OK this is not only the feastin' season, it also opens up the singin' season. So here is the "official" Oklahoma Food Coop holiday song (well, one of them anyway, next month we have the 12 Days of the Coop's Christmas. . . which includes a Very Pesky Pastured Chicken in a Stratford Peach Tree!)
TIS THE SEASON FOR THE FEASTIN'
Tune: Deck the halls with boughs of holly
(1) Tis the season for the feastin',
Oklahoma Foods are good to eat!
Taste nutrition can't be beaten,
Oklahoma Foods are good to eat!
Nurturing the land and people,
Farm and city joining hands.
Tis the season for the feastin',
Oklahoma Foods are good to eat!
(2) Care for people and creation,
Oklahoma Foods are good to eat!
Hope throughout the bio-region,
Oklahoma Foods are good to eat!
From our farms onto our tables,
we will bless the way we eat!
Care for people and creation,
Oklahoma Foods are good to eat!
(3) Healing nature with earth's beauty,
Oklahoma Foods are good to eat!
Wisdom, joy fulfilling duty,
Oklahoma Foods are good to eat!
Eating with the changing seasons,
Chasing the CAFOs from our land!
Healing nature with earth's beauty,
Oklahoma Foods are good to eat!
(4) Social justice, sustainability,
Oklahoma Foods are good to eat!
Economic viability,
Oklahoma Foods are good to eat!
These our values, govern always,
They will take us forward far!
Three in number the core values,
Oklahoma Foods are good to eat!
This is what we are about, good food for good people. Social justice, environmental sustainability, economic viability -- good food that does good, or as we shall say in December, "Peace on Earth, Good meals for all!"
It gets very busy around here. We don't always achieve our goals. But seven years into this crazy experiment, we are still here, making a difference on farm and in the city.
EATIN' WITH THE SEASON
This is one of the important principles of the Oklahoma Food Cooperative. So this is the month for the cool season greens and squash and pumpkins. Looking at the order inventories, I still see a lot of greens available. Greens are so tasty and nutritious. Folks should buy lots, cook 'em and eat 'em now, and freeze some for eating later. Cooked greens freeze very well, I do it all the time.
I also see lots of pumpkins, and if you're making your pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving out of canned pumpkin, well, you are missing one of the great taste treats. At our very first activity -- the Oklahoma Food dinner of November 2003 -- we served pumpkin pie made from real pumpkins. None of us had actually ever done that before, but we looked up the recipe on the internet (Google is the friend of local food), and it was certainly the best pumpkin pie I've ever et. Combine that with some whipped cream from pastured cows, and you have very fine food for your feastin' table.
Turkeys sold out really quick -- memo to producers, WE NEED MORE TURKEYS NEXT YEAR. That's been true every year of the coop's existence. But that doesn't mean that we lack for fine centerpiece meats for your holiday tables. I see wonderful tenderloins of beef and pork and buffalo. Whole prime ribs of buffalo. Legs of lamb. Roasts. Pastured chickens. Very nice foods for your feastin' season.
And details? We have pecans for your pecan pie or pecan tarts, or to scatter across your baked sweet potatoes. Lard and suet for pie crusts. Peanuts and roastin' and eatin'. Wonderful whole wheat flour for rolls, breads, and cakes, and yes, whole wheat flour makes a very fine cake. Use buttermilk or yogurt instead of milk and it will be a light and tasty cake, so much so that people will hardly believe it was made with whole wheat flour. Jams and jellies for your rolls. Bread and hot roll dough if you're too busy to make your own. Nice prepared casseroles for potlucks and when you are just too busy to cook.
Now is also a good time for your holiday gift shopping, and you name it, our fine coop artisan producers have them for sale. I hadn't realized how easy the food coop would make my Christmas shopping. Friends and family receive jellies and jams and artisan soaps and pecans and crafts from me instead of mass-produced junk made by wage slaves and sold in big box stores.
RECIPES FOR GREENS
There are many ways to cook greens. The most traditional, southern way is to simmer them slowly with ham hocks or bacon. Arkansas bacon is particularly good for this I think, or a meaty bone from a ham. As the cooking proceeds, a rich vitamin-filled broth results, this is what is called “pot liquor” or “pot likker”. Serve with freshly baked corn bread. Other additions include onions, garlic, hot peppers (or hot pepper sauce), liquid smoke.
1 cup cooked turnip greens contains: 20 calories, 1.2 g protein, 4.4 g carbohydrates, 3.5 g dietary fiber, 93% water, 550 RE vitamin A, 27 mg vitamin C, 118 mcg folate, 203 mg potassium and 137 mg calcium.
Traditional method: Use about 1/4 lb of bacon or ham hocks per five pounds or so of greens. Fry bacon until crisp. Bring water to boil, add salt and crushed red pepper. Crumble bacon over greens and add to the liquid. Simmer until done (at least 1 hour, if using ham hocks, simmer until the ham hocks are completely done and falling apart, which would be 3-4 hours. Many people add sliced or diced turnips to the greens for cooking. Turnip greens in particular need to be cooked longer than some of the more tender greens like spinach or mustard.
Cooked greens freeze just fine. While they are available, buy lots, cook and freeze for eating later!
Cream of Greens Soup
1 lb ham slice, with bone
8 cups water
1 large bunch of greens, washed and finely chopped
1 cup chopped onion
2 cups chopped celery
2 cups chopped green onions
1/4 and 1/3 cup butter
1/3 cup flour
5 cups milk
Place the water and ham in a pot, cover, and simmer for 3 hours. Remove ham, add the chopped greens, simmer for 1 hour. (If you are making this with turnip greens, add them at the beginning of the cooking. Melt 1/4 cup butter in a skillet, and the chopped onion, celery, and green onions, cook until tender. Put the cooked onion mixture in a blender or food processor, and process until smooth, mix with the greens. Melt 1/3 cup butter in a cooking pot, gradually add the flour and stir to make a roux. Gradually add the milk, stirring constantly, until it thickens. Then add the greens and onion mixture, a dash of salt and hot sauce. Add the ham cut into chunks. Cook until thoroughly heated, do not boil. Makes about 10 cups.
Coop Cooking Note: We have ham, greens, flour, butter, and cream for sale this month. Instead of five cups of milk, try a mixture of cream and water or stock. Use whole wheat flour to make a roux (I generally sift whole wheat flour before I use it to make a roux). When I make this, I will certainly some jalapenos and maybe half a habanero or Scotch bonnet pepper to the onion mixture.
PUMPKIN MOUSSE
Cook the pumpkin, mash it, whip it with whipped cream or yogurt and honey. Chill & serve with a cookie from your favorite coop baker or other local bakery. Also good with cinnamon, nutmeg,
shaved chocolate sprinkled on top. (From Shauna Struby).
PUMPKIN PIE THAT STARTS WITH THE PUMPKIN
To turn a pumpkin into pumpkin pie. . . first you get your pumpkin, wash it, scoop out the seeds (save them, wash them, toast them in the oven, eat them!), and then slice the pumpkin into strips. Place these strips on a cookie sheet or other flat pan, and bake in the oven at 350 degrees until they are soft. The skin may caramelize, but that�s fine, it just adds to the robust flavors. When they are soft, peel off the rind (it should come off very easy, with a butter knife), and mash the pulp with a potato masher or a big fork or a food processor, and voila, pumpkin puree which is then used just like canned pumpkin in your favorite pumpkin pie recipe.
If you feel like you need more instructions, visit http://www.pickyourown.org/pumpkinpie.php which has pictures of 3 different ways to cook the pumpkin. There's a lot more pumpkin recipes at the site, including a recipe for a pumpkin pie with a pecan topping that I am trying this year, for sure, also a pumpkin pie made with NO sugar. Note that their recipe for pumpkin pie uses evaporated milk, which is an industrial food way of getting something sort of like cream. I use real cream in my pumpkin pies. If the recipe calls for 1 cup sugar, you can substitute 3/4 cup honey.
I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving, surrounded by friends and family and good food, good cheer, good times. We all live busy lives, but we can enhance our holidays with "slow and local" food, providing "good meals for all". If you have any questions about recipes or anything about your holiday meals, post them to okfoodret@yahoogroups.com and you'll get answers!
Y'all bon appetit, you hear!
Bob Waldrop, bobagandist in chief
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Down to the wire for April Harrington.
We are down to the wire to help April Harrington survive the vicious attack by the ODOT bureaucracy on her business. In a typical misallocation of resources, as we are heading into the peak oil era, ODOT is widening a road and will destroy her market-bakery building, one of the "greenest" buildings in the state. This impacts her business -- which in turn impacts her employees and the other local producers who rent her bakery to make their products in a health-dept-certified kitchen. Times are bad all over, and what is ODOT doing? Destroying jobs in rural Oklahoma.
Anyway, she is trying to raise $25,000 to put a smaller, cheaper building on part of her property that will not be taken by ODOT. These are not good times for local food entrepreneurs to be going to banks, and thus April embarked on a non-traditional fundraising campaign using the "Kickstart" program, which invites people to fund ventures like April's that also have broad social and environmental impacts with gifts of capital that can make a difference between success and failure.
This is a time-limited campaign, and we are down to the wire. As of 10 AM on Thursday, November 4th, we have 32 hours left for people to commit to help April. We are only about one-third of the way towards the goal, so there is a lot to be done.
Anyway, she is trying to raise $25,000 to put a smaller, cheaper building on part of her property that will not be taken by ODOT. These are not good times for local food entrepreneurs to be going to banks, and thus April embarked on a non-traditional fundraising campaign using the "Kickstart" program, which invites people to fund ventures like April's that also have broad social and environmental impacts with gifts of capital that can make a difference between success and failure.
This is a time-limited campaign, and we are down to the wire. As of 10 AM on Thursday, November 4th, we have 32 hours left for people to commit to help April. We are only about one-third of the way towards the goal, so there is a lot to be done.
