Changing the World one Hard Hat at a Time

"Hope cuisine, not haute cuisine."

Barre, Vermont, is a small, working-class town and the center of the state's granite industry—a place known for quarries and tombstone carving. Here on Main Street, in a small fifteen-foot-wide building that has been feeding residents for over seventy years, is one of the most revolutionary and progressive businesses in the nation—the Farmers Diner. In this tiny diner with its green vinyl booths and white Formica countertops, we find proof that a more hopeful harvest is already under way.

The Farmers Diner is the brainchild of owner and organic farmer Tod Murphy, who one day wondered if it would be possible to create a restaurant with good old American diner food at good old affordable prices but have most of the food come from local and sustainable sources. He took over the landmark diner in 2002 and since then has turned it into a prototype for a national franchise that may someday put Mc- Donald's and Starbucks to the test. More than a meal, the Farmers Diner represents the cutting edge of the local foods movement. So far, the Farmers Diner is spending 70 cents out of every dollar on products from farmers and small-scale producers who live and work within seventy miles of Barre. You'll find milk shakes, burgers, and omelets on the menu, but the burgers and milk will come from local grass-fed cows, the omelets from the eggs of free-range and small-flock hens. And if the season is right, you're likely to find a few surprises, such as a slice of green zebra heirloom tomato under your burger bun or a dish of local organic strawberry ice cream.

The way Tod Murphy sees it, he's building a bridge between the sustainable local foods movement and the everyday customer who may not be able to afford a meal at Alice Waters's Chez Panisse in California, but would still appreciate the riches of local, seasonal fare. (In fact, the diner's tomatoes are grown by one of the farmers who used to supply organic tomatoes for Chez Panisse.) Many of the residents who first started coming to the diner in 2002 didn't really care much about local sustainable. foods, they just wanted good, reasonably priced diner fare. While customers have come to appreciate the local connection, it is the food that keeps them coming back.

Murphy speaks fondly of his regulars, such as the elder Vermont ladies who come from the assisted living retirement housing two blocks down from the diner. "They almost wept when they tasted our sauerkraut," he said. "It's not cooked, it's just chopped cabbage with sea salt, and for a lot of these ladies over seventy this is the sauerkraut they remember from when they were little girls." They have the same reaction to the diner's beet salad made of four different varieties of local, organic beets. "For many elder customers, the resurgence in local fresh food gives them a chance to remember and retaste the food from childhood, before industry got in the way," said Murphy. "And hopefully the desire and the commitment to pay what is needed to taste it again."

Sometimes it's not until customers start reading the menu and place mats, profiling all the local farmers who brought them their breakfast, lunch, or dinners, that they are even aware that the diner offers local riches. The customer literature explains that the diner only sells animal products that have been raised without antibiotics and hormones, and all livestock has access to the outdoors and pasture as a principal part of their feed ration, thus explainin_gwhy the butter is bright yellow. "That's the way butter is when the cow is outside eating fresh grass, not chained up in a barn," said Murphy. The literature also gives the history of the diner's hamburger, how it made a seventy-mil_e route from farm to plate instead of the almost 2,000-mile journey of most industrial beef.

Tod Murphy may be an organic farmer with an idealistic vision, but he is also a savvy entrepreneur. It certainly hasn't escaped his attention that just about every food and travel magazine now includes a favorable feature about local foods. He also noted that food trends, such as gourmet coffee, seem to first appeal to consumers in the top upper 10 percent income bracket, but eventually become popular among the middle class. He sees the local foods movement eventually becoming a mainstream mandate.

His vision is to create a national franchise of Farmers Diners—with about five to ten diners working with a central pod of local suppliers. So far his sights are on a pod in the Pioneer Valley of western Massachusetts, another one in the Hudson Valley/New York City area, and eventually moving on to the San Francisco Bay area and Portland, Oregon. According to Murphy, each pod will help eighty to 200 local farms become secure in their economic viability. For now he's seeking investors while he continues to infiltrate the working class of Vermont. He likes to recount the time a crew of construction workers came into the diner for some hamburgers. They had come to Barre from another part of the state to work on a local gas station.

"One day at a quarter to twelve in walks a whole crew of construction guys looking for burgers," Murphy recalled. "They have Dallas Cowboys stickers on their hard hats, and they immediately take over two booths with their cement^- covered boots sticking out in the aisles."

