Sunday, August 9, 2009

Farm Talk and Food Preservation

I have not been good about snapping pictures these last few days, my memory card is just about full. Anyway, yesterday brought a visit to the farm just down the road for some corn and peaches. I threw the kernels of a dozen ears in the fridge for another day and bought 12 lbs of "seconds" for peach pie filling. The peaches insisted on being used up that day or more than a spot here and there would have been bruised and rotten. I will have to go back and score some more of those peaches soon, I still need to make some peach and pepper preserves. I love putting all this food up for winter......those peaches will make a quick delicious pie or cobbler come Jaunuary!

I had a very interesting talk with the farmer while I was shopping.....for starters he is against all things farmer's market and CSA related. He feels they take advantage of the naive paying customer (the CSA's) and that the markets and CSA's take away from his roadside business. All of the folks 'pretending' to be farmers (i.e. don't farm at least 5 acres of land) don't belong at a booth in his opinion and he doesn't understand why people are OK not seeing the farm behind the food. Oddly enough he sells produce grown by someone else and sells his to others, so I wasn't quite sure why he had such a problem with this- peaches, corn, and apples are his gig. He also wants people to realize you "need to save the farmer, not the farm". Thought provocing stuff.

He also mentioned I should get ready for the produce to become less available and much more expensive. All the rain ruined/prevented most succession plantings and has lowered yields over all. (Guess I should be stocking up on the corn and zucchini now while the gettin' is good!) It's always nice to see the face behind the farm and hearing his views on the world of farming was interesting.....usually we just talk about how we like to cook our corn!

On a more mundane note I just came in from doing a foliar feed and I LOVE my new pump sprayer! What a difference that made. The harvest bucket has a nice heft to it, plenty of tomatoes and cukes, a zucchini and some lettuce for those BLT's. Hope everyone is having a great weekend!

2 comments:

Thomas said...

Wow, interesting conversation indeed! I don't know how to react. In one sense, I sympathize with him, but on the other, I feel as though what we need in the world are MORE farmers that grow on less than 5 acres. Those are the farmers less likely to use huge gas-guzzling farm machinery, large scale chemical pesticides and cause soil erosion. Am I wrong?
I see his predicament though. In all likelihood, the "folks pretending to be farmers" are making more money than him, utilizing CSAs and other newer means of marketing and despite the fact that they farm on a smaller scale. So should he we expect him to change the way he's been doing business all these years??? Great post!

Kelly said...

It will be interesting to see if this whole 'eat local' movement is a passing fad or people's decision to make an effort to change how we eat. I'm hoping it is more of the latter. I would think there are enough consumers to go around, but maybe not?

I am glad you gave your two cents, it (this particular farmer's)view is one most of us don't hear too often. It makes me wonder if he is alone in his standing, or are there lots of other's with this opinion as well?