Organic Schmorganic

2008-11-23T09:16:00.003-05:00

I don't normally review or comment on specific meals. But many of you know we are on our way to California and we plan on eating lots of great road food during our trip. Our first dabbling was at Sweatman's BBQ in Eutawville, SC. Read it and drool!

My God, I didn't want to leave!! First you arrive at a big old wood building in a dusty parking lot on a dark back road in Eutawville, SC. Second, you merge with a large number of large people arriving and then you line up at BUFFET. Yes, a buffet. For those of you expecting white table cloths and sommeliers, forget it. This is like eating at home. The menu is short and scribbled on dry erase black board. But you know what you came for--PORK. There was the hash and rice, pulled pork (white and dark), ribs (slathered in the most wonderful sauce), and skin (a house specialty that they were out of). Then you get a gallon of sweet tea, sampling of BBQ sauces and sit in a room akin to eating out at the local fire hall. And it is quiet--like a pork church. This, folks, is down home. And I am so glad we drove the extra 10 miles or so to get there because it just simply doesn't get any better or more traditional than this. As for the pork, well, let's just say I went back for seconds, finished off Debbie's ribs, and Mathew's pulled pork. All this for a just $9.95 a plate.

Now off to Charleston!

Head, Tail, the Whole Damn Fish!

2008-11-04T09:49:00.004-05:00

It was somewhat ironic that just a few days before election day I watched all nine episodes of Jamie Oliver's Fowl Dinners on Chris Consentino's Offal Good blog. (Chris is chef at Incanto in San Francisco's Noe Valley.)Why Ironic? Well, today--election day--Californian's will have the opportunity to vote on Proposition 2. Prop 2 will provide a modicum of protection for farm animals, including chickens which are often crammed into cages and buildings under inhumane conditions in order to put eggs and meat on our tables. Just watch any number of videos that are out there to find out the real story behind the poultry industry. Prop 2 would give chickens, among other critters, the ability to live humane lives. The thing I liked about Jamie Oliver's Fowl Dinners presentation is that it did not make any pretense about protecting chickens or any other farm animal just for the sake of protecting it. There is no getting around that fact that we eat meat; all we really want is that the animals that work in the service of humans live decent lives before being killed and fricasseed.

Jamie's gastrodocumentary takes us through the lives of egg laying chickens as well as meat birds. Not only does it present video of industrial farming nightmares, but it has a live exhibit and demonstrations for all of his "guests." It is very easy to take the moral high ground in defense of sane farming practices while not experiencing the realities of industrial farming. It is quite another to argue against it without really seeing firsthand the atrocities that occur daily in the world's industrial farms. And that's exactly what happened. The guests at Jamie's dinners were mostly MOR diners that did not take a hard stance one way or the other on the issue of humane farming conditions. However, by the time they left, they understood that inhumane farming is tied directly to "value" pricing and demands by the consumer for ever lower food prices. Someone has to pay for lower food prices, and if it is not the farmer then it is the chicken.

Proposition 2 has been lobbied against very hard by argibusiness. They don't want their pitiful profits to dwindle further by being forced to reduce bird density. And the fact is that the only real incentive to stay in business is profit. And there's nothing wrong with that. If the farmer is forced out of business, then the business goes overseas. And so unless the consumer is willing to pay more for their food--here we go again--to compensate the farmer for some of their lost profit due to raising fewer birds per square foot or producing fewer eggs per day, then they go out of business anyway. Fortunately, we're seeing both retailers and consumers willing to pay more for food in order to allow the changes called for in Prop 2 to happen. But in this economy I wonder how far they can go before the consumer revolts. I mean, Burger King just showed huge profits for a recent quarter--and that tells me more people are eating fast food because it is cheaper.

But this too shall pass, and Prop 2 needs to be about more than just profit. It needs to come from the heart and mind. There is no reason our insatiable appetite for the ever-cheaper whatever should mean any living soul on this planet should suffer for our bellies. We need to readjust our priorities and instead of shelling out over $100 a month for shitty cable viewing, shell out an extra $2 per dozen eggs, or another $1 per pound for chicken meat, to ensure that not only our minds but our wallets ensure a sane farming and food future.

Jamie Oliver's Fowl Dinners were the environmental activists' equivalent of chaining yourself to a bulldozer. He should be commended and hopefully rewarded by the fact that at least one state on this side of the pond "gets it." Hopefully, we all will at some point. Now, Go Vote!!

Opportunities

2008-09-13T07:08:00.004-04:00

As recent as yesterday I had a conversation with someone discussing the vast opportunities that local farmers had in supplying New York City with more locally grown food. At least as of September 13 2008, there doesn't appear to be an abatement of demand or desire for local food....at least on the surface. Problem is that our current food distribution systems doesn't support actually working with local growers and as the costs of even local transportation--say from farm to farmers market--rise, it may become harder for New Yorkers to get local food because it'll be harder for local farmers to stay in business. That is unless we have a revolutionary movement--a modern day Boston tea party--where local communities eschew produce brought in from all over the world in favor of the same crops grown right around the corner.

A recent study by The American Farmland Trust suggests that in the Bay Area of San Francisco/Oakland, California that only 0.5% of the total food consumed is sold direct to consumer (e.g., through a farmers market), but that there is more than enough food grown in the region to supply the Bay Area food needs and then some. SO, if I understand the study correctly, that means that 99.5% (or 5.87 million tons of food) is sold through other channels (probably global supermarket chains mostly). According to the study, however:

“It’s impossible to determine precisely how much locally-grown food [~20 million tons] is consumed in the City of San Francisco, or in fact, how much of what is consumed is produced on local farms and ranches,” The commercial food system in the region, as throughout the United States does not track the origin of what it sells, primarily because consumers do not yet demand to know the origin of the foods they eat.” [from the American Farmland Trust--www.farmland.org/programs/states/ca/Feature Stories/San-Francisco-Foodshed-Report.asp.

So, if in fact we are to realize all of the benefits of a strong local farm and food economy, then we need a massive shift in how food is transported off of the farm onto the plates of Americans.

In New York's Hudson Valley, we're losing farmland annually. Yet, the demand from food savvy New Yorkers for local food is growing. Everyone, Californians and New Yorkers, and everyone in between, alike need to demand that they know where their food comes from. Even if you don't want to shop at a farmers market, or can't get to one, ask your whomever is in charge of providing you with food to tell you where it came from, who grew it, how they grew, can you meet the farmer. If they don't know, then leave. Go somewhere where they can answer those questions.

By demanding that more local food go into local communities we can shift how food moves from farm to table, save farmland, and get a great meal to boot.

For more information, visit the The American Farmland Trust web site: www.farmland.org

Declaration for Healthy Food and Agriculture

2008-09-12T18:26:00.005-04:00

OK, folks. If you believe in good, safe, clean food and FARMS, the please sign onto the declaration and help secure a future for our farmers.

Thanks, Mike Biltonen
Pomologist

Culinary Equality

2008-09-01T11:30:00.006-04:00

I love food. Who doesn't? I love everything (almost) from snails and caviar to a great cheeseburger and french fries (just not the industrial types). Yet as the Slow Food Nation wraps up in San Francisco, I worry about how a food culture that was supposed to celebrate and invite everyone, is becoming increasingly upscaled and out of reach of the people that need good, clean food yet may be able to least afford it. I have always felt that my first highest responsibility to people who have worked for me is to train them to take over my job some day. That is, raise them up, not shut them out. The same should be true of our food economy and culture. Slow Food, farmers markets, u-pick farms, Whole Foods, and co-ops should not be seen as elitist enterprises. But often through various marketing schemes, that's exactly how they look to those on the outside looking in. But neither should these same enterprises stop their marketing approach. They instead should continue to pave the way, ushering in new food devotees and supporting culinary equality.

One of the sad facts about how Americans generally approach food is that they expect it to be cheap. Americans spend less of their income--per capita--on food than practically any other nation on Earth. On the whole, we need to realize that in order to get better food, we need to spend our dollars differently and "invest" more in a food system that encourages small farms, and good, clean, safe food, rather than encourage one that comprises dollar menus and the destruction of the Earth's environment.

Not everyone will be able to shop at Whole Foods, Balducci's, or Dean and DeLuca. This blog isn't about economic equality per se, but rather about a cultural shift in what's really important to our quality of life and how we "invest" our income in the future of this country. But it is also about how the food providers make sure they encourage a shift in buying patterns by making sure the best in good clean food is available to their customers, instead of pandering to the lowest bidder and providing only the cheapest stuff (I hesitate to call it food) they can buy at the terminal markets on any given day. This approach doesn't encourage better eating or spending patterns, it is destructive to the Earth, and it perpetuates a system that has shown itself to be bad for the environment.

We need small farms that produce food that is not only good to eat, but good for you and the Earth. And the only way to grow that kind of system is make sure we have a system of culinary equality (producer driven) with a cultural shift in food values and where a household's food dollar goes (consumer driven).

Not everyone likes or even wants caviar. So if we could just start with making sure everyone has access to food that hasn't had the bejesus sprayed out of it, sucking all the nutritional value with it, that would be a good start. Know Your Food, Know Your Farmer, Know Your Roots! Put out the Welcome mat today!

Eat Lower

2008-08-15T06:58:00.008-04:00

With the monumental Slow Food Nation event about ready to kick off, I felt compelled to write about the latest eating craze ready to sweep the land. Now, you all have heard about the Atkins Diet, right? And the South Beach Diet, macrobiotics, veganism, vegetarianism, even the Master Cleanse Lemonade Diet, right? Well, I am here to tell you all to forget about them--they aren't worth anything anyway--and to adopt my own new habit of Eating Lower on the Food Chain. No, don't worry this doesn't mean you'll have to sit down to a plate of fried worms with Andrew Zimern or travel to some far off land with Anthony Bourdain to find out that the Gramercy Tavern was just fine with you the first place. No I am here to tell you to just eat lower on the food processing chain.