When the burgers were served, one of the guys declared, "This is the best hamburger I've had since I was a kid inMontana. This has got to be Black Angus from Colorado or Montana or Wyoming."

But his friend said, "What the hell are you talking about? Can't you read the menu? It's from right around here—in Starksboro, Vermont."

The other guy got mad. "No way did this come from Vermont. I'm telling you I grew up in the West and this is Western beef." For a while it looked like a fight might break out.

This story especially delights Murphy. "These guys didn't come into the diner because we offered local food. They came in to get hamburgers and get back to the job. But suddenly they are having a discussion about local food. You now have a guy sitting there thinking holy smoke this tastes different and better than anything else because it's local and you got another guy who's now got emotionally involved in defending the position that this is local. This is what the victory for our side really looks like."

Another encouraging trend is Burgerville, a chain of thirty-nine fast food restaurants in the Pacific Northwest that was dubbed "America's Freshest Fast Food" by Gourmet magazine. Their menu is nearly identical to Mc- Donald's, but the mini-chain buys the bulk of its ingredients from farmers in Oregon and Washington. Some of its big sellers are local Tillamook dairy products. This may not be remarkable for a restaurant that features local sustainable foods—but what is remarkable is that McDonald's is catching on. Drive by the Seattle McDonald's that serves the Space Needle tourists, and you'll see a brightly lit sign, boldly advertising its exciting new menu item—local Tillamook ice cream.

Saving Family Farms (what we can do?)

There are many ways in which individuals, or groups of individuals, can make a difference.

Save Land

Recently I came across a story about a group of enlightened people in the town of Scrabble, in West Virginia, and their efforts to save their vanishing farmlands. As the town is only a one-and-a-half-hour drive from Washington, D.C., the farmland is prime real estate—perfect for developers.

The group began its efforts when a local 300-acre farm was offered for sale. It would be purchased by a developer and turned into two-acre plots, without respect or appreciation for the community and environmental assets around which they were developing. As a result, town residents banded together and cashed their stocks and retirement accounts, and mortgaged their homes in an effort to buy the farm themselves.

In a few weeks they had raised $700,000 but, although this was a remarkable feat, it was still less than the amount offered by the developer. However, although they did not secure that particular farm for their town, they are not giving up. They are now prepared and, with a financial network in place, are ready to fight to save other local farms as they are put on the market. And then, with the kind of options for farmers described in this chapter, the farms may actually be revitalized and help feed the residents of the town with locally grown, healthy food.

Buy from Local Farmers

Somewhere near you there are family farmers who are trying to do right by the earth—who are trying to feed their families as well as their community with integrity and respect. Aside from eating less meat, buying your food from a local farmer who is a good steward of the earth is one of the most effective contributions you can make to the health of the planet. The more we invest in these farms the more we build the world we want to live in. And the more likely we are to pass on the kind of world our children and grandchildren deserve to inherit.

Shop at Farmers Markets

Farmers markets are one of the most ideal sources of local, sustainable foods. You'll discover that almost all freshly picked vegetables from local farms taste phenomenally better than produce that's traveled thousands of miles before reaching your local supermarket. Be sure to ask stall operators what's the best and freshest produce. Farmers markets can be found in cities all across the U.S. The USDA has a complete listing of markets in all fifty states at their Web site (see Resources).

Become a Shareholder in a Farm

A share in a CSA costs about $300 to $500 for a twenty-four- to twenty-six-week growing season. In return, you receive weekly boxes of fresh seasonal fruits and vegetables. Many CSA programs accept monthly payments, and you may be able to buy a half-share rather than a whole share. (See the Resources section for a Web site that can help you locate a CSA near you.)

Join a Food Co-op

A food cooperative is a member-owned business that provides groceries and other products to its members, usually at a discount. Many of the products lining the shelves of coops are organic and much of the produce comes from local family farms. To find a co-op near you, check out Web sites such as Cooperative Grocer (www.cooperativegrocer.coop) and Local Harvest (www.localharvest.org). Joining a co-op is usually easy, typically requiring you to pay some dues.

