News & Views

A few weeks ago, I had the chance to help out at the Midtown Farmers Market in Minneapolis, one of the area markets that allows patrons to use Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, commonly called Food Stamps) benefits to purchase fresh produce. Seeing firsthand how Farm Bill legislation is put into practice was a great reminder of how something as seemingly arcane as the Farm Bill can actually affect our neighborhoods, and of the kind of improvements we can make in the 2012 Farm Bill.

It’s an hour before sunrise as I make my way through the darkness to my deer stand. Cresting a hill, I startle a furry animal who swiftly charges right at me, starling me in return, bumping into my boots before disappearing into the field. A fox? A muskrat? A woodchuck? I’ll never know, but it’s a clear wake-up call, a reminder that I’ve entered an environment in which all living creatures have a place on the food chain – including me.

I settle into my stand about 30 minutes before the official opening of the 2010 Minnesota firearms deer hunting season, an event that my husband and I have enjoyed together for over 20 years. This year, my husband had to work so I decided to go alone, having the entire 172-acre farm to myself.

One morning last week, after getting my kids on the school bus, I returned to my computer and posted this quick note to Twitter and Facebook:

just when you think you've seen everything, a 3rd grader shows up at the bus stop eating an ice cream cone for breakfast

The big election news in Minnesota is the gubernatorial race. Whomever we choose to be our new governor – Mark Dayton, Tom Emmer or Tom Horner – will have to hit the ground running to balance the budget, work with an increasingly polarized group of legislators, and turn around an economy that has decimated jobs, home values, and funding for infrastructure, healthcare, and public education.

As a child of the Midwest, I’ve been surrounded by farms and farmers my whole life. Most of my immigrant forebears were farmers, and there’s a good chance that yours were, too. Although I’ve chosen a city lot instead of my grandfather’s alfalfa fields (at least for now), I’m quite interested in what will happen in the 2012 Farm Bill. The Farm Bill affects not just farmers, but everyone who eats -- and that’s all of us. The bill, with its grand scope and billions of dollars, will help define what we eat (and, thus, who we are) in thousands of subtle ways.

Chances are, if you’re a regular visitor to this web site, you proudly support the mission of local, sustainable farms: you’re a member of your neighborhood food co-op; you shop at farmers markets; you subscribe to a regular CSA delivery; you spend your Saturdays crop-mobbing; and you eat in restaurants that are similarly committed to supporting local farmers.

Pat yourself on the back. You’re an informed and conscientious locavore – and darn proud of it. You care about your food’s origin, its environmental impact, and its connection to the community.

So, tell me: Is it possible to honor these values if you eat food that’s not grown within a 100-mile radius, maybe even a 1,000-mile radius, of where you live? Are you able to eat bananas, grapes and chocolate, and drink coffee and tea, with a clear conscience?

Last week I wrote a post on reasons to eat locally-sourced foods. While writing that article, it occurred to me that there are also good reasons not to eat local food. Oftentimes the “local” label is applied liberally to refer to food grown on small-scale farms who produce according to organic and sustainable principles. But really, “local” just means grown and/or processed within a certain radius of where you live.

A couple of months ago, I was chatting with my friend Mark Muller, who runs the Food and Society Fellows program for the Institute For Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP). I'd just gotten back from one of several meetings about food policy I'd attended with a variety of local dignitaries, politicians, and other movers and shakers, and I was frustrated by what I'd heard. Mark, as always, was a terrific sounding board, offering the experience and perspective of a man who'd heard it all before without becoming jaded.

The story hit the mainstream media a couple of weeks ago. The Corn Refiners' Association (CRA) asked the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for permission to use the term "corn sugar," rather than the much maligned "high fructose corn syrup" (HFCS) on food labels.

 A little over a month ago, an op-ed in the New York Times got the online locavore community all worked up. Stephen Budiansky’s “Math Lessons for Locavores” contended that many of the commonly-spouted arguments for eating local are misleading or downright bogus.