Yes, that's right. The closer you can get to your food with the least amount of processing is the best of all worlds. For me, about the most processing I want for my food comes in the form of fresh churned butter (Yum!) or a lightly grilled piece of meat over apple wood charcoal or a fresh vegetable salad with some garlicky olive oil. With the huge craze right now in value added food products like beverages--8 gazillion and counting--or the latest salsa or jam, the fact is that there is very little that's healthy about any of them.

Now I am not here to dis value added--I believe there are some incredible foodies out there creating some great products--just check the label first. Often there is little difference between "artisanal" value added and industrial food products. Artisanal oftens masquerades about in a haze of smoke and mirrors--beware. So, instead of strawberry jam with tons o' sugar, try some strawberry confit or just some "jar jam." Instead of all these crazy spreads--SmartBalance, etc--just try some real butter. Of course, a little exercise always helps when practicing this new diet of mine because butter and steak and, well, all foods have calories. And too many calories leads to too many "lbs" around the middle.

What eating lower on the food chain does is it gets you closer to what real food is supposed to taste like and gives you the opportunity to derive real nutrition from real food (thanks, Nina!). Our bodies did not evolve to digest and deal with all the preservatives and additives that go into today's supermarket food. Most importantly eating lower on the food chain is about getting to know your farmer (the person that grows it) or the actual chicken that laid your breakfast or the steer that gave up that burger grilling outside right now.

Eating lower on the food chain means shortening the distance between you and your food, and knowing your food for what it really is, not for what some food scientist has turned it into. Of course, most foods taste better when combined with other foods--try making salsa without combining anything--just keep it simple (no preservatives or any ingredients that mask the true flavors of the food. The best food is always as nature intended: fresh from the ground, tree, or vine. One of the best meals I ever had was standing over a sink for hours shucking some fresh plucked oysters from Wellfleet Bay on Cape Cod. A knife, some oysters, a little lemon and vinegar....what could be better. I couldn't have gotten much closer that that.

Onward and Upward!!

2008-08-02T17:00:00.006-04:00

This is likely to be the first year that I will not be actively involved in a fruit harvest of some sort or another. Why? Well, when I started Blue Marble Farms a few years ago I knew the two biggest obstacles that I had to staying in business were the facts I didn't own a farm (a biggie!) and I was not independently wealthy (REALLY big in light of the fact I didn't own the farm). Everything that Blue Marble Farms did received incredible feedback. Nonetheless, Blue Marble Farms is no more. But I am content. This season I have been doing incredibly important work helping other growers manage their crops (apples, onions, and lettuce) and implement food safety programs. What's food safety? Well, it is about being responsible about growing and processing the food we eat. 99.9% of the time (unofficially) the food we eat is perfectly safe, however it is the other 0.01% of the time that bothers folks--often fatally.

We need safe food. We need clean food. And although my job right now is to help folks get certified and implement globally accepted food safety program, the fact is there is no better food safety program than buying local and knowing your farmers. Know your roots, or course.

My time at Stone Ridge Orchard has ended. I don't regret a second I spent there. I do wish I could have finished out the year. But, alas, the winds of time have pushed me in another direction, to use my talents and expertise differently. I encourage everyone--all of my customers and readers--to buy local and organic (but definitely local) as much as possible. Support those that support you and a healthy environment and safe food supply.

Cheers and stick around for more from organic schmorganic, 'cause there is no doubt this train hasn't reached its destination yet.

Too Many People

2008-04-23T12:19:00.006-04:00

It is rare to hear environmentalists much less politicians talk about the real environmental problem. Instead we hear about mitigate this or mitigate that and little about the fact there are too many people on this planet for the resources the good mother earth gave us. All one needs to do is look to the first two laws of thermodynamics to see that we're on a path of inevitable destruction. The first states that matter can neither be created or destroyed. The second law states that energy--the stuff that comes from matter and energy--gradually deteriorates over time. That is it gets transformed from usable to unusable forms.

We're on a path of rapid deterioration where not only are we using up resources that have available energy--trees, oil, clean air, clean water--but we're binding them up into unusable forms. At some point we'll pull up to the proverbial pump and there'll be nothing in the tank.

Right now we're seeing the skyrocketing of global food prices that are exacerbated by reactionary food policy in desperate countries. Food prices increase because of countries clamping down on distribution forced by importers clamping down. This results in shortages, and the law of supply and demand kicks and prices rise forcing people to essentially go without or riot.

The point of this is not to dissect food policy for individual countries or place blame in any one spot. It can't be. Our current situation is a global problem, not a local one. But it can be solved with local solutions. As our ability to plunder nature for the things our capitalist society needs is reduced, we're forced--for better or worse--into a situation of reexamining self-sufficiency. Instead of lawns we should plant gardens; instead of cars, we should ride bikes; instead of driving an hour to nearest WalMart, we need to shop local; and if we fight to protect our own backyards not from some foreign invader but from our own shortsightedness, we will hopefully create a backyard that'll be around in 100 years.

But the simple fact remains that there are too many people and at some point we'll just run out of resources if things continue. We're already seeing it today. What happens when the population doubles by the year 2050? What happens to all the creatures of the world that also depend on clean air and clean water and safe haven for survival? They have no choice. Rising global food prices are just the tip of the iceberg. We can only conserve ourself so far before there's nothing left to conserve. We need to use less, a lot less, and encourage negative population growth. Hoping we can tweak a broken capitalistic society that is so dependent on the human and increasing human population is just a recipe for a global environmental disaster waiting to happen. The storm clouds are gathering. And while we can only blame ourselves the current problems, we are also the solution. So, go forth and plant tomatoes, compost those rotten veggies. Free some energy. Your lawnmower will thank you later. So will humanity.

Food Safety 101

2008-03-18T13:46:00.004-04:00

I just returned from a whirlwind trip to the breadbasket of America only to read on MSNBC that reported cases of foodborne illnesses in leafy greens have been rising over the past 35 years. And this is disproportionate to increases in fresh salad and greens consumption. In other words, the food we eat is getting more dangerous each day. Just think about [I won't bore you by listing them] the numerous "problems" that have been reported over the past two years alone. Most recently, the use of downer cows and inhumane treatment by one beef production company resulted in the largest recall of beef in US history. Now, there weren't any foodborne illness issues reported by the consumption of the meat involved in that recall, but the door was wide open not just for E. coli but also mad cow disease.

What's that have to do with my trip? Well, there I was in a region of the country known for cattle ranches, vast expanses of corn, and amber waves of grain, and I couldn't find a decent meal to eat. Several people in our party actually got sick. How in the world, when you're in a region with so much food production could you not find a decent, safe meal? It is because the vast majority of our population have been trained to treat food like a commodity. A secondary part of our being. My view is that we all need to eat to survive, so why should we eat bad food? I'm not talking sushi and kobe beef every week, just good, clean food. Not only do our consumers need to think differently, but the producers of the vast quantities of our food--the ADMs and Cargills of the world--need to think differently. The state of our national food supply is why organics, CSAs, vegetarianism, and other here-to-stay food trends are so popular. People are beginning to distrust our food supply.

But not everyone has access to a CSA or organic food store. These are still elitist ideas to many Americans. In fact, many of the people that actually grow our food can't afford to buy anything but commodified food, and they don't grow anything they can eat because of how our current farm system is designed. Paying more for food will help, so will more and better government oversight. But basically we need more local food education. Education about the wheres, whys, hows, whos, and whats of food. Our diets would be healthier, safer, and more enjoyable than they are. We shouldn't have to process downer cows, and if we had a more humane food production system, we wouldn't have them. Likewise, leafy greens should be a no brainer part of any diet...not a "I wonder if this'll kill me today part."

Local: know your roots.

Keepin' It Local, Folks!

2008-02-09T09:10:00.000-05:00

The following article was written by Karin Ursula Edmondson for the Catskill Mountain Guide magazine (January, 2008). It is posted here with permission from the Catskill Mountain Foundation. For more information, please go to Catskill Mountain Foundation

“I think we fundamentally need to change the way our society works,
and how we interact with the natural world around us…
the model that we currently function under has become so focused on economic development, over and above everything else, that it doesn’t include
any accounting for impacts on water and air and health and communities.
It is not sustainable. It is not an accurate depiction of the health of communities, landscapes or human beings…(our) mission now is to be part of helping society to change the way we look at measuring what is a healthy community…”
– Andy Turner, Executive Director of the Cornell Cooperative Extension
of Greene County & Agroforestry Resource Center

The old adage Tis not what you know but whom has resonant meaning in rural life.
Within a week of moving into a two bedroom cottage (with working field stone fireplace) in North Lexington, a neighbor and friend of mine dropped off a burn barrel for me. The profundity of my happiness and thankfulness would have prompted city folks to assume Mike had left a pair of Jimmy Choo's or a Hermes Birkin bag in my driveway. Neighborly relations matter in the country. Folks know each others’ business – good and bad – but that is a direct result of living in a small community where going it alone doesn’t work all that well. In the country 911 response time is longer than in the city. Chances are a neighbor (with or without a shotgun) will arrive faster than the state trooper. Community counts in the country. Essayist Wendell Berry enobles rural communities, especially local culture as the antidote to the apathy, alienation and cultural ennui that saturates modern life. Local folk are in each other’s business. “When a community loses its memory, its members no longer know one another. How can they know one another if they have forgotten or never learned one another’s stories? If they do not know one another’s stories, how can they know whether or not to trust one another? People who do not trust one another do not help one another, and moreover, they fear one another.” (Berry, Wendell. What Are People For. North Point Press, New York. P. 157.)
Sustainable farmland and rural social cohesion are intimately related. Perhaps, the ever increasing alienation from one another spurs a profound and urgent need for interaction with a real live warm human being and accounts for the burgeoning popularity of farm markets, farm stands, even a haute barnyard cuisine? A farmer answers questions about crop and livestock management methods on the spot. No seeking and asking an elegantly bored sales associate or listless stock boy about domain, provenance, method of production or otherwise. Farmland is an integral part of the rural community whole. Like any other component of a rural community – butcher store, hardware, mechanic, general - a small family farm could not exist outside of the cohesive fabric of the community. Thus, in essence, when there is talk of saving a farm the core of the matter is saving rural character and with it, a community in a rural place – similar to the Marbletown Green debate a few months ago in Stone Ridge.