Farmers markets, CSAs, and co-ops are probably the purest expression of the original vision of the organic movement because they offer direct contact with local growers and also offer direct support of their efforts: Detractors say that the commitment to eating local, sustainable foods is nothing more than a pie-in-the-sky utopian dream. But Joan Gussow, author of This Organic Life and one of the people who helped write the USDA organic certification standards, puts it this way: "I've often been told my vision for a food supply that is mostly based on local farmers markets and CSAs is completely unrealistic. But I believe that the current practice of food distribution is even more unrealistic, considering that we're running out of petroleum, and we will eventually be unable to ship our food all over the place."

An Organic Wave Worldwide Part 3

WHAT YOU CAN DO

When we buy local sustainable foods we support a new food paradigm where local communities reap the benefits of trade, rather than a few multinational corporations. This doesn't mean we have to stop all food trade or no longer buy special foods from other regions of the world. But it does mean shifting our priorities so that we create a staple of local foods wherever possible. This way, food is only imported in places where local resources can't sustain the community.

Buy Fair-Trade and Organic Imports

It is important, when we buy food from other countries, particularly from the developing world, that we make sure the product was grown and harvested in an environmentally and socially ethical way—which means buying fair trade and organic as much as possible. When any of us eats from local, organic food sources, we are less likely to contribute to the exploitation of another country's people or precious natural resources. Not every region or community can or should produce all its food. But it doesn't make sense for poor, underdeveloped areas of the world to grow cash crops for other countries when their own people go hungry. Nor does it make sense for wealthy countries to import cash crops when they are already growing the same kinds of foods in abundance.

Drink Ethical Coffee

If you are a daily coffee drinker, like I am, then every morning you can do something to reduce your chemical exposure, support safe farming practices, and protect our tropical forests. For instance, by purchasing shade-grown coffee, you invest in a crop that was grown by a farmer under the umbrella of a rain forest—protecting the jungles and even migratory birds of the world. If it's not shade-grown, your coffee could very well be grown on a clear-cut, factory-style plantation, completely dependent on agrochemicals.

Shade-grown coffee requires less and sometimes no chemical fertilizers because the plants that are part of the forest's complex ecosystem naturally add nutrients to the soil. Even water irrigation isn't necessary because the canopy of trees provides enough shade to slow the water loss from evaporation. In Peru, a farmer who grows coffee in the shade of a forest can earn 30 percent of his income from other sales, such as firewood, fruits, and medicinal plants— all natural features of the shade system. If you want complete assurance no agrochemicals were used on the crops, then certified organic is the way to go.

Fair-trade coffee means that you invested in a system that pays growers a "fair price" for the coffee painstakingly grown. Shockingly, companies that don't practice fair trade pay the average coffee grower less than $3 a day. Imagine— each day farmers have to feed their families, educate their children, and maintain their homes and business with the same amount of money that the average Americans pays for a latte. If everyone were to insist on only drinking ethical coffee, we would help rural farmers retain their dignity as well as ownership of their land (keeping it out of corporate control). We would reduce the amount of chemicals polluting the planet. We'd protect the future of migratory birds. And we could preserve almost 25 million acres of rain forest a year.

One cup at a time we can help reverse the trend of forest destruction. Forests and woodlands can and will grow back in most cases—not immediately and not exactly as they were before—but nature is resilient and eternally creative. So each time you buy a bag of beans or sip a cup of coffee you can fully enjoy its roasted, aromatic pleasures, knowing that you are protecting the world's tropical farmers and their precious landscapes.

An OrganicWave Worldwide Part 1

"Humans merely share the earth. We can only protect the land, not own it."

-CHIEF SEATTLE

Why should we be concerned about what is happening around the world? Don't we have enough problems at home without worrying about Africa or India or China? Unfortunately, as corporate globalization stretches its grasp ever further across the face of the earth, we find that the demands of the urban elite seriously and negatively impact the poor in developing countries. As when the Brazilian rain forest is destroyed in order that cheap hamburgers can be sold on the American market. Or when large areas of traditional farmland in Africa are sold to foreign companies to grow coffee or tea, the sale of which is unlikely to benefit those who live in the area.

Looked at from another perspective, the government subsidies for farmers growing corn in America, which result in flooding the U.S. market and lowering prices to the extent that small-scale farmers are going out of business, also means that cheap grain is available for famine relief overseas. And while this may be of the utmost importance—inmany cases saving thousands of lives—there can also be a downside in that local farmers in famine-stricken areas will be unable to sell their crops. Which may be devastating.

