Farmers
markets are exploding on the scene across the United States. That means
more vendors looking for ways to leverage the "eat local" movement even
if their meats aren't local or even from a small farm.
A
quick look at a listing of farmers markets in my state shows several
meat processing plants listed as vendors. I'm not trying to infer that
they shouldn't be allowed to participate in farmers markets. I am
saying, as with any vendor you purchase from, you should engage in a
conversation about where the animals are raised and how they are raised.
For instance the statement of "all our meats are locally raised" could simply mean somewhere in the state.
Some good questions to ask any meat vendor:
Do you raise the livestock yourself?
If not, do you know the farmer who did?
Do you purchase animals from sale barns to slaughter?
How confident are you that your meats are hormone and antibiotic free?
For beef - Is this 100% grass fed and finished or has it been fed grain?
These
are the type of questions any farmer who raises livestock will be happy
to answer. In fact most welcome these types of questions because it
shows that you are looking for a certain style of animal husbandry and
methods of production.
My point in all this is not to build a case about dishonest vendors.
My
point is don't assume that because you are standing at farmers market
every product there is locally raised by a small farmer. Ask questions.
The
demand for locally farm raised beef, pork, and chicken as well as other
meats such as lamb, goat, rabbits etc is on the rise. That means meat
vendors of every stripe are looking for ways to gain access to farmers
markets.
Some markets will allow them to sell their products and some won't.
Farmers
Markets are increasingly offering products that are not locally grown. I
am seeing more and more produce that is the exact same stuff you can
buy at your local grocery store.
I don't offer
my products at farmers markets but I do make my rounds to them
occasionally and talk to many farmers who sell at them.
The
number one complaint I'm hearing is the amount of vendors who buy
produce from wholesale houses or produce auctions and then sell it at
the market.
In fairness, not all of them are saying
it's local but many rely on the fact that people assume it is local or
homegrown because they are buying at a farmers market.
If
you are buying tomatoes or cantaloupe at a farmers market around these
parts in mid May....it ain't local by any stretch of the imagination.
This is a classic case of markets need vendors and vendors need an outlet.
My message isn't these types of products should not be sold at a farmers market. That is up to the folks who run the market. I am all for a free enterprise system.
However, I think full disclosure is a good place to start.
But by far the best way to get what you pay for is still "Buyer beware"
Ask
vendors if they grew the product themselves. Sometimes they buy from
other farmers which in that case it may be local farm raised product.
But if it came from a wholesale house many times you can get the same conventionally grown stuff at your local supermarket.
As with anything that becomes popular or trendy, the potential is
recognized and seized by large corporations who are looking to profit
from it.
I am including a video from Mark Kastel, co-director
of the Cornucopia Institute that details some of the unbelievable
antics taking place in the organized organic movement.
If you're short on time here are some of the highlights:
Those charged with reviewing and approving additives and chemicals
for use in organic foods have in large part been affiliated with the
same corporate agribusinesses and/or food producers lobbying for their
use.
There are currently almost 300 non-organic and synthetic compounds approved for use in organic foods.
"Independent" industry experts, who have been advising the USDA's
National Organic Standards Board on scientific matters, also appear to
have been largely supportive of synthetics in organics
The
Cornucopia Institute are now pursuing a pressure campaign aimed at the
organic program at the USDA, and at the National Organics Standards
Board, to persuade them to review the manipulation and misinformation
provided at the November 2011 NOSB meeting, which led to the approval of
synthetic, genetically mutated DHA and ARA oils—ingredients that have
been "confidently linked" to health problems in infants.
What I want to point out here is my original statement of the more
distant your relationship with the person who produces your food, the
more potential for corruption.
While I applaud and support
the Cornucopia Institute for their efforts to rally the American people
to hold those accountable who oversee organic standards in the U.S., I
also believe the best route to food transparency is to have a
relationship with the folks who produce your food.
That's why I have an open door policy at my farm. Folks can come visit and judge for themselves if they want to do business with me.
Complete transparency to your customers is a safeguard against corruption.
How could I say for example 'we use no chemical herbicides on our
farm' and at the same time be hosing down weeds with weed killer? If I
know customers are coming and no door is locked, no cabinet out of reach
it will deter me from such actions.
There is a myriad of
temptations to cheat even on the small farm. Farmers need
accountability. I need accountability. I need to know that my customers
have the right to inspect what I'm doing and why I'm doing it.
I gave them that right.
If you're paying with your hard earned dollars you deserve that right.
No amount of regulations or regulators is ever going to replace a relationship between two people.
Here at Spring Hill Farms
we think honesty, integrity, transparency, and accountability should be
some of the foundational principles you build your farm on.