Stone Ridge Orchard

Stone Ridge Orchard occupies land that has been farmed in one manner or another for two hundred years – essentially a vital part of the adjacent village of Stone Ridge. Since the early 1800s the farm land has been part and parcel of the Hasbrouck House, a stone house in the Dutch style, estimated built between 1800 and 1820. Benjamin Hasbrouck farmed the 170 acres quite prosperously. Some of his crops: potatoes, winter wheat, rye, corn, buckwheat, oats, apples, honey. Livestock included: meat cattle and milch (Dutch for milk) cattle, swine and poultry. The town agricultural statistics reveal that when farmed, the land increased in value over thirty-three years. Interestingly enough, after Benjamin’s death and the subsequent property transfer to a wealthy New York City relative – a pool builder by trade - who turned the property into a country seat, the land value dropped. “…the pool was the last major addition to the properties. In many ways it may have well been the most significant addition for it transformed the lands from a working dairy farm into country seat.”
1839-1840 - farmed land value $5,250
1854-1855 –farmed land value $8,000
1870 – farmed land value $15,000
1874 – farmed land value $14,000
1901 – not farmed land value $11,000
What does one do at a country seat anyway? Cocktail? Socialize. Perfect the air kiss? Golf – probably. Nothing productive. Nothing creationary. This warrants attention. Perhaps, real estate of a certain kind – that builds airy manses prettified with cookie cutter exotic landscaping – might only appear to have substantial value in the now. But what about long-term? If no one works the land, how much value does the land retain? The corollary: if a nation cannot feed itself, what happens to the security of the nation?
Since 2000 Mike Biltonen, a Cornell educated farmer, orchardman and pomologist (apple expert) has managed the Stone Ridge Orchard leasing the land (his lease expires in 2008) from the current owners of the Hasbrouck House. This past summer, the owners, citing “lack of profitability’ of the orchard, made overtures to sell the orchard land so that Marbletown Green might be built. Marbletown Green being a euphemism for yet another (yawn, sigh) large-scale and un-green housing development. Marbletown residents rallied in opposition and managed to defeat the sale. However, the owners still wish to sell the land even though comparing profits from an orchard to profits from a real estate deal is like comparing currants to wine grapes. Impossible and a bit, ludicrous. Even with an impressive and lengthy client list (3 pages typed in 10 font) that includes every one of the Whole Foods and Balduccis in New York City (and White Plains and Greenwich), premier New York City restaurants like Blue Ribbon, Café Gray, Cookshop, Craft, Grammercy Tavern, Manhattan Fruitier, Pure Food and Wine, Murray’s Cheese, The Spotted Pig, The Riverdale Garden and revered educational institutions Columbia University, Vassar Collage and the Culinary Institute of America – Stone Ridge Orchard’s profits cannot compete with the monies received from a real estate transaction of 116 bucolic acres a mere ninety minutes north of New York City. In 2007 Stone Ridge Orchard has been featured on Sally Spillane’s Garden Show on WKZE and CBS News and Whole Foods Union Square produce department journeyed to Stone Ridge for a tour of the orchard and farm.
“This land needs a dedicated farmer who knows what the orchard and the farm needs. My vision is to see that it remains so for another 200 years,” says Mike. Intuiting that the Stone Ridge community opposition against the housing development is indicative of something deeper, more elemental, Mike is now seeking to raise funds to purchase the land and create the Shawangunk Region Farmland Institute (SRFI) to synergize with the orchard. SRFI’s mission is energized around three values: Continuity, Cohesion and Community. “The recent debates on development has clarified for all of us that the larger issue at hand for our township is not one large-scale housing development. It is how our township handles its need for economic viability without sacrificing the rural values of continuity, cohesion and closeness that make Marbletown unique.” Mike hopes that SRFI will serve as a “creative option to larger global dynamics” in rural American communities. “As part of its journey I believe that Stone Ridge Orchard should become a commercial-educational beacon [a subset of SRFI] for farming in a region where development and economic pressures are forcing farmers out of business and dramatically reducing the agricultural land base. By transforming Stone Ridge Orchard into an example of a highly productive and innovative commercial farm, the solutions to the problems that many growers face can be clarified and refined so that there is viable future for all farms and farmers for the indefinite future.”
Mike’s plans for Stone Ridge Orchard are multi-faceted, reflecting the cross-disciplinary planning team – farmer, ad agency, architect and landscape designer - involved in its realization. Think Tank 3, “a modern day think shop based in NYC created specifically for clients who want advertising, respect design, believe in branding but not blanding” is helmed by folks “who care about the issues and love food and believed in what Mike was doing.” Think Tank 3 President, Harris Silver: “One of the first things we did was frame the issue and create a positioning for Stone Ridge Orchard. Buy Local is used by everyone from local farm stands to the Stone Barns Center for Agriculture and is now so generic that it lacks any real meaning. There are issues that consumers don't really understand - like organic which has been co-opted by corporate interests. Consumers have this unrealistic notion of organic farmers as barefooted people taking care of plants and don't understand that organic crops –as defined by the USDA and practiced by large-scale so-called organic farms – can be sprayed by "approved" pesticides and can be grown in a mono-culture. Food miles and food safety were two other issues we needed to address. We wanted to clarify reasons to buy local, to illuminate the deeper understanding that although the food might not be certified organic, consumers can trust it and to convince people that the choice between organic and local sustainable agriculture is a critical choice to make. The positioning for Stone Ridge Orchard we created was ‘Know Your Roots.’ We are now starting to think it might be much bigger than a tagline for one orchard but perhaps a movement that other growers and maybe even manufacturers and restaurants can rally behind. A trusted seal of approval for food, if you will. Whatever happens Stone Ridge Orchard will be credited with starting the whole thing as they should be.” And sales, profits, viability? “The orchard has seen double digit growth in sales with the new packaging in cider and berries. And tomato sales are through the roof.” Stone Ridge Orchard was the first orchard account for Think Tank 3 and despite “frequent sleepless nights this past summer, being a part of saving the orchard is very satisfying. Everyone here loves the work, loves working on the account. And the feedback we get from this work is just fantastic.”
The long term plan involves adapting the existing orchard buildings to other purposes including an open air farmers market with an en plein air plaza, dormitories for folks interested in taking pomology classes that will allow them to work alongside Mike in the orchard, a certified kitchen for value-added products (salsas, chutneys, jams), a cider exhibit hall and the building of a new production facility that would also house SRFI. A new building will be constructed to green specifications and the entire complex will incorporate current sustainable living technology like rainwater collection cisterns, a geothermal heating and cooling system, solar panels and chickens. “The chickens serve two purposes,” says Mike. “It’s hard to get really good eggs these days and, chickens eat a harmful pest called plum curculio weevil that lives at woodland edges.” Plans include community gardens. Landscape design elements will take their cue from the orchard’s organizing axial geometry – the inherent agricultural rhythm of the evenly spaced apple trees. Apple is the orchard’s raison d’etre in the now and so shall the apple tree embrace the community gardens – an old stock apple tree marking each corner of the garden – a nod to the classic French potager. Discussions have been held to recycle old apple crates and pallets through artistic metamorphoses into benches and tables. But the core of it all centers around the necessity that Stone Ridge Orchard remains a productive, working farm that grows great tasting ecologically grown food.
“There has to be an open time line to make changes agriculturally, taking out old orchard, building up soil, diversifying, extending the growing season via hoop houses and cold frames high tunnels. There will be numerous varieties within each category. All will be heirloom to the greatest degree. All will be grown organically or biodynamically, even though we will not be able to certify all crops organically grown next year. Creative farming is what it’s all about. It’s been hard for me to diversify away from apples since I love growing them. Creative farming and creative farmers are those that think and operate out of the box yet definitively not with a ‘petting zoo’ mentality, but in a cohesive ‘what’s best for farming, my neighbors, and the community’ sort of way. Many of our actions in farming are constrained by the environment around us. In a time when global climate change and other forces are changing how, what, and where we farm, there is much that farmers can do to ameliorate those issues. Ultimately, it means changing the nature of farming.”
Stone Ridge Orchard’s 2008 crop list includes apples, Asian pears, basil, bok choi, apple ciders-still & sparkling, nectarines, peaches, Italian plums, red, yellow and black raspberries, red currants, spinach, strawberries, sweet corn, Swiss chard, tatsoi, tomatoes, melons, beets, broccoli, carrots, popcorn, mizuna, thyme, coriander, parsley, hot and sweet peppers and summer and fall squash. Mike plans to move to biodynamic from organic on much of the acreage, and hopes to obtain NOFA certification within three years on all of the apple acreage. Mike is also keen to extend the growing season with high tunnels, develop disease resistant apples and “generally allow nature to manage pests more than we have.” Some methods of natural pest management include smothering weeds, complete composting of apple leaves, cover crops under the tree canopy. “Our production will all be organic or biodynamic in nature by 2011. Apples will be the center of our universe for the indefinite future, though in ten years time I envision Stone Ridge Orchard a highly diversified, innovative fruit and vegetable farm that grows and markets for commercial scale customers. I do not want Stone Ridge Orchard to become either a museum piece or a classroom per se. It needs to reflect its past and reveal its future while realizing that the bulk of the region’s people will be still buy their food in grocery stores, and that the vast majority of folks will never set foot on a farm that grows their food. Though we seek to resolve those problems, too.”

