I have been working with a committee on limiting agricultural over-regulation in our county. Whether we will be successful, and how long it will take, only the future knows. I am encouraged by the drive and focus of our group despite Department of Agriculture suggestions that if we are having problems when one inspector shows up on small farms, they will send two. . . .

I am not sure where the crux of the matter lies, but I suspect it is partly because inspectors are over-worked, underpaid, lack the correct knowledge to perform their job correctly or that authority filled regulatory positions such as this attract morons. And it is not just the inspectors who are to blame. The rule-makers at the State level also play their part in driving the idiocy forward.

What I am calling over-regulation is from the view point of a small farmer.((For the sake of making it painfully obvious I am distinguishing between a small-scale farmer who may farm up to 100 acres, but probably a lot less, and the industrial-scale agribusiness man.))  This same farm-gate bureaucratic nightmare might be called inadequate regulation by the Department of Agriculture, or seen as no regulation at all by the consumer. Herein lines a major problem in today’s climate. When the news headlines flash “Food Scare” across the nation’s screens worried citizens cry “Regulate! Regulate!” and their toadying political representatives seek to pile on more regulation without any of them trying to understand the problem, the scale, or the needs.

From the consumer point of view, food–especially when connected with something so filthy sounding as a “farm”–needs to be clean (read, white styro trays and lots of cling film or flashy packaging), healthy, safe (Really, two issues which have been combined. We all know most Americans wouldn’t know healthy food if it bit them. . .) and cheap. If a consumer stops to think about what they are buying, these are likely the first categories of consideration.

From the farmer’s point of view, producing food needs to cost less, involve less hassle for more gain, and the regulations need to be guidelines which are easy to follow and make common sense. Here is the disconnect. The Department of Agriculture is on the side of the consumer, protecting them, while heaping inane legislation on farmers to the point of breaking them. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you.

Let’s take a for-instance. If I have chickens and I want to sell some eggs to my neighbors, I can without any hassle. I don’t need a license as long as I sell from the farm and have less than 3000 birds. There are no regulations which I need to follow, or even any best-practice guidelines. I can re-use egg cartons, wash the eggs in my kitchen sink, and put them out with with the veggies for sale on the corner of the farm. I don’t have to candle the eggs. I could, if I really had no common sense, put them out in an old mailbox–you’ve seen them, those gigantic ones which must become ovens in the summer. I’ve passed plenty of these with EGGS brightly painted on the sides out in front of rural properties. I can store the eggs I have for sale in my home refrigerator and legally sell to anyone except restaurants and retail establishments. My customers are my regulators. If they get a rotten egg, or one with a half-formed chick, they call up or stop by quickly and let me know. Either I hear back from them or I don’t. In 16 years of trading in eggs this way–via direct farmhouse sales, not the roadside oven–we have only had a complaint twice due to chicken embryos, and both times the customer was one back with apologies and an extra free dozen of eggs. Word of mouth sales keep up busy with more customers than we have capacity for.

Now, say I wanted to sell my eggs at a farmers’ market or the little corner store or to a local restaurant. I then step from the realm of the small farmer into the giant catchall of the industrial egg producer. It doesn’t matter that my flock, at it’s biggest, is 50 chickens and that generally I will only sell two or three dozen eggs a week for 8 months. To sell to the general public you must play with the big-boys. It doesn’t matter that the customers–the restaurant chefs, the general store owner and the farmers’ market shoppers–seek me out, and know and understand the provenance of my eggs. That isn’t enough. Full compliance with all the egg regulations and nit-picky inspections are the order of the day. No adjustment for scale of production. No pandering to common sense, self-regulation, or market access.

To be a licensed, legitimate “egg dealer” one must pay a yearly $30 fee, contend with a minimum of 4 annual inspections, and dance to the tune of whatever the inspectors say–usually under threat of fines and loosing your licence. Gone are the quaintly, farmy mis-match of eggs in recycled cartons. Every egg must be graded and in a fresh box with a state seal on it. Eggs must now be washed under a litany of rules and procedures–I especially love the last one where each egg must be dried by a fresh paper towel. . . .((In truth, eggs shouldn’t be washed or scrubbed at all unless absolutely necessary. The cleaner the egg is naturally the better and shows the mark of good husbandry. Eggs are coated in a natural, waxy film. Any washing rubs this protective coating off the porous eggshell exposing it to contamination from outside. Think about that as you read the rules for the sanitizer in the wash water. What exactly is in commercially processed eggs?)) In addition to this you must carry liability insurance and label your egg cartons, not only with your farm’s information but also the helpful reminder that the eggs must be refrigerated. Also, eggs should be marked as potentially hazardous due to their capacity to harbor disease. But complying with these minimum requirements isn’t always enough. On a recent visit to a friend’s egg “dealership” the inspector required either a locking door on her refrigerator–a special one just for the eggs–or on the outbuilding it resides in, as if someone in this remote location was going to tamper with the eggs. The inspector also inquired into the farm’s bio-security practices, failing to note the out-of-the-way location, lack of traffic and less than 40 hens. This same inspector forgot to bring their own boots, and had no sanitizer to clean the forgotten boots or vehicle tires before heading to the next farm. . . Another burden on the small farmer. After severely rattling my friend. the inspector threatened to show up unexpected, for the next visit, to make sure that full compliance with their whims had been achieved. All of this to be able to sell some eggs at the local grocery in a small community.