- If you have not made a commitment, please go to http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/320205243/earth-elements-local-food-community-kitchen and make a pledge right now.
- Tell your friends!
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
A special bobaganda just for producers!
In this bobaganda:
Eggs. . . Loofas. . . Dried beans. . . Corn Meal. . . Chicken feed. . . Fish. . . The 10 most popular vegetables. . . Some vegetables that have never graced our pages. . . Vegetables available in such small quantities as to be practically unavailable on our pages. . . Not a vegetable but still not available. . . What about pork rinds? . . . What customers want to see. . . Getting more sustainable and resilient . . . Now is the time to break our fossil fuel addiction before it kills us. . . Rainwater harvesting . . . Keeping your shelves neat and tidy. . . Business is up!. . . But we shouldn't take anything for granted. . . We should all be thinking about . . .
I used to occasionally send a bobaganda to the producers' listserv, and thought it was about time I did something similar on my blog.
The summer and fall production season is beginning to wind down, and most producers will begin a process of deciding what to grow and plant for next year. I have a few suggestions for your consideration, and intend to start a discussion at okfoodret@yahoogroups.com about what customers would like to buy that isn't presently available through the coop. If you don't subscribe to okfoodret@yahoogroups.com, participating in that on-going conversation is a way to raise your visibility to customer members. The subscriber base of that listserv is around 350, so it obviously doesn't include all of our members, but it does include many of our more active members, including those customers who buy a lot of groceries and non-food items from the coop every month.
I have long recommended that a diverse set of products is the best goal for anyone selling food direct to the public. So in that spirit, here are some ideas for 2011.
EGGS
High on the list of demand items in the coop is eggs. When I was receiving the complaint emails, one of the more common requests was for "more eggs". Eggs make a great addition to any producer's product line. They are also a great project for young people. One of our larger egg producers is a teenager in high school, Calvin Parker, son of Jerri and Greg Parker (GJ All Natural Beef). Besides earning money (and what teenager doesn't need more money?), he is learning invaluable lessons incorporating responsibility, the value and productivity of work, and how to make a profit in business.
As with all the other product lines in the coop, I have always felt that a variety of producers is the best way to ensure product availability and sustainability, so one thing I'd like to see in the coming year is more of our existing producers deciding to add eggs to their product line-up.
LOOFAS
The loofa sponge is a natural sponge that grows on a vine and is perfectly suitable for cultivation in Oklahoma. Grow them along fence rows, on a trellis, or let them sprawl on the ground if you got the room. They produce gorgeous yellow flowers. Customers like them because they substitute for an industrial product made with petro-chemicals -- that is to say, the store-bought sponge. Let them dry on the vine, pick them, and sell them "as is", or invest a little more labor in them and pick the dried skin off and empty the seeds out and charge more. We've had a few luffas for sale in the past, and they've all sold well, but I didn't notice any this year. When you order them off the internet, they can be quite pricey. This is a product without a lot of labor requirements (unless you decide to sell them without their skin), that is cheap to produce, that can add value to your bottom line.
DRIED BEANS
The Kerr Center has done variety trials for raising dried beans and peas in Oklahoma, and you can get all the info you need from them. This is a product that would do well for someone who could devote maybe 5 or more acres. As far as I know, no one is growing and selling dried beans in quantity (one producer has had a few dried black-eyed peas this year) in Oklahoma, which opens up a lot of possibilities for sales to restaurants, other farmers markets, and the growing number of specialty stores with locally grown products. Let them dry on the vine, combine them, clean them, package and sell them in 5 to 25 lb bags. You'd need access to a combine and cleaning equipment, look around and see what's available in your area.
CORN MEAL
This is another product that customers like but hasn't been available for a long time. We had it for the first year of our existence, but then the producer went on to other things. It was a great product, there was nothing else like it for sale in any regular grocery store. Besides corn meal, I think there would be a brisk business selling 25 and 50 lb bags of dried corn to our many members who have back-yard flocks.
CHICKEN FEED
Speaking of those backyard flocks, I've heard of members driving all the way into Texas to buy organic or all-natural chicken feed for their flocks. If you have access to a mill, this could be another money-maker, as well as contributing greatly to our developing local food system.
FISH
Another product we haven't seen since the first year of the coop is fish. Fish can be raised on the farm in tanks and barrels. If you need to learn how, just contact the Bruce Edwards at the Urban Harvest program of the Regional Food Bank in Oklahoma City. He has an integrated greenhouse aquaculture system that also raises salad greens using the water the fish swim in. You can sell frozen whole fish without any particular trouble from the ODA or the local health department. If you filet them or remove the heads etc, that work must be done in a certified kitchen, but you can harvest them and freeze them and sell them without further regulatory interference. And besides the fish, you get seriously nutrient laden water, which can be used to irrigate gardens or to grow greens in (aquaponics) as they are doing at the Regional Food Bank. http://www.regionalfoodbank.org/Programs/Urban-Harvest
THE TEN MOST POPULAR VEGGIES . . .
. . . according to USDA consumption data, are Potatoes, Iceberg Lettuce, Tomatoes, Onions, Carrots, Celery, Corn, Broccoli, Green Cabbage and Cucumbers
SOME VEGETABLES THAT HAVE NEVER GRACED OUR PAGES. . .
Cauliflower, parsnips, cabbage, iceberg lettuce.
VEGETABLES AVAILABLE IN SUCH SMALL QUANTITIES AS TO BE PRACTICALLY NOT AVAILABLE ON OUR SHELVES.
Sweet corn, potatoes, onions, carrots. Note that carrots store well. When I spoke at the opening banquet of the Nebraska Food Coop (February 2004, I think), we had a great dish of carrots which were harvested the previous October and stored in a root cellar. So they are an exception to the typically fragile-must-sell-quickly-after-harvest problem with vegetables and the Oklahoma Food Coop. Small scale equipment is available that takes a lot of the hand labor if you are growing at the acre level, and someone should. Someone also should grow potatoes at the multi-acre level, or someone should recruit one of their neighbors who is already growing potatoes at the multi-acre level to sell some through us. Onions are another keeper, as are most winter squashes.
NOT A VEGETABLE BUT STILL NOT AVAILABLE. . .
Fish, sunflower seeds, vegetable oils, peanut oil, corn meal, any flour other than wheat (barley, rye, oats etc), edible soybeans.
Edible soybeans, both fresh (known as "edamame") and dried in 5 to 25 lb bags would be hugely popular. We have a lot of vegetarians in the coop and many of them make their own soymilk and soy cheeses and they are definitely interested in a local supply of edible soybeans. I think this is a different variety than that grown for animal feed, but I am not sure on that. If you grow enough of them, the local tofu makers in Oklahoma City's Asian district might be interested. Again, this is something that should be grown at the multi-acre level.
WHAT ABOUT PORK RINDS?
What happens with the skin of all these pigs that our producers are converting to tasty pork products like sausage, ham, and pork loin? Well, the skin is every bit as edible as anything else on that pig. My grandmother Dovie Bagwell Waldrop said, as I have told you often before, that when they butchered a pig, they used every bit of it except the squeal. That should be your goal. In the meantime, I am paying $1.66 for a bag of about 3 ounces of pork rinds, and I would much rather buy pork skin from producers and fry my own at home. No, I don't know how to do that yet, but lack-of-knowledge has never stopped me from any culinary adventury. Google is my friend. But before I can make my own pork rinds, I need some pork skin.
And then there's chicken feet. A cancer-curing broth can be made from the feet, and even if it doesn't cure cancer, it reputedly is the finest tasting chicken broth you can get. Buy For Less in Okie City at NW 23 and Penn occasionally has "mega-packs" of chicken feet.
WHAT CUSTOMERS WANT TO SEE
One thing that our customers want to see is evidence of the producer's care of Creation, his or her commitment to a more sustainable way of farming and a more humane approach to lifestock management. So the more you integrate "green" practices into your production, the more the customers will like your products -- as long as you tell them what you are doing. I know you've heard me talk about "telling your story" so often you're probably bored with it, but we don't just sell food, we sell food with a story. Your food, without your story, will not stand out and be as attractive as your food will be WITH your story. I get a couple of newsletters from producers, but not as many as I would like to receive. A couple of producers always put some kind of note in with their products, thanking me for my business, but not many. I get a few emails from a few of the people I buy from, occasionally recipes, but not very many. I tend to think that many of us need to work on our story telling. Your narrative is an essential aspect of your bread and butter in the Oklahoma Food Coop, so do as good a job on that as you do your products and you will do better.
And then there's the myriad of possibilities opened up by video. Video cameras are cheap these days, you probably know someone who has one, yet I think only one producer has actually put up videos of his production, Wes Downing, who gets kudos from me for that. Take your video around your farm and put it on the internet, and a link to it on your producer info page at our website. If you need help doing that, why not suggest to the VP of Producers, Paulette Rink, that we have a workshop at the upcoming annual meeting in January 2011 on how to use video to sell your products?
I can even imagine WEBCAMS, showing your happy frolicking chickens or your plants growing in greenhouses or fields -- YES, it's TRUE, some of us LIKE TO WATCH plants grow. I do it all the time in my own garden, I just sit there and watch things grow. It's a wonderfully peaceful antidote to the busy-ness of modern urban life.
GETTING MORE SUSTAINABLE AND RESILIENT
So catch rainwater and use it for irrigation. Work on growing and producing your own feeds, either on your own or in conjunction with neighbors. (The need for feed is one of the biggest holes in our local food system and that subject needs attention.) Try bio-diesel -- Matt Burch, the Urban Agrarian, can tell you everything you need to know about bio-diesel and he is also a potential market for your products. He runs all over the place buying locally produced foods and selling them at farmers markets and to restaurants and stores. Contact him at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Urban-Agrarian/173779793816?v=info .
Now is the time to break our fossil fuel addiction before it kills us.
