Road work

Anyone who has visited the farm will remember our steep entry road, which crosses one small stream on a narrow fill before crossing a larger stream on a bedrock ford. The smaller stream has long been a problem for us and the neighbors who share the road, as the culvert is too small and in any heavy rain it backs up, floods the whole bottom, and scours out the road. I have spent far too many hours regrading the road after storms to clean up all the gravel and debris moved around by this blocked culvert. Several times I've had to drag driftwood off the road with the tractor.

So we were finally able to have something done about it. Along with the neighbor in question, we were able to have the road dug out, a far larger culvert put in, the road widened and smoothed, and in general improved. To our inner geologists, there's nothing more fascinating than a big new cut in the ground:

The bedrock crossing will always be flood-prone, and the road will always be steep, but at least now it won't wash out as often, the maintenance time should drop significantly, and it will be a bit less nerve-wracking an entry for customers and visitors with small cars.

Thanksgiving leftovers

Every year's holiday season(s) sees a fresh stream of "new" thoughts from anyone with a keyboard and publishing outlet. I'm certainly not immune to the urge to somehow add something unique to a holiday that's been chewed over by writers since the Civil War or beyond. But I'm going to resist, partially, and in the spirit of yesterday's post simply offer links to two pieces I wrote last year about Thanksgiving. I don't think I have anything new to add this year, and they stand well on their own, especially for all the new readers we've gathered since then.

Mark Twain's Thanksgiving
Drawn from a NY Times piece, this looks back at what standard holiday cuisine in America looked like at perhaps the peak of its diversity, with a good balance of local/regional cuisine and the new-found ability to ship certain items elsewhere for a varied menu. Before this period, menus might have been too restricted by locale; in modern times, we've swung too far to the nationally homogenized end. Read, and consider how we might move back toward that happy medium.

Thanksgiving Recap
A pictorial summary of last year's farm- and Missouri-sourced Thanksgiving meal. This will stand for a long time as one possible example of how regionally-aware cooking can generate a diverse, meaningful, and tasty meal.

Post 350: "restaurant mouth" revisited

The excellent local food blog Show Me Eats (run by a valued friend) recently marked its 500th post, starting on January 29th, 2008. With this post, I'll hit 350 on a blog started one month later. Though I ran the blog all through 2008, it wasn't until 2009 that we really started seeing good readership numbers, so there are a lot of interesting items tucked away in the early posts that haven't seen much light of day. Over the winter, I'd like to start going back and calling attention to some of these.

In honor of Show Me Eats, however, which was founded by a foodie sick of bad and imported food in the supposed breadbasket of America, I offer a reprint of my favorite column from the early days of Food For Thought:

March 19, 2008: Restaurant Mouth

We don't eat out much. After years of eating meals made at home, scratch-made from fresh, quality ingredients (there are few canned or processed ingredients in our kitchen), our taste buds have become exceedingly sensitive to the taste and presence of preservatives, salt, and other chemicals in most prepared food. Every now and then we'll try a new place that claims to use "only the freshest ingredients", with a chef on hand cooking real meals, only to come home with "restaurant mouth".

This is the term we've coined for the dry, brackish, basically nasty aftertaste invariably left in our mouths after a restaurant meal. I'm not talking about fast food or chain establishments here, I'm talking about supposedly real restaurants with kitchens and "chefs". We've reached the point where we can taste the canned ingredients, low-quality spices, or processed sauces in the dish with the first bite; the preservatives and over-salting are obvious. This pattern is proven by the consistent high quality and lack of restaurant mouth in the few regional establishments that we know for a fact use nothing but real, clean ingredients and have real, skilled chefs and cooks. These consistent winners always prove to us that (a) it's possible to cook real food from real ingredients in a restaurant, and (b) that we're not imagining our negative reactions to other establishments.

Speaking of negative reactions, "restaurant mouth" is often accompanied by "restaurant stomach". We've found that our digestive systems as well as our mouths have become really sensitive to over-salting, preservatives, chemical flavors, and other signs of poor ingredients, because a visit to an unknown establishment tends to produce several days of upset stomachs or worse. We recently had an especially bad reaction to a supposedly high-end place that turned out to be one of the worst meals we've had in years, revealing abundant signs of kitchen laziness, incompetence, and poor ingredient quality. It doesn't matter that your menu offers fancy entrees if they're made with generic ingredients and little skill.In our experience, restaurant quality is only tangentially related to the "fanciness" of the place or the menu; our safe bets range from higher-end establishments to simple cafes.