Contact Information
For folks interested in receiving information about investing in the Shawangunk Region Farmland Institute (SRFI) – still in the formative stages – please call Mike Biltonen directly at 845. 687. 2587 or email him at mike@stoneridgeorchard.com . Stone Ridge Orchard will launch a redesigned Online Store in March 2008 where folks can order produce in season, cider, and apparel. Stone Ridge Orchard is located on Route 213 in Stone Ridge, New York 12484. 845. 687 2587. www.stoneridgeorchard.com

The Real Costs of Food II

2008-01-20T11:22:00.000-05:00

In my last blog, I made a statement that for a while local food is going to cost more than your average grocery store alternatives, and it should, because food in general has cost far too little for too long. My point was not that food, or anything else for that matter, that is more expensive is better simply because you shell out more money for it. Eveything, and especially food, should reflect the real costs that went into producing it. Food, the sustenance of our bodies, has such a profound effect on us and the world we live in, that the price we pay for food should include all costs. I suspect that over time, as global transportation becomes more expensive and the costs of food production more normalized around the world, the cost of producing food right around your corner will be cheaper than something produced half a world away. This is as good a reason this morning to protect open space and preserve local farms. Once they are gone, they can't be brought back. And since my supposition is that what goes around comes around. Then once the basic need for local food production comes home to roost, we need some open ground to plant those seeds. But for today, it costs more to grow food locally than abroad....at least as defined by the ring at the register. The long term survivial of our communities requires us to look past the short term savings and support your local farmers by paying a little bit more. You'll appreciate it tomorrow and so will your kids. That's all I am saying.

The Real Costs of Food

2008-01-18T15:41:00.000-05:00

It probably comes as no surprise, but if you are an average consumer then the cost of your daily diet is more than what you pay at the cash register. Sure the food on your average grocery store shelf comes with a price tag, but it doesn't tell you all of the other "costs" that went into growing, processing, storing, & getting it to you, all while lining the pockets of large agribusiness companies. The government subsidies--direct and otherwise--that are actually your taxes, plus increased carbon emissions, poor diets, degraded planet, and destroyed cultures all have real costs that don't get calculated into the price you pay. This is all the result of bad food and farm policy in the 20th century now exacerbated by global politics and a push for 'cheaper'.

If the farms and the regional food supply [aka Local food] everyone has taken a recent interest in are to survive over the long term, consumers need to realize that food is simply going to cost more. It should. It has cost far too little for far too long. Just compare what we pay with what people in other country's pay. Our entire food system has been set up so that your average expectation is that food should be cheap. But it is not. And if you add up all of the external costs of that cheap loaf of bread, the price you pay is really much higher than what you take out of your wallet or pocket book.

Choosing local food is different than making a choice between a Ferrari and a Hyundai. With a Ferrari the high price tag is a result of artisanship, performance and perceived value. Yet a Hyundai will also get you from point A to Point B, just not as fast or in as much style. So if the basis for our discussion is purely transportation [or calories if we're talking food], then maybe a cheap loaf of bread is all you need. If we're talking about getting their fast, then of course the Ferrari is the obvious choice. But if we're making a broader, philosophical choice [what's better for me and the world around me], then we're making an entirely different choice. It is not just a choice of calorie source or excitement, but of other values as well.

Locally produced food also comes with added values. When one chooses--or considers choosing--local food it as if you're now throwing something unconventional into the mix. It is like saying, OK now you can choose either a Hyundai, a Ferrari, or a Segway. It is an entirely different thought process and value system that causes someone to purchase local food or use a Segway. You can get calories anywhere; you can get cheap food at any big box store; heck, you can even probably get luxury foods around the corner. But with local foods you can only get them locally. That added value of locally grown has benefits that can't be provided by the cheaper global versions.

The cost of local food is real and here to stay [most likely]. The real question is whether consumers, your average consumers, are willing to pay more now [and keep their money circulating in the local community] or pay less and see their money fly away. Remember the next time you buy food from a local farmer you're also buying open space, scenic vistas, clean air and water, and the chance to eat good, healthy, real food. Sure, the price you pay for local food may be higher, but it is a price based on costs that are real and upfront. Then again, so is the food. Yum!

OUCH-burgers!

2007-11-04T13:31:00.000-05:00

I think I am going to start a new program called "Know Your Steer, or toy maker, or dog food manufacturer, or something." But I am getting not only tired but fearful of what all these recalls are going to do to farmers and our domestic food supply. I am even more worried about what it is going to do to people trying to eat a healthy diet. Even though the recalls we've seen and heard about all season emanate from huge multinational companies and/or places like China, these things always have a backlash that impacts those that can least afford it....like your local farmer. Last week, I spent a good portion of my time, not farming, but polishing off a HACCP plan for our cider operation. What's HACCP? Why, it is Hazard Analysis of Critical Control Points. Still not clear? It is the last line of defense in our cider making operation against the introduction of any possible contaminants like e. coli. There are "critical control points" in every food manufacturing plant; places where biological or chemical contaminants can enter the food stream and create the recalls we're seeing now. However, the one commonality I am seeing with these recalls is that they are coming from companies that are so huge that one [me for example] wonders how any reasonable oversight can be expected. Read the Omnivore's Dilemma (Michael Pollan] for the low-down on how your typical steer/cow becomes hamburger and you'll understand how easily contamination and subsequent recalls can occur. Unfortunately, people also get hurt in the process. We saw this with Earthbound Farms spinach recalls of last year. In this case, even the USDA seal of ORGANIC can't prevent bacterial contamination when the path from farm to plate starts at what amounts to a compromised nuclear power plant with one person manning the "kill" switch. Something is bound to get through.

But when your "source" is the farmer down the road, it is a whole lot easier to make sure the process is never compromised. That doesn't mean there's absolute assurance, but pretty darn close. When it is Cargill, who the hell do you call to complain? You just hope that burger you ate wasn't from the Lot # recalled. Even then if it was you gut it out [no pun intended].

Here at Stone Ridge Orchard we just started harvesting spinach and other greens. My biggest concern was how the consumer would react. Not that I was significantly concerned but it did cross my mind. I knew that I had control over my employees and the food safety practices at my farm. But there is the ever threatening cloud of commercial food f*ck ups that creates an ever increasing thicket of bureaucracy and make it difficult for the small grower.

I started this blog by talking about knowing your steer. Yesterday I had the opportunity to the spend the day at the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture in Pocantico Hills, NY. We got up close with the whole production team and even some of the animals. It was a treat. You'll never get that kind of access with a Cargill cow or a piece of Earthbound Farms spinach. It is so important to get to know your farmers. It is equally important to get to know their crops and the animals they raise. This is the ultimate in food knowledge. Up close and personal. I have just finished designing a workshop I am offering here at Stone Ridge Orchard next year called the Yen of Apple Growing. It gives folks with the desire to get up close and personal with the orchard and the fruit. It gives them opportunity to not only work with me, but to get a glimpse at what goes into growing apples and discuss food production in general. There is no better way to Know Your Roots than to visit a local farm and shake the hand of the person that grew your dinner. Oh, please only eat Happy Cows. You'll feel better in the morning.
So what are you waiting for?

**If you're interested in the workshop, please contact me at mike@stoneridgeorchard.com.

The Yen of Apple Growing

2007-10-26T13:53:00.000-04:00

I had no idea growing up that I wanted to farm for a living. As a product of suburbia, farming was just about the furthest thing from my mind. I had some idea of what farming was all about, but basically I just liked the outdoors. Then in the Spring of 1984, I took a job as a field hand at one of Virginia’s oldest & largest orchards. With nearly 1500 acres of apples and peaches to tend to, it quickly became the hardest job I ever loved. And I never looked back.

These days, opportunities like mine are rare to find, especially without a complete lifestyle change. Yet more and more folks are interested in how their food is grown; by whom; & where. This season, I came up with an idea that would give people the opportunity to try out the farming lifestyle without actually giving up the lives they had chosen. Over the course of six weekends spanning the year and within the coziness of one of the Hudson Valley’s finest orchards, you can work side by wide with me to learn the basics of apple growing. Everyone would learn about the ecology of orchards, practice the art & science of pomology, grow & then harvest their very own apples.

The workshops begin in February with some classroom prep. In early Spring we set out to begin growing some apples. Each attendee will be “given” 10 trees to nurture and practice on throughout the year. (Don’t worry we’ll take care of them while you’re away.) Over the next nine months, you’ll learn how to prune, fertilize, deal with insects and diseases, determine apple ripeness, and then how to pick and store your own crop of apples. At the end of the course—and at times in between—we’ll enjoy the bounty of the season as we get to know each other and the orchard. Each workshop session has something special planned—like a cooking or processing class—to enhance the experience.

Although I have two degrees in horticulture, I am really just someone who really loves apples, and want to help you in the Yen of Apple Growing. If you have ever thought about growing apples in your backyard or even starting a small orchard, then this workshop is a great place to start.

So if you're interested in the workshop, please call or email me ASAP.

mike@stoneridgeorchard.com
845.687.2587

An Inch Deep

2007-09-25T07:33:00.000-04:00

We're right in the middle of New York apple season--my season--and we're once again being smacked in the face by the duplicity of some large food companies and grocery chains, and their commitment to "Local." As you may be aware, Local is all the rage. It is the latest trend in food. Really!

In Europe, local has always been what's its been about. Small farms dot the landscape; small family wineries still make the same really mediocre wines they have for centuries; goats and sheep are shepherded across the road; cheeses actually taste like cheese.

But here in America, we're so damned in love with the lowest price and the best supermarket deals, that we forget some of the underlying costs that allow those deals to exist in the first place. Deals that encourage multinational corporations to source anything they need from anywhere in the world with little or no regard for small farms. So be it. The next iteration of our farmland is bad architecture and traffic jams.

Americans for too many years have paid absurdly low prices for food. Because of horrible government programs and this love affair with cheap, the real price of food has never even been approached much less paid by your average consumer. But thanks to the resurgence of sincere interest in locally grown products, the salvation of the small farmer has arrived. Or has it?

The fact is that the majority of our food system in the US is still mired in decades old price supports and bad food policy. The average consumer still doesn't get that if they want local, they'll have to pay more for it. It is that simple. But they complain to their produce managers about prices, and the managers in turn do exactly what they have been trained to do: buy cheap.

This hurts the local farmer; our open spaces; our clean air and water; those wonderful vistas; and most importantly the security of local food supply. My experiences over the past week certainly suggest that my theory is correct: Most large food companies and grocery store's commitments to local is an inch deep and a mile wide. That's why your consumer that cares is going to farm markets, farmer's markets, CSAs, and to shop at chain stores that really care, like Whole Foods and Balducci's.