Biodiesel (or farm-made alcohol) is not just a quirky thing that sustainability advocates are interested in. It is an important step towards energy independence for our country. If you are dependent upon gasoline or diesel for your production activities, then your livelihood is dependent upon the good will of fanatics and terrorists. Good luck with that, you'll need it.
The fact that Oklahoma is an energy producing state often blinds us to the reality of oil in the modern world. The world oil pool is one big tank. If there is an interruption in Middle Eastern oil, or if a hurricane shuts down the Gulf oil production, or if any one of a thousand other things that could cut the flow of oil happens, the folks in Chicago and New York have more money than we do, and Oklahoma's oil will be sucked right out of the state and "No Gas" signs will be everywhere, and we'll be paying the world price for gasoline and diesel and it won't be cheap. What would six dollar/gallon gasoline and diesel do to your farming operation?
Well, the time to break free of fossil fuel addiction is BEFORE the terrorists blow the oil pipelines of the Middle East to smithereens.
And then there's methane. . . and wood gas (also known as producer gas). . . and etc. Check out the energy sections of my Compendium of Useful Information at http://www.energyconservationinfo.org/compendium.htm for all the info you need.
And then there's the risk of peak oil, which many of your customers are intensely concerned about. They are worried about future energy supplies, and as a producer, you should be too. Oil is presently hovering around $80/barrel, there's a general expectation of $100/barrel early next year, and then if it goes much higher, we are a big risk for another round of financial crises. It shouldn't escape anyone's notice that it was only a couple of months after oil reached its higher price in history (July 2008) that the nation's financial system crept right to the edge of the abyss of financial collapse.
So becoming less dependent on the international energy system is important for the on-going sustainability and resilience of your own production systems. And it really is true. The time to develop an alternative energy system is BEFORE the really serious energy crisis hits.
Do you ever wonder how many crises the Powers That Be can manage at any one time? It looks to me like they are starting to have management problems. Despite the happy talk in the mainstream media, there is plenty of economic turmoil going on. Another run-up in energy prices, plus another financial crisis, plus a foreign policy crisis, plus a little domestic turmoil here at home, and well, it wouldn't be happy days are here again.
The more dependent we are on these big international systems, the more danger we are in. That's one of the big reasons I started working on local foods back in 2001-2002. The time to grow a local food system is before the famines start. As you know better than anyone, agriculture does not turn on a dime. If we wait for a food crisis to get a local food system, it's too late. An unsustainable system cannot continue on indefinitely. It will either become more sustainable or it will collapse. Our present system is unsustainable in every way that can be counted, and if we want to protect ourselves and those we love from what is coming at us, now is the time to be very busy.
And on a more positive note. . . trust me, your customers would love to read about your adventures with biodiesel, ethanol, wood gas, methane, or even animal traction. Producers who decide to add alternative energy to their suite of production practices will be rewarded with the business of customers who really want to support that kind of commitment to sustainability and local resilience in the face of what may become overwhelming challenges.
Rainwater Harvesting.
The same schtick is true for rainwater harvesting. The techniques for capturing and using rainwater are endless, ranging from terracing and swales and irrigation ponds to gutters and ferrocement tanks. As my own urban system matures, I will have a rainwater harvesting system that feeds into fish tanks, whose water then grows greens in my greenhouse and irrigates my outdoor gardens and container plants. I have a total of 2298 sq ft of buildings on my property (1548 in the main house and 750 in the storage house that is becoming the greenhouse). In the driest year for the last 100 years in central Oklahoma, where the rainfall was 16 inches, 23,000 gallons of water fell on those roofs. In a more typical year, with 36 inches of rain, the potential rain harvest from my roofs is about 52,000 gallons. So you could pay for electricity to pump that water, or buy it from the water district or town/city, or you could put a system together yourself with cheap parts from the local Home Despot or hardware/building supply store or garage sale, and use that free water.
To calculate your potential water harvest -- add the square feet of your buildings, multiply times your typical annual rainfall in FEET (not inches), that gives you the cubic feet of water falling on your roofs in a year. Multiply that figure times 7.48 and that tells you how many gallons fall on your roofs in a year (because there are 7.48 gallons in a cubic foot of water). Size your storage based on the monthly rainfall patterns and your monthly needs for water.
KEEP YOUR SHELVES NEAT AND TIDY.
And finally, a little note on housekeeping with your online presence at http://www.oklahomafood.coop/ . If you are out of a particular product, and won't have any for sale this month, toggle the "do not display" button so it doesn't clutter up the shelves of our online store. As any retailer can tell you, empty shelves are dispiriting to customers, they won't even walk in the store, they'll stay away. Month after month, I see products displayed for sale with zero inventory, I know they won't have any this month, the products haven't been available for months, but still there they sit, cluttering up our shelves, turning off customers who log in and find zero inventory everywhere they go.
This isn't a minor matter. Anything that turns off our customers is bad for our business. We shouldn't do things that are bad for our business, we should do things that are good for our business. Not keeping your product shelves "clean and tidy" sends a message that you aren't a very effective producer. You don't care about the fact that you are wasting the customer's time and the coop's bandwidth by cluttering up our online store pages with products that are not for sale this month, and will never be for sale this month.
OK, that's harsh, I don't really believe that any of our producers have this intention. But the consequences of not keeping your product shelves clean and tidy are exactly as I have described here --
We have more than 3500 members, yet typically only 800 or so order in any given month (although I will say the last time I ran the data, it looked to me like half of our customers order at least once each quarter, but that is year-old data). Everyone needs to look at what they are doing to make sure they are not doing anything that is turning off customers, and one small part of that is having pride in your public product display and only displaying those items which you actually have for sale each month.
BUSINESS IS UP!
It looks to me like business is up quite a bit this year over last year. Our product sales increased last year by their smallest amount to date, about 8% IIRC. This year it looks more like we are up 20% or so. One area which seems to be struggling is prepared foods, and I'm betting that that's a consequence of the on-going economic troubles, since every prepared food I've bought through the coop has been an incredible adventure of taste and nutrition. One suggestion I have for prepared food producers is to think about convenience items that customers can use to create their own meals at home.
BUT WE SHOULDN'T TAKE ANYTHING FOR GRANTED. . .
Now is not the time to rest on any laurels. Retail can be quite pitiless, satisfying customer needs often means dealing with fickle, changing moods and fashions. It always pays to be a bit ahead of the curve, and we are positioned to make major advances going forward. But meeting these on-coming challenges means paying attention to issues of sustainability and resilience and inventory that I have been talking about in this bobaganda. We aren't like Wal-Mart, where a store manager can just use his computer to order in whatever he or she needs. We don't have anyone to call up producers and say "OK, you need to grow X number of bushels of corn this next year." So we have a situation that is kind of anarchistic/spontaneous order, and we hope that going forward the variety and supply of all of our Oklahoma foods increases.
WE SHOULD ALL BE THINKING ABOUT . . .
And finally (I know, I've already said this once), we all need to be thinking about alternative economic arrangements for financing. I'm thinking that eventually we need some kind of a local food credit union, where depositors could pool their funds for loan to local food enterprises. Or some kind of an investment fund that provides capital for local food production. I don't have anything more than that right now, but its something we should think about and talk about and see what happens over the next year.
THANKS!
Keep on providing more supplies for our bon appetitin' Oklahoma foods feastin seasons!
Bob Waldrop, one of the founders of the Oklahoma Food Cooperative
Eggs. . . Loofas. . . Dried beans. . . Corn Meal. . . Chicken feed. . . Fish. . . The 10 most popular vegetables. . . Some vegetables that have never graced our pages. . . Vegetables available in such small quantities as to be practically unavailable on our pages. . . Not a vegetable but still not available. . . What about pork rinds? . . . What customers want to see. . . Getting more sustainable and resilient . . . Now is the time to break our fossil fuel addiction before it kills us. . . Rainwater harvesting . . . Keeping your shelves neat and tidy. . . Business is up!. . . But we shouldn't take anything for granted. . . We should all be thinking about . . .
I used to occasionally send a bobaganda to the producers' listserv, and thought it was about time I did something similar on my blog.
The summer and fall production season is beginning to wind down, and most producers will begin a process of deciding what to grow and plant for next year. I have a few suggestions for your consideration, and intend to start a discussion at okfoodret@yahoogroups.com about what customers would like to buy that isn't presently available through the coop. If you don't subscribe to okfoodret@yahoogroups.com, participating in that on-going conversation is a way to raise your visibility to customer members. The subscriber base of that listserv is around 350, so it obviously doesn't include all of our members, but it does include many of our more active members, including those customers who buy a lot of groceries and non-food items from the coop every month.
I have long recommended that a diverse set of products is the best goal for anyone selling food direct to the public. So in that spirit, here are some ideas for 2011.
EGGS
High on the list of demand items in the coop is eggs. When I was receiving the complaint emails, one of the more common requests was for "more eggs". Eggs make a great addition to any producer's product line. They are also a great project for young people. One of our larger egg producers is a teenager in high school, Calvin Parker, son of Jerri and Greg Parker (GJ All Natural Beef). Besides earning money (and what teenager doesn't need more money?), he is learning invaluable lessons incorporating responsibility, the value and productivity of work, and how to make a profit in business.
As with all the other product lines in the coop, I have always felt that a variety of producers is the best way to ensure product availability and sustainability, so one thing I'd like to see in the coming year is more of our existing producers deciding to add eggs to their product line-up.
LOOFAS
The loofa sponge is a natural sponge that grows on a vine and is perfectly suitable for cultivation in Oklahoma. Grow them along fence rows, on a trellis, or let them sprawl on the ground if you got the room. They produce gorgeous yellow flowers. Customers like them because they substitute for an industrial product made with petro-chemicals -- that is to say, the store-bought sponge. Let them dry on the vine, pick them, and sell them "as is", or invest a little more labor in them and pick the dried skin off and empty the seeds out and charge more. We've had a few luffas for sale in the past, and they've all sold well, but I didn't notice any this year. When you order them off the internet, they can be quite pricey. This is a product without a lot of labor requirements (unless you decide to sell them without their skin), that is cheap to produce, that can add value to your bottom line.