Hundreds
of thousands of honey bees have been found dead in Delaware, Fairfield,
Hardin, Miami, Pickaway and Ross counties in April. Jim North believes an insecticide called neonicotinoids is responsible for the huge amount of dead bees.
The Columbus Dispatch reported on this which you can read here.
The
report states the bulk of the bees died over a four day period which is
when a major amount of corn was planted in Ohio. The insecticide is
used on seed corn.
Of course Bayer CropScience who produces much of the neonicotinoids
believes it could be the weather. Hmm... let's see the weather which we
can nothing about or a poison designed to kill insects. I'll leave the
conclusion up to you but you probably have picked up on my opinion.
The poison has been linked to bee deaths in other states and banned in other countries but hey maybe Ohio is different?
Perhaps it's this Ohio weather that wipes out an already vulnerable bee population.
For
me it looks like the begining of yet another round of propaganda by the
major chemical companies to continue to not only endanger the bee
population, but continue to endanger our lives as well by the
indiscriminate use of poisons to prop up an already unsustainable system
of agriculture.
Let's hope The Ohio Department of Agriculture does it job and puts an end to the needless poisoning of honey bees.
I
have long been a proponent of voicing your opinion to government any
chance you get. But for this issue there is a fast track to change.
Vote with your dollars.
According to a USA Today article, three plants producing pink slime have permanently shut down. While I feel sorry
for the folks who lost their source of income, I rejoice that the
demand for pink slime has fallen like a stone since it first went public
a few weeks ago.
This is a prime example of what can be done to change the way food is grown, processed, labeled etc.
It's very simple: Companies don't produce what they can't sell.
I found it typical that the company producing pink slime has adopted the stance that they have got an unfair rap and people are misinformed about pink slime.
My opinion -Folks were informed of what is going on and said "no thanks" with their dollars.
This could happen to any company, good or bad.
The key to stopping it from happening- Transparency. Let people see behind the curtain and judge for themselves if they want to do business with you.
We saw behind the pink slime curtain and opted out.
You can bet other companies have been watching nervously as the pink slime story has unfolded wondering if they are next.
You
will see more dollars spent on public relations as big agriculture and
food companies work to convince the public they are on "our side."
Stop out and see your local farmers. Buy as much of your food from them as you can.
PS - Help force the issue on labeling genetically modified organisms in our foods. How? Go to the Institute for Responsible Technology and learn how you can vote with your dollars.
My
children are almost never sick. They usually end up at the Doctor's
office because they hurt themselves doing something they probably
shouldn't have been doing.
My wife and I have taught them
the value of cleanliness and good personal hygiene but we don't rush
them to the house every time they get their hands dirty on the farm.
I have embraced the same philosophy on immunity with my family as I do the stock on the farm.
Work to keep your immune system strong and when it encounters something foreign it can "learn from it" and recognize it in the future.
Keeping your immune system healthy is a subject all in itself but here's my top three ways to accomplish such a lofty goal.
1) Reduce your sugar/fructose intake to less than 25 grams per day.
2) Eat off the farm - unprocessed pure foods - good bacteria.
3) Get enough sleep and manage stress levels.
If you work on these three alone you'll be surprised at how much better you feel and how much sickness you can avoid.
I read an article that talked about Amish kids being less likely to have allergies than mainstream kids. See the article here:
I
can believe it and although the study they referred to said it needed
more research to see just what was the cause I figure it's pretty easy
if you look at it simplistically.
Amish kids are
working on the farm at a young age. They are eating a lot of farm food
and not nearly as much processed foods. Which could mean they are not
eating as many GMO foods.
Many of them are drinking raw milk as soon they are weaned from mom.
Contrast
that with a child in front of T.V. or game system with no where to go
but out in a yard with maybe a dog and it gets tough to test your immune
system as thoroughly as someone on a farm introduced to all the little
microbes (good and bad) that can be found there.
I kinda changed the old saying to...My kids are as healthy as hog!
Get
your kids out and let them get dirty this summer. Take them to visit a
farm, go camping, hiking, something. It'll do your immune system some
good and your soul too!
Just
when you thought that the gigantic meat packers were "walking the
straight and narrow" over the pink slime controversy, now we discover
your steak just might be glued together out of several different pieces
of meat.
California senator Ted W. Lieu has
called for an investigation into the practice of using meat glue to
patch pieces of meat together to make one piece. Officially, it’s known as transglutaminase, an enzyme in powder form that brings protein closer together – permanently.
What will be next?
For me the take away from all these "new discoveries" is it seems the foundational belief of big meat packers and Big Ag is this:
How can we do this cheaper first and foremost then we'll look at safety, quality, and all the other parameters.
