How locally will we be eating in years ahead?

Published: Saturday, April 18, 2009

GREENFIELD — The breakfast of crab scallion pancakes and pork buns may have seemed exotic for the Franklin County Chamber of Commerce, but no more so than talk of which species of violets are tastiest.

Turners Falls resident Dave Jacke — who wrote two books on ”edible forest gardens” and teaches nationwide about ”fostering a different kind of agriculture” using perennials that have been long ignored as a food source — was one of four speakers on just how locally we’ll need to be eating in the years ahead.

Depending on how you define ”local,” Whately organic farmer David Jackson’s aptly named Enterprise Farm is already doing that, with year-round customers around the region for whom California produce is a thing of the past.

Ten calories of energy is required for each calorie of food we typically eat, said Jacke of Pleasant Street Community Garden. That’s in addition to the cost of transporting it the average of 1,500 miles to our tables in an era when energy costs are expected to rise dramatically.

”We can’t sustain that much longer,” he told the roughly 100 business and community leaders gathered at the monthly chamber breakfast. ”We’re all kind of in deep doo-doo here, even though most of us don’t know that.”

As people will look to grow more of their own food, and to get more of their food locally, he hopes his work on edible perennial gardens will help us do that more easily.

”I’d like to have my landscape and eat it too,” said Jacke, who is participating in a project to see how much of its own food supply Shelburne Falls can grow.

Jacke, who foresees nothing less than the ”wholesale restructuring of our economy and of our food system, contends that if Franklin County grew 20 percent more of its food, its economic activity would be increased by $20 million a year.

”There’s a great opportunity for all of us to have a stronger community and stronger networks, to re-invigorate our local economies.”

While it might seem contradictory, Enterprise Farm’s Jackson said his Whately business has grown dramatically by contracting with about 40 farms from Florida to Prince Edward Island to supply year-round produce to a dozen food co-ops, five food delivery systems and two subscription farms, as well as its own 450 ”farm-share” members. That’s 10 tractor-trailer loads of produce it sells off-season, where before it did none.

”Where I see the whole ‘local’ in what seems to be a strong marketing trend, is that a big part of the business is taking place in the winter time,” said Jackson, who was approached in 2007 by Green Fields Market about helping to shift its winter organic produce supply away from California.

Pretty much every farmer along the East Coast is up against the ‘evil empire,’ which is California,” said Jackson. But rising fuel prices and water shortages are challenging that state’s ability to undercut farms in the East, and a head of lettuce can be delivered here from Florida in two days rather than 10 from twice the distance.

As wholesale prices for organic produce drops, Jackson said, providing wintertime customers with Florida avocados and pecans from the Carolinas provides an opportunity for Enterprise and begins to develop a market for farms to extend their seasons to develop a ”regional foodshed.”

”What I see is a growing effort on the part of customers to put a face to the farmer and buy their food more locally, which to me is pretty impressive,” said Jackson.

Ed Maltby of Deerfield-based Northeast Organic Dairy Producers Alliance, and a developer of both the Our Family Farms dairy cooperative and the new Adams Family Slaughterhouse in Athol, advised consumers to be cautious, though, with labels — especially ”organic” and ”hormone-free.”

”The issue we keep coming back to is the integrity of labeling,” said Maltby. ”Without that, you consumers are going to the store thinking you’re buying something that comes straight from the farm, where in fact it comes from some large outfit out in Colorado (and) can never have the security of knowing where your food dollars are going.”

”The concept of marketing, where you see that happy cow on the front of your milk carton … in my opinion lacks reality,” he said. ”As we hit the crossroads where ‘buy local’ programs are maturing, where organic is now a $20 million, $25 million industry, we need to be assured that what is being marketed to us is, in fact, what it is.”

Sorrel Hatch of Gill said that after earning a degree in entomology, she returned to her family’s Upinngil Farm, which sells all the raw milk it can produce from its seven cows, as well as honey, seasonal berries, and even flour milled from its own wheat — all from its own stand.

”I decided that local was the key to building a long-term future,” Hatch said. ”The only thing that could really endure and safeguard the environment was direct contact between the consumer and the producer, and direct contact of the consumer with the land.

You can reach Richie Davis at rdavis@recorder.com or (413) 772-0261 Ext. 269

Turners tots to eat (very) local as preschool plants its own garden

TUNERS FALLS — Preschool children in ”The Patch” neighborhood will soon be getting fresh vegetables from a garden just a few feet away from their playground.

The G Street Preschool, with the help of the several area gardening experts and local businesses, is building a garden.

Besides learning to care for the garden and getting fresh vegetables, which encourages good nutrition and healthy eating habits, children will also learn about scientific methods like the process of designing and building a garden, watching plants grow and seeing how the environment affects plant growth, said Marianne Bouthilette, education site supervisor for the G Street Preschool, which is part of Community Action’s Parent Child Development Center preschool program.

For now, the garden plots will just be for students at the school, but eventually, parents will also have the chance to farm their own plots, she said. If the project is a success, community members may also get to have a plot, Bouthilette said.

”We hope in the future to extend this to the community.”

With the price of food on the rise, learning how to produce your own food is becoming more desirable, said David K. Jacke, who lives on H Street, a few blocks from the school, and is helping with the garden.

”The (garden) can help change the culture of families so they can have healthy, local food. There’s such a need for people to start growing food because of what we’re doing with climate change.”

Jacke, a graduate of Conway Landscape School, runs Dynamics Ecological Design where he designs and installs ecological landscaping and gardens. He’s currently focusing on teaching permaculture, the practice of applying the principles of ecology to designing sustainable human habitats.

Students, parents and some community members gathered on Saturday to begin work on the garden.

The first section of garden will be a 13-by-8-foot section of raised vegetables beds along the fence behind the playground.

Behind the fence, in an overgrown field with a few saplings, there will be blueberry and gooseberry bushes and eventually fruit trees.

The beds will be built in the shape of a keyhole so children will be able to walk in the middle of the beds and be surrounded by garden, said Jacke.

There will also be a compost bin, which will collect scraps from breakfast and lunch at the school.

”Our world is wasteful,” said Bouthilette. ”This is teaching children how to recycle. It’s teaching children how to care for the earth and the world.”

A student from the Conway Landscape School designed the garden.

Besides Jacke, several other professionals in the garden and landscaping field are helping with the garden, including Kate Kerivan a Conway School alum, Tom Sullivan a current student and Holly Westcott, a compost consultant.

Rugg Lumber, Greenfield Farmers Cooperative Exchange, Wancyzk’s Nursery, Smith Vocational School and Communities Involved Sustaining Agriculture also donated to the project.

If the garden program is a success, it could be expanded to Community Action’s other preschool sites, said Bouthilette.

”Hopefully, this will be like a plant and the seeds will spread,” said Jacke.

You can reach Arn Albertini at: aalberti@recorder.com or (413) 772-0261 Ext. 264