You know it’s “cool” to eat local – to call yourself a locavore, wear a man-bun and grind your own fair trade coffee.  You feel good about yourself because your banana farmer in South America is getting paid a fair wage and you know the names of your local farmer’s kids.  But really – What’s in it for YOU to shop local?  I mean, it’s expensive, it’s time consuming, right?  Maybe not so much when you consider the whole picture.
 

1. TRUST.  Do you want to know how your food is produced?  Looking into the eyes of the person who made it means a lot more than any certification from the US government. (Or even worse – other countries’ governments – did you know that agreement about Organic Practices varies from country to country?)  We’re taking other countries at their word when they put it on their label.  Your local farmer eats what she produces, feeds it to her family, hosts friends with that food and sells it in the community in which he lives.  Where his children go to school, where their family goes to church and where her family has lived for generations.  There’s no higher stakes at getting something right than that.
2. LAND PRESERVATION.  Farmer’s are a great deal for a local tax base.  For every dollar in taxes that a Connecticut farm pays, they only use $0.31 in services.  That’s land preservation at its very cheapest.  Get it- by supporting your local farm, you are saving on YOUR taxes!  To maintain a rural feel to your town, the public must support local agriculture.  You won’t be driving by a hay field if you don’t buy the local farmer’s beef.  You won’t enjoy vistas of tomato fields if you don’t join your local CSA.  Farms are businesses and they need customers to stay solvent.
3. CONVENIENCE.  It may not seem like it’s convenient to stop at a couple of farms on your way home from work, or on Saturday morning, or with the kids in the back seat, but maybe give it a try.  You might find out it’s even MORE convenient than the local big box shop.  I mean – you can’t exactly leave your kids in the car while you go into the grocery store, but you might be able to park right outside a small farm store while the kids watch the cows from the comfort of their car seats.  You might find that one of your favorite Farm Stores sells a little bit of everything – meat and veggies from their farm, plus milk and cheese from a neighbor farm.  Sometimes making a new routine can be a challenge, but you find out it’s actually easier for you in the end.
4. VALUE.  If you compare, dollar for dollar, locally produces food, you might find that the local stuff seems more expensive.  But sometimes it’s not.  Be careful about how you compare.  Don’t compare a pound of pasture-raised beef from your local farmer to the stuff on sale in the big box that came from who-knows-where and was made from animals that lived who-knows-how.  Compare apples to apples (no pun intended) when you shop – are items advertised with their price per pound, or priced per item?  Many times the price per pound is quite similar.  When you shop local, 100% of your money stays in your community – double that of when you shop in a big box. 
5. EDUCATION.  Never heard of kohlrhabi?  Don’t know how to cook a beef shank?  Your local farmer will help you!  Check out the farm website, or CSA emails for recipes and directions.  Show up to Open Farm days and ask questions of your farmer.  Bring your kids and let them “meet their meat” and pick their own berries.  It’s important to know that pork chops come from a pig and that blackberries grow on thorny canes.  It’s  only then that we have a true appreciation for our food.  It should matter how the pig was raised before you put a piece of bacon on your plate.  It’s only when you walk out into a field that you understand how little of the broccoli plant is the crown part.  Understanding provides motivation not to waste.  It’s what makes you want to use the leftover bacon in a frittata the next day and chop up the broccoli stems for your stir fry.  And that the start.  The little bit that each one of us can do to make our earth a better place to live.
6. HEALTH.  Americans suffer unnecessarily from diet related disease and chronic illness including diabetes, heart disease, and even some cancers.  We struggle to find the “PERFECT” diet – Paleo? Mediterranean? Atkins? Vegan?  What’s at the root of all these diets is that they all put an emphasis on eating REAL FOOD.  Shopping local means eating real food.  Not stuff that comes out of a package.  And everyone from the Surgeon General to Dr. Oz agrees that the path to health is not paved with processed food.  Fruits and vegetables, high quality meat and dairy (along with plenty of movement) are the backbone to healthy living.  The health of you and your family are affected by the food you choose to buy.  You are making healthcare decisions three times per day.