A better yardstick for restaurant quality is the presence or lack of good vegetarian entrees on the menu (by good, I mean something more creative or skilled than a veggie burger). While we're not vegetarian (at least at home), we've found that the presence of real vegetarian entrees tends to mean that (a) the chef is skilled, creative, and able to use raw ingredients well, and (b) the restaurant is aware enough of food and dietary trends to make that option available to its diners. All it takes is one good vegetarian entree in a menu of 10-15 meat entrees to please the vegetarian in a group, yet so many restaurants don't even bother to learn how to make the myriad interesting, quality vegetarian dishes that are easily within their grasp. And to reiterate the point, I don't mean the standard sops like veggie/mushroom burgers, canned tomato sauce on pasta, or tofu. A chef or cook with the confidence and insight to offer real vegetarian meals is far more likely to know what (s)he's doing with everything else, too. The common thread is real, clean, fresh ingredients, cooks/chefs who know how to use them without the crutches of salt, chemical flavorings, and processed sauces, and an understanding of dietary culture that accommodates broad interests and needs. It's a rule that's rarely failed us in predicting or avoiding restaurant mouth.

Seed Savers garlic response

We received a nice, thorough response from Seed Savers Exchange to our concerns about the garlic stock we purchased this year (summarized in this post). See text below, and our response below that:

Dear Eric:

Thank you for your comments and concerns.

We have always experienced some conversion of the softnecks to hardnecks, and this year, we have experienced an abnormal number of heads converting across most softneck varieties.

The two softneck varieties you ordered, Inchelium Red and Lorz Italian, are classified under the variety of ‘Artichoke.’ While Artichokes do not normally produce a seed head, they often produce large bulbils that protrude from the lower third of the stem. When stressed, Artichokes can produce hard necks and seed heads.

The ‘hardneck’ bulbs you received in these softneck varieties are a result of bulbil clusters being produced on the stems of these stressed plants. Many growers experience that cloves planted from these bulbs will usually revert to soft necks the following season. In the past, we have sorted out and trialed these ‘hardneck’ types, and received advice from our Garlic Advisor, John Swenson, that we should not be overly concerned with doing this - these varieties will often convert, and they just do that. We do, however, only save softneck bulbs with soft stems as planting stock for our continued

commercial production.

Another variation in explanation we can give you is taken from Ron L. Engeland’s book, *Growing Great Garlic *(pg8-9):

“In some climates (such as Germany), they *(Artichokes)* still often produce topsets, but in most climates they only produce a few large bulbils out the side of the false stem a few inches above the bulb. These bulbils may even appear as small, odd-shaped cloves inside the bulb wrappers at the very top of the bulb… many growers would claim that softneck garlics are less stable than hardnecks and more likely to display a wide range of environmental responses.”

Since softneck varieties typically perform better in warmer climates, we can speculate that our northern conditions are not as ideal for these varieties and as a result, experience more environmental responses, such as bulbil production and hardneck conversion. These bulbs are still true to the variety and we will continue to grow and offer these varieties, to honor the

Seed Savers mission and the tradition of preserving and sharing heritage varieties and promoting biodiversity. However, since we strive to offer quality products, we are considering sorting out the ‘hard-necked’ softnecks from our sales stock next year to sell as eating garlic at our Visitor’s

Center and to donate to the local food pantry.

We will gladly issue you a refund for the Lorz and Inchelium garlic varieties that you are not satisfied with. The Persian Star is a hardneck, and a very good performer for us, but please let us know if you are not satisfied with this variety. We do still have a small amount of quality

seed stock remaining that we would be glad to send you as a replacement if what you received is unsatisfactory. We just finished planting our stock seed garlic last week, and weather conditions in Missouri should still be fine for planting garlic.