Finally, the amount of food shipped between countries has quadrupled since the 1960s, but this hasn't been a boon for the small local farmers in either the exporting or importing countries. Instead, it's perpetuated a situation where people in wealthier nations are consuming more and ever more of the food resources of poorer nations. We now have a global corporate structure where less developed nations are struggling with overpopulation, poverty, and hunger while they deplete their land and natural resources to feed people in other, wealthier parts of the world, and to put foreign exchange into the often corrupt pockets of government officials. And the small family farmers in the importing countries cannot compete with cheaper imported produce. Moreover, while the children in poorer parts of the world are often starving, even dying of hunger, the children of the developed world face an epidemic of obesity. Clearly something must be done.

SUSTAINING HOPE

All around the world we find hopeful examples of successful sustainable farming operations in poor, rural communities. And when we say sustainable, we mean, of course, the deep organic farming we've discussed, where the soil is nurtured through composting, biological pest control, and rotation of crops and livestock without the use of chemical pesticides or fertilizers. One such project linked farmers from the impoverished Makuyu community in Kenya with the Kenya Institute of Organic Farming. Before this partnership was established, the Makuyu farmers were using agrochemicals on depleted soil, and were struggling to grow enough food to feed their families. After learning sustainable, organic methods—similar to their old, traditional way of farming—they found that vegetable crop yields not only increased by 60 percent, they actually had a surplus of food.

But the good news didn't end there. The farmers decided to start a local food co-op, so they could sell surplus food and put the profits back into the community. As a result, the Makuyu co-op was able to buy dairy goats, beehives, rabbits, and poultry for community members as well as plant 20,000 trees, including 2,000 mangoes, to help revitalize areas that had been deforested. Meanwhile, the mood of the community shifted from despair to optimism. The Makuyu organic farmers have since gone on to teach other farmers in the region how to farm sustainably.

This is not an isolated example. Jules Pretty, director of the Centre for Environment and Society at the University of Essex and author of The Living Land: Agriculture, Food and Community Regeneration in Rural Europe, researched communities all over the world where farmers are replacing synthetic farm chemicals with sustainable, organic methods. He found that those who are no longer dependent on expensive imported farm chemicals can increase their yields while lowering their production costs. And because sustainable farming is often labor-intensive, it provides more employment for local and regional communities.

Pretty writes about projects that affect some 45,000 farmers in Guatemala and Honduras who now use organic farming and have tripled their corn yields. By also diversifying their upland farms, they created more local business and wealth, which helped spur a remigration back from the cities. He also reports that a million wetland rice farmers in Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Vietnam changed their farming methods to nonchemical sustainable agriculture, and increased their yields by about 10 percent.

But there is danger here. Increased food yield must be balanced by an optimization of the population in a givenarea. However carefully farmed, no land can produce enough food, by any method whatsoever, to keep pace with human population growth as it exists today in many parts of the world. When the number of people living in a given area is too great for the carrying capacity of that area they will try to move to new places. In many cases this is already impossible—there are simply too many people. If they are wealthy and can buy food from elsewhere, then they are depleting the natural resources in other areas. If we do not impose limits on our population growth, life as we know it, on this planet, will no longer be possible. Even if we could, theoretically, feed many more times the number of people than those on the planet today, how many of us would like to live on a planet where villages, towns, and cities meet and merge in one great urban sprawl across the face of the globe?

The Cost of Organic Food

It's true, organic foods often come with a higher sticker price. Because of this, some argue that the organic movement is an elitist one—only offering healthy foods to the wealthiest. In fact, the mean income of a frequent organic food buyer in the U.S. is $43,280—solidly middle-class^— and 31 percent of frequent organic buyers make under$15,000 a year. And as more people buy organic, the more ,the prices will go down: Suppliers will have to place orders, which means more farmers will be encouraged to farm organically because they have a steady market for their goods. So this increases the easy availability of organic food, which often leads to a reduced price for consumers.

Some people willingly pay the price for organic foods, seeing this as a charity donation—a way to support the health of the planet or the farmers who are trying to do right by the land and their communities. In some spiritual communities it is even seen as "tithing"—which means taking a portion of one's income and giving it back to the world in a way that supports the greater good. Yet other people see it as a kind of health insurance payment, recognizing that by ridding their bodies, and the bodies of their children, of agricultural chemicals they may have fewer medical bills.

CAN WE REALLY AFFORD "CHEAP" FOOD?

