nifty site

[chelidon]

A local friend turned me on to this -- if you're looking for local, organic or heritage-crop foods, farmer's markets, and so on, a great resource is the LocalHarvest site. It looks like the information is somewhat skewed towards New England and the upper Midwest, and judging by my area, they're missing a lot of farms, etc (probably all the non-computer-savvy folks), but there's still definitely a lot of good info there.

From their site:

About LocalHarvest
LocalHarvest maintains a definitive and reliable "living" public nationwide directory of small farms, farmers markets, and other local food sources. Our search engine helps people find products from family farms, local sources of sustainably grown food, and encourages them to establish direct contact with small farms in their local area. Our online store helps small farms develop markets for some of their products beyond their local area.

And this clearly expained rationale for supporting your local farms and farmer's markets (besides fresher, tastier food):

Why Buy Local?
Most produce in the US is picked 4 to 7 days before being placed on supermarket shelves, and is shipped for an average of 1500 miles before being sold. And this is when taking into account only US grown products! Those distances are substantially longer when we take into consideration produce imported from Mexico, Asia, Canada, South America, and other places.

We can only afford to do this now because of the artificially low energy prices that we currently enjoy, and by externalizing the environmental costs of such a wasteful food system. We do this also to the detriment of small farmers by subsidizing large scale, agribusiness-oriented agriculture with government handouts and artificially cheap energy.

Cheap oil will not last forever though. World oil production has already peaked, according to some estimates, and while demand for energy continues to grow, supply will soon start dwindling, sending the price of energy through the roof. We'll be forced then to reevaluate our food systems and place more emphasis on energy efficient agricultural methods, like smaller-scale organic agriculture, and on local production wherever possible.

Cheap energy and agricultural subsidies facilitate a type of agriculture that is destroying and polluting our soils and water, weakening our communities, and concentrating wealth and power into a few hands. It is also threatening the security of our food systems, as demonstrated by the continued e-Coli, GMO-contamination, and other health scares that are often seen nowadays on the news.

These large-scale, agribusiness-oriented food systems are bound to fail on the long term, sunk by their own unsustainability. But why wait until we're forced by circumstance to abandon our destructive patterns of consumption? We can start now by buying locally grown food whenever possible. By doing so you'll be helping preserve the environment, and you'll be strengthening your community by investing your food dollar close to home. Only 18 cents of every dollar, when buying at a large supermarket, go to the grower. 82 cents go to various unnecessary middlemen. Cut them out of the picture and buy your food directly from your local farmer.

Comments

[draiguisge.livejournal.com]

That's an excellent site, must bookmark it! Check it out, this one is my aunt and uncle. :) http://www.localharvest.org/csadrops.jsp?id=150

[chelidon.livejournal.com]

Oh, WOW. Too cool! Barre? That's about 2 hr or so from here.

I found their farm's website here: http://www.mhof.net/

And it looks like your uncle edits The Natural Farmer (http://www.nofa.org/tnf/index.php) newspaper, too! I enjoyed your aunt's article on garlic in the archives there. And the great article on Edible Forest Gardens (http://www.nofa.org/tnf/sp02/supplement/edible.php) starts with a quote from Ursula LeGuin's "Always Coming Home," a good sign indeed ;> What a wonderfully small world.

So, as we move towards developing the land here, you think they'd be willing to give me some tips?

BTW, your question about S.F. I unfortunately can't help much with -- out of the couple of places I used to stay while there, one was with some folks in Berkeley who've since moved out east, for one place in the city you have to have ex-military connections, and the other one is a private group home where you kind of have to know the folks there. I know how expensive it can be to stay in S.F., though. In fact, a bunch of my friends from there have moved to cheaper locales over the last several years. Wish I could help more -- maybe one of the S.F. folks who reads this could suggest a reasonably-priced place to stay in the city...

[draiguisge.livejournal.com]

Yup, not far from you at all. And yup, all the writing and editing and whatnot, that's so them. Julie is (or was) the president (or VP or some other officer, I honestly can't remember) of NOFA, they are really into the whole organic scene. We used to get garlic braids from them for Christmas when I was a kid. I bet they'd be happy to give you some tips, just tell 'em you know me. Of course, I don't keep in touch with them very well, so they might say "Amy who???" but oh well. Oh and my uncle is also a board game inventor, his most popular one is Cosmic Encounters, which is a seriously geeky sci-fi game that is lots of fun and very few people really know about. His list of other games is huge but even less recognizable. We used to get those for Christmas every year, too, so I grew up playing Uncle Jack's games. :)

Re: SF, no worries, just thought I'd ask. Beth and Terje will figure something out, I'm sure. Terje is a resourceful type. :)

[chelidon.livejournal.com]

Ha! I played Cosmic Encounters in college, loved it! I might still even have a copy around here somewhere...I love obscure games, it's possible that I've got others by your uncle around here. They sound like *very* cool folks. I will definitely chat with them at some point then, thanks so much for the contact info!

I'm probably two years away from doing any serious farming/planting, there are just so many projects to get going, but I'm going to put in some raised beds this year for C and F to plant some veggies, just to get started. We'll at least have some squash and pumpkins in the fall, etc. I found out y'day that Moose Hill almost certainly is on top of the septic leach field, which explains the spongyness, and also possibly why the tree roots around there are so soggy (maybe that plus manure from the barn hill is why the big tree came down on the moose). I'll definitely not be planting any trees up there (bad for the septic, too), but it'll make a good place for terraced flowerbeds and a labyrinth, anyway -- very green ;>

And many many hugs for you, m'dear, I hope you're doing okay, or at least as close as possible.

[draiguisge.livejournal.com]

Hey, you know it! I'm always surprised when someone actually knows my uncle's games. Let's see, some of the others are Runes, Borderlands, the Dune games, Quirks, uhm ... shoot I can't remember the others. Ah, here's a website about them - Eon Games.

As for the planting and farming ... well, you know I'd love to be a part of any of that when the time comes!

[chelidon.livejournal.com]

Shoot, you have actual experience in this whole farming thing, come up anytime! :> And, in all seriousness, who knows where this all is going to go, where we'll all be a little ways down the road. But in a crunch, there's always room for one more.