Please let Lou or I know how you would like to proceed. Your satisfaction is important to us. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Kelly

OUR RESPONSE:

Kelly,

Thank you for the prompt, thorough, and informative reply. I would strongly suggest that you include a version of that information in your catalogue, and even potentially with the shipped garlic. We would not have been as disturbed if we had had that information beforehand. We do have "Growing Great Garlic" and consult it often, but had not made the connection between these varieties and "artichoke" varieties, so we appreciate you pointing that out.

I would also agree that a good policy would be to treat customers as you treat your own stock, and only sell the true softnecks. Or maybe offer the option to get a mixed bag for a different price, since some growers won't care. Those who do care should be able to get the more pure selection, but you don't need to sacrifice all sales for those of us who are picky.

As regards a refund, we appreciate the offer, but are not sure we should take it at this time. We did, after all, plant the garlic and expect to harvest and sell it next year. If we get a good crop, there's no reason to take your money. However, if we do harvest it and find that many are not

true-to-type or otherwise unsellable, we would at that point like at least a partial refund. Would it be possible to record this for next year if that happens?

We also appreciate the offer of extra stock, but we have planted all the beds planned for garlic at this point, and would not have a place within our rotation for any further garlic.

Thanks again for the good response,

Eric Reuter

Chert Hollow Farm

Early winter food supply

It's mid-November, and we still haven't needed to start tapping our frozen/canned winter supplies except for a few quarts of strawberries. In the ground, we have salad greens, cooking greens, leeks, cabbage, bok choi, turnips, carrots, radishes, herbs, and more. In indoors/cold storage we have potatoes, sweet potatoes, onions, garlic, green peppers, hot peppers, winter tomatoes, dried beans, dent corn, and more.

For the rest the winter and next spring, we now have 30lb of venison in the freezer, another 20 or more expected from our second kid, 7 or so chickens to butcher, possibly a goose, a small turkey, and possibly another deer. We have a chest freezer stuffed with locally sourced strawberries, blueberries, peaches, and other fruits, along with six months of our own vegetables. We have rows of canned tomatoes, pickles, jams, applesauce, and more. We have 3lb of farm-made hard cheese waxed and aging, with more to come as we're still getting 2 quarts a day off the goat. 40lb of locally grown wheat berries await grinding into flour as needed.

The only foodstuffs we'll be buying this winter are basic staples like oats, sugar, butter, oil, raisins, salt, spices, orange juice, and so on. All these store well, and we tend to buy most in large quantities. We're certainly not completely food-independent, but we sure can go a long time without needing to visit a store. And so much of our basic nutrition this winter will come from our farm or farms we know personally. That's a fantastic feeling in an era of faceless, processed, well-travelled pseudo-food.

Good farm food, early November

Meals we enjoyed (or expected to) enough to photograph. On-farm ingredients in italics.

Roasted vegetables (carrots, onions, potatoes, sweet potatoes, turnips, salt); fresh sauerkraut (cabbage, local apples, onions, salt, pepper, cider vinegar); cowpeas (cowpeas, greens, garlic, onion, spices)

Venison tacos: fresh tortillas (local wheat, baking powder, water, salt); fresh salsa (winter tomatoes, leeks, garlic, cilantro, hot pepper, spices, vinegar, water, salt); ground venison (fresh meat, leeks, paprika, garlic, salt); spiced beans (black beans, leeks, daikon radish, garlic, cilantro, spices, salt); fresh greens (various lettuces, arugula, mizuna, tat soi). Oh, my, were these especially tasty, especially with a friend/customer's home-brewed beer.
Standard Chert Hollow house salad: mixed fresh greens (various lettuces, arugula, mizuna, tat soi, beet greens), toppings (chopped local apples, raisins, and walnuts), dressed with oil & vinegar. We can't get enough of this, and are thrilled to still have lots of fresh greens in mid-November.

Now, here's a fun one. Polenta (our fresh-ground corn, water, salt) topped with goat 'n greens (shredded goat meat, green beans, mustard & collard greens, winter tomatoes, garlic, and spices). This polenta was very, very tasty, made from the same ground corn we were selling the fall. We need to have recipe cards for this next year; it was creamy, flavorful, and gone all too fast. Also very good heated with sorghum syrup or honey as a breakfast/dessert.