I
am all for reducing costs and making your business profitable. But let
me know the ways you accomplish that and let me make the decision as to
whether I want to do business with you.
No I'm not talking about supplying your customers with a business plan.
I'm
talking about good old fashioned honesty and hey here's an idea; How
about putting on the label what you've done to product.
I don't know about you but If I picked up a steak and said it contained transglutaminase you can bet I'd be Googling up what the heck it was and why is it in my steak!
You know it won't say on the label "we glued this piece of meat together."
Don't worry though the U.S. Food and Drug Administration deems it to be safe – “generally.”
We don't glue anything together here at Spring Hill Farms.
Heck we use baler twine more than anything around here to make several
pieces of something into one. You would notice that on your steak...just
sayin'
The Large Black and Tamworth pig crossing is still underway here at Spring Hill Farms.
We had our first litters in March and so far have been happy with the results.
They have been healthy and exhibited strong immunity which is the first test here on this farm.
Sick
weak pigs are usually a sign of something amiss on your farm but it can
also be the result of pigs catching anything that comes along. Which points to a weak immune system.
These
litters have been strong and growing from day one. They were quick to
get up and get moving after birth and have been strong eaters.
The one difference it seems to me over a purebred Tamworth thus far, is they take a bit longer to show an interest in mom's feed.
These
pigs didn't seem to get after the sow's feed when we fed her ground
feed as fast as Tam's do. Maybe a good sign I don't know.
Large Black cross pigs
The carcass is leaning more to the Large Black side but I'm thinking they will get some width as they get closer to finishing.
We will be monitoring these pigs very closely to see just how well they grow as compared to our Tamworth pigs on pasture.
In theory they should do as well or better due to the heterosis or hybrid vigor.
If you're not familiar with the Large Black here's an excerpt from the okistate website: "In
the early part of this century the Large Black were used for the
production of pork in outdoor operations. Its coat color makes it
tolerant of many sun born illnesses and its hardiness and grazing
ability make it an efficient meat producer. Large Blacks are also
known for their mothering ability, milk capacity and prolificacy."
These pigs are listed as critically endangered on ALBC website.
We
will be offering F-1 cross gilts in the Spring of 2013. These will be
excellent pigs to inject some heritage breed traits as well as strong
grazing genetics Spring Hill is known for into your pigs.
Another story showing how oppressive local government is becoming to small farms.
The worst time to buy insurance is after you need it. It's like closing the gate after the hogs are out. I taught personal finance for 15 plus years and my counsel was always weigh the risks for insurance, most people are betting they will need insurance and the insurance company is betting you won't.
The threat to small local farmers is mounting on a daily basis. Your chance of having an issue is greater today than ever before. The Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund is a great resource fighting to help small farms.
Don't wait until you need them to become a member. I receive nothing in any way from promoting them other than the peace of mind knowing other farmers and consumers are helping fund the resistance to over regulating small farms and your right to food of your choice.
I recently read the story of the youngest farmer to receive the Animal Welfare Approved certification.
Meet 12 year old Shelby Grebenc of Broomfield Co.
According to the article in the Animal Welfare Approved newsletter,
she has 130 laying hens. She has named her farm Shelby's Happy Chapped
Butt Chicken Farm because she says since folks can see her farm from the
road people sometimes drop off chickens. She found a an empty box one
day with chickens running around. They had no tail feathers and looked
pretty sore so it seemed fitting.
Shelby started her farm
when she was 10 years old by approaching her grandmother for a $1,000
loan to start a pasture raised egg business.
This
stemmed from the situation at hand, her mother Nancy who has multiple
Sclerosis was in a nursing home and Shelby wanted to expand the family's
income.
Shelby, my hat is off to you and I wish you well in everything you endeavor to do at your farm.
On my rounds the other morning I glanced in one of the stalls and had to rub my eyes and look again!
There perched on top a baby Tamworth pig was one of our 4 day old Freedom Ranger chicks.
How
on earth it got all the way from the brooder to the front of the barn
where some of our gilts are with their babies is a mystery to me.
I
wanted so bad to get the picture a bit later of the baby chick sitting
on mommas side while the pigs nursed. But by the time I got the camera
it had hopped off.
Michigan
is pushing a new act to allow the government to decide by simply
looking at your stock and decide if it is a prohibited species.
I
know that sounds crazy but small farmers are being told they need to be
sure they are compliant before the law is passed. When asked how to
know if their pigs are prohibited they are being told to send in a
picture!