Americans have a choice. They can save 20 cents a lb on apples, or they can support local. They'll shell out over a hundred dollars a month on cable TV, but God forbid they have to pay a few dimes more for apples. You get a lot for that 20 cents; more than you'll ever find on the 500 channels of crap on TV. Come on Folks [this means produce managers, too], step to the Plate!

Disclaimer: this blog is meant for those least likely to read it. For those of you already on board: thank you; thank you; thank you!!

Why Farm?

2007-09-15T07:28:00.000-04:00

Besides the obvious answer to the title query--because we need food--I ask more fundamentally why would anyone in this day and age would want to farm. Recently we've seen yet another measurable loss in farm acreage in the Hudson Valley; the average age of the American farmer continues to rise; fewer young people are staying with their family's farming tradition. It seems the only people actually getting into farming these days are retirees looking for a post-retirement hobby (boy, are they in for a surprise) and visionary folks looking to undo the industrialized, petroleum dependent food treadmill we're currently on. Well, there are a few folks that just like to grow food you can actually taste.

But the simple fact is that farming isn't as lucrative as many other occupations, and it probably never will be. Agriculture does not generally attract folks looking to make a career out of farming. There's more money to be made elsewhere. That's why when one does make a commitment to farming, it is deep and it is long-term. It is about a connection with the soil beneath their feet, the ecosystem they participate in each day, the germinating seeds, and ripening fruit. It is about more than money. The rewards from farming come from someplace other than the cash register.

And yet farmers need to make a living, too. But society has put such a huge emphasis on making LOTS of money, that farming gets lost in the shuffle. Agriculture is considered an expendable commodity. And with it we lose open space, clean air and water, and farmers. The only solution I can devise is to reinject some balance into the system. Sure, farmers do get a lot of breaks. Yet the developers still come knocking with suitcases full of money and promises of long Caribbean vacations for the farmer. And our food supply gets pushed further away to places most people will never visit and grown by farmers we'll never meet. We need to invest money in protecting farmland and encouraging new farmers the way we invest money in the stock market and new technology companies. We need a model for an economically and ecologically sustainable agriculture in regions where farms are losing ground to McMansions.

Despite the public's current love for local food, we still lose farms not because of any kind of lack of demand of local farm products--in fact, demand here at my farm far exceeds supply--but because of a lack of farmers. There are lots of little CSAs and hobby farms popping up all over the place, but these hardly have the ability to feed the 20 million people in the NYC metro area. We need to commercial agriculture close to our population centers.

While I am very much in favor of population control--negative growth is best--the fact is if we do not figure out how feed the masses with good, healthy, safe, local food, then we put our society at risk. Food, like oil, becomes a bargaining chip in global politics. Even now, most people don't know where their food comes from, and they should. Local farms and farmers can and do keep this ever increasing void from expanding too rapidly, but society needs to make the choice. The value of farmland and its farmers comes in forms more important than money. It is the underlying intrinsic value of local farms, farmland, and local food that society needs to embrace.

For me it is about walking out into the orchard early in the morning with the steam rising off of the lakes, hearing birds wake up, and eating that first fresh apple of the day. It is about the memory of my grandparents' farm and the lasting impression it made on me that probably planted the seed that allowed me to take up a career in farming. Other people need those experiences, especially while young, if farming in the US has a chance to reverse its trend of losing farms and farmers. That's why I anticipate launching a farm and food education center that allows to people learn about and experience the wonders of great food from the soil up. Maybe some will decide to take up farming, but all will understand and appreciate where their food comes from. It really is about that first apple.

2007-08-22T17:28:00.000-04:00

I was walking around the orchard the other day tasting the very first apples of the season--Pristine and Zestar--when I realized something so deep and profound, that I said, "What the heck!" At that very moment, I decided to just take the leap of certifying all my acreage and producing all my crops as organic. I am not quite sure exactly where I'll start, although I know it'll begin somewhere between 2 and 3 AM some sleepless night this winter.

Transitioning a long-time, conventionally managed farm to organic is no small task. In fact, I already have in the top drawer of my desk a much easier idea for starting an organic orchard from scratch. Clean land, clean trees, clean beginning. But right now I need to heal Stone Ridge Orchard, and there's a lot of healing to do. Even though I have committed myself to the most ecological sensitive farming practices I can find, there is so much that's left to be done.

In this quest for organic, I really want to go beyond. Beyond Organic that is. There are so many things about organic production that do not fit in with my basic farming ethos. And organic will be a marginalized produce category in a few years anyway. And if organic anything destroys demand for local farm produce, then that's a bad thing. However, if organic is where I have to start, then so be it.

There are many crops that are far easier to grow organically than apples. But apples are such a huge part of me, and I love eating them so much, that I can think of no greater calling than to figure out how to grow them in the most ecologically sensitive manner possible....whatever that may be. There are sure to be many chapters to this saga. And lots of highs and lows. But in the process, we'll heal the land beyond anything we've attempted so far. So, next year, we'll start fresh.

Join me in the journey and check back often.

INTEGRATED PEST MANAGEMENT

2007-08-18T12:46:00.000-04:00

The other day I was asked for the umpteenth time whether we practice Integrated Pest Management, or IPM for short. Of course, my short answer was, "Yes." But, as I am apt to do, I lead quickly to the long answer. The long answer is to explain that IPM is a tool box and not a discrete practice. IPM can mean different things for different growers, and for Stone Ridge Orchard it means that we use a progressive IPM that incorporates many organic practices as well as some non-organic practices. Taking care of an older apple orchard full of pest susceptible varieties requires some reliance on older practices. So, yes, we spray. But so do organic growers, we all just do it differently. But I also do many other things that allow me to define ourselves as progressive IPMists.

In essence, running an orchard is like constructing a jigsaw puzzle. You're working with many pieces that once connected make a picture of some sort. But with orchards, the picture is constantly evolving. It is like a 3-D puzzle that changes depending on the puzzle piece you insert and there can be different ones. For us, we're moving a traditional-style managament system, to a progressive ecological system. Nonetheless, it is all IPM, just different styles.

This is why an uncertified IPM brand would never work: everyone would qualify. Even the most traditional growers in the world practice IPM. Likewise, your most ardent organic practitioners practice IPM. And everyone in between. the devil is in the details, as always.

For us we're moving towards to the organic end of a sliding IPM scale to a place called Beyond Organic. We use weather monitoring, beneficial insects, pheromone monitoring traps, and lots of learned experience to help us grow our crops. As we move to disease resistant apple varieties and high density planting systems, we'll be able to transition fully all the acreage here in Stone Ridge to certified organic. For now, we're replacing traditional puzzle pieces with cutting edge IPM technology to help make the transition smoother when it eventually happens.

So, yes we do practice IPM, just a very special ecological version. Stop on in and see how! & say Yes to Aphids!

2007-07-28T11:13:00.000-04:00

The late Edward Abbey, personal hero and favorite author of mine, once said that the greatest mistake mankind ever made was giving up the life of hunting and gathering for agriculture. And in a way, he was right. For with that one evolutionary transition, humans began to alter their landscape forever. That, of course, was thousands of years ago and it took quite a while to get to a point where we really began to do some damage. By the time of the industrial revolution, machines began to do much of the work usually conducted by humans. Tractors plowed, harvesters harvested, cotton gins plucked seeds from cotton.

For roughly a half century, it was wonderful. We plowed more land, grew and harvested more, and made more money. But then came the Dust Bowl and we saw for the first time what our technology had wrought. Farmers fortunately survived, as did the land, and pushed on. But after WWII it all changed again. The end of the war brought new chemicals, technology, machinery, and more. In effect, farmers had much bigger hammers with which to solve their problems. For three decades, the harder farmers hit, the bigger the problems became. Until one day, the hammer simply didn’t work anymore [or it caused so much damage that society decided it just wasn’t worth it]. So, we put down the hammer and started figuring out ways to grow food that were less harmful to the land.

We can’t go back 50 or 100 years where small farms were widely spread across America, where more food was eaten by those that grew it than not. But we can choose our food future. What do I mean? We are at another of those evolutionary transitions. Hunter-gatherers didn’t decide to take up farming overnight. It took a long time. In similar fashion, there are many today that would like to take a step back and embrace a more thoughtful land and food ethic, but realize it won't happen overnight. The simple fact is that we are in danger of having to import more food than we actually grow domestically, and we need this transition to happen faster rather than slower. There is a whole litany of reasons we're moving away from a domestic food supply including development and economic pressures, to a reduced focus by our land grant universities on domestic food production, to a society-at-large that quite honestly doesn’t understand what’s going on and usually doesn’t care when it does. As luck would have it, the land-ethic pendulum is swinging back to an ethos that embraces the land and works with rather than against Nature. As it does, we capture a whole new audience of folks looking to get back to the land and reconnecting with their food supply. The question is whether it will swing back fast enough.

Society at large still needs to understand at an even deeper level where its food comes from. Food is grown on a farm; it doesn’t miraculously arrive on the back of truck every Tuesday and Friday from a factory. They need to understand that food grown thousands of miles away has incalculable negative impacts on global warming, open space [e.g., farms], clean air and water, and most importantly the human psyche. The more of our food production that we "outsource" to other countries the more open space and farms we lose.

There was a time when the eggs we had for breakfast came from chickens that we personally knew. We need to reconnect with our food supply, who grows it, how and where. We need to know our eggs. In the battle to protect who we are as human beings, the front lines will be fought on working farms by working farmers. Protecting working farms protects open space, food production, air and water, and protects against growing threats from global warming. We can’t go back to being hunter-gatherers [not that we would want to, necessarily] and likewise if we lose our working farms, we won’t be able to get them back either. The greenest thing anyone can do is make sure our working farms keep working.

Saving the World One Farm at a Time

2007-07-26T07:57:00.000-04:00

There are people that say apple growing in the Hudson Valley is dead, or darn near. They cite the growing number of farms transmogrified into McMansions as substantial proof. And, yes, according to the 2001 New York Fruit Tree and Vineyard Survey, the nearly 76,000 acres of apple orchards in 1962 had dropped to 44,563 by 2001. In Ulster County the acreage figures have dropped 48% since 1990 alone. And while it appears that apple growing in New York is in a free fall with orchards being turned into bad architecture faster than you can say Red Delicious, farmers persevere by being innovative and creative.