Columbia Farmers Market will be open in December

As a board member of the Columbia Farmers Market, I am happy to pass on some exciting news: the market will remain open into December this year. See press release below, and pass it along.

http://www.columbiafarmersmarket.org/winter_market.shtml

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Columbia, Missouri - November 17, 2009
Due to rising demand from both customers and vendors, the Columbia Farmers Market will be extending its season on a trial basis through December 19th. In years past, the Market’s season has ended just prior to Thanksgiving, with the last day of 2009 slated as Saturday, November 21. However, the continued growth in the Market’s vendor base, product diversity, and customer count, combined with increasing interest in locally-grown food in all seasons, has generated enough buzz and demand to support keeping the Market open in December.

The December market days will be held from 10 am to at least12pm on three Saturdays, December 5th, 12th, and 19th, after taking a week off for Thanksgiving. All normal CFM rules and policies will be in place, including the requirement that all products be sold directly by the grower/producer, and be grown and/or produced within a roughly 55-mile radius around Columbia.

Products expected to be available include lamb, pork, beef, eggs, winter & greenhouse vegetables, honey, locally-made chocolate, baked goods, and more. If weather conditions are not suitable for an outdoor market, an announcement will be made on the Columbia Farmers Market website and on the Market’s voicemail (573-823-6889).

With the Columbia Farmers Market set to mark its 30th anniversary in 2010, this trial winter market will be an excellent way to celebrate and support the continued growth and success of small farms and local foods in mid-Missouri.

Contacts:
Market Manager
Caroline Todd
(573) 474-0989
columbia_farmers_market@yahoo.com

Market President
Rex Roberts
(660) 886-6877
seasonsgreens@yahoo.com

Seed Savers Exchange garlic trouble

For years we've been buying our garlic starters (and many other seeds) from Seed Savers Exchange in Iowa, a non-profit which focuses on preserving and distributing heirloom and rare vegetable varieties. Their items were very high-quality, matching the price, which we felt was worth it.

We've moved strongly toward saving our own garlic, and indeed most of our planting this fall was of our own stock, but we still ordered three new varieties from SSE to round out our significant expansion in garlic, and to add even more diversity. However, when we began separating these new heads for planting in October and early November, we discovered some problems with two of them.

Both varieties, Inchelium Red and Lorz Italian, were listed as softneck garlic. This class does not have a central hard stalk, does not produce a scape, and tends to have far more cloves per head. Hardnecks, by comparison, are the opposite (hard stalk, scape, fewer but larger cloves).

As we went through the bags, we discovered some significant variations in the structures of the heads:

As shown above, the Lorz bag contained traditional softneck heads (right), very clearly hardneck heads (left), and some very screwy mutant heads with small stalks and a cluster of cloves at the top (center). And these were not isolated, but pretty well distributed between the three types. The same pattern held for the Inchelium heads, shown below:

Now, if these were just for home use, it probably wouldn't matter. But for a market farm, if these genetics maintain themselves, it will be a serious problem next year. At market, those mutant heads aren't of the same quality as others, and can't be sold for as much. Those apparent hardneck heads will be producing scapes that we need to look out for. And we have no idea if these are all really the same variety (I would think not, given that hardneck/softneck is a pretty fundamental divide in the garlic world). We'll be very hesitant to save any heads back for planting from this stock, and that's a significant loss for us.

There wasn't much we could do about it. It was late October/early November, we HAD to get our garlic in, and there were no replacements available from SSE as all stock was sold out. So we planted them and will see what happens in 2010.

All the more reason to keep working toward saving more and more of our own seed.

Mmm, fresh venison

We like hunting. It's a far cheaper way to earn the winter's meat supply than raising it. I could spend solid weeks in the woods and still come out ahead when you consider the labor and cost of actually maintaining the goats year-round and the kids for six months. And for those concerned about environmental impact, free-range medication-free deer is about as sustainable as it gets. Joanna noted that when you consider the modern concerns over greenhouse gas emissions from large herds of ruminants, some revisionist history might proclaim Buffalo Bill a notable environmentalist...

After a fruitless opening day on Saturday, despite staying on the woods from dawn to dusk, I got my deer Sunday around lunchtime. This one wins a Darwin Award; when I came into the kitchen to start heating leftovers for lunch, I saw it obliviously browsing in the open about 15' from our kitchen porch. I grabbed the rifle, gently eased my way out onto the porch, steadied the barrel on the railing, and had the easiest meat imaginable. It never even looked up, even when the microwave beeped loudly through the open door behind me. Young, stupid, and no longer in the gene pool.

