Hello everyone!
We hope you will be able to join us at our next Pathfinder Produce
market here on Thursday afternoon at the Village Commons building, from 1 to 5
p.m. Our “Little Market that Could” is heading
into its third year; we’re grateful for the tremendous community support we’ve
had and look forward to another tremendous year serving all our friends and
neighbors.
****
Last week’s
column focused on the California drought and how it affects everyone as we shop
for fresh fruits and vegetables for our families. Unfortunately, weather predictions for the
West Coast for the first half of 2016 may not offer real relief. According to
the Weather
Channel, California may get more rain, but “the drought may also hold
steady in the northern Rockies and northern High Plains,” during this El Niño,
the strongest weather occurrence of its type in the past 18 years.
That means
the winter snow packs that feed the growing fields of the Golden State necessarily
won’t be replenished as they historically have been.
So what can
we do about it?
I haven’t
heard it mentioned in any of the Presidential Debates, but I believe the time
has come to make big changes at the national level for American
agriculture. As in savvy financial
planning, diversification is the key. It also makes greater sense from a
national security standpoint.
First, as
California will not have the same capabilities to supply our needs, we must
look at growing edibles in other places around the country. Writer Tom Philpott
of Mother
Jones suggests that the former cotton belt would be ideal, especially in areas
east of the Mississippi.
He writes, “Why
not transition at least some acres into crops with a robust domestic market? I
bounced my idea of a Cotton Belt fruit-and-vegetable renaissance off a few
experts to see if it was nuts. Ferd Hoefner, policy director of the National
Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, called it ‘noncrazy’ … and added that the
region ‘seems ripe for entrepreneurial companies to come in, buy land, grow
farmers, introduce a whole new vegetable supply chain on a bigger scale,
especially with California's woes’."
We also need
to rethink the potential for the Midwest, which at present, is over-planted
in corn due to our reliance on grain-fed meats and ethanol for fuel. I’m
not an agronomist, but if diversified crops were grown, it would improve the
land, increase our sources of produce, and mitigate widespread failure if there
were a natural pest or other disaster that targeted corn. Jonathan Foley, the
Director of the California Academy of Sciences, wrote a 2013
piece in which he explores these ideas.
(I’d should
add that a better answer to our ethanol needs is to grow industrial
hemp, which can be grown without herbicides,
produces greater
biomass yields per acre than corn, and offers many other
‘green’ uses. Yes, it is a member of the cannabis family, but it does not
contain sufficient tetrahydrocannabinol to induce pyschoactive effects).
Here in the
Northeast, we should look to growing and preserving more of our families’
produce, as our grandparents and great-grandparents did. We can also extend
our growing seasons by using hoop houses and learn
to eat seasonally. Authors and organic farmers Eliot
Coleman and Barbara Damrosch offer ample
advice about growing in colder climates and producing fresh harvests year-round. Many people are now starting to grow in urban
areas too, like former NBA Player Will
Allen, and are realizing impressive results.
Until next time, eat and be well,
Lori
