPS in tractors–which not only relies on equipment in tractors, but satellites in space–and Radio Frequency ID tags in livestock–not only are these suspected of causing cancer, but again, rely on exclusionary practices which prevent the farmer from participating actively in on-farm improvements or adaptations. Additionally, most new farm technologies are developing so rapidly that they are barely tested before being unleashed on the environment. How are we to know whether Genetically Modified Organisms have caused, “severe or irreversible damage to ecosystem health” or not? The act of monitoring such events has largely been policed by the makers of such “technology”, and any data gathered is therefore highly suspect. Again, the unproven, exclusionary nature of this sort of advancement in agriculture simply cannot be viewed as sustainable.

Once upon a time a farmer planted a seed, grew a plant, harvest the seed, a portion of which was saved to be planted the following season. This is sustainable. The farmer bred his animals in the time-honored, natural way, using regional, or geographic criteria and his own personal eye to improving his livestock. Today, cloning, embryo transplants, gene-splitting and genetic manipulation have altered all of this. These have effectively taken control out of the farmer’s hands and placed it into the control of specific corporations or agencies. Farming is a hands-on industry. It is day to day. It is contact with soil, plants or animals. It is cyclical. it is seasonal. To remove any one part of this– to take the power out of the hands of the farmer and replaced it with “High Technology” or “tools” from an advanced “toolkit”–removes agriculture from the realm of sustainability and the many and places it firmly under the control of the elite, the few and the exclusionary.

No, I do not think that “High Technology” will lead to a more sustainable agriculture. No, I am sorry, but I do not think that such “improvements” in agriculture will help us feed more people. The world is rapidly changing. We are readily waking up to the faults and limitations of such “High (and mighty) Technology”. It is too reliant on cheap petroleum, dwindling consumable resources, and a pollutative model which was never sustainable in the first place. How can poisoning the environment with salt-base fertilizers and chemical pesticides be good in the short or long term? How can wearing out the soil by taking too many nutrients and minerals from it, without replacing even a small percentage of them, be sustainable? How can wasting the most valuable resource on the planet, our soil and our ability to produce food from it, be seen as improvement or ability to feed an increasing population?

I am sorry to say…sorry for Industrial, Technology-driven Agriculture’s sake..sorry to say, that the ways to improve crop yield, restore fertility and depleted topsoil, and to produce more food, lay not in the latest, untried scientific advancement, but in the hard work of farmers. Farmers whose desire is to invest in the future, to leave the soil in a better condition than they found it. Farmers who want to not just grow food, but to grow health. Farmers who can think for themselves without reading the directions of the back of a bottle. Farmers who use common sense and observation of the natural order to help guide them. Farmer’s willing to learn how to restore soil naturally, how to increase fertility without the aid of out-of-reach technology.

We need more farmers of this sort. We need more farms, more land, on the road to restoration. What we do not need is bigger, more unsustainable, wasteful operations so removed from the agriculture a farmer can control. Is all farming to be turned over to robots? Are we to push agriculture far away, out of sight to a place where we need not think about it? It would be a sad day if ever that were to happen. We need more people participating in this most noble endeavor of humanity–producing food, giving life, restoring health. Along the way there are bound to be casualties, pain and heartbreak. Such is the human condition. Along the way there is bound to be dramatic change, adaptation of lifestyle and attitudes. We cannot keep feeding the world as it is. Any model which seeks to perpetuate a broken diet, is not only non-sustainable, but also foolhardy. We can still eat meat, and vegetables, and seafood if we can find a more moderate, less greedy manner of doing so. I firmly believe one such path is for more people to be involved in sourcing, producing, growing and processing their own, and their countries food. Such a practice would create jobs, feed people, restore health and be sustainable, as it is self-limiting.

Just because we can create a cyborg system of robotic, chemical agriculture doesn’t me we should. It doesn’t mean it will be a good thing, or save us from doom. The more we can free ourselves from the realm of the few, the powerful and the controlling, the better we can remain free, use and explore humanity’s intelligence for the betterment of all. Yes, for this we do need technology, but we do not need a “High” exclusionary, Technology which prevents us from participating directly in every facet of our chosen existence.