 
So, that’s what’s in it for you:  A lot.  Hope to see you soon.
 
-Farmer Kate

This is the written transcript of my comments made during the Public Comment section of the 2/3/16 Board of Ed meeting.

I had the opportunity to speak to the 4th graders at Wells Rd School a couple of weeks ago.  Mrs. Cloukey asked me to speak.  The children were doing research for opinion pieces they were writing and after reading articles and watching a video on the subject of school lunch, they asked me to serve as a further source.  I was asked to come speak because as a farmer, a mother and a community member, I am known to have strong opinions on the topic.  In fact, I spoke to you about school lunch two years ago (you can find those comments on my website).  I made the same case to the 4th graders that I made to you two years ago:  processed food has no business in our schools. 
 
It was a fun back and forth with my engaged audience.  I first asked them why they came to school in the first place?  Hands went up with answers like “to learn”, “schools have resources we don’t have at home”, and “teachers”.  Then I asked if learning about nutrition was important.  Yes, they said emphatically, citing that you could only live a certain amount of days (we weren’t really clear on EXACTLY), without food or you DIE.  And, food helps keep you healthy.  I told them, that in fact the administration agrees because there is curriculum about nutrition taught in our schools.  Then we talked about messages inside their school.  Do you have R rated books in the library? I asked them.  NO, they answered. Well, how about those motorcycles they let you ride out on the playground…  those must be fun, I egged them on.  After some roaring laughter, we agreed that teachers and the administration don’t offer just any toys and games to play with on the playground, but only ones that are appropriate for the ages of the kids at school.  What about signs like these:  do you see signs like these in the lunchroom?
I wrote on the board:

2+2=5
 
PUT YOU’RE TRAY HERE
 
Laughter again.  Of course not.  Because we don’t teach math and grammar ONLY in the classroom.  Positive messages are posted everywhere in school.  And that’s why we should give positive messages through the food we offer them every day.  After a discussion about what is good food and testing my hypothesis: Good Food Grows, it was clear that processed food is not good food.  Quick test for you:  Do Doritos grow? Pop Tarts?  I’ve been combing through my seed catalogs for a few weeks now and still haven’t seen a Doritos seed.
 
This conversation is again timely because the US government recently released the 2015-2020 Federal Dietary Guidelines.  This year, more than ever, the guidelines are clear:  processed food is NOT good for our bodies.  We NEED to limit added sugar and salt.  But this is not a discussion about outlawing processed food.  If you want to eat a bowl of Doritos this weekend while watching the Superbowl, I promise I’m not coming over to your house to grab them out of your kid's hand.  I’m not lobbying Stop and Shop to stop selling anything in a package.  I’m asking you.   School.  Stop telling our kids that added sugar and salt is OK for their bodies.  That’s exactly what you’re doing by putting a pile of chips right at the end of the lunch line.  And, honestly, you’re telling parents it’s OK too.  But as parents, we’re not there to see how our kids are moderating.  And many of them aren’t.  Talk to the cashier of the Wells Rd. lunch line.  I did last week.  She is very upset about the kids she sees who end up buying and eating a strawberry milk, a couple of cookies and a bag of chips for lunch.
 
Now, I understand that the school lunch program needs to be profitable.  We need to think outside the box and brainstorm new ways of doing things in the lunchroom.  Because it is unethical to be balancing the budget of the school lunch program by offering our kids snacks that current science says are not good for their bodies.
 
I spoke to you about this two years ago and we made some progress.  Healthy School Lunch certification is a great thing.  But just because our government says that Baked Doritos can be included in a “healthy lunch”, doesn’t mean we have to toe the line too.  We’re not in the pockets of the Big Food companies they way the USDA is.  I’m bringing this up again now because the stakes are about to get higher:  Next school year we will be sending our kindergarteners, our 5 year-olds to Kelly Lane where they will have access to a healthy hot lunch every day.  Please don’t send them the message that chips and ice cream are part of that healthy lunch.
 