Agriculture is New York’s number 1 industry. New York farmers grow food for millions of New Yorkers and Americans, as well as countless others in many countries. In Ulster County, fruit production is valued at over $17 million with apples constituting almost 90% of that overall value. But beyond its economic value, farms do so much more by protecting open space, clean air and water, scenic vistas, and providing safe, local food. Without our agricultural land base, farms move away, food is grown by someone you’ll never meet, food safety oversights decline, economies become imbalanced, and, well, the food just doesn’t taste nearly as good.

For better or worse, most of our large scale food production occurs in regions or countries sparsely populated, with large amounts of acreage and economic incentives to grow there. But US apple production started right here in the Hudson Valley. It as much a part of our heritage as the Hudson Valley School artists, West Point, the Catskills, and the mighty Hudson River itself. And in much the same way as Pete Seeger and other resuscitated the Hudson River [an effort that continues to this day], we need to support the resuscitation of agriculture in the valley. And we need to support in ways that may not pay off for generations. Unlike a river, farmland once lost is rarely recovered.

Here in Stone Ridge, we have our own little orchard called, not surprisingly, Stone Ridge Orchard. This farm has been around for over 200 years and has produced such a wide range of crops that is the embodiment of diversified crop production. For the better part of the twentieth century it was properly farmed as an apple orchard. But for the better part of the 90s it was farmed with little vision for its farming future. And so when I began farming this piece of land in 2000, I worked with what I had in front of me. Changes had to be made and made quickly. Orchards were replanted. We diversified by planting a number of other fruit crops to help ease the transition from old orchards to new orchards. And while the changes that have occurred were without a doubt the right things to do, we didn’t go far enough, nor was enough time given to allow the plantings we did put in to take effect. In fact, 50% of the new orchards have not even come into full bearing yet.

As debate begins over the future of Stone Ridge Orchard, it is important that everyone place this farm in proper historical perspective. In doing so we shed new light on the value this land plays in regional food production, as well to who we are as human beings, and the valuable role open space, clean air, scenic vistas, and great tasting food have in our collective presence on this planet. Farms evolve and adapt, just as they always have, and they’ll look and feel different from the way they did in their distant past, but they’ll be there on the muddled landscape, producing food and providing peace of mind that some things are simply sacred. Today, we have an opportunity staring us in the face that will only come once: to protect this viable, productive, working farm for future generations. The greenest thing anyone can do is to see that our working farms stay working.

I encourage anyone with an interest to contact me directly or better yet stop by the farm for a walkabout and some lively conversation.

Mike Biltonen 845.687.2587

To be continued………………………..

Techno Farming. Or, how farmers get ahead in a media savvy world.

2007-05-28T11:32:00.000-04:00

PODCASTS. Technology is a wonderful thing most of the time. In our case, it has allowed to enter a new phase of our marketing campaign through the use of Podcasts and streaming video. As I may have mentioned here, Amy Johansson, our NYC Sales and PR Rep, has strong background in the world of film and media. Through her hard work and connections, she has been able to put together a team of video and audio folks featuring Erinnisse Heuer to produce a series of Podcasts for us in 2007. The first of these Podcasts was recently posted to You Tube. Soon we’ll create a PR and Podcast library on our web site that offers better viewing quality. For now, the links below should take you where you need to go. Enjoy. Thank you Erinnisse and Amy for a great job.

Just click on the link below!

You Tube Podcast: BLOSSOMS. Our very 1st. And produced in-house, too.

Poughkeepsie Journal May 27, 2007, ORGANIC VS. LOCAL. article and streaming video.

Send any comments to Mike Biltonen .

Farming in the Face of Global Warming

2007-05-28T09:03:00.000-04:00

I don’t care what anybody says, the climate is changing. I've experienced it first hand. Of course, it has always changed throughout time. But the past few years have been, well, wacky. Last year was probably one of the worst year’s I have ever experienced in terms of dealing with severe weather conditions and crop loss. This year has been equally difficult and we’ve barely gotten started. The winter was mild (bad for trees and other flowering crops), the spring has been wet (bad unless you grow rice or cranberries), and now it has been very dry and windy making it difficult to get tender young tomato plants into the ground. While I could not predict this was going to happen, I accept that faming in the face of global warming is something we will deal with more and more. Fortunately, the bizarre weaatehr patterns this year have not had a measurable effect on our crops.

After last year’s huge losses due to hail, rain, and frost, I made the expensive decision to construct two acres of high tunnels (hoops with plastic stretched over top) in order to help contend with weather issues. They won’t eliminate problems, but they’ll certainly ameliorate issues. The coverings themselves will protect from rain, hail, wind, and frost. Also, one of the invisible benefits is that they filter out harmful UV rays (can you depleted ozone layer) that cause plant tissue to heat up and reduce plant physiological functioning (i.e., they don’t grow as well). Further, the tunnels can extend our season both earlier and later allowing to increase production throughout the year. But the biggest benefit is that the tunnels will help with our transition to certified organic status by reducing disease and insect problems, and increasing percentage of marketable crops. Theoretically, that is.

Nobody’s really done this in our area on this scale and the fact is that we’re approaching it as a pilot project. If it works, then it means we can begin to transition other more difficult-to-grow-organically crops to organic production systems. We’re already planted raspberries, currants, tomatoes, and strawberries. After that, we’ll complete the suite with our sweet corn—all certified organic. Later this summer we’ll have a meeting for media, farmers, public, and anyone generally interested in the future of farming in the Hudson Valley to explain what we’re doing and why. This is just another step in our adventure to Beyond Organic and an economically viable model for agriculture. After a mild winter, very wet spring, super hot and dry May (so far), I don’t what the summer will bring. What I do know is that I have those High Tunnels and they're ready and raring to protect our crops this year. I can’t withstand another high crop loss year like last year and the high tunnels are far from perfect, but I do sleep a bit better a night these days knowing I have done what I can. Happy Farming, Mike Biltonen.

In Through The Out Door

2007-04-16T10:40:00.000-04:00

An AP report just released revealed that only 1.3% of US food imports are inspected by the FDA. Consider this list of Chinese products detained by the FDA just in the last month: frozen catfish tainted with illegal veterinary drugs, fresh ginger polluted with pesticides, melon seeds contaminated with a cancer-causing toxin and filthy dried dates. More disconcertingly is the fact that US food imports are increasing at such a rapid rate that it won’t be very long before they equal or exceed US food exports. Without the resources to monitor increased incoming food shipments, that 1.3% will drop. If there ever was a time when we need to focus on locally grown food, that time is now.

There isn’t a guarantee that buying locally grown food will prevent any food safety issues. However, shopping lower on the food chain (i.e., buying locally) does allow you to at least get to know your farmer (or food producer) and their operation. It allows you to feel comfortable with where your food comes from based on empirical experiences, not some fancy label or empty government oversight.

The recent bout with deadly pet food is just one cogent example of how consolidated our mass produced food system really is. This is no different for food designed for human consumption. Much of the food found on grocery store shelves all comes from basically the same place, and you can’t find out where that is. But stop in at your local farm, or at a market that supports local farmers, and you can be pretty sure you’ll find out where your asparagus was grown and by whom. And although no one can guarantee absolute food safety at any level, the better you know your local food system, the less likely there will be problems.

Even with a hugely consolidated food system in this country, our own government can’t guarantee its overall safety, much less the safety of imported foods. Personal consumer responsibility has to take over. And given that not one of us relishes digging through a mass of freight containers, I suggest you find a farm, and its farmer, for your next meal. Come face to spear with your asparagus, and embrace it!

The Agony of Organic

2007-04-13T13:23:00.000-04:00

It’s almost spring here in New York’s Hudson Valley. The maples are blooming; the tiny tomato seedlings are thriving (in a greenhouse, of course); and the first hints of green leaves are evident on the apple trees. We’re still months away from the year’s first delectable, local produce, yet the season has definitely started for the area’s farmers. Even though it has been long, cold, weird, winter, nature knows when it is ready and that time is here.
We’re pretty much done fixing tractors and equipment and getting things ready to plow and disc the fertile fields. And while much of our time is spent tending to equipment and crops, we’re also players in a bureaucratic game called organic. Yes, we’ll be spreading compost, irrigating, and weeding. But we’re also filling out numerous forms and mounds of paperwork in order to “prove” to the powers that be that we in fact (in part) grow certified organic products. It wouldn’t be so bad except for the fees, the loopholes, the global competition, the additional expenses, and lack of guarantees. It tough being a small farmer; it is even tougher being a small certified organic farmer. Nonetheless, organically certifying a small part of our production is absolutely a part of our commitment to ecological agriculture. More importantly, it is part and parcel with our journey to Beyond Organic.

Most people, consumers and otherwise, believe that all you have to do to grow food organically is not spray. And while organic growers might not spray the same products as conventional growers, they certainly do spray pesticides; just different pesticides. Growing food organically is more difficult than growing conventionally because of the restrictions and cost of using organic products. Remember, organic growers are faced with the same biological realities as conventional growers. And because there are dramatically fewer limitations (not to mention lower costs) to the conventional grower, they can produce more food, more cheaply than anyone on earth. Yes, conventional farming is the most productive food production system in the world. Maybe that’s part of the problem.

But here at Stone Ridge Orchard, we’re a committed bunch here and ecological farming is our lifeblood. We just need for everyone to understand the constraints we’re under, both biologically and bureaucratically, in order to practice agriculture with our particular ethos. It ain’t cheap, and never will be. Therefore, we must charge a little more. Sure, you can get cheaper organic produce from many other parts of the world, but at what cost?

Large corporate food companies have fought the COOL legislation for years. What is COOL? It is Country of Origin Labeling and it is intended to tell consumers where their food comes from. Seems fair enough, but the fact is those companies don’t want you to know where your food comes from. They want you to think all of your orange juice comes from Florida and your apples from New York. Globally produced food may be cheaper, but again at what cost and shouldn’t you have a right to know?