We finished processing it around 9:30pm, including several breaks. We do a pretty thorough job of butchering, preferring to debone everything right away and freeze the meat in smaller quantities, saving work and waste later in the year. This way, we can bury all the bones and other scraps at once, which we'll do on Monday (after boiling some down for broth). Monday I'll also get started on scraping and curing the hide, as we do for goats, since they make nice floor coverings and we hate to waste such beautiful fur.

We did notice that she had very little fat on her, though quite healthy otherwise, with a thick coat. It'll be interesting to see how that relates to our weather this winter.

Dinner was an experimental pseudo-casserole of sliced sweet potatoes, cabbage, apples, and tenderloin, slow-baked with juniper berries, cinnamon, salt, sugar, and a bit of water. After 90 minutes in the oven, everything was tender and flavorful. Next time I'd use less sugar (called for by the Joy of Cooking recipe I was loosely following), maybe even replacing it with sorghum or honey. I would also replace some of the water with cider vinegar for a stronger flavor and more of a sweet/sour effect. Finally, I would drain the broth toward the end, make gravy from it, and put all the rest into a pie filling or top with dumplings for a shepherd's pie kind of thing. Still, for a quickly-tossed-together dinner in the middle of butchering, it was pretty tasty.

And now we have at least 30lb of fresh, healthy meat in the freezer to help us through the winter. Add on another goat, some chickens, probably a goose, and we're in good shape on the protein front.

What were we doing last November?

Blog archives are fun. I need to spend more time looking back at what we were thinking, doing, and writing about in past years. We like our organic records because they help us become better farmers; the blog archives can serve the same role.

Look back through last November's posts, for example. Lots on the organic certification process; we really sunk time into that. Lots of good food being eaten, as we were running the "What We Eat" series that chronicled all our main meals and their sources. This year is just as good; we haven't been to a grocery store in weeks now, though we're getting low on a couple staples like butter. Hunting, butchering, logging, planning...all that's happening this year too. One of the great things about farming is the combination of regular cycles with complete surprise. We have a comforting seasonal cycle which will always progress, never trapping us in any one task or routine forever, but giving us something to look forward to based upon the same events the year before.

My favorite post of the month was this one criticizing the Missouri Department of Conservation for their proposed changes to the resident landowner hunter permit system. I sent a similar text to MDC as a comment, and apparently so did a whole lot of others folks, as they reported being inundated with rage. The change was withdrawn, and rural landowners retain the right to a free hunting permit on their own land. Democracy in action, and I'm glad to have played a small part in it.

What's wrong with the Senate Food Safety bill

I'm just a blogger, with little time to compose truly effective columns. Fortunately, we have a few organizations who do it for us. This piece from the Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund came out on Tuesday and is worth reprinting in its entirety, especially after the last post's rants. If you care about farms like ours, this is really important to read. There's a lot of hot air floating around the web, but FTCLDF is a solid, reliable organization.

What really hurts is that we're being betrayed by both parties. Democrats who claim to want to support small farms and local foods for leftish reasons are rushing to push over-regulations that will do the opposite. Republicans who ought to be offended by this much government power-grabbing are ignoring the libertarian principles they're so proud of when it comes to Wall Street. There's no one we can turn to.

Please read:

November 10, 2009

The debate on food safety is heating up in Congress! The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions (HELP) is planning to mark up S. 510, the Senate version of the draconian House food safety bill (H.R. 2749). This is a major step towards passing the bill. Big Ag and Big Food have distributed melamine-contaminated milk from China and salmonella-contaminated peppers from Mexico. Yet Congress hasn't gotten the message that they need to solve the real problems - the centralized food distribution system and imported foods - and not regulate our local food sources out of business. We need your help to make them listen! Please read through the problems with the bill and then call your Senators (details below).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

PROBLEMS WITH THE BILL

1. The bill applies to all food, not just food in interstate commerce. On its face, the bill applies to any farm or food producer, regardless of location, size, or scope of distribution. If the intent truly is to limit the bill to food that is crossing state lines, then it must be amended. And even then, the bill would still negatively impact small farmers and food processors who live near state lines and who cross state lines to reach local farmers markets and co-ops.

