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Perennial Plate Video: From Farm to Market with Loon Organics

Earlier this week, Alicia Jabbar wrote an illuminating post about farmer's markets from the farmer's point of view. You get up at the crack of dawn, work in the dirt -- in the blistering sun and the pelting rain -- picking and cleaning vegetables, all to just pack it all up the next morning. Then you drive, unpack, sell, talk endlessly, offer samples, re-pack and drive again. This is the process that brings snap peas for $4 a quart to a farmer's market near you. This is fresh food grown by real people. I don't know about you, but I usually take it for granted.

Two weeks ago I had the pleasure of following the farm-to-market process with one of the "successful" upstart organic farms. Laura Frerichs and Adam Cullip from the Loon Organics farm in Hutchinson, Minnesota, let me film and work through their Friday-Saturday operation. I had been idealizing the idea of starting a farm: seeing the beautiful produce stacked up at the market made me want to take out a loan, buy 50 acres and start my own little operation. But after a day with the folks at Loon Organics, the gritty, exhausting reality of life as a farmer becomes more apparent.

Watch this most recent episode of The Perennial Plate to see and hear how much your market produce is really worth.

 

 

Daniel Klein is the director and producer of The Perennial Plate, a weekly online documentary series dedicated to socially responsible and adventurous eating. The episodes follow his culinary, agricultural and hunting explorations throughout a year in Minnesota. Prior to The Perennial Plate, Daniel Klein produced/directed the film "What are we doing here?" and spent a number of years cooking in some of the world's top restaurants.