The Invasive Species Act gives
DNR the discretion to add or delete from a list of species whose
possession is prohibited. In addition, if either DNR or the Michigan
Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (MDA) determines that
certain requirements are met for a particular species, then it is
mandatory that an ISO be issued prohibiting that species. DNR has not
made it clear whether the ISO for swine was discretionary or
mandatory.
In my opinion, this another move to use gestapo like tactics all in the name of protecting Big Ag. The Farm to Consumer Legal Fund (FTCLDF) has reported recently on what is going on in Michigan. If you are not a member of the FTCLDF
you should consider it. They are the organization that is out front in
the battle to save small farm's rights to produce and market wholesome
foods and milk.
While this issue deals with swine, it's
possibly the seeds of regulating small farms out of business. What if
some type of government official could come to your farm and tell you
your produce doesn't look good enough to sell. Or impose mandatory
testing for e coli or other contamination.
You may think it sounds crazy but who would have thought fifty years ago you could go to jail for selling raw milk.
To read the full story as told by the Farm to Consumer Legal defense Fund click here.
The mantra of the big food and agriculture companies is how can we produce more for less?
The bottom line with pink slime in ground beef is dollars.
Not quality, not health, dollars.
This is a prime example of where we are at in the world of mass produced food.
What used to be relegated to pet food is now good enough for human consumption. Not that I'm thrilled with Fido getting a dose of pink slime either, but hey better him than me!
I
have preached the "know where your food comes from and know what's in
it" for a long time so it thrills me when main stream news media busts out a story like pink slime in ground beef. Only because so many more people are exposed again
to the fact that agencies like the USDA, FDa and some others aren't
really looking out for you like you hoped they were. You will have to
take the responsibility into your own hands and find clean food for
yourself.
McDonalds, Burger King and Taco Bell have all
announced they don't use it anymore...GREAT. To me that's like saying we
used to think it was OK to feed you pink slime but since you found out
about it we'll stop.
Ground beef with
pink slime added as a filler has a greater chance of e coli and so it is
washed with ammonia. No thanks I'll pass.
Here at Spring Hill Farms
we don't add anything to our ground beef. Not pink slime, not meat glue
(heard about that one?) or anything else that you wouldn't want in your
food.
Our mantra is clean, quality, healthy food first. Then and only then, we'll see what it costs to produce it.
A recession is a transference of wealth from the meek to the bold - Dan Kennedy
I love Dan’s definition of a recession. While it seems hard to nail down the figure, the Fed says $878 billion dollars will circulate through the United States economy in
2012.
The question we have to asked ourselves is “how much of that will I capture for my business
Here’s some tips:
Check up on your attitude - W. Clement Stone said in the midst of the depression
“I did know the opportunities were unlimited. For sales are contingent
upon the attitude of the salesman—not the attitude of the prospect.”
It’s very common to have customers remark on fuel cost going up or
food prices increasing or a million other topics that only accentuate
the negative. Resist getting into these conversations.
Work on being a place that is positive and upbeat. Customers buy more from those types of business.
Tap Into Consumer Mentality. Match It – Customers
have money. They are just more reluctant to let go of it in a down
economy. Their mentality has changed. They are holding on to their
money and less likely to spend it frivolously. That doesn’t mean they
won’t spend it or they only want cheap food. Actually quite the
contrary. Many people are looking for a way to make themselves feel
better in less expensive ways.
Talk to your customers about less expensive ways to
have fun, feel good, etc. An example would be offering “special
breakfast package” or a farm visit they can bring the kids to see your
new baby goats etc.
Coach Your Employees or Helpers about How to Talk to Customers – Part
of their job is to sell and influence buying decisions not talk about
their life is or how rotten the state of the economy with customers.
Customers don’t contact you or come to your farm to
hear bad news. They can turn on the radio or read the newspaper if they
want that. They come to you to find something they want and have a
positive buying experience.
Farmers take heed: There’s enough bad news in the
air, without adding fuel to the fire. When customers come to do business
with you, they want to feel good. They want to feel good about buying.
Action Tip: Spend the next few weeks thinking about
positive ways to present your products as well as checking up on
everyone’s attitude at your farm.
Dr. Mercola has once again brought to light another controversial look at what is driving the "Gentically Modified Foods Can Save the World" agenda.
My opinion is much like his in that the research I have looked at isn't based on sound science. Just the fact that there is major resistance from pro GMO companies to label foods containing Genetically modified organisms makes it clear they know the general public would opt out of eating them if they knew they were in so many foods in the grocery store.
It's a clear case of if we don't know what we are eating everything is fine. It's sort of like saying as long as food kills you slowly over time what's the big deal?
The cost of food continues to rise. If you didn't realize it, you
either don't do the grocery shopping, or you haven't ask the person who
does!