2. The major foodborne illness outbreaks and recalls have all been caused by the large, industrial food system. Small, local food producers have not contributed to the highly publicized outbreaks. Yet S. 510 subjects the small, local food system to the same, broad federal regulatory oversight that would apply to the industrial

food system.

3. FDA regulation of local food processors is unnecessary and overly burdensome. Federal regulations may be needed for industrial, large-scale processing facilities that source raw ingredients from multiple locations (sometimes imported from other countries) and ship their products across the country, but federal regulation is overkill for small, local processors. Existing state and local public health laws are enough for local food sources.

4. Relying on HACCP will harm small processors. S. 510 applies a complex and burdensome Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) system to even the smallest local food processors. Although HACCP may be good in theory a good theory for large, complex facilities, USDA's implementation of HACCP, with its requirements to develop and maintain extensive records, has already proven to be an overwhelming burden for a significant number of small, regional meat processors across the country. In the meat industry, HACCP has substituted paperwork review for independent inspections of large meatpacking plants, while sanctioning small processors for paperwork violations that posed no health threat. Applying a HACCP system to small, local foods processors could drive them out of business, reducing consumers' options to buy fresh, local

foods.

5. FDA does not belong on the farm. S. 510 calls for FDA regulation of how farms grow and harvest produce. Given the agency's track record, it is likely that the regulations will discriminate against small, organic, and diversified farms. The House version of the bill directs FDA to consider the impact of its rulemaking on

small-scale and diversified farms, but there are no enforceable limits or protections for small diversified and organic farms from inappropriate and burdensome federal rules.

6. S. 510 favors foreign farms and producers over domestic. The bill creates incentives for retailers to import more food from other countries, because it burdens family farms and small business and because it will be practically impossible to hold foreign food facilities to the same standards and inspections. The bill will create a considerable competitive disadvantage for ALL U.S. agriculture and food production.

Food politics: quick hits

I haven't written much on food/ag policy in a while. Partly we've been busy, partly I'm tired of feeling angry about it all the time, and haven't had the energy to sit down and develop a series of good posts. The one I did write was rejected by my editor as too angry and snide for its own good, and she was right. So in true blog fashion, I'm going to try offering a series of shorter notes about various issues that have me steamed.

AGENCIES BANNING RAW PRODUCTS

Wisconsin, South Dakota, and Georgia cracking down on raw milk sales. FDA trying to ban raw oysters. The USDA requiring raw almonds to be "sanitized". In a supposedly free-market country, we have governments actively trying to prevent willing consumers and producers from completing economically beneficial transactions, while allowing far more dangerous and damaging transactions. Our tax dollars are being squandered on this crap, by state and federal agencies, while allowing far more egregious threats to public health to pass by.

The raw milk thing especially gets to me. I don't hold with the fringier elements insisting that it's a miracle health food; we don't even drink our own raw milk. But in a country where raw meat is sold in every grocery, you can order a nearly raw steak at any restaurant, and sushi/sashimi is popping up everywhere, it's asinine that raw milk is considered a threat on the scale of marijuana or worse. Is it the government's business whether you take that steak home and cook it thoroughly? This is especially true given that raw milk does not have to be drunk; it is also an ingredient for home cheese or yogurt making. Should we ban hops and malt because someone might home-brew beer and then drive drunk? If someone ever reminds the Feds that corn can be home-brewed into bourbon, the Midwestern economy could collapse.

FOOD SAFETY "PROGRESS"

I don't have any one link, because there's too much out there. We've somewhat stopped paying attention, because the bills coming through Congress are so frightening in their draconian and expensive attempts to sterilize food production that we can't handle following it anymore. We're just going to keep running our farm and let the Feds show up at our gate with whatever demands for produce chlorine baths and terrorism-prevention plans Congress comes up with. Then we'll thank the nice people, lock the gate, turn in our business license, and hope our former customers like their imported food while we go back to feeding ourselves with illicit home-grown substances.