The title of this blog is Organic Schmorganic. Catchy, huh? But the real meaning behind it is in the subtitle, “debunking the myth of organic in favor of local, ecological farming.” People need food to survive. And since most of our population has moved from farms to suburbia, we’ve lost the cultural opportunity to grow our own. So we depend on farmers. So the questions consumers need to ask is whether they are going to support local grown produce (organic or not) or whether organic (no matter the environmental cost) is more important. There’s more at stake than just food, too. There’s open space, clean water, clean air, entertainment (fall apple picking anyone?), and the most basic of issue of food security (where is it going to come from and is it safe). Folks, you have some decisions to make.

Obviously, local organic food is the ideal choice. But in its absence, what choice will you make? Farmers like me are putting a lot time and money into creating a food system that is ideal. But the process is an evolutionary one. As we all embark and participate in it, we need to support local farmers of all types (or most of them anyway) and encourage them to utilize ecological farming methods as much as possible. In return, consumers deserve transparency in their food system. They need to know that the food they’re eating is the food they thought they were buying. And that brings us back to the organic certification process.

We here at Stone Ridge Orchard support the organic certification process even though it may be a pain. It provides a degree of guarantee where there wasn’t any before; the only faith that existed before was by knowing your farmer or purveyor. The world of organics no longer provides that opportunity. The only place to get it is Local. There were and still are those that attempt to hoodwink the public by calling certain products organic when in fact they are not. We need the government oversight in order to give the consumer what they think they are getting. But we also need everyone to understand that when it is coupled with “local grown” there is a price for which there is no government oversight or real definitions.

In the past few weeks, I have witnessed several farms that are or are in threat of going out of business and being replaced by McMansions. This is not an indication that farming is dead is in the Hudson valley, just transforming. There are many that both enjoy farming and recognize it as a critical element of our heritage and cultural future. As farming evolves, things won’t be as they were in the 20th century. Both the physical landscape and the farming methods are dynamic. They always have been. But they aren’t indestructible and need your support to survive.

So what is the agony of organic? It is knowing that there are easier, more productive, more bottom-line profitable ways to farm and at the same time knowing that the current food train has derailed and the time for a new food future has arrived. And that future is local, ecologically produced food. If it includes organic, great. But in the end knowing your farmer and your farms will provide more transparency than anything—including USDA organic. For now, becoming certified organic is just a milestone in our journey. A means to an end, not an end in and of itself. But I have to get back to my certification paperwork. Working with the soil and water and the crops will just have to wait until tomorrow.

The New Stone Ridge Orchard!

2007-04-13T13:15:00.000-04:00

Thanks the absolutely fantastic design work of Think Tank 3 (www.thinktank3.com) and tireless development by DesignICU (www.designicu.com), our new web site have finally gone live. Kudos also belong to Prairie Web Internet Marketing (www.pwim.com) for their highly successful, behind the scenes SEO work. PWIM has worked on our site optimization for several years now and have brought our site from obscurity to the forefront of the world wide web.

And so the job is almost done. We have been involved in brand enhancement and repositioning project since last summer. In the next few months, our products will reflect the new look. I invite everyone to visit our new site and provide feedback at info@stoneridgeorchard.com. We hope you all enjoy!

Land Ho!

2007-03-17T09:26:00.000-04:00

I have been farming since the summer of 1984—almost 24 years now. And although somewhat ironically I didn’t grow up on a farm or with farming parents, I was never too far from farming growing up. My grandparents—my mom’s parents—had settled many years ago on “little” 600 acre farm in south-central Kansas where they grew corn, wheat, alfalfa, and raised cattle. From the day I was born, in May 1963, that farm was a part of my life and, even though it is long gone, that farm continues to be a part of who I am. Long gone because the same government that created the massive problems with our current agricultural system invoked a claim of eminent domain, stole that farm from my grandparents, and made it into a huge fishing pond—all in the name of flood control.

My grandfather was born in Kansas, my grandmother in Arkansas. They came together to create that farm into the source of boyhood memories in the early decades of the twentieth century. They survived the dustbowl, World War II, and numerous farming hardships (weather, locusts, tornados, hail, etc). They were a part of that great transition from manual to mechanized agriculture. They were survivors in every sense. They were local.

They were able to get what they needed to subsist either by growing it or getting it from other local farmers or merchants. There wasn’t ever a thought about buying local or imported; organic or conventional. It was just local because that’s all there really was. Even by the time the government stole their farm, the US had just begun shipping grain overseas and planting the seeds for a global food system. We had yet to understand what a global food system or corporatized farm policy would do to us a nation. Today, we’re an obese nation eating vast quantities of overprocessed foods grown god knows where. But back then local was all there was.

The recent discussions over the virtues of local versus whatever else made me realize that there were times when local was all there was. Local is not some grand new idea or food trend, but rather the way it simply should be and was. Organic isn’t a new idea either. Prior to the beginning of industrial revolution and the development of pesticides, organic was just the way that people grew food. And they grew it locally, as well. Local, organic food—a so-called gold standard—imagine that. The only differences between then and now are mired in details of methodology, packaging, and promotion. And I use the word mired purposefully because to look at it any differently is to lose sight of the fact that all this discussion about “local” is really just a rediscovery of our roots and who we are as a culture and a nation.

There are many countries that have forgotten far less of their roots than us. They know and understand their roots. We’re rediscovering ours. And hopefully it is not just another food trend, because local—our history—is going to define who we become as country and culture over the next few decades. Microwaves and TV dinners are also a part of our roots. So you have to look deeper and further back to discover the true essence of what local and roots constitute. I encourage people to put down that copy of Time and rediscover the monumental writings of folks like Wendell Berry and Wes Jackson. In order to Know Your Roots we must first rediscover them. And in order to rediscover them you have to find those connecting pieces whether they be a farmer, author, farmers market, or relative. My connection is my grandparent’s now flooded farm in southeast Kansas and the memories I have of such simpler times when local was our collective roots. There wasn’t anything else.

Organic vs Local: Which Is it?

2007-03-15T17:07:00.000-04:00

Despite what some people think, I’m actually not against organic farming. In fact, I am a huge fan and have been for a long time. Unfortunately, since organic has become a global commodity, smaller organic farmers must run their businesses differently—compared to 15 or more years ago—in order to compete with the glut of globally-produced organic products. What we’re really battling is GLOBAL organic and not LOCAL organic. In the recent Time cover story about organic vs. local, the author declares locally produced organic a sort of “gold standard.” That’s why in the short term, as a very viable alternative, consumers must begin to accept local, ecologically grown produce instead of the global organic food. Food produced a long way away has a far higher environmental impact (BTUIQ) than local, ecologically grown food. Plus, this way you have the opportunity to know your farmer.

Most globally produced organic produce is possible because of huge capital investments by large companies in countries with cheap land, cheap labor, and malleable business laws. Locally grown organic products, however, are infinitely more difficult to come by because of expensive land, expensive labor, volatile climate, biological imperatives, and not-so malleable business laws (aka bureaucracy). Even the federal regulations regarding the labeling of certified organic produce favor the largest growers and work against the smaller more diversified growers. With all of this working against small regional farmers, why, you might ask, attempt farming in this region at all? Well, primarily, because we enjoy what we do. “Like” is probably not a good starting point for making a living in an industry with a history of tortured souls and bankruptcies. Farmers don’t bring anything if not passion to what they do. In this case, farming is also an important part of our history and culture. And, people are demanding to know where their food is coming from, who grew it, and how it was grown; witness the meteoric rise is prevalence of farmer markets. But most of all local produce tastes better than anything grown anywhere else in the world, and consumers are tired of cardboard tasting produce.

My fear is that like anything else in this fast paced world is that our ability to produce locally grown food may succumb to some greater force, like a real estate developers, lack of labor, climate change, or the next great food trend. Worse, it’s very likely that bureaucrats and policy wonks may get the bright idea that we need to define what local actual means. Once that happens, it’s all over with. The large companies and their lobbyists will make sure the definition includes some loophole so they include their products. Local pineapple, anyone? But the biggest hurdle is keeping consumers interested long enough to make farming a viable enterprise over the long term.

The future of farming in New York’s Hudson Valley goes a long way beyond a Time article trumpeting the virtues of local farms and the food produced there. If you read some of the monumental works of literature written during the past 100 years, you’ll find that many of the conditions that caused the great dustbowl, or the mass human migration to cities, or unfair distribution of America’s food dollar still exist today. There was a time when more people lived on farms than not, and they understood where their food came from. Today, you’re hard pressed to convince people that milk comes from cows; that apples start developing over a year before they’re harvested; and of the price someone pays for their food, very little actually gets back to the grower. Then of course we have failed farm policy and how it supports corporations, rather than farmers.

I commend Time for making the debate over organic vs local a cover story. I really do. But like an onion, we need to continue peeling and exposing the myriad other issues the impact the viability of local farms, farmers, and their families. I understand why farming in the Hudson Valley has declined so dramatically. It is because these greater-than-thou forces that affect us today, affected “them’ back then, too, so they either retired, sold out, or went bankrupt. There are a few stalwarts left, some younger growers like myself, and others who are still giving farming the ol’ college try, but we’re still battling the same uncaring forces that have been working against farmers for decades.

Locally grown, organic produce may be the gold standard, but are you willing to pay for it? Growing organic produce in our local climate is possible, but often yields are lower and expenses higher. And despite the generally higher prices, profitability is unpredictable and declining. Once our love affair with organic and everything local has cooled off, we’ll need some new, truly sustainable method of farming to grow and market our products successfully. But we also need sane, rational change to our laws and policies that not encourage farming, but ensure his survival. There is simply no way farming can survive the onslaught of rising property taxes, reduced labor supply, increased expenses, and I could go on and on. This is what drove large corporations overseas in the first place. This is what’s pushing the next generation in most farming families to do something else with their lives. Without stable, profitable businesses what enterprising person would WANT to get into farming? Well, me for one and not because I have the answer, but instead because I THINK I have an answer.

