Demand for local food at an all time high

What a modern headline: “Demand for local food at an all time high.” A person born in 1908 probably would not be able to understand it, yet today the issue of locally grown versus imported food may be essential to our continued well-being. The locally grown food issue is, ironically, worldwide.

For all the industrialized nations the food chain has become a complex system based on global corporations that separate producers and consumers are through a chain of processors, value-added manufacturers, shippers and haulers, and retailers. This food chain is so convoluted it is almost impossible to understand. For example, If you shop at Costco and many other grocery stores, you are familiar with the Earthbound Farm Organic Foods, which is a subsidiary brand of Natural Selection Foods, which is a subsidiary of Tanimura and Antle.

The Certified Organic Associations of BC (Canada) has a chart of the global corporations that own some of the organic (but not local) brands you can find on your grocery store shelves. Who Owns What in the Organic food industry, by Phil Howard, an assistant professor at Michigan State University's Department of Community, Agriculture, Recreation and Resource Studies is surprising. If after reading the chart, you feel like you are in a modern version of Abbott and Costello’s “Who's on First,” you are not alone.

The global organic food industry is threatened by the movement to buy from local farmers, who actually provide less than 2% of all food consumed in the United States, and probably the industrialized world, as well, although I have no statistics on this. The globalization of food, which took away the issue of seasonality, so you could have tomatoes, cherries, broccoli, and more year-round, proved to be a highly disruptive situation to both food distribution and agriculture. Food distributors who did not provide out of season food found themselves out of business. Farmers planted one or two crops to meet the huge demand that nationwide and worldwide distribution created.

The local food movement may be as disruptive in reverse. If you enter the phrase “demand for locally grown food” into Yahoo Search, you will get 9,870,000 articles returned.

LOCAL FOOD DISTRIBUTION

Local Kitsap Peninsula food is actually difficult to find. All of the local CSA (community supported agriculture) farms were sold out weeks in advance. Local farmers markets report an increase in customers of double or more over last year. Even our miserable weather and resulting slow season does not deter CSA members and farmers market customers.

However, not everyone can join a CSA or go to a farmers market. To help people who want to enjoy locally grown food, Bainbridge Islander Carlee Ashen started Farm Courier to bring local produce to Bainbridge Island doorsteps. She is at the forefront of local food distribution. Farm Courier enjoys an unique place in the local food distribution system, but Ashen’s success is going to inspire others to copy her business model and join her in providing fresh, locally grown food on the Kitsap Peninsula.Farm Courier and Carlee Ashen were recently featured in this Bainbridge Island Review article Cyber market links Bainbridge growers to residents hungry for local food.

Crossposted with http://www.buylocalfoodinkitsap.org/

Consuming Temperature

It is July 24, 2008. Yesterday the high temperature was 65°, not the normal temperature of 76 °; that is 11° cooler than usual. The low temperature, 53°, three degrees cooler than the normal low of 56 °. The weather forecast predicts highs in the 60’s for a couple of days then getting hotter, into the 70’s. The nighttime lows will stay in the mid-50’s. In the wee hours of the morning, such as 3 a.m., you can see your breath. This is July - that's just wrong.

This is awful weather for food plants. Two major factors regulate plant growth: sunlight and soil temperature. While air temperature is important, soil temperature is the determining factor.

To provide a wider variety of vegetables throughout our 20 week CSA season, we plant sequentially. That means that we really have three gardens that should provide four gardens of food (the first garden is replanted). Plants germinate and grow all summer long. This year, we are transplanting more than ever before to ensure that our plants have a good start. We are direct seeding, too, but not as much as is economical. Here is why we are spending more time, which equals money, on transplanting.

Let us consider the Broccoli plant. The soil temperature for germination must reach 70°, but not exceed 80° to 90°. Seeds take 3 to 8 days to germinate, and reach maturity in about 70 days.

Next, let us consider the Cucumber. The soil temperature. for Germination must be between 70° and 90°F. It takes 7 to 14 days to germinate, and they mature in 70 to 85 days.

Finally, let us consider lettuce. For this year, it is the best. The soil temperature for germination has a wide range, from a low of 40° for some varieties, extending up into the 50s for many other varieties. The top high temperature ranges to 80°. For many varieties, when the air temperatures suddenly increase, for example go from the mid-60s into the high 70s, they bolt, that is rapidly produce seeds. Depending upon variety, it takes 40 to 65 days to mature. This means, however, that when temperatures exceed 80°, lettuce dies.

Sounds quite predictable, but not this year. Soil temperatures are in the 60s. That means that our little broccoli and cucumber seeds had to be planted in the green house, hardened (a process of acclimating the plants to the cooler temperatures outdoors), and transplanted. We even transplanted hundreds of heads of lettuces. There is no guarantee that the transplants will survive.

This spring the air temperatures did not rise above highs of 45°, which means that the soil temperatures were several colder. Not even lettuce would germinate.

The temperature for germination really tells the temperature range in which the plant will survive. The Cucumber survives between 70° and 90°F. A more mature plant can survive and grow in temperatures ten degrees cooler or warmer, but the progress towards maturity will be adversely affected at either end of the range.

When you hear of cold temperatures in the Pacific Northwest, or extraordinarily hot temperatures in other areas like New York, that means that the crops are stressed and may under produce or simply die.

For this reason, climate change directly affects our food crops. We are told by those who visit many farms in the whole Puget Sound Area, that our crops are doing marvelously, considering the weather. We have more of everything. It is taller, more mature, and more abundant. This is due to our diligent Co-farmer, Brad, and his workers, Lesley, Allison, and Kathy. Still, our crops are slow: perhaps six to eight weeks behind. Pray for a long season.