Want local? Better grow it yourself

I read a disturbing op-ed piece in the New York Times by a midwestern farmer trying to grow vegetables for his local market. Seems like the federal government, the USDA, and the big agribusiness lobby have all joined forces to prevent the local food movement from growing local food. Read My Forbidden Fruits (and Vegetables) by farmer Jack Hedin of Minnesota. Here’s part of what he says:

I’ve discovered that typically, a farmer who grows the forbidden fruits and vegetables on corn acreage not only has to give up his subsidy for the year on that acreage, he is also penalized the market value of the illicit crop, and runs the risk that those acres will be permanently ineligible for any subsidies in the future. (The penalties apply only to fruits and vegetables — if the farmer decides to grow another commodity crop, or even nothing at all, there’s no problem.)

Hedin attributes this upside-down strategy to the big produce farms in California, Texas, and Florida who do not want local growers cutting into their markets. Nevermind that those are the most remote states (okay, I’m not counting Alaska and Hawaii) from the contiguous US, which means that lots of trucks will use lots of diesel getting the produce from California and Florida to the midwest, where Jack is trying to do the same thing, but is being stymied by federal regulations.

This year Debbie and I are growing as much as we can. We’re going to plant a square-foot garden full of beans, tomatoes, squash, okra, peppers, melons, lettuce, carrots, and other good stuff. We’re going to can and freeze, too. We’re determined to know where our food comes from and what has been used to produce it. Just this week we discovered that the “organic” garbanzo beans we’ve been buying at the local supermarket come from China. I’ve been to China and I guarantee you there are no verifiable organic standards there.

We’ll see how our little garden goes this year and keep blogging about it here. If you want inspiration for growing your own food, check out Little Homestead in the City, where the Dervaes grew almost 7,000 pounds of fruits and vegetables last year on one-tenth (1/10) of an acre. They live in the city of Pasadena, California near a freeway, but they have goats, ducks, chickens, grow their own food, sell to local restaurants, and manufacture their own biodeisel fuel. All on 1/10 acre — about 4,500 square feet of gardening space.* Their challenge to America is not to eat food produced within a 100-miles (local food movement), but food produced within a 100-feet of your back door. If they can do it, so can we and we’re gonna try. Because we can’t count on the government to do it for us…or even to leave farmers alone to do it for themselves. Stay simple.

*The Dervaes lot is actually 1/5 acre, but the house takes up about half the space, so they have 1/10 acre for growing.

**Click “Fix the Farm Bill” graphic to go to http://crunchychicken.blogspot.com where you can get the code to post to your site.