I farm for a living. Yet farming goes beyond being able to turn soil and plant trees. I have to also be a business manager, a writer, a mechanic, and salesman. And when I am done with those things, I farm again. A of mine passion is trying to answer the “what’s next” question: If today’s gold standard is locally produced organic food, then what is tomorrow’s? For me, it means creating a business model that includes a production method that’s “beyond organic,” green building methods, plant derived fuels to run our tractors, solar panels to power our coolers and packing lines, and a way to attract the best and brightest back into farming.

This game of farming is about survival and perpetual motion, like riding a bike. You have to keep pedaling or you’ll fall off. Everything we do has the questions of “what’s next” wrapped around it. For the next 5 years or so, organics will continue to grow, conventional grown produce will shrink; Locally grown produce will eat away at market share of both. But the demand for locally grown produce doesn’t mean that consumers will just start eating food grown any which way. No, they’ll still want their organics, and they’ll want it grown close to home. But what’s after that?

For now, I’m moving forward with plans to certify some of our production organic. We’ll use a variety of new technologies to help ameliorate the effects of weather and then use some innovative, hot packaging to bring our products to the consumer. Then this season, watch out for some of the best tasting, most sustainably grown produce around. Know Your Roots. Taste Ours!

Real Food, Right Now!

2007-03-11T13:19:00.000-04:00

Generally speaking a commodity is a homogeneous product offered for sale without any significant element of differentiation from its closest cousin. In the world of apples, until about thirty years ago, there were red and yellow apples in your average grocery store. There was very little different about them beyond color and very few consumers that actually cared. Ironically, decades before that (say the mid-30s or 40s) provincial culture and local food systems gave people their local ‘favorites’ in terms of tomatoes or apples. We lost that when big business stepped in after World War II and streamlined the food world into a one-size-fits-all recipe. Then in the 70s, pioneering apple growers introduced the Granny Smith, Gala, and Fuji from around the world. These introductions set the apple world on its ear and blazed the path for many more new, exciting varieties to be commonly found on supermarket shelves. This trend has led to resurgence in interest in heirloom varieties of apples, tomatoes, melons, and more. But this interest, if unmonitored, is a threat to long-term value if uncaring interests get involved and commodify these wonderful culinary creatures for a quick, and big, buck.

I have to be careful here because the root word commodity has very specific meanings to very specific disciplines. For the sake of this blog, commodity means the lowest common denominator; a market level without value except as applies to volume and price. Bordeaux wines are not a commodity; jug wines are. Even though each commands a certain price and exists in certain volumes in the marketplace, the ones with the true value are the Bordeauxs. And this value goes directly to the artisanal—and non-homogeneous—qualities of the product. Even here the threat of commodification is real; witness the fraudlent and criminal production and/or relabeling of cheap wines as high priced Bordeaux gems. What's one to do?

Very few recent debates surrounding issues of organic vs. conventional, fair trade vs. sustainable; local vs. global; organic vs. local provide robust discussions of culinary and artisanal qualities of the food we’re all talking about. Even fewer tell you what to do about it. Yet, without asking writers beg the reader (aka consumer) to dig deeper. Peel back that onion. In other words, do you know who’s growing your food? Where they’re growing or producing it? Or even how they’re growing it?

There are many scrupulous global producers and traders of farm products all around the world. Equally, there are numerous local producers just waiting to take advantage of recent trends even though they (i.e., the producers) have no ethical or moral direction. The only way to retain sanity and meaning for terms like local, organic and fair trade is to reconnect the consumer with the producer. Introduce them to the artisan, their products, and farm. And the only way to do that is to put real value back into our food system and decommodify (or elevate from commodity levels) our food to a place in people’s hearts and minds that means something positive, and real, and truthful. So what if you grow Red Delicious? Grow it right, make it yours, and let people know about it. The real value is in the producer’s effort and imagination to bring you real food, right now!

Transcending the Obvious

2007-01-21T08:25:00.000-05:00

When we came up the phrase Know Your Roots™, we wanted to inspire a new way to think about food; something beyond the ubiquitous “Organic and "Buy Local slogans.” Know your Roots™ gets at, well, your roots. It asks everyone who eats--and we all do--to think about their food and where it comes from, how it is grown, and by whom. Putting that ethos into action is an important and we feel long overdue step that people need to make. In fact we think it's irresponsible to put anything in your mouth if you don't know where it comes from and how it was made-- its roots. We are convinced that an adoption of Know Your Roots™ by consumers would be the proverbial tipping point to solving so many issues right now. Obesity, e-coli outbreaks, and urban sprawl, to name a few.

Defining the geographic boundaries of such a food philosophy is a task for everyone to undertake. There are wholesale buyers out there that believe that, "Global is the new Local." Positions like that are very apparently trying to co-opt the local movement and pull the proverbial wool over the consumer’s eyes. Take the teeth out of any definition, and if consumers don't ask, then nobody is really going to care except in a superficial manner. So how do people take a stand a make sure Local is really Local? And how healthy it is for you and the planet to buy organic if the food needs to be put on a Jet plane and consume vast amounts of fossil fuels to get to you while it's still fresh.

There’re a mini-movement happening out there focused on eating food grown as close to home as possible. People involved in these movements are called, "Locavores" also known as the 100 mile diet because it restricts folks from consuming food grown any further than 100 miles from where they live. Food and wine magazine (the .com version) recently published an article that explores variations in more detail. That article can be found at How to Eat like a Locavore" (see http://foodandwine.com/articles/how-to-eat-like-a-locavore). We recognize that being a Locavore lives within and in a way celebrates Know Your Roots™ Because the first step in eating only locally, is to make the conscious effort to pay attention to where their food comes from.

While this diet may be too restrictive for some, Know Your Roots™ is inconclusive. It does require a shift in consciousness. We think that shift is necessary and long overdue. Knowing your roots gives you a way out of our dysfunctional food system and into a truly conscientious food community.

So here's to Knowing your Roots™ and a bit about ours. We’re located in New York’s Hudson Valley in the shadow of the Catskill Mountains on a farm with a nearly two hundred year history. Although our ultimate goal is to provide consumers with their next best local food experience, beginning next year, we’ll begin transitioning from a progressive Integrated Pest Management (IPM) farm to one using organic growing techniques. We’ll undoubtedly become certified USDA Organic along the way, although our thinking is way beyond that. Being farmers means more than just growing food, it means being good stewards of the land and good neighbors in our community. It also means giving consumers a way out of the industrial food machine and into a truly transcendent food community.

Beyond Organic

2007-01-13T10:38:00.000-05:00

Organic wasn’t such as bad thing ten or twenty years ago. Then the government got involved. That wasn’t such a bad thing either, except that lobbyists for multinational ag businesses were able to control the way USDA certification was written and cajole it to serve their interests. The real fallout from their efforts is just now being felt and I contend that organic certification will not mean anything in 10 years. Organic food will be just another commodity item in stores.

We’re already seeing it as the premiums growers used to get are disappearing, and the produce shelves are becoming dominated by strictly organic produce and commodity prices. Where I come from we call that commodification. If organic is no longer value-added, then the cost of the paperwork and expensive production techniques cease to make sense, except to those that controlled the process: i.e., large agribusiness.

For a farmer like myself, who is admittedly not organic and doesn’t really want to be, we need to figure out what the next steps are. I originally started this blog to debunk the whole idea that organic was the end all, beat all to food production. Let's explore the concept of what’s Beyond Organic?

Last week I was in Manhattan and I visited several stores to see what was on the shelves. Many of the supermarkets have made a verbal commitment to local. Some have even been leaders and exemplary businesses over the years. But lately most have started to act more like trend-surfers than businesses with missions beyond pure profit. For example, my visit revealed very few local apples or cider on their shelves. There was plenty of west coast organic apples and gobs of overpriced fruit drinks and waters. But where was the local? Remember New York is the second leading apple producing state in the US and apples store great through the winter, so availability isn’t the issue. For us growers, especially here on the east coast, there is very little incentive to enter the organic market as we see prices shrink and a diminishing commitment to local after “the season.”

I’ve set my sights on implementing a production system that takes us beyond organic and allows us to compete in a way that can’t be taken away from us. I don’t know what that system is going to look like exactly, but more than likely it will be a combination of many different styles of production that will include traditional, organic, biodynamic, and whatever else I can beg, borrow, and steal from the myriad styles that are out there. Twenty years ago I wouldn’t have done this, but back then it all meant something. We’re now looking to redefine a method of ecological growing that means something to the trade and the consumer, and the only way to do that without having it co-opted by the big guys is to develop in concert with the fact that we are local. Nobody can co-opt our geography, especially if we define the concept of what local means first.

In the early 1990s there was an attempt by a researcher at Cornell to develop something called the Environmental Impact Quotient (EIQ). It was underdeveloped and never successful, but it always struck me that what we really needed to do with our production systems is to develop an algorithm for calculating a whole-farm EIQ.

Production systems have to be analyzed by more than just what we spray or fertilize our plants with. We live in a complex world and it shouldn’t be a bad thing to utilize technology and science as well as certain pagan rituals in how we grow crops. The goal should be to have the least negative impact on the land, communities, and regional food systems as possible.

Beyond Organic lies in a production system that is a complex and challenging as nature itself. As I develop this new production system, I'll make sure to keep everyone informed. But I don’t think we’ll ever actually “get there.” Farms are complex, biological organisms that include people, buildings, tractors, and plants. They evolve and change every day. There’re a new set of problems and challenges to contend with all the time. Our production systems should mimic and work with that reality….naturally. In this case, philosophy trumps recipes and that's just something a 1000 acre farm in California can't deal with.

To Clone or Not to Clone...it shouldn't even be a question.

2006-12-28T09:01:00.000-05:00

Yesterday in the New York Times, Marian Burros wrote about the Politics of Food and how in 2006 people (aka consumers) became more in touch with their food. Today, it was announced that the FDA was about to approve the sale of meat from cloned animals (remember Dolly the sheep). They claim that it is just as safe as meat from non-cloned (naturally procreated) animals. Maybe, maybe not. The real question, or quandary