You can do a search on the 'net
and find all kinds of numbers indicating how much food products have gone up and what others believe they will do in the future.
The viewpoint I liked was from Lynn Carpenter she believes "We have been enjoying a 60-year trend of low food prices that is crashing to an abrupt end this very year."
Lynn says (and I agree) the government numbers released, and what I see
at the grocery store never seem to match up. She recommends figuring
out how many hours you must work each week to pay for food.
She did some serious research and came up with some very interesting numbers! You can read it all here.
But all that aside if you go to the store a few times you get an idea
of what it costs to eat and you suddenly feel a bit of gnawing worry.
Now the mistake you might make is to leave the grocery store, get the
groceries put away, and dismiss the gnawing worry telling yourself
"it'll all work out somehow."
Don't fall into that mindset!
Nothing just "works itself out" and if it does, it is seldom in your favor.
Planting a garden is a proactive way to cut your food bill and improve your overall health.
Feeling overwhelmed when you think ofgardening?
Start Small
One
of the best ways to get started growing your own food is to start
small. Plant a few tomato plants and some bell peppers along the house.Make a garden four feet by eight feet. Make raised beds etc.
I love High Density Gardening
by Ric Wiley. Gardening is work no matter how you cut it but you can
reduce the workload and space needed by using Ric's methods.
He covers everything from A to Z in this ebook.
How to plan your High Density Garden in order that you can maximize the quantity of crops you can grow
How to build a High Density Gardening bed
How to propagate seeds
Home made compost. How to make it quickly.
Much more
I'm a lover of ebooks because you can be reading them five minutes
after you decide to purchase them! Which might be why I spend so much at
Amazon on my Kindle.
Take a look at High Density Gardening and download a copy and get started planning now. It takes some planning, money and effort to harvest a successful garden.
But it is worth it!
Imagine your very own lush, green, vibrant garden this spring. Can't
you taste the garden fresh tomato's, beans, onions, peppers, cucumbers,
water melons, peas, carrots, cauliflower, broccoli, sweet corn, cabbage,
you get the point……
I recently read an article in the Columbus Dispatch about the manure problem in Ohio.
The article starts out "Under the best conditions, raising livestock is a dirty, smelly business."
The truth is under the right conditions, raising livestock is not dirty or smelly.
Until
last year I let my hogs spread their own manure 24 hrs a day throughout
the pastures. Then I decided I needed to keep some for specific
applications. So I have been bringing hogs into the barn for winter to
collect the manure.
As long as the carbon ratio is right there is no smell or mess. In my case, wheat or oat straw. Lots of it.
By keeping a good bed of straw in the barn I tie up the manure right along with the smell and mess. Anytime you're smelling manure you know right away your carbon is low.
If
you don't tie it up with a carbonaceous material you are losing
valuable nutrients that you can use on your soil to fertilize it.
The
nutrients either evaporate, which you smell, or leach away which wastes
the nutrients by fertilizing the lawn around the barn. Or worse yet,
running of into a waterway somewhere and polluting the water.
The
whole idea of a huge amount of animals in one place (for long periods
of time) is so unnatural it's no wonder big Ag had to come up with all
these nifty, yet environmentally unfriendly ways, to store it or get rid
of it.
Big Agriculture spreads manure that is
usually 100 percent raw manure. Nothing added like straw or sawdust.
Heck just put those critters on concrete or slatted floors and let the
pure manure pile up and then we can overload the soil with it.
Bad idea all the way around in my opinion.
If
you read any old books they tout the benefits of manure as a
fertilizer. But that manure was loaded with straw or other material
which added to the organic material in the soil.
The
combination of the manure with the organic material in my opinion is
far superior to just raw manure you get from a factory farm.
As
sustainable farmers we have to make sure we are doing things right. No
manure running off into waterways or overloading the soil.
The
American public is getting tired of factory type farms ruining the
environment with all these unsustainable ways. I don't blame them I'm
tired of it too.
The best way to send the message
is to stop giving the factory farms your money. Give to a farmer who is
acting responsibly towards the environment and the animals or crops they raise.
The USDA recently announced they are going to lose 150 Million dollars in a budget cut. Listen to what Tom Vilisack mentions in his announcement.
I'm always amazed at the waste found when somebody actually looks for it. He mentions office buildings and equipment that are vacant, 700 hundred different cell phone contracts, 70 crop reporting days cut back.
The things we find necessary when the money is flowing!
view basket
Farmers
markets are exploding on the scene across the United States. That means
more vendors looking for ways to leverage the "eat local" movement even
if their meats aren't local or even from a small farm.