DRIED BEANS
The Kerr Center has done variety trials for raising dried beans and peas in Oklahoma, and you can get all the info you need from them. This is a product that would do well for someone who could devote maybe 5 or more acres. As far as I know, no one is growing and selling dried beans in quantity (one producer has had a few dried black-eyed peas this year) in Oklahoma, which opens up a lot of possibilities for sales to restaurants, other farmers markets, and the growing number of specialty stores with locally grown products. Let them dry on the vine, combine them, clean them, package and sell them in 5 to 25 lb bags. You'd need access to a combine and cleaning equipment, look around and see what's available in your area.
CORN MEAL
This is another product that customers like but hasn't been available for a long time. We had it for the first year of our existence, but then the producer went on to other things. It was a great product, there was nothing else like it for sale in any regular grocery store. Besides corn meal, I think there would be a brisk business selling 25 and 50 lb bags of dried corn to our many members who have back-yard flocks.
CHICKEN FEED
Speaking of those backyard flocks, I've heard of members driving all the way into Texas to buy organic or all-natural chicken feed for their flocks. If you have access to a mill, this could be another money-maker, as well as contributing greatly to our developing local food system.
FISH
Another product we haven't seen since the first year of the coop is fish. Fish can be raised on the farm in tanks and barrels. If you need to learn how, just contact the Bruce Edwards at the Urban Harvest program of the Regional Food Bank in Oklahoma City. He has an integrated greenhouse aquaculture system that also raises salad greens using the water the fish swim in. You can sell frozen whole fish without any particular trouble from the ODA or the local health department. If you filet them or remove the heads etc, that work must be done in a certified kitchen, but you can harvest them and freeze them and sell them without further regulatory interference. And besides the fish, you get seriously nutrient laden water, which can be used to irrigate gardens or to grow greens in (aquaponics) as they are doing at the Regional Food Bank. http://www.regionalfoodbank.org/Programs/Urban-Harvest
THE TEN MOST POPULAR VEGGIES . . .
. . . according to USDA consumption data, are Potatoes, Iceberg Lettuce, Tomatoes, Onions, Carrots, Celery, Corn, Broccoli, Green Cabbage and Cucumbers
SOME VEGETABLES THAT HAVE NEVER GRACED OUR PAGES. . .
Cauliflower, parsnips, cabbage, iceberg lettuce.
VEGETABLES AVAILABLE IN SUCH SMALL QUANTITIES AS TO BE PRACTICALLY NOT AVAILABLE ON OUR SHELVES.
Sweet corn, potatoes, onions, carrots. Note that carrots store well. When I spoke at the opening banquet of the Nebraska Food Coop (February 2004, I think), we had a great dish of carrots which were harvested the previous October and stored in a root cellar. So they are an exception to the typically fragile-must-sell-quickly-after-harvest problem with vegetables and the Oklahoma Food Coop. Small scale equipment is available that takes a lot of the hand labor if you are growing at the acre level, and someone should. Someone also should grow potatoes at the multi-acre level, or someone should recruit one of their neighbors who is already growing potatoes at the multi-acre level to sell some through us. Onions are another keeper, as are most winter squashes.
NOT A VEGETABLE BUT STILL NOT AVAILABLE. . .
Fish, sunflower seeds, vegetable oils, peanut oil, corn meal, any flour other than wheat (barley, rye, oats etc), edible soybeans.
Edible soybeans, both fresh (known as "edamame") and dried in 5 to 25 lb bags would be hugely popular. We have a lot of vegetarians in the coop and many of them make their own soymilk and soy cheeses and they are definitely interested in a local supply of edible soybeans. I think this is a different variety than that grown for animal feed, but I am not sure on that. If you grow enough of them, the local tofu makers in Oklahoma City's Asian district might be interested. Again, this is something that should be grown at the multi-acre level.
WHAT ABOUT PORK RINDS?
What happens with the skin of all these pigs that our producers are converting to tasty pork products like sausage, ham, and pork loin? Well, the skin is every bit as edible as anything else on that pig. My grandmother Dovie Bagwell Waldrop said, as I have told you often before, that when they butchered a pig, they used every bit of it except the squeal. That should be your goal. In the meantime, I am paying $1.66 for a bag of about 3 ounces of pork rinds, and I would much rather buy pork skin from producers and fry my own at home. No, I don't know how to do that yet, but lack-of-knowledge has never stopped me from any culinary adventury. Google is my friend. But before I can make my own pork rinds, I need some pork skin.
And then there's chicken feet. A cancer-curing broth can be made from the feet, and even if it doesn't cure cancer, it reputedly is the finest tasting chicken broth you can get. Buy For Less in Okie City at NW 23 and Penn occasionally has "mega-packs" of chicken feet.
WHAT CUSTOMERS WANT TO SEE
One thing that our customers want to see is evidence of the producer's care of Creation, his or her commitment to a more sustainable way of farming and a more humane approach to lifestock management. So the more you integrate "green" practices into your production, the more the customers will like your products -- as long as you tell them what you are doing. I know you've heard me talk about "telling your story" so often you're probably bored with it, but we don't just sell food, we sell food with a story. Your food, without your story, will not stand out and be as attractive as your food will be WITH your story. I get a couple of newsletters from producers, but not as many as I would like to receive. A couple of producers always put some kind of note in with their products, thanking me for my business, but not many. I get a few emails from a few of the people I buy from, occasionally recipes, but not very many. I tend to think that many of us need to work on our story telling. Your narrative is an essential aspect of your bread and butter in the Oklahoma Food Coop, so do as good a job on that as you do your products and you will do better.
And then there's the myriad of possibilities opened up by video. Video cameras are cheap these days, you probably know someone who has one, yet I think only one producer has actually put up videos of his production, Wes Downing, who gets kudos from me for that. Take your video around your farm and put it on the internet, and a link to it on your producer info page at our website. If you need help doing that, why not suggest to the VP of Producers, Paulette Rink, that we have a workshop at the upcoming annual meeting in January 2011 on how to use video to sell your products?
I can even imagine WEBCAMS, showing your happy frolicking chickens or your plants growing in greenhouses or fields -- YES, it's TRUE, some of us LIKE TO WATCH plants grow. I do it all the time in my own garden, I just sit there and watch things grow. It's a wonderfully peaceful antidote to the busy-ness of modern urban life.
GETTING MORE SUSTAINABLE AND RESILIENT
So catch rainwater and use it for irrigation. Work on growing and producing your own feeds, either on your own or in conjunction with neighbors. (The need for feed is one of the biggest holes in our local food system and that subject needs attention.) Try bio-diesel -- Matt Burch, the Urban Agrarian, can tell you everything you need to know about bio-diesel and he is also a potential market for your products. He runs all over the place buying locally produced foods and selling them at farmers markets and to restaurants and stores. Contact him at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Urban-Agrarian/173779793816?v=info .
Now is the time to break our fossil fuel addiction before it kills us.
Biodiesel (or farm-made alcohol) is not just a quirky thing that sustainability advocates are interested in. It is an important step towards energy independence for our country. If you are dependent upon gasoline or diesel for your production activities, then your livelihood is dependent upon the good will of fanatics and terrorists. Good luck with that, you'll need it.
The fact that Oklahoma is an energy producing state often blinds us to the reality of oil in the modern world. The world oil pool is one big tank. If there is an interruption in Middle Eastern oil, or if a hurricane shuts down the Gulf oil production, or if any one of a thousand other things that could cut the flow of oil happens, the folks in Chicago and New York have more money than we do, and Oklahoma's oil will be sucked right out of the state and "No Gas" signs will be everywhere, and we'll be paying the world price for gasoline and diesel and it won't be cheap. What would six dollar/gallon gasoline and diesel do to your farming operation?
Well, the time to break free of fossil fuel addiction is BEFORE the terrorists blow the oil pipelines of the Middle East to smithereens.
And then there's methane. . . and wood gas (also known as producer gas). . . and etc. Check out the energy sections of my Compendium of Useful Information at http://www.energyconservationinfo.org/compendium.htm for all the info you need.
And then there's the risk of peak oil, which many of your customers are intensely concerned about. They are worried about future energy supplies, and as a producer, you should be too. Oil is presently hovering around $80/barrel, there's a general expectation of $100/barrel early next year, and then if it goes much higher, we are a big risk for another round of financial crises. It shouldn't escape anyone's notice that it was only a couple of months after oil reached its higher price in history (July 2008) that the nation's financial system crept right to the edge of the abyss of financial collapse.
So becoming less dependent on the international energy system is important for the on-going sustainability and resilience of your own production systems. And it really is true. The time to develop an alternative energy system is BEFORE the really serious energy crisis hits.
Do you ever wonder how many crises the Powers That Be can manage at any one time? It looks to me like they are starting to have management problems. Despite the happy talk in the mainstream media, there is plenty of economic turmoil going on. Another run-up in energy prices, plus another financial crisis, plus a foreign policy crisis, plus a little domestic turmoil here at home, and well, it wouldn't be happy days are here again.
The more dependent we are on these big international systems, the more danger we are in. That's one of the big reasons I started working on local foods back in 2001-2002. The time to grow a local food system is before the famines start. As you know better than anyone, agriculture does not turn on a dime. If we wait for a food crisis to get a local food system, it's too late. An unsustainable system cannot continue on indefinitely. It will either become more sustainable or it will collapse. Our present system is unsustainable in every way that can be counted, and if we want to protect ourselves and those we love from what is coming at us, now is the time to be very busy.