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Posted By Podchef on March 19, 2009

When the Industrial Revolution began to take hold, countless country bumpkins flocked to the cities, lured by the promise of money, a better life, some sort of future out of the dung heap. What they found was enslavement, death, disease, and crippling poverty at the hands of often cruel masters who grew wealthy on the backs of the new urban poor. Of course there has always been poverty, especially in agriculture. Farmers have always been undervalued in any age and have always lived close to the boards. But farmers have generally had one salvation–they can grow their own food. We may not be rich when judged by the scale of society, when viewed in terms of monetary value, but when adjusted for land, food produced for family, and earnings saved, farmers do quite well when they participate in the agrarian economy and live like true cottagers.  Moreover, in the 18th Century more than just farmers raised food–almost every one of every social strata raised some amount of food.((William Cobbett, in his Cottage Economy, outlines very nicely how this may happen.))

As people moved out of the countryside and into cities they lost the land on which to raise self-supporting crops and livestock. In the slums of the Machine Age, there were no backyards and the dank conditions prohibited the healthy keeping of animals for food. The nature of agriculture changed. Sheep, long a supplier of fertility and wool, were now grown larger to provide a burgeoning labor force with cheap cuts of mutton, or at least their bones for broth. The rift between country and city widened. Farmers were farmers, country folk: rubes to be avoided. More recently, with the exception of the two World Wars, raising one’s own food was looked upon with suspicion. There was a brief resurgence in the 1970’s of a “back to the land movement” and an awareness that self-sufficiency could be had on even a limited scale. This attempt at the “Good Life” didn’t last long and many who participated in it were left out in the cold–oddballs in a society which expected order and conformity. The myth of plentiful, cheap food, pleasure and entertainment masked the reality of what was really happening.

We are now 9 years into a new century. The blindness of the past 100 years is staring at us full in the face and we are scrambling to change modes. People are once again turning to their backyards to help them survive. They are rediscovering what they can raise, and how much. Globally, we are returning to a pre-industrial mindset when backyards supplemented what we earned and helped us to survive. The vaule of a backyard garden has always been known, by those who value fresh, tasty, wholesome food, but now more and more people are digging up the lawn and planting seeds. But let’s not forget livestock.

In our small agrarian economy of the backyard we can raise enough meat to keep us for a year, eggs for breakfast a few times a week–with enough to barter with–and fertilizer free for the taking. If you have enough room and time, dairy–goat, sheep or cow milk–could be had. And, I am not talking 5 acres here. I am referring to lots 1/4 acre((10,000 square feet)) or more. Chickens would, of course, be the simplest to keep. They are inexpensive, easy to raise, and can be quite productive. They are great recyclers of kitchen scraps and garden trimmings. Their manure is vital to great fertility. But let’s take this a step further. If you can keep some chickens then you can certainly keep a few rabbits. Raised in cages, the chickens can keep the area underneath clean and pest free, or you can use the manure on the garden. A 10 pound doe can raise 320 pounds of meat in a year.((By breeding her daughters you can easily raise more meat than a steer can produce on vastly less land.)) Rabbits dress easier than broiler chickens and are healthier. What’s even better is, if you live on a small lot, your neighbors might never know you even have rabbits…until they come to dinner.

If you have a bit more land in your backyard, you can keep a few pigs. Pigs always do better in pairs at a minimum. It is more work, of course, but they are content enough in a sty as long as it is mucked out daily and they have access to fresh air. It isn’t the same as the ideal of pasture raised pork, but it will be vastly better than its factory-farmed cousin. If pigs aren’t for you than how about the aforementioned goat, sheep or cow? There is enough room on a 1/2 acre, especially if you have access to roadsides or common land for grazing, to inexpensively keep a dairy animal. All the while, you can use the manure to provide fertility for the garden. You can raise food for your family and for your new backyard food factory. This isn’t free-range, pastured meat and dairy, I know. But with the welfare of the animals being looked after, anything you can raise in your backyard will be vastly better than anything you can find in the supermarket.

It might not be easy. It might not be sane. But if you are fed up with high prices, poor quality, unhealthy or deadly foods and want to keep you freedom to choose, then join the revolution. Dig up some yard, plant some seeds, get some chicks. Take control of your food security and safety. It’s not as hard as you may think.

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