There is another issue: We need to think carefully about the hidden costs of nonorganic foods. For years, we've been forced to buy into the chemical contamination of our planet and bodies under the guise of creating abundant, "cheap" food. But how cheap is it really? The real cost of industrial farming never shows up on the price sticker at the grocery store. The price never shows the money taxpayers pay for government subsidizing of agribusinesses. The grocery store price also doesn't reflect how much we pay for our damaged health and weakened immune systems. It's almost impossible to measure how much we spend trying to clean up and cope with the environmental damage caused by chemical intensive farming, but in the U.S., it's estimated to be $9 billion a year. We just cannot afford this "cheap" food much longer. About three million tons of pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides are used on this planet every year! Every continent is burdened with the ongoing cost of cleaning up this chemical contamination, especially in streams, rivers, and lakes.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

Unfortunately, it will take a long time for the earth to break down and heal itself from much of the poisoning caused by farming with chemicals. For now, we can't easily rid ourselves of what we have already done, but we can stop adding more. And there is one sure way to do this: Eat organic. If you buy "certified organic" food, you are guaranteed that it was grown without chemical pesticides, GMOs, chemical fertilizers, sewage sludge, or preserved with ionizing radiation.

Purists may think we shouldn't bother with organic certification if it's being co-opted by corporate interests. But we must also keep in mind that the booming organic certification movement is doing an enormous amount to protect consumers as well as the environment from the harms caused by industrial agriculture. Organic certification offers us important safeguards—forcing agribusiness to abandon some of its more destructive practices. A whole line of McOrganics or Organic Coke may seem like horrible aberrations, corrupting the sacred intentions of the organic pioneers. But any restraints we can put on the corporate world are important. And in some instances, corporations might actually give greater economic strength and consumer recognition to small, ethical businesses without corrupting their core values. For instance, when M&M-Mars bought Seeds of Change it helped finance a wonderful company that has remained dedicated to sustainable farming and protecting the purity and heritage of our seed supply.

As we said, the rising availability of organic foods gives us solid evidence of the power of consumers. It tells us that we are forcing the corporations, some of which are the biggest names in agribusiness, to change their farming methods in order to capitalize on the fastest-growing trend in the industry. And in the next chapter I'll tell you more about what you can do to directly support the small-scale, deep organic farmers we value so greatly.

Avoid Pesticides and Other Chemicals

Unless you primarily purchase organic foods, one item in three in your kitchen cabinet or refrigerator will likely contain pesticide residues. Government testing has found residues from as many as seven different pesticides on a single head of nonorganic lettuce. So if one of your main reasons for buying organic is to reduce your exposure to farm chemicals, you may want to substitute organic for the produce that typically has the highest levels of chemical residues.

U.S. shoppers should also avoid imported, nonorgani_c fruits and vegetables, since they consistently contain more residues than domestic samples. Also, many chemical corn.. panies take the pesticides that are banned in the United States and unload them in countries where there are fewer government restrictions.

Another bonus of certified organic foods is that they have to be processed without many of the food additives that have been linked to diseases such as cancer, heart disease, migraine, hyperactivity, and osteoporosis. For instance, the enhanced red color of some nonorganic strawberries comes from the fungicide captan, a probable human carcinogen that irritates skin and eyes, and is highly toxic to fish. Phosphoric acid in fizzy drinks has been linked to osteoporosis. Aspartame, an artificial sweetener in nonorganic foods, is linked to mood swings and migraines, and MSG (monosodium glutamate) is linked to asthma and headaches.

Feed Children and Babies Organics

As we said, children are especially vulnerable to the effects of pesticide residues. And we now have scientific evidence for what common sense already told us: Children and babies who are fed mostly organic foods have lower levels of pesticide residues in their bodies than children who are fed nonorganic foods. So it is well worth the investment in feeding children organic foods.

If you have no choice but to serve nonorganic foods, parents can reduce exposure by serving children vegetables with thicker skin, shells, or peels, since soft-skinned fruit and vegetables seem more likely to contain residues. According to research from Consumer Reports, pesticide residues in a single serving of peaches "consistently exceeded" the EPA's safe daily limit for a forty-four-pound child. Since pesticide residues can be transferred (often in a more concentrated form) through the placenta and breast milk, it is especially important that women who are pregnant or breast-feeding follow these guidelines.