It's worth noting that many folks are claiming that small farms would somehow be exempt from much of these bills. Even if that's true, the reality doesn't work that way. For example, let's say there's a new Federal inspection program for food producers, but you don't have to take part if you only sell to final consumers or you only make under a certain amount. But most small-farm business models are diverse; lots of sales to farmers markets, but maybe some to groceries or restaurants, and this is what's going to happen: Pressure from above is going to start making groceries, restaurants, and other purchasers require proof of compliance with these laws, or perhaps their insurers will force them to require it. So I may still have the freedom to sell at the farmers market, but the second I contact a restaurant, I have to come into line with industrial producers. The effect, if unintended, will still be to seriously constrain the business models of small/local farms and effectively, if not legally, force them to take part in the regulations or go out of business.

FOOD SAFETY OUTSOURCING

One of the smartest arguments I've seen against the current trend of food safety crackdowns points out that it's likely to increase the importation of food, as domestic producers are unable to economically comply, and the Feds generally accept foreign assurances of compliance with US law. (This analysis from the Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund is recommended reading.) For example, with the USDA's requirement for the "sanitation of almonds with a toxic fumigant or treatment with high-temperature heat", organic-minded retailers like Whole Foods are dropping their domestic purchases of almonds in favor of imported almonds not subject to the law (source: Cornucopia Institute director Mark Kastel's talk at last week's Small Farm Show in Columbia). Plus, any time you increase regulation on food, you drive up the price, naturally meaning cheaper foreign imports become more viable for retailers. Does anyone besides the FDA and USDA really trust China's food safety inspection system?

FOOD SAFETY COST/BENEFIT

When I look at the massive regulatory efforts now underway to "fix" our food system, and the attempts by various state agriculture & health departments to crack down on things like raw milk and farmers markets, I want to introduce these people to the concept of cost/benefit. Yes, raw milk/oysters/almonds make people sick sometimes. Centralized industrial food makes lots of people sick sometimes. But what percentage of our actual national health issues do these problems represent, and what percentage of our tax dollars are being spent to "solve" these issues?

If we divided up our regulatory dollars and time in realistic proportion to the processes/products/issues that actually make people sick/injured/in need of care, we'd be spending a lot more time cracking down on bad driving and unhealthy food. Instead, we spend disproportionate amounts of resources chasing our own tails around the issue of food safety instead of food health.

And we only regulate certain aspects of the system. I'd bet that home food handling sickens far more people than commercial food handling, yet we don't see inspectors out there sticking thermometers into potato salads on the 4th of July or checking the chest freezers of deer hunters. Strangely for a capitalist country, we focus the most regulatory energy on anyone trying to make a living, while ignoring anyone else. I can make my cheese, butcher my meat, and give it away all year long with no problems. But the second I take a dime for it, I'm a criminal. Some entrepreneurial culture we've got here.

BLACK MARKET FOOD

All these new regulations, and most of the existing ones that affect small farms, really aren't very effective. There are lots of farms in most states selling raw milk, fresh cheese, farm-butchered meat, and so on. Plenty of people recognize that the law is stupid, and so ignore it. A few get caught, most of them sneak by. The results are two-fold: not only do you create criminals from well-meaning people, but you reward the cheaters and punish the honest. We have never taken a dime for our dairy products, and have never sold meat. We've had plenty of requests and demand for both, but we take the law seriously whether or not we agree with it. And so our diversified farm's business model is permanently hobbled due to our honesty, while others make money on the black market. And neither of us generate any taxes, though plenty of tax dollars are squandered on over-regulation of small farms.

THAT'S ENOUGH FOR ONE RANT

Glad to get that off my chest. Maybe next time I'll tackle issues like well-meaning agencies and non-profits who try to "help" farmers but either waste money or actively undermine them.

Small Farm Show 2009

Every year the National Small Farm trade show comes to Columbia in early November. I wrote a thorough description last year that can serve again, with a few highlights repeated.

Although it's aimed at small and sustainable farmers, this show really would be of interest to any community members interested in gardening or local foods. I've long felt that customers would enjoy and value learning more about the agriculture that produces their food at the farmers market, and even a quick visit to this show would give you a window into our world. There are generally a fair amount of animals on display/sale for kids to enjoy, sheepdog demonstrations, tractors to gawk over, and so on. The on-site bookstore offers plenty of books of interest to non-farmers, and many of the tools and techniques discussed and presented at the show are relevant to home gardeners as well.