And on a more positive note. . . trust me, your customers would love to read about your adventures with biodiesel, ethanol, wood gas, methane, or even animal traction. Producers who decide to add alternative energy to their suite of production practices will be rewarded with the business of customers who really want to support that kind of commitment to sustainability and local resilience in the face of what may become overwhelming challenges.
Rainwater Harvesting.
The same schtick is true for rainwater harvesting. The techniques for capturing and using rainwater are endless, ranging from terracing and swales and irrigation ponds to gutters and ferrocement tanks. As my own urban system matures, I will have a rainwater harvesting system that feeds into fish tanks, whose water then grows greens in my greenhouse and irrigates my outdoor gardens and container plants. I have a total of 2298 sq ft of buildings on my property (1548 in the main house and 750 in the storage house that is becoming the greenhouse). In the driest year for the last 100 years in central Oklahoma, where the rainfall was 16 inches, 23,000 gallons of water fell on those roofs. In a more typical year, with 36 inches of rain, the potential rain harvest from my roofs is about 52,000 gallons. So you could pay for electricity to pump that water, or buy it from the water district or town/city, or you could put a system together yourself with cheap parts from the local Home Despot or hardware/building supply store or garage sale, and use that free water.
To calculate your potential water harvest -- add the square feet of your buildings, multiply times your typical annual rainfall in FEET (not inches), that gives you the cubic feet of water falling on your roofs in a year. Multiply that figure times 7.48 and that tells you how many gallons fall on your roofs in a year (because there are 7.48 gallons in a cubic foot of water). Size your storage based on the monthly rainfall patterns and your monthly needs for water.
KEEP YOUR SHELVES NEAT AND TIDY.
And finally, a little note on housekeeping with your online presence at http://www.oklahomafood.coop/ . If you are out of a particular product, and won't have any for sale this month, toggle the "do not display" button so it doesn't clutter up the shelves of our online store. As any retailer can tell you, empty shelves are dispiriting to customers, they won't even walk in the store, they'll stay away. Month after month, I see products displayed for sale with zero inventory, I know they won't have any this month, the products haven't been available for months, but still there they sit, cluttering up our shelves, turning off customers who log in and find zero inventory everywhere they go.
This isn't a minor matter. Anything that turns off our customers is bad for our business. We shouldn't do things that are bad for our business, we should do things that are good for our business. Not keeping your product shelves "clean and tidy" sends a message that you aren't a very effective producer. You don't care about the fact that you are wasting the customer's time and the coop's bandwidth by cluttering up our online store pages with products that are not for sale this month, and will never be for sale this month.
OK, that's harsh, I don't really believe that any of our producers have this intention. But the consequences of not keeping your product shelves clean and tidy are exactly as I have described here --
- you waste the customer's time,
- you consume bandwidth (especially if you have product pictures) and that slows down the loading of pages,
- you create the online equivalent of a dirty, cluttered, poorly stocked retail establishment
We have more than 3500 members, yet typically only 800 or so order in any given month (although I will say the last time I ran the data, it looked to me like half of our customers order at least once each quarter, but that is year-old data). Everyone needs to look at what they are doing to make sure they are not doing anything that is turning off customers, and one small part of that is having pride in your public product display and only displaying those items which you actually have for sale each month.
BUSINESS IS UP!
It looks to me like business is up quite a bit this year over last year. Our product sales increased last year by their smallest amount to date, about 8% IIRC. This year it looks more like we are up 20% or so. One area which seems to be struggling is prepared foods, and I'm betting that that's a consequence of the on-going economic troubles, since every prepared food I've bought through the coop has been an incredible adventure of taste and nutrition. One suggestion I have for prepared food producers is to think about convenience items that customers can use to create their own meals at home.
BUT WE SHOULDN'T TAKE ANYTHING FOR GRANTED. . .
Now is not the time to rest on any laurels. Retail can be quite pitiless, satisfying customer needs often means dealing with fickle, changing moods and fashions. It always pays to be a bit ahead of the curve, and we are positioned to make major advances going forward. But meeting these on-coming challenges means paying attention to issues of sustainability and resilience and inventory that I have been talking about in this bobaganda. We aren't like Wal-Mart, where a store manager can just use his computer to order in whatever he or she needs. We don't have anyone to call up producers and say "OK, you need to grow X number of bushels of corn this next year." So we have a situation that is kind of anarchistic/spontaneous order, and we hope that going forward the variety and supply of all of our Oklahoma foods increases.
WE SHOULD ALL BE THINKING ABOUT . . .
And finally (I know, I've already said this once), we all need to be thinking about alternative economic arrangements for financing. I'm thinking that eventually we need some kind of a local food credit union, where depositors could pool their funds for loan to local food enterprises. Or some kind of an investment fund that provides capital for local food production. I don't have anything more than that right now, but its something we should think about and talk about and see what happens over the next year.
THANKS!
Keep on providing more supplies for our bon appetitin' Oklahoma foods feastin seasons!
Bob Waldrop, one of the founders of the Oklahoma Food Cooperative
Thursday, October 21, 2010
This is disappointing.
With only 15 days left, the kickstart.com campaign to Save the Market Bakery is only 20% towards fulfillment, and has hardly moved for a week. Thousands of people interested in local food in Oklahoma, but we are having a hard time coming up with $25K to ensure the survival of an important spoke in the local food wheel. No one needs to bet the farm, one thousand $20 contributions would do it. And if that's too much, how about a dollar or two or five? Would that be so impossible?
Often we think that somebody else will step forward, and that I won't have to do anything. Many many people have that attitude. It's an attitude that will stop our progressing local food system, cold in its tracks. We can remain in our lethargy if that makes us comfortable, but the price of that is losing something important to our growing local food system.
I encourage everyone to make a pledge to help save the Market Bakery. Just click on the link in the sidebar to this post.
AND -- please tell your friends. Twitter, Facebook, groups, email listservs. Spread the word and Save the Market Bakery!
Often we think that somebody else will step forward, and that I won't have to do anything. Many many people have that attitude. It's an attitude that will stop our progressing local food system, cold in its tracks. We can remain in our lethargy if that makes us comfortable, but the price of that is losing something important to our growing local food system.
I encourage everyone to make a pledge to help save the Market Bakery. Just click on the link in the sidebar to this post.
AND -- please tell your friends. Twitter, Facebook, groups, email listservs. Spread the word and Save the Market Bakery!
Sunday, October 10, 2010
October Bobagandistic Thoughts
In this bobagandistic episode. . . The Get Ready for Winter Song. . . The Goose and the Cow. . . 10-10-10 . . . Eggs. . . Save the Market Bakery. . . Reminders. . .
Fall foods: cheese sauce for vegetables. . . Scalloped Turnips with Caramelized Onions. . . Bacon Beef Roll. . . Tomato Mushroom Cheeseburger Skillet
The Get Ready for Winter Song
My goodness, if the weather was like this all the time, everyone would want to live in Oklahoma. Fortunately we have August so that's not likely to become a problem going forward. And winter is certainly on its way. So let's all sing the Get Ready for Winter Song, to start this month's bobaganda episode.
The Get Ready for Winter Song
Tune: "Santa Claus is Coming to Town". . .
OH! We better not wait, it's time to make plans,
Compost, mulch, put away the fans,
Winter time is coming to town!
Squash and turnips and carrot plants,
Season extension for the cabbage transplants,
Winter time is coming to town!
Let's insulate the attic!
Insulate the floors!
Insulate the walls so deep,
and don't forget the doors!
So! Make your list, and check it twice,
Solarize, weatherize, don't roll the dice,
Winter time is coming to town!
The Goose and the Cow.
And now for a joke. MCDONALDS FOOD! No, that's not the joke, although I guess it is a joke. . . It seems that there was a convent, whose elderly Mother Superior, who had served the convent for decades, was on her deathbed. All of the nuns gathered in a vigil, hoping for some final words of wisdom. Concerned about her, one sister went to get some milk. On a sudden inspiration, she mixed some Irish whiskey with the milk, and took it to the weak Mother Superior, who took a sip, and immediately sat up and said, "That was tasty." One of the sisters asked her, "Give us some wisdom before your journey." The Mother Superior was silent for a time, and then she said, "don't kill the cow."
Yes indeed. That joke in its own way is a re-telling of the "Goose who laid the golden egg" fable. This fable, attributed to Aesop, who perhaps lived in the 5th century BC, in one form or another is found across the globe, including several Asian cultures, where instead of a goose laying golden eggs it is typically a swan shedding golden feathers. The fable literary form itself goes even further back in history, to the beginnings of the city states of Mesopotamia in the 22nd-24th centuries BC.
Don't kill the cow. Don't kill the goose the lays the golden egg. Someone should have reminded the USDA about this traditional wisdom when they first got the bright idea -- "Get big or get out" -- and thus began the process of killing the cow with the tasty milk, and destroying the goose that laid the golden eggs. So it comes ot pass fifty years after that fateful utterance by a federal bureaucrat, we have our present, just-in-time, homogenized, dumbed-down food system, drenched in listeria and salmonella, and served with a side of transgenic mechanically-separated pink ooze infused with a whiff of ammonia. Yum. Makes you want to go on a forty day fast, right?
This system is not an accident. It is the forseeable result of deliberate actions by governments and corporations.
The Oklahoma Food Cooperative, on the other hand, is about saving the goose and keeping the cow that gives the tasty milk. We have no great political power, but we have an idea -- and a system to implement that idea -- and the best tasting food in the state of Oklahoma. We have sons and daughters elsewhere, doing the same thing. We've just received word of a new local food cooperative on the other side of the world, Down Under in the great land of Australia. I had a report this week from the Northwest Cooperative Development Council in Washington (state), which has been studying Idaho's Bounty, one of our daughter coops, and reports that they are growing. The plan to replicate our common success throughout their four state region (Washington, Portland, Alaska, Hawaii).
Our success is founded, one bite at a time, one food decision at a time.
