Today’s 3-Minute Interview in the Washington Examiner is with our very own Jean Janssen — read the full interview here!
July 2008 Archives
Shopping at a farmers’ market should mean that you can trust the market management to meet minimal standards of sound business practices and the reasonable expectations of the farmers, customers and the community at large. The following are a few questions for the management at your favorite market. The answers should either be readily available or easily accessible at the market or on the Web.
1. If you are advertising this market as producer-only, what are you doing to guarantee that?
2. How do you handle the confusion and concern caused by food scares such as the recent tomato and meat recalls?
3. What do you know about how the farmers raise their produce, such whether they use chemical fertilizers or insecticides and fungicides? Do you encourage or reward certain practices over others in your selection process?
4. To what extent do you request or require that your value-added producers use local ingredients in their products, and how do you ensure that your wishes or demands are met?
5. What are your goals and objectives as a market manager, and how do your management decisions serve those ends?
The answers to these questions will enable you to better understand the operation you are supporting and help you to compare the goals and practices of the various markets in your area. The answers will also provide you with information that can help you to monitor what you see yourself in the markets you choose to support.
The latest issue of The Sun, an excellent, ad-free magazine published in Chapel Hill, N.C., features a lengthy interview with writer, thinker and farmer Wendell Berry. Berry has written many fine books and essays about what it is to be human and to be connected to the Earth and to each other. His insights become only more vital as time passes.
Here is an excerpt in which he discusses food and farming:
Fearnside (the interviewer): In your recent talk to the Sierra Club, you mentioned “foodsheds.” Can you explain this concept in more detail?
Berry: Cities attract food products from the countryside the same way that a major stream attracts water from the smaller streams in a watershed. A foodshed would be the tributary landscape around a city from which the city’s food would come. It goes back to the ancient concept of the city as a gathering point for the products of its landscape. And since we haven’t had cheap petroleum for a while — and we’re probably not going to have it ever again — we need to think this way once more. Sooner or later, we’re not going to be able to afford to haul food in from everywhere in the world.
Another reason to think in terms of local food economies is that an extended food system concentrates food at collecting points and transportation arteries, so it’s extremely vulnerable to blockades or acts of terrorism. A third reason — and this may be the most important reason of all — is that if you’re going to have sustainable agriculture, it has to be adapted locally. Local adaptation means that you observe in the economic landscape the same processes that you find in healthy natural landscapes: You must have diversity. You must have both plants and animals. You must waste nothing. You must obey the law of return — that is, you must return to the ground all the nutrients that you take from it. You must protect the soil from erosion at all times. You must make maximum use of sunlight. In those circumstances, you may leave the crops and animals pretty much to fend for themselves against diseases. The farm will have some disease, but it won’t have epidemics. If you look at a healthy forest, for instance, you see some prematurely dead trees, but not massive numbers of them.
Read the interview here in its entirety. Bonus reading: Berry’s “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front.”
We’re excited to announce special musical guests at our market in Reston July 3 (that’s tomorrow!). Stop by Reston Town Square for a performance by Ben Walters and Melissa Wright, members of the local group Acoustic Burgoo. Ben and Melissa will start playing around 4:30 p.m. Check out Acoustic Burgoo’s Myspace page for a sampling of their tunes.
We’ll also have some food samples just for the holiday weekend. Fields of Athenry will be grilling lamb and chicken, Whole Foods will grill veggies for a ratatouille, and Gypsy Hill will prepare corn on the cob, brushed with several of their herb and spice mixes in melted butter. Both of our local wineries will be on hand: Loudoun County’s Corcoran Vineyards and Tarara Winery.
By the way, Smart Markets is looking for local musicians who would like to play at our markets for tips and a little extra — get in touch if you’re interested!