So which is it to be?  Do we do our best to promote local, small scale agriculture and community food-security, or do we cave in to panicy pencil-pushers covering their butts from liability by inventing more and more useless rules? Rules which have little to do with safety, health or common sense and more to do with enforcement for enforcement’s sake. If I bought eggs from a large corporate egg-farm then perhaps the rules and the scale they aim to protect me from are valid. But I, and many of my neighbors, prefer to live on the edge and to buy food from people we know and can trust. Surely for those such as us there can be a means of lightening the regulatory burden.

Technorati Tags: eggs, egg production, chickens, laying hens, egg dealers, wsda, farm fresh eggs, eggs for sale, farm regulation, overregulatory burden, small farms

There is a machine at work, launched by the Industrial Agricultural Complex, to churn out supposedly convincing arguments to con ignorant people that “Milk is Milk”. The current Milk is White Gold or White Gold is White Gold to be related, if but in a cagey sort of way. However, the only way Milk is close to white gold currently is in the profits of the Dairy Consortiums who push rBST and other intensive dairying practices, and who are quite happy to push small, independent dairy producers out of business. The whole concept that milk needs to be promoted is a bit bizarre. Dairy products would seem, on face value and nutritionally, to sell themselves. Why does milk need so much promotion? Is it just a case of pressing the wholesome image just a bit too far, of oversell?

As we have seen with the latest Chinese Milk Debacle, milk simply isn’t just milk. Not by any stretch of the imagination. Milk, whose image is of purity, whiteness, cleanliness, wholesomeness–white gold, even–has become one of darkness. A vehicle of poisons. Industrial and toxic poisons as bad, or worse, than any germs Raw Milks opponents may conjure our of their bag of fear-mongering tricks. And yet, pasteurized milk has a worse track record in the past 20 years than Raw Milk has had in the past 50. Not only is it susceptible to contamination post-processing, either in the bottle or the bulk tank, but it can actually be a very compromised product pre-processing. Sloppy farmers–I’ve seen them–cramming milking tubes onto unwashed, manure smeered udders; unclean, bacterial soup bulk tanks; cows with bad cases of mastitis passing clots, blood, and puss into the milk; anitbiotics, hormones; tens of small farms’ suspect milk mixed together–aw, sure it’ll be okay, it gets pasturized doesn’t it? Out it comes to store shelves, white gold. Sure, that’s better than Raw Milk, sure–wink, wink.

Now, I’m not saying that every Raw Milk dairy or cow share program is acceptable. In fact, from what I’ve seen many are not. They either skirt the law, flaunt it, or are just plain ignorant of what it takes to produce good quality Raw Milk. That being said, I also don’t agree that Raw Milk should be treated like a bio-hazzard or toxin. Milk from a grass-fed herd, safely gathered in a sanitary environment from cows which are screened regularly for disease should pose no problem ever. You can’t get Safe Raw Milk from a large herd, from a feed-lot dairy, from grain-fed animals. It’s not that hard to understand. I have outlined before my positions on this issue. I’ll say it once again–we need Education, not more Regulation on this issue. Farmers who produce Raw Milk need continuing education. The State Agricultural and Health Department staff need Education on best practice of producing Raw Milk, Consumers need to know the difference between the supposedly safe pasteurized liquid in jugs and true milk–raw, unhomogenized and fresh. There is no comparison.

But what I hear from local producers and read in the news is that continually Raw Milk Dairys are harrassed. The farmers are treated like criminals, their products like they are toxic. But what is the allowable melamine content in Raw Milk? How much pus, blood, rBST, antibiotic are allowed in Raw Milk? None, and rightly so. But what of the pasteurized, mass produced, commercially acceptable stuff? Too much is allowed, and backed by dairy board goons who get paid to promote milk production for their corporate paymasters. The farmers don’t benefit. The public pays more for an inferior product and Raw Milk is treated like a poison it isn’t.