10-10-10
I am writing and publishing this on October 10, 2010 a/k/a "10-10-10". I have been working overtime to try to find some interesting symbolism in that which could be related to local food (thus illustrating the depths a writer will occasionally descend to), and finally had an inspiration this morning. 10 times 10 times 10 equals 1000, and that is an illusive goal we have hovered just below for some time in terms of monthly orders. This morning we had 719 baskets opened, 615 of which actually had products in them.
Isn't it about time we had a thousand orders in one month? So I'd like to encourage everyone who hasn't opened a basket this month to do, and to buy something. Maybe five pounds of hamburger (or ground pork, or ground bison, or ground lamb) and 2 bars of soap? Those are two of our products that are in super quantity, with a wide variety of choices. I made some spaghetti sauce this week with Italian sausage made with ground lamb and it was mighty tasty.
The power of the cooperative can be found in the multiplying impact of small choices. Someone told me that they usually didn't buy from the coop because they couldn't afford to buy all of their food from the coop. I asked, "Well, could you afford to spend $40/month for local food? They said "yes". So I encouraged them to go ahead and buy $40/month in local food. Every dollar spent with a local producer is a dollar vote for the future of local agriculture and the security of the food systems of our community. The world is a risky place these days, it is not prudent for us to put all our eggs in the just-in-time corporate food system basket. Let's all buy some good food for our families, and support our local farmers.
EGGS!
Many people tell me, "I would buy more eggs from the coop if they were available." I checked at the opening of the October order (8 AM, October 1), and there were 280 dozen eggs available. They were gone within an hour. Vegetable listings were also a bit thin. Now, that isn't necessarily the end of the October egg and vegetable story. Often, producers wait to list their eggs and vegetables until closer to the end of the order, as they become more certain of what they will have available on delivery day. So it pays to "shop often" and check the egg and vegetable departments for late-listing products.
And for producers, this is a Market Signal -- produce more eggs? Yes, hens don't like the change in seasons, and every time the season changes, production will go down. but even allowing for seasonal variation, it's clear that we don't have enough eggs available.
SAVE THE MARKET BAKERY! And the calzones. And the brownies. And the cookies.
We're making decent progress towards saving the Market Bakery. Nearly $5,000 has been pledged by 34 individuals, but we have only 26 days left to get pledges to cover the remaining $20K to build a new Market Bakery and save this important cog in the local food system wheel from the clutches of a corrupt and unresponsive and uncaring Oklahoma Department of Transportation. Please make a generous pledge today at http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/320205243/earth-elements-local-food-community-kitchen .
REMINDERS!
The annual great cycle of the seasons continues to turn. Now we are in the golden daze of fall. Here are some great recipes to titillate your fall appetites.
Cheese sauce for vegetables.
This is a very easy cheese sauce for any veggie that likes cheese.
4 tablespoons cream
4 tablespoons yogurt cheese (or cream cheese)
4 oz shredded cheddar or other yellow cheese
Mix all together, and zap in the microwave (or heat over low heat) until the yellow cheese is melted. Combine with your already-cooked and hot vegetables. If you use cream cheese instead of sour cream, briefly zap in the microwave before adding the other ingredients in order to soften it.
Scalloped Turnips with Caramelized Onions
This recipe is, as they say, "to die for".
Melt the 3 T. butter and then add cream and cheese. Stir to melt, heating in the microwave for 20 second intervals as needed. Place 1/2 the turnips in the bottom of the casserole dish; then salt and pepper the turnips, followed by 1/2 the onion mix and 1/2 the cheese sauce. Repeat layers then top with additional cheese if using. Cover and bake for 30 minutes. Uncover and bake 15-20 minutes or until top browns and it's all bubbly and tender.
NB: The first time I made this, I didn't boil the turnips long enough and they weren't quite done at the end of the cooking time, so I had to cook the casserole longer. So boil the turnips until they are "done" in the water/cream.
Bacon Beef Roll
2 eggs, beaten
1/4 cup ketchup
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
4 ounces cheddar cheese, shredded
1/4 cup onion, chopped fine
2 tablespoons parmesan cheese
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
2 pounds ground beef
12 strips bacon
Combine everything except the bacon in a large bowl. Mix well then shape in two 6-inch long log shapes. On a large sheet of wax paper, lay 6 slices of the bacon side by side. Set one of the beef rolls crosswise at one end of the row of bacon strips; roll up, wrapping the meat with the bacon. Very carefully place the first roll in a 9x13" baking pan, lined with heavy foil, with the ends of the bacon under the meat roll. Lift it with a wide spatula so that it doesn't break. Repeat with the remaining bacon and meat roll. Bake at 375º 45-50 minutes or until the center of each roll reaches 160º. If the bacon doesn't look browned enough on top, put the beef rolls under the broiler for a minute or two. Serves 8.
Tomato Mushroom Cheeseburger Skillet
2 pounds ground beef
1 small onion, chopped, 2 1/2 ounces
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 pound fresh shitaake mushrooms, sliced
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon pepper
8 ounce can tomato sauce
16 ounces cabbage, finely shredded, about 1/2 a medium cabbage
8 ounces cheddar cheese, diced small
In a very large skillet or Dutch oven, brown the ground beef with the onion, garlic and mushrooms. Season with salt and pepper; drain the fat. Add the tomato sauce and cabbage; toss to coat the cabbage with the sauce. Simmer, uncovered, about 10 minutes or until the cabbage is tender, stirring occasionally. Add the cheese and stir in; heat on low until melted then stir in well. Adjust the seasonings, if necessary. Feeds six to eight.
Fall foods: cheese sauce for vegetables. . . Scalloped Turnips with Caramelized Onions. . . Bacon Beef Roll. . . Tomato Mushroom Cheeseburger Skillet
The Get Ready for Winter Song
My goodness, if the weather was like this all the time, everyone would want to live in Oklahoma. Fortunately we have August so that's not likely to become a problem going forward. And winter is certainly on its way. So let's all sing the Get Ready for Winter Song, to start this month's bobaganda episode.
The Get Ready for Winter Song
Tune: "Santa Claus is Coming to Town". . .
OH! We better not wait, it's time to make plans,
Compost, mulch, put away the fans,
Winter time is coming to town!
Squash and turnips and carrot plants,
Season extension for the cabbage transplants,
Winter time is coming to town!
Let's insulate the attic!
Insulate the floors!
Insulate the walls so deep,
and don't forget the doors!
So! Make your list, and check it twice,
Solarize, weatherize, don't roll the dice,
Winter time is coming to town!
The Goose and the Cow.
And now for a joke. MCDONALDS FOOD! No, that's not the joke, although I guess it is a joke. . . It seems that there was a convent, whose elderly Mother Superior, who had served the convent for decades, was on her deathbed. All of the nuns gathered in a vigil, hoping for some final words of wisdom. Concerned about her, one sister went to get some milk. On a sudden inspiration, she mixed some Irish whiskey with the milk, and took it to the weak Mother Superior, who took a sip, and immediately sat up and said, "That was tasty." One of the sisters asked her, "Give us some wisdom before your journey." The Mother Superior was silent for a time, and then she said, "don't kill the cow."
Yes indeed. That joke in its own way is a re-telling of the "Goose who laid the golden egg" fable. This fable, attributed to Aesop, who perhaps lived in the 5th century BC, in one form or another is found across the globe, including several Asian cultures, where instead of a goose laying golden eggs it is typically a swan shedding golden feathers. The fable literary form itself goes even further back in history, to the beginnings of the city states of Mesopotamia in the 22nd-24th centuries BC.
Don't kill the cow. Don't kill the goose the lays the golden egg. Someone should have reminded the USDA about this traditional wisdom when they first got the bright idea -- "Get big or get out" -- and thus began the process of killing the cow with the tasty milk, and destroying the goose that laid the golden eggs. So it comes ot pass fifty years after that fateful utterance by a federal bureaucrat, we have our present, just-in-time, homogenized, dumbed-down food system, drenched in listeria and salmonella, and served with a side of transgenic mechanically-separated pink ooze infused with a whiff of ammonia. Yum. Makes you want to go on a forty day fast, right?
This system is not an accident. It is the forseeable result of deliberate actions by governments and corporations.
The Oklahoma Food Cooperative, on the other hand, is about saving the goose and keeping the cow that gives the tasty milk. We have no great political power, but we have an idea -- and a system to implement that idea -- and the best tasting food in the state of Oklahoma. We have sons and daughters elsewhere, doing the same thing. We've just received word of a new local food cooperative on the other side of the world, Down Under in the great land of Australia. I had a report this week from the Northwest Cooperative Development Council in Washington (state), which has been studying Idaho's Bounty, one of our daughter coops, and reports that they are growing. The plan to replicate our common success throughout their four state region (Washington, Portland, Alaska, Hawaii).
Our success is founded, one bite at a time, one food decision at a time.
10-10-10
I am writing and publishing this on October 10, 2010 a/k/a "10-10-10". I have been working overtime to try to find some interesting symbolism in that which could be related to local food (thus illustrating the depths a writer will occasionally descend to), and finally had an inspiration this morning. 10 times 10 times 10 equals 1000, and that is an illusive goal we have hovered just below for some time in terms of monthly orders. This morning we had 719 baskets opened, 615 of which actually had products in them.
Isn't it about time we had a thousand orders in one month? So I'd like to encourage everyone who hasn't opened a basket this month to do, and to buy something. Maybe five pounds of hamburger (or ground pork, or ground bison, or ground lamb) and 2 bars of soap? Those are two of our products that are in super quantity, with a wide variety of choices. I made some spaghetti sauce this week with Italian sausage made with ground lamb and it was mighty tasty.
The power of the cooperative can be found in the multiplying impact of small choices. Someone told me that they usually didn't buy from the coop because they couldn't afford to buy all of their food from the coop. I asked, "Well, could you afford to spend $40/month for local food? They said "yes". So I encouraged them to go ahead and buy $40/month in local food. Every dollar spent with a local producer is a dollar vote for the future of local agriculture and the security of the food systems of our community. The world is a risky place these days, it is not prudent for us to put all our eggs in the just-in-time corporate food system basket. Let's all buy some good food for our families, and support our local farmers.
