Another layer of food knowledge was added through farm weekends. Do kids these days have this advantage? Weekends were spent at mom’s parent’s retirement farm-ette on Sheldon Road in Belleville (sp?), where we ran wild (suburban kids gone free-range) with cousins from Dearborn. The four of us helped Grandpa with the orchards, garden, and 10-acre pumpkin patches; Grandpa loved the farm after a work life spent in the office. And we, my brother Pete and I, spent at least a week each summer with dad’s sister, Aunt Mary Jane and Uncle Bill at their retirement farm in Northern Michigan, in Bellaire with literally thousands of pine trees (we know the number because Uncle Bill planted them, and our cousins tended them) and hundreds of cherry trees, and yet more vegetables.  We were the lucky ones. I know that now. Looking at pictures of the cousins sitting up in the big tree out the back door on the farm, all I see is happy kids. (And a happy dog, Jacques the Dog, loved sitting in the tree also.) 

Do you have stories and memories like this?  Let us know. contact@learngreatfoods.com

Last month's Leopold Center workshop in Ames, Iowa was eye-opening. I was inspired by many of the working groups’ reports, got excited about transportation and economic research by civil engineer Omar Smadi and economist David Swenson, respectively, and got to hear Anthony Flaccavento speak about how the Appalachian Harvest Network feeds people and has grown in Virginia and Tennessee. Anthony was brokering for himself and other farmers to restaurants and trying to work with a CSA, models that worked for California and metro New York areas – and then realized those models would not work in his rural areas, especially for the tobacco farmers transitioning to something else.

Their network considered growing niche foods - produce with unusual tastes, unfamiliar to local home cooks, organic produce and meats.  Instead of Niche Foods, they went with “Ordinary Food for Ordinary Folks.” The first tagline is sexy. The second tagline is real. Their success has meant working with local grocery stores, and investing in handling equipment - for grading, sizing, washing – and coolers – both for taking field heat out of incoming crops and for storing produce. 

It’s true for all of us living in rural areas: We need the best quality ordinary food for us best quality ordinary folks. See more about Appalachian Harvest network at images.businessweek.com.

What I learned yesterday was directly applicable to our new Beef FoodBook. I have struggled with how to present sustainability information about beef production, when farmer friends are polarized in their views and definitions of what is sustainable. The Leopold Grass-Based Livestock Working Group gave me some answers. Their working group includes members that fit into the spectrum of management practices, from grass-fed to corn-finished and the spaces around and between. Everyone works and learns together, despite their place on the continuum. Farmers are able to educate non-farmers about the high levels of skill and experience needed to care for livestock. Conservation groups are able to educate farmers about the benefits, financial and environmental, of managed grazing. Big and small improvements are made in big and small operations, and everyone benefits from civil discourse and communication.   It’s a continuum, just as all sustainability practices are a continuum. All management practices - whether feed, slaughtering, supplements, etc. - are brought to the table. 

See more at www.valuechains.org.  Look under Grass- Based Livestock. Also check out Small Meat Processors, Pork Niche, and the other working groups.

Also inspiring was the Appalachian Sustainable Development’s Anthony Flaccavento, and his Wendell Berry readings. Stay tuned for tidbits from Anthony in the next blog installment.