So let’s start calling it like it is.  Milk isn’t milk. Milk isn’t white gold. It’s a liquid, sometimes pure and raw, sometimes barely healthy, sometimes so full of toxic waste it kills or maims. And lets get the rose tinting off of the Corporate Shades. Let’s get veterinarians involved in checking and regulating Raw Milk dairies. Let’s get government Ag goons pushing corporate agendas off of small farms where they are harassing good farmers. Lets lift the regulatory burden on farms who serve under 500 people Raw Milk, or meat or vegetables. The customers can sign a waiver, adopt a manifesto, release the farm of liability and enjoy real food, real flavor amongst real risks. That’s life. Let’s start making it easier for all people to get access to local food, safe with in reason, and secure from mass-contamination by the very fact it is small scale. Let’s get the WTO, NAFTA, Corporate Agri-Industry off of our backs and get back to flavor, community, and freedom. And lets get out from under the fear and paranoia that we don’t know what we’re doing, that something will go wrong, that people will get sick, die or starve. That could happen anyway and probably will if the corporate model for Agriculture continues along the way it is. If you’re going to think twice before you have a glass of Raw Milk, you’d better thing three or four times before you have a glass of pasturized bacterial soup. . .oh, err, I mean White Gold.

Technorati Tags: white gold, milk is milk, raw milk, freedom to eat, food manifesto

I completely blew it. I forgot that tomorrow is an important meeting of the County Council about the continued funding of the Agricultural Resource Committee I’m part of. This meeting is critical due to a budget crisis in the county which is seeing the loss of many positions and services. Thanks to another ARC member for ringing me up tonight to goad me into going and making me feel ultra-guilty for double-booking I have, fevered and sleep-deprived, launched into the frey, this missive:

Dear Councilmember,

I am writing to you about tomorrow, December 2nd’s, meeting about why it is critical to continue funding the Agricultural Resource Committee of the San Juan Islands. As a resident, ARC member, and farmer, on Shaw Island, I regret that I cannot attend this meeting, but as the meeting time, ferry schedule, and my own don’t mesh I cannot be in Friday Harbor to participate in this critical discussion.  I respectfully request that the contents of this letter be read into the Public Record as my voice.

Before I get to my reasons for the importance of continued ARC funding, I’d like to mention a touch of irony I stumbled upon as searched the San Juan County website for your email address. There in the head-bar to the website, among the images is a scene of pastoral beauty–a field of baled hay against an azure expanse of bay and sky. And again, the middle photo under the link to “County Council” is one of an ARC members working a field with their horses. Certainly these are but two photos amongst many others of a more maritime nature, for after all these are islands first, but I think it ironic none the less.

For the past few years the Council has seen fit to support and actively participate with the ARC in its mission. During this time the ARC has been fruitful in its activities and in drawing attention to the dwindling Agricultural Resources in the San Juan Islands. In addition, the ARC has sought ways to find additional funding for its actions, so as not to rely solely on the public coffers. But much of this funding is matching and therefore needs the assurance of what the Council can offer.
Now, granted, the ARC isn’t as important as the Health and Social Services the County has to offer. What would the seniors do if they didn’t have their busses? What would children do without the Public Health Nurse? We need our Fire and Police departments. Nevertheless, what the ARC does and what the ARC brings to all of the islands adds meaning to these other things.

Imagine with me, for a minute, a San Juan County without the ARC having ever been formed, without the Land Bank, or perhaps even the San Juan Preservation Trust. It’s hard, but try. Why would people continue to come to the islands? It certainly wouldn’t be for the scenic beauty, the quite nature and slow pace of our pastoral islands. Yes, I did say Pastoral, for that is how I think of the rolling expanses of the San Juan Valley, the dip and rise of Lopez fields, the lush pastures of Orcas, and the unkempt but fruitful orchards of Shaw. Without land–specifically farmland–preservation these things would no longer exist. It’s hard to say what would replace them, but nothing which could be very nice. San Juan County has already lost vast amounts of the number one things which caused people to settle here in the first place–good farm land. We cannot afford to loose another square foot more.

I need not mention the current buzzwords of the day–”global climate change”, “peak oil”, “economic depression”–to hary you to seeing my point of view. It shouldn’t be necessary. San Juan County should be actively seeking ways to become more self-sufficient in every possible way, to assure the future success of the population, and protection of these special islands. This is one of the reasons that the gains of a year-round Farmers’ Market and Farm to School programs are so important. The less distance our food and citizens have to travel, the better for us, for the planet, and for the local economy. If the global financial crisis doesn’t get any worse things might just be fine. If not, then everything we can do within San Juan County to support ourselves and our neighbors, the better. Agriculture will be at the heart of this success.