So consider giving it a try, and if you do, let us know what you thought. The show runs this Thursday through Saturday at the Boone County fairgrounds; check the link above for details. Frankly, this show is far closer to what a county fair ought to be like in my mind (other than the rides).

One important note: the food at the show is awful. Despite the focus on small farms and local foods, my understanding is that the management of the fairgrounds insists on having the sole right to offer food service, which means the only food available is your standard greasy burgers, hotdogs, nachos, soda, and so on. It's the only venue big enough to host this show, so that's that. Bring your own and keep a couple years on your life.

Dry soil? What a novel concept...

With dry, sunny weather since Saturday, and the expectation of continued sun through Sunday, we're actually going to be able to make progress on many long-delayed final projects. Foremost on this list is finishing the garlic planting we started in a narrow dry window weeks ago. When that's done, we will be working hard to finish preparing the growing areas for winter; pulling out remaining plant detritus, hoeing out weeds, working in new manure in some cases, applying mulch, collecting irrigation hose, and in general cleaning things up so the soil can relax until spring. Once the vegetable portion of the farm is put to sleep, we can really turn our attention to the long list of winter projects. This is a very exciting prospect.

Farm update, early November

LAST MARKET SALES
It's been a good year of sales, starting in April and ending on Halloween. We're grateful to everyone who bought from us and helped support the growth of our farm. Look for one or two wrap-up posts in the coming weeks; I'd like to put together some form of slideshow of market stand images over the year.

BAD LETTUCE VARIETY?
A customer was kind enough to tell me on Saturday that he'd been buying our lettuce mix for weeks, and one of the varieties was consistently going bad sooner than the others. We think it's the Rouge d'Hiver, which is a pretty tender leaf. We checked with a few other folks, who confirmed that one variety had been acting poorly. Our apologies to anyone else who had that problem lately, and our thanks to the initial fellow for telling us. They were all harvested the day before market every week, so clearly there's another issue with that variety. Something to keep in mind for next year, and another example of appreciated customer practice in telling us when there's a problem.

GOAT ROAST

We celebrated the end of market season with a full-goat roast on Sunday, using one of our milk-raised kids. This was the first time we'd roasted a full animal like this, and it was a great day. There will be a series of posts coming out of this event, but the quick summary is that we butchered Saturday afternoon, started the fire Sunday morning, got the kid on around 11am, turned the spit every 15 minutes until nearly 4pm, then started carving. We had around 20 folks show up (plus children), with about ten who didn't make it (trying to whittle the list down to a manageable number was a huge challenge). With some good contributed side dishes, desserts, home-brewed beer, and more, and our own meat, coleslaw, and fresh bread, it was a great afternoon/evening. The meat came out tender and flaky with good flavor, a great relief to us and everyone seemed to enjoy it. More on this later.

ABSURDLY WET OCTOBER
October was just a horrible month, weather-wise. We recorded 10.16 inches of rain on the farm, which lead to all sorts of problems with produce and contributed to our market season ending when it did (greens and other things just wouldn't regrow with no sun and lots of rain). For context, according to NWS records, Columbia has recieved over 10" of rain in October just once before since 1890 (that was in 1941). Above, you see a healthy crop of mushrooms growing on straw bales we had set out in September for future use in mulching beds. Below you see a harvest container literally floating in shin-deep water surrounding our raised market garden beds. This was very convenient, as I could just nudge the thing along as I picked lettuce into it. Not so good for the health of the plants, though.
VAMPIRE GEESE?
That red staining on their bills looks frightening, but it's not lipstick or something worse. Geese like beet greens and underformed beets, but they look pretty odd once they're done eating. And their water bucket just looks scary.

WINTER BLOG PLANS
Obviously I won't have as much farm news and products to write about this winter. However, I have a mental backlog of ranting against food safety laws and other political topics, and there will be regular farm updates as we progress with our winter logging and fencing work. We'll probably get back to more food posts as well, documenting again what a diverse and interesting menu can be had from local foods even in the winter. There's more to say on our organic status as well, as we're hoping to start developing the online presence of our farm records and organic documentation, and will be getting ready to maintain our certification for next year. And then, just a few months from now, it will be time to start writing about the first plant starts of spring and our preparations for the coming market year. So stick with us and stay in touch.