EGGS!
Many people tell me, "I would buy more eggs from the coop if they were available." I checked at the opening of the October order (8 AM, October 1), and there were 280 dozen eggs available. They were gone within an hour. Vegetable listings were also a bit thin. Now, that isn't necessarily the end of the October egg and vegetable story. Often, producers wait to list their eggs and vegetables until closer to the end of the order, as they become more certain of what they will have available on delivery day. So it pays to "shop often" and check the egg and vegetable departments for late-listing products.
And for producers, this is a Market Signal -- produce more eggs? Yes, hens don't like the change in seasons, and every time the season changes, production will go down. but even allowing for seasonal variation, it's clear that we don't have enough eggs available.
SAVE THE MARKET BAKERY! And the calzones. And the brownies. And the cookies.
We're making decent progress towards saving the Market Bakery. Nearly $5,000 has been pledged by 34 individuals, but we have only 26 days left to get pledges to cover the remaining $20K to build a new Market Bakery and save this important cog in the local food system wheel from the clutches of a corrupt and unresponsive and uncaring Oklahoma Department of Transportation. Please make a generous pledge today at http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/320205243/earth-elements-local-food-community-kitchen .
REMINDERS!
- How's your food storage going? We're headed for ice storm weather. Anything could happen. Can you feed your family through a prolonged winter storm? What if there are problems with the food system? The time to stock your pantry is before the food crisis hits.
- The current financial reports for the coop are online at http://www.oklahomafood.coop/finance.php .
- I hope to see many of you at the coop's birthday party at the Operations Center in Oklahoma City, coming up on Saturday afternoon and evening, November 6th!
The annual great cycle of the seasons continues to turn. Now we are in the golden daze of fall. Here are some great recipes to titillate your fall appetites.
Cheese sauce for vegetables.
This is a very easy cheese sauce for any veggie that likes cheese.
4 tablespoons cream
4 tablespoons yogurt cheese (or cream cheese)
4 oz shredded cheddar or other yellow cheese
Mix all together, and zap in the microwave (or heat over low heat) until the yellow cheese is melted. Combine with your already-cooked and hot vegetables. If you use cream cheese instead of sour cream, briefly zap in the microwave before adding the other ingredients in order to soften it.
Scalloped Turnips with Caramelized Onions
This recipe is, as they say, "to die for".
- 4 large turnips; peeled and cleaned, sliced into thin slices and boiled for 6 minutes in water with 3T cream added; drain well
- 2-3 slices bacon
- 1T butter
- 1 large onion sliced into paper thin rings
- 1/2 cup cream
- 1 cup shredded white cheese (I used mozzarella)
- Additional 1/2 cup cheese for top(optional)
- 3T butter
- 1/2tsp salt
- 1/4tsp pepper
- 1/8tsp nutmeg
Melt the 3 T. butter and then add cream and cheese. Stir to melt, heating in the microwave for 20 second intervals as needed. Place 1/2 the turnips in the bottom of the casserole dish; then salt and pepper the turnips, followed by 1/2 the onion mix and 1/2 the cheese sauce. Repeat layers then top with additional cheese if using. Cover and bake for 30 minutes. Uncover and bake 15-20 minutes or until top browns and it's all bubbly and tender.
NB: The first time I made this, I didn't boil the turnips long enough and they weren't quite done at the end of the cooking time, so I had to cook the casserole longer. So boil the turnips until they are "done" in the water/cream.
Bacon Beef Roll
2 eggs, beaten
1/4 cup ketchup
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
4 ounces cheddar cheese, shredded
1/4 cup onion, chopped fine
2 tablespoons parmesan cheese
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
2 pounds ground beef
12 strips bacon
Combine everything except the bacon in a large bowl. Mix well then shape in two 6-inch long log shapes. On a large sheet of wax paper, lay 6 slices of the bacon side by side. Set one of the beef rolls crosswise at one end of the row of bacon strips; roll up, wrapping the meat with the bacon. Very carefully place the first roll in a 9x13" baking pan, lined with heavy foil, with the ends of the bacon under the meat roll. Lift it with a wide spatula so that it doesn't break. Repeat with the remaining bacon and meat roll. Bake at 375º 45-50 minutes or until the center of each roll reaches 160º. If the bacon doesn't look browned enough on top, put the beef rolls under the broiler for a minute or two. Serves 8.
Tomato Mushroom Cheeseburger Skillet
2 pounds ground beef
1 small onion, chopped, 2 1/2 ounces
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 pound fresh shitaake mushrooms, sliced
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon pepper
8 ounce can tomato sauce
16 ounces cabbage, finely shredded, about 1/2 a medium cabbage
8 ounces cheddar cheese, diced small
In a very large skillet or Dutch oven, brown the ground beef with the onion, garlic and mushrooms. Season with salt and pepper; drain the fat. Add the tomato sauce and cabbage; toss to coat the cabbage with the sauce. Simmer, uncovered, about 10 minutes or until the cabbage is tender, stirring occasionally. Add the cheese and stir in; heat on low until melted then stir in well. Adjust the seasonings, if necessary. Feeds six to eight.
Monday, October 4, 2010
SAVE THE MARKET BAKERY!
I met April Harrington in 2003 at one of the first meetings to explore the possibilities that led to the Oklahoma Food Cooperative. Later, when we were in critical need of a treasurer to get our dis-organized finances into shape, April stepped forward and literally saved our bacon, and our hamburger, and our produce, and our non-food items, and our. . . well, you get the idea. Without her timely and expert intervention, I am not at all sure that we would have survived to the present time.
As the fortunes of time, politics, and government bureaucracy have turned, April’s innovative Market Bakery business – an enterpreneurial effort that is an essential aspect of the growing local food systems here in Oklahoma – is at risk of going away forever. No business can survive without capital and assets, and the State is about to take April’s productive assets – her bakery – to widen a road and leave her with almost nothing to go forward.
This whole travesty is monstrously unfair and unjust and it would be nice if things were otherwise, but they are not. That’s the way of the world these days.
One of the critical needs for local food systems in Oklahoma is a system of finance for local food producers. Frankly, we need our own credit union or some other kind of investment/venture capital system, but it is going to take time to get something like that going, and April’s need is now, not a year or two in the future. In her own determined and creative way, however, she has found some options to run with, and I invite us all to run with her towards a more just, sustainable, and economically viable future for all of us, united together as a mutual system of support and assistance.
I intend to make a generous pledge of my own funds for April’s http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/320205243/earth-elements-local-food-community-kitchen campaign (see April's message below for more details about this), so she can rebuild her bakery. The amount the state is offering for her property won't even pay off the mortgage, much less build a new bakery, and it doesn't even match the appraised value. This is an injustice done by the state in our name, and I invite everyone to reject this injustice by supporting April in her time of need. Please join with me in making a pledge to save the Market-Bakery. I know times are tough right now, and people have many demands on their generosity, but this one is important, it is critically important. No one need bet the farm on this, but small donations from many people will save the bakery. Please tell your friends!
Thank you for your generosity. It may be a cliche, but it is certainly true to say that united we will stand, divided we will fall.
Bob Waldrop, one of the founders of the Oklahoma Food Cooperative
A MESSAGE FROM APRIL HARRINGTON and the EARTH ELEMENTS MARKET-BAKERY.
Since announcing our controversy with the Oklahoma Department of Transportation, we have been overwhelmed by the many expressions of concern and support that we have received. We are very grateful for this out-pouring of love and help.
I wish I had good news to announce about our relocation problem, but I don’t. ODOT continues to make low-ball offers that would not even be enough to pay off the mortgage on the existing building, much less build a new one. That’s the system, that’s the way it works. While my attorneys continue to fight on behalf of the Earth Elements Market Bakery community – which includes not only myself, but also my employees, the other food entrepreneurs which use this building for their own economic activities, the farmers and ranchers whose wondrous food products I use, and my many customers who enjoy the foods we produce – I have decided that I must seek other options to keep this enterprise going. I have fought too hard to get where I am now to let the State kick me into bankruptcy for the sake of a road-widening project.
I have found two innovative options going forward. The first is a long-shot, the second is more likely to produce results.
The Pepsi Refresh Campaign gives money for projects based on votes received online. A new campaign begins October 1st, and people can help me win $50,000 to rebuild the bakery by simply voting online. Each person can vote every day, and voting is free. The website is http://www.refresheverything.com/oklahomacommunitykitchen. Please go to the website every day in October 1st and vote for Earth Elements throughout the campaign, and tell your friends.
Kickstarter.com is an innovative web site that helps entrepreneurs and musicians and innovative people of all kinds to raise money for their projects. People can pledge a donation to a specific project, which is due when the project is fully funded. Donations at various levels (starting at $20) will receive rewards from the Market-Bakery. My project goal is $25,000, although I hope it will be over-funded and reach $30,000.
This will be enough to build a new Market-Bakery on my land next to the present site.
Each donation to the Earth Elements Market Bakery fund through the kickstarter.com website should be considered an investment in the food security of everyone in this state. Please go to http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/320205243/earth-elements-local-food-community-kitchen and make a pledge today, to help me Save the Market-Bakery.
April Harrington
As the fortunes of time, politics, and government bureaucracy have turned, April’s innovative Market Bakery business – an enterpreneurial effort that is an essential aspect of the growing local food systems here in Oklahoma – is at risk of going away forever. No business can survive without capital and assets, and the State is about to take April’s productive assets – her bakery – to widen a road and leave her with almost nothing to go forward.
This whole travesty is monstrously unfair and unjust and it would be nice if things were otherwise, but they are not. That’s the way of the world these days.