I’m excited to get to work on this.  I had a great talk with Dave and Rosemary at the Wells Road cafeteria last week and am looking forward to meeting with them again to brainstorm ideas.  But in order to make lasting change in our community, the Board of Ed and the administration need to embrace a vision of health for our kids and then we need to put it into action in every cafeteria in the district.  I very much appreciate your time.  I am always reachable and would love to hear from you at [email protected].

The growing season is coming up and it sounds fun to join the club of “Local Foodies”, but there’s work, kids activities, let’s face it, LIFE.  Who has time to spend all day going around to local farms to gather up food you don’t think your kids or your husband are going to eat anyway?  Here are my top 5 ways to make the transition from big box processed food diet to local veggie-based whole foods diet (really, it’s not that scary!)

1.     Ask for what you want, but buy what they have.  Farmers love feedback from their customers!  Want more tomatoes in your CSA share?  No nitrates in your sausage?  We want to hear what you like and don’t like about what we’re growing because pleasing you will keep you coming back.  But if we don’t have this or that just now, don’t walk away with nothing.  The recipe called for flank steak and the farmer’s all out?  Maybe skirt steak will work just as well; or maybe you just change to burgers for dinner.  You LOVE roasted carrots?  Try parsnips!

2.     Try one thing at a time:  Start slow and ease into the local eating diet.  Changing from eating big brands and packaged foods from the one-stop grocery market to seeking out farmers and eating whole foods is a big change – give yourself time.  Try doing one thing this season:  Join a CSA, commit to buying meat from a local farm once a week (or once a month), go out for a glass of wine at a local vineyard instead of your favorite restaurant, make the local Farmer’s Market a weekly habit.  Any ONE of these changes can improve the quality of your diet by leaps and bounds.

3.     Talk to insiders.  Farmers, friends, Facebook and your local health food store are all great places to look to get advice about local eating.  Don’t know where to go for milk?  As your CSA farmer.  Who still has shares available at a local CSA?  Ask in your local Facebook group.  Want bones to make bone broth?  Ask how-to at the health food store.

4.     Double up – Lots of small farms are now trying to offer more for their customer:  they raise meat and also stock local dairy products in their farm store.  They grow veggies, but offer meat in their CSA once in a while.  Use your resources to find these gems.  You might pay a bit more for having all those products in one place, but the reduction in travel time is worth it.

5.     Take advantage and try something new.  Instead of eschewing the bad, sugar-laden processed stuff (you can do that too!), try adding in more good stuff:  try some Bok Choy, or that lean grass feed ground beef.  And take advantage of the tools your farmer offers:  try the recipes they send out in their CSA newsletter or website.  Make sure up to show up with your farmer’s annual tour day – then corner the farmer to ask all your questions.  A well-educated eater is a farmer’s best customer.

Try these 5 tips this summer and see if you can make some changes stick.  Your farmer and your body will thank you!

Last night the Town of Granby’s Town-Owned Land Study Committee held a public meeting to solicit ideas about what to do with 107 East Street (formerly the Evonsian Farm), a property recently acquired by the town.  I felt so grateful to hear so many residents of our town speak in support of farming in Granby.  Here are the comments I made:

“I’d like to see the land stay as it is right now (in corn).  I know you’ve been charged with coming up with a purpose for this newly acquired town asset, but let’s not forget: this land is not new, just new to the town.  The farmers who owned it and their neighbors have been farming this land for years.

“Keeping land in farmland is important to keeping the rural nature of our town and staying true to its farming heritage.  Granby can’t FEEL like a farm town if we aren’t actually farming.  The reason our town feels like a farm town – different from others – is because we drive past acres of corn growing, farmers making hay in the summertime, cattle and horses grazing in fields, row after row of vegetables growing, and old apple trees heavy with fruit.

“The farmers who are currently using this land need it.  They grow food for their animals who in turn grow food for us.  I’d like to see the town let them continue.”

There is still time to give your opinion on how this property should be used.  A survey will be available April 1st on the town’s website, granby-ct.gov.  Fill it out and let the them know what you value in our town.