Chipotle & Joel Salatin team up

On the subject of local veggie growers, check out the NY Times op-ed piece by Jack Hedin a couple of Sundays back: "My Forbidden Fruit (and Vegetables)."

Hedin, a Wisconsin organic vegetable grower, describes the ways the USDA commodity crop subsidy rules penalize vegetable growers. We need a Farm Bill that is in tune with what more and more consumers seek - local, sustainably-produced whole food. It is not too late to contact your congressional representatives about this.

Chipotle rocks for any number of reasons. (If only they didn't use quite so much salt in the rice.)

This is good news indeed, Rod. Here in the Northwest, I read the farm and ranch newspaper (Capital Press) every week. It always includes stories about how farmers and ranchers can "add value" (increase their profit margin) by going organic or running a CSA or appearing at a farmer's market or selling to a store or restaurant that specializes in local food. Each of these paths typically offers a premium over the usual price (and thus us economically attractive to the producer). There have been some very sigificant moves in that direction here. Burgerville (a chain of burger joints in Oregon and Washington) gets its beef from a coop of Oregon ranchers who raise "natural beef," and it also offers seasonal, regional specials such as hazelnut milkshakes, Walla Walla onion rings, sweet potato fries, and such. Its wildly popular. This is reported in the agricultural press, and a signficiant number of farmers and ranchers are trying to find a way to get a piece of the action. Bon Appetit, a food service corporation that supplies many colleges, etc., has also moved in the direction of local, seasonal, etc. Now even the mainstream grocery chains and some big box stores (Costco) are featuring local, seasonal and even organic products. There is some legitimate controversy about the big boys getting into the act. But the general trend is good: consumer preference (and the price premium people are willing to pay) is driving some farmers, ranchers, restaurants and grocers to move in a more sustainable direction. If anyone is really interested in this trend, they should read the farm/ranch press.

"market conditions are such that small-scale farming can now finally pay. This is great news, and I'd like to know from readers of this blog if you're seeing the same thing happening where you are."

It's what I'm hearing, but I can't vouch for it personally yet. We're still at least a year away from our own farm. But I've been to conferences of local producers who say there's more demand than they can keep up with, and most of it comes through word of mouth.

It's a hard thing for farmers like my family to believe, because up until a few years ago, the only reason anyone bought straight from the farmer was to get a better price. Quality wasn't the concern. People figured, cut out the middleman, it should be cheaper, and it often was, because most farmers didn't have a solid idea what their product was worth, and it didn't take much to get more than the farm-gate price.

We sold at the local farmer's market for a while in the mid-80s, but it just wasn't profitable. People bought from whoever had the cheapest prices, which was either retired folks doing it as a hobby or truck farmers from out of town unloading surpluses. Words like "organic" or "humane" or "free-range" never came up, at least here in the middle of Midwest farm country. Farm magazines talked about those things mattering in places like San Francisco, but they didn't here.

So people like my parents are naturally wary, wondering if this is just a fad, like bison several years ago, or ostriches before that. There's always something new coming along that farmers are supposed to make big money at, but it always passes, and people go back to eating the same old processed commodities from the grocery store. That could happen with the "locally-grown" stuff too.

Personally, I think this has more staying power, because it's been developing longer, and it has a spiritual component to it for a lot of people. It's about more than just price or quality; it's also about people wanting to connect with their community. We'll see, but I'm hopeful.

Salatin rules.

I think there was a post to the contrary a few days ago...but breaking news:

Gorbachev is an atheist
http://www.christianpost.com/article/20080324/31660_Gorbachev_Dispels_'Closet_Christian'_Rumors%3B_Says_He_is_Atheist.htm

Rod,
Something that is happening here in Alaska has to do with the local dairy farms in Palmer and Wasilla. I just read an article in our paper about a man named Beus who is going to open a small dairy plant to process the 4 dairy farms milk that is as of now being poured on their fields since the major dairy processing plant Matanuska Maid went out of business last year. Beus is planning on selling high quality local milk, cheeses and ice cream. I am excited for this prospect and hope that he is successful in his endeavor.

I would just as soon not eat chicken than eat the kind of supermarket chicken I used to buy.

That's what I've come to, if it's not some combination of local/organic/grassfed/freerange/fresh/chemical free meat, then I'd be vegetarian (growing my own of course). I noticed a huge jump in flavor with grassfed beef, but I was more amazed with raw flesh texture in chicken between de-boning a factory chicken and a more naturally raised one. The meat is much more tender in the hands, smells better (not too mention taste), and just feels less "tense". I also feel that one should not morally eat meat unless they've slaughtered and processed a fresh animal for consumption themselves whether it be fish, livestock or poultry. You don't need to be religious to understand the spirituality of that.

"The meat is much more tender in the hands, smells better (not too mention taste), and just feels less "tense"."

My mother, who grew up on a farm in Cuba, told me that when they were about to slaughter a chicken, they would feed it on pieces of bread soaked in rum for a couple of days beforehand, so it would be "relaxed" and tender. Said it tasted delicious, spoiled her for American chicken when she moved up here.

Local farmer i have gone to for chicken (free range with supplemental feed) sold his farm to a developer. No Chipotles here.

Steve

Take away the government subsidies for industrial food and let them compete honestly. The prices we currently pay for "cheap" industrial food are hidden in our taxes, which cover subsidies and environmental cleanup, and in environmental degradation that is not easily remedied.

All agriculture is hard on land, but there are ways to reintroduce biological health and balance. But the little growers, who do things sustainably to support a healthy eco-system, have to internaliza all the costs.

With gas prices going up, the premium paid on local food is going away now. The future of food security is not huge farms and centralized processing plants and complicated transportation systems. It is small communities that work out the details among neighbors. It is, I think, deeply conservative, in the best understanding of that term.

Good post, Rod. I love your blog. I too am a crunchy con, and a Christian to boot. I'm now working in the organic food and farming arena. I applaud this type of partnership -- Chipotle and Salatin. Local food is one thing the big food corps will not be able to co-opt. But we need better structure of distributing local food. Maybe this will be a model for that.