One of the critical needs for local food systems in Oklahoma is a system of finance for local food producers. Frankly, we need our own credit union or some other kind of investment/venture capital system, but it is going to take time to get something like that going, and April’s need is now, not a year or two in the future. In her own determined and creative way, however, she has found some options to run with, and I invite us all to run with her towards a more just, sustainable, and economically viable future for all of us, united together as a mutual system of support and assistance.
I intend to make a generous pledge of my own funds for April’s http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/320205243/earth-elements-local-food-community-kitchen campaign (see April's message below for more details about this), so she can rebuild her bakery. The amount the state is offering for her property won't even pay off the mortgage, much less build a new bakery, and it doesn't even match the appraised value. This is an injustice done by the state in our name, and I invite everyone to reject this injustice by supporting April in her time of need. Please join with me in making a pledge to save the Market-Bakery. I know times are tough right now, and people have many demands on their generosity, but this one is important, it is critically important. No one need bet the farm on this, but small donations from many people will save the bakery. Please tell your friends!
Thank you for your generosity. It may be a cliche, but it is certainly true to say that united we will stand, divided we will fall.
Bob Waldrop, one of the founders of the Oklahoma Food Cooperative
A MESSAGE FROM APRIL HARRINGTON and the EARTH ELEMENTS MARKET-BAKERY.
Since announcing our controversy with the Oklahoma Department of Transportation, we have been overwhelmed by the many expressions of concern and support that we have received. We are very grateful for this out-pouring of love and help.
I wish I had good news to announce about our relocation problem, but I don’t. ODOT continues to make low-ball offers that would not even be enough to pay off the mortgage on the existing building, much less build a new one. That’s the system, that’s the way it works. While my attorneys continue to fight on behalf of the Earth Elements Market Bakery community – which includes not only myself, but also my employees, the other food entrepreneurs which use this building for their own economic activities, the farmers and ranchers whose wondrous food products I use, and my many customers who enjoy the foods we produce – I have decided that I must seek other options to keep this enterprise going. I have fought too hard to get where I am now to let the State kick me into bankruptcy for the sake of a road-widening project.
I have found two innovative options going forward. The first is a long-shot, the second is more likely to produce results.
The Pepsi Refresh Campaign gives money for projects based on votes received online. A new campaign begins October 1st, and people can help me win $50,000 to rebuild the bakery by simply voting online. Each person can vote every day, and voting is free. The website is http://www.refresheverything.com/oklahomacommunitykitchen. Please go to the website every day in October 1st and vote for Earth Elements throughout the campaign, and tell your friends.
Kickstarter.com is an innovative web site that helps entrepreneurs and musicians and innovative people of all kinds to raise money for their projects. People can pledge a donation to a specific project, which is due when the project is fully funded. Donations at various levels (starting at $20) will receive rewards from the Market-Bakery. My project goal is $25,000, although I hope it will be over-funded and reach $30,000.
This will be enough to build a new Market-Bakery on my land next to the present site.
Each donation to the Earth Elements Market Bakery fund through the kickstarter.com website should be considered an investment in the food security of everyone in this state. Please go to http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/320205243/earth-elements-local-food-community-kitchen and make a pledge today, to help me Save the Market-Bakery.
April Harrington
Monday, September 27, 2010
FEAR -- FIRE -- FOES -- AWAKE! S 510 could destroy local agriculture
Senate bill 510 continues to be a threat to local agriculture in the United States. A version has passed the US House of Representatives, and it is now before the US Senate. Fortunately, Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma has placed a hold on the legislation for now, but that could go away at any moment. NOW is the time to contact your US Senators and ask them to oppose this legislation.
It would also be helpful, if you are a member of any farm organizations, for you to contact their legislative people and ask them to lobby against the bill. Here in Oklahoma, contact Lori Peterson of the Oklahoma Farm Bureau, at Lori.Peterson@okfb.org or the Oklahoma Farmers Union (now American Farmers and Ranchers) at legislation@afrmic.com .
Below is a version of a letter I have been sending out on this legislation. Besides the info below, I added info about the Oklahoma Food Coop. Adapt it for your own circumstances. The 12 points I cribbed from 12 reasons why the food safety bill from hell could be very dangerous for the US economy. I suggest you use these 12 points in your own letter, I tweaked them just a bit.
Begin sample letter. . .
Senate Bill 510 is pending in the Senate; a version has passed the US House of Representatives. While it is ostensibly about "food safety", in actuality it amounts to a major federal power grab over agriculture.
I am strongly against this bill for these reasons:
#1 All food production facilities in the United States will be required to register with the U.S. government. No food will be allowed to be grown, distributed or sold outside this bureaucratic framework unless the FDA allows it.
#2 Any food that is distributed or sold outside of U.S. government control will be considered illegal smuggling.
#3 The FDA will hire an army of new inspectors to enforce all of the new provisions in the bill.
#4 The FDA will be mandated to conduct much more frequent inspections of food processing facilities.
#5 The fees and paperwork requirements will be ruinously expensive for small food producers.
#6 S. 510 would place all U.S. food and all U.S. farms under the Department of Homeland Security in the event of a major "contamination" or an "emergency". What exactly would constitute a "contamination" or an "emergency" is anyone's guess.
#7 S. 510 mandates that the FDA facilitate harmonization of American food laws with Codex Alimentarius, which impinges on US sovereignity.
#8 S. 510 imposes an annual registration fee on any facility that holds, processes, or manufactures food. It also includes draconian fines for paperwork infractions of up to $500,000 for a single offense. Just one penalty like that would drive a small food producer out of business.
#9 S. 510 would give the FDA tremendous discretion to regulate how crops are grown and how food is produced in the United States. Basically, farmers will now be forced to farm exactly how the federal government tells them to. This could be a particular problem for small farmers selling direct to the public, many of whom are organic farmers because that is what their market wants to buy. It is feared that the U.S. government would soon declare that many organic farming methods are "unsafe" and would outlaw them.
#10 S. 510 will give the FDA the power to impose a quarantine on a specific geographic area. Basically the FDA would have the power to stop the movement of all food in an area where a "contamination" has been identified. This would be very close to being able to declare martial law.
#11 S. 510 will give the FDA the power to conduct warrantless searches of the business records of small food producers and organic farmers, even if there has been no evidence at all that a law has been broken.
#12 Many farmers are concerned that S. 510 would eliminate the right to clean and store seed. Saving and using your own seed is a traditional frugal practice of many farmers.
There's been some talk that the bill has been amended to make it more acceptable to small farmers, but I assure you that I am in contact with hundreds of Oklahoma farmers, many of whom are "small farmers", and they are united in their opposition. Many are afraid it could put them out of business I hope you would agree that any legislation that has the potential of reducing the number of farmers is bad legislation.
Please vote against this bill in the US Senate.
Bob Waldrop
It would also be helpful, if you are a member of any farm organizations, for you to contact their legislative people and ask them to lobby against the bill. Here in Oklahoma, contact Lori Peterson of the Oklahoma Farm Bureau, at Lori.Peterson@okfb.org or the Oklahoma Farmers Union (now American Farmers and Ranchers) at legislation@afrmic.com .
Below is a version of a letter I have been sending out on this legislation. Besides the info below, I added info about the Oklahoma Food Coop. Adapt it for your own circumstances. The 12 points I cribbed from 12 reasons why the food safety bill from hell could be very dangerous for the US economy. I suggest you use these 12 points in your own letter, I tweaked them just a bit.
Begin sample letter. . .
Senate Bill 510 is pending in the Senate; a version has passed the US House of Representatives. While it is ostensibly about "food safety", in actuality it amounts to a major federal power grab over agriculture.
I am strongly against this bill for these reasons:
#1 All food production facilities in the United States will be required to register with the U.S. government. No food will be allowed to be grown, distributed or sold outside this bureaucratic framework unless the FDA allows it.
#2 Any food that is distributed or sold outside of U.S. government control will be considered illegal smuggling.
#3 The FDA will hire an army of new inspectors to enforce all of the new provisions in the bill.
#4 The FDA will be mandated to conduct much more frequent inspections of food processing facilities.
#5 The fees and paperwork requirements will be ruinously expensive for small food producers.
#6 S. 510 would place all U.S. food and all U.S. farms under the Department of Homeland Security in the event of a major "contamination" or an "emergency". What exactly would constitute a "contamination" or an "emergency" is anyone's guess.
#7 S. 510 mandates that the FDA facilitate harmonization of American food laws with Codex Alimentarius, which impinges on US sovereignity.
#8 S. 510 imposes an annual registration fee on any facility that holds, processes, or manufactures food. It also includes draconian fines for paperwork infractions of up to $500,000 for a single offense. Just one penalty like that would drive a small food producer out of business.
#9 S. 510 would give the FDA tremendous discretion to regulate how crops are grown and how food is produced in the United States. Basically, farmers will now be forced to farm exactly how the federal government tells them to. This could be a particular problem for small farmers selling direct to the public, many of whom are organic farmers because that is what their market wants to buy. It is feared that the U.S. government would soon declare that many organic farming methods are "unsafe" and would outlaw them.
#10 S. 510 will give the FDA the power to impose a quarantine on a specific geographic area. Basically the FDA would have the power to stop the movement of all food in an area where a "contamination" has been identified. This would be very close to being able to declare martial law.
#11 S. 510 will give the FDA the power to conduct warrantless searches of the business records of small food producers and organic farmers, even if there has been no evidence at all that a law has been broken.
#12 Many farmers are concerned that S. 510 would eliminate the right to clean and store seed. Saving and using your own seed is a traditional frugal practice of many farmers.
There's been some talk that the bill has been amended to make it more acceptable to small farmers, but I assure you that I am in contact with hundreds of Oklahoma farmers, many of whom are "small farmers", and they are united in their opposition. Many are afraid it could put them out of business I hope you would agree that any legislation that has the potential of reducing the number of farmers is bad legislation.
Please vote against this bill in the US Senate.
Bob Waldrop
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