2010. Big date coming up for the San Juans’. I believe the council invested quite a bit into investigating what we could do to prepare for the before, during, and after Olympics tidal wave which will sweep over us. It’s not that far away. People from all over the world will pass very close to us. People will visit here. Shall we be found wanting? What do the islands have to offer beside their maritime beauty? Fantastic inner-island scenery, Great restaurants and Bed and Breakfasts serving local foods. Farmers’ Markets. Where will all this be without continued support of Agriculture and farmland? Where will the great local cuisine be? Trucked in by Sysco from the mainland? To serve visitors who dine locally on a regular basis? A joke, surely.

The Council, has today, an opportunity to invest in the future. To make a real investment which pays actual dividends. This isn’t stock market magic with monopoly money. This is real money for the future of farming and agriculture in the San Juan Islands and the future of life in the islands. We all benefit from the work the ARC has achieved so far. Future generations will too. Our tourist industry benefits from the ARC’s efforts. Without one, there is less of the other, and that impacts every sector. Supporting Agriculture is money spent on behalf of everyone. Thank you.

Respectfully yours,

Neal Foley

Technorati Tags: arc, agricultural resource committee, san juan county, agriculture, farming, local food, self-sufficiency, sustainability, san juan islands, pastoral, agrarian, why we need farming

I hereby declare that I am of sound mind and reason. That I fully understand the implications of my diet and my digestive processes. That I have certain wants and tastes which may not be the norm in society today. I declare that I understand and accept the risks of consuming dirt with my food, of kissing dogs on the face, of eating an apple my heifer has had a bite off of. I choose to buy my foods as close to the source of their life and accept the hazards of raising a portion of my foods for myself. I fully understand that dirt on my carrots, worm holes in my beets, bird droppings on my lettuce are considered by some to be bio-hazards. I also understand that petroleum-base chemicals, toxins and endocrine disruptors are rife in commercially raise foods which also happen to be devoid of essential nutrients and more important flavor. I choose to eat dirt and dung over oil in every way I can. I accept that blood and sweat have gone into the foods I purchase at the Farmers’ Market and respectfully ask that my ability to judge character, face to face, be accepted as I choose to enter into arrangements with local farmers about what I will eat. If I humanely collect pig’s blood for breakfast, or if I want to drink milk straight from the cows udder, why should you care? If it doesn’t annoy the cow, it shouldn’t bother you. Leave me alone with my choices.

I fully release honest individuals from complaint if I purchase foods failing to meet my percieved quality standard-I should have asked more questions, tasted more samples, visited longer. Please accept that I can judge the quality, safety, taste and honesty of the foods I purchase locally, directly, from farmers with a face I can recognise on the street and allow me to do so. I will grow it myself, find some one in my area to grow it for me, but I will resist buying from faceless corporate interests of questionable ethics who equate quality with cost or lack of.

I write all of this to state that I know what I am doing when it comes to my diet and I accept my choices. If I make the wrong choice than I have only myself to blame. I should have known better, and now I do. In short, leave me alone to choose who I buy my food from, how it is produced and where it comes from. Allow me to associate with like minded individuals and leave them alone too. Raw Milk, Raw Meat, unwashed salad greens, if this is my death-wish so be it! Do not regulate me, monitor me, treat me like a sex-offender or drug-lord. I am an omnivore. I have my rights. Go find something more important to do!

Technorati Tags: food rights, omnivores manifesto, eating, local foods, sustainable foods, farmers’ markets, raw milk, free choice

Over on The Gastrocast Blog I have posted this piece on attitudes toward small farmers. I will mention it on this week’s episode of The Gastrocast as well. I think it is critical that we all pay attention to what is going on around us in terms of food security and availabilty and what the government wants for us.

More regulation and control isn’t always better. Whatever happened to common sense and the ability to make choices? Must everything be spelled out for us in black and white lest we err?

At the very time we need support for small, rural farms and the local economy they engender, Government agencies are doing their best to make sure we are total slaves to the Industrial-Agricultural Complex. This is despite predictions that as Global Climate Change and Peak Oil take effect–and really they run hand-in-hand–the Complex will collapse and the very entities using GMO’s, and “Industrialization of Agriculture or Starve” arguments are going to be the very cause of global famine.

So here is a call to stand up in support for local, sustainable farming; farmers’ markets, farm to school programs, school gardens; pasture-raise, grassfed meats of all kinds. Because if we don’t do it now, it will be too late tomorrow.

Technorati Tags: sustainability, farming, agriculture, food security, food availability, peak oil, global climate change, farmers’ markets, choice, pasture raised meat, agrarianism

This weekend was our mini applefest. We didn’t intend it to be such, and we didn’t advertise it, although a few more hands to help might have been nice. . . .

Over the past month we’ve been gathering what must have been several hundred pounds of apples from our neighbors trees, abandoned orchards and our own few apple trees.

We have no idea what most of the apple varieties are. Some date back to the 1890’s. Some were cider apple varieties like Kingston Black and Cox Orange Pippin from our own orchard. We gathered for taste, presumed keeping qualities, and availability.

On Saturday I borrowed our neighbors’ cussed Cider Press. I curse it each time I use it. By now I’ve repaired so many parts of it, and spilt so much blood with the thing I feel it should be mine–except I don’t want it! I am sure I am abusing it’s very nature. It is a small press, meant for at most a few gallons on a crisp, sunny autumn day, where friends are gathered more intent on socializing than making cider–their probably also drinking beer or cocktails. . . .

It was certainly never meant to churn out almost 20 gallons of juice from hundreds of pounds of apples. And yet it does, with the only whimper coming at the end of hours from me as I try to crank the stuborn press down one last time.

Nevertheless, feeding the beast is enough of a challenge to make it interesting. Anyone who has seen my Cider Making Video will know why.

While I was keeping the cider press going, Kathy was busy making 24 quarts of apple sauce and several pints of Apple Butter–both of which used a few of the gallons of cider. She also embarked on a two day project of making a favorite Norman-style Rye & Apple hearth-bread. It takes about 32 hours and we got 22 loaves.

When I wasn’t peeling apples for her or feeding the maw of the apple crusher, I was keeping the wood oven stoked. It was a busy weekend all around. Busy, but worth it. We have frozen the bread, and the canned apple products will last all winter. And what did we do with all the cider? 10 gallons of it are fermenting in the other room, 3 gallons were drunk and used for cooking, some went to the owner of the press, some to relations, three gallons remain in the refridgerator for fresh drinking and cooking, with a further 3 gallons set aside to cure this winter’s ham. I may take a gallon of it and set it on the back of the woodstove in a wide kettle and let it cook slowly down to become cider syrup–a brilliant sauce or ingredient for all kinds of things. It goes especially well with duck and venison!

Technorati Tags: cider, apples, autumn, harvest, agriculture, farming, orchards, food preserving, canning

This clip is so inspirational, so powerful, and so right on the money you may have to watch it twice for it all to sink in. I’ve said this stuff all before, but Pollan has the clout to say it to more people, better. Have a look:

Technorati Tags: Michael Pollan, solar food, gardening, farming, agriculture, 44th president, future of food, organic farm, white house, eat the view, sustainability, google zeitgeist

I am here. . .but unable to do as much as I wish. While experiencing our own, minor, financial meltdown–who’da thunk a global recession would stop people from entertaining with private chefs, podcasters, and sustainability & gardening gurus??–I have also been scrambling to keep up on chores, and seasonal harvest issues.

Also, in September, we enrolled our girls in an online school system. It is working great, but the computers promised in the information packet, never materialized. If we don’t “qualify” I wonder who does? So I am left sharing my main computer with 4 children for 8 hours a day with an extra 4 hours per week that I have to spend on their material. My older laptop works for some of the schooling, but not for video or podcast work. I still haven’t managed to adjust to this new schedule. The interruptions, distractions and broken day hasn’t lent itself to productive work on any of my projects. It is frustrating not to be able to work on my ideas, blog, film, and bring you a weekly show.

There is a new Gastrocast in the works, recorded a few weeks ago. Its editing is almost done, but the weather has been mild here and more conducive to getting firewood in than sitting at my computer editing. I have been very distracted getting new ideas for the show. Just haven’t found the time to bring them to you.

It’s 8am. . .I’m late in getting school materials together. Gotta go. I’ll be back soon.

Technorati Tags: Gastrocast, podchef, homeschool, time management, hell in a handbasket

I am adding this video player here to see if it is intuitive enough to adjust its content to match that of this blog. If it doesn’t I will pull it. This is a test to determine how best to serve videos to all who visit this site.

Technorati Tags: video, test, blog, podchef, gastrocast, food, farming, cooking, agriculture, local foods, farmers’ markets, youtube, google, cooking show

Things have been busy around here this summer and in usual fashion I have made some videos. Here’s a collection of old and new:

Technorati Tags: farming, agriculture, animals, livestock, gardening, vegetables, pigs, hogs, pork, cattle, sheep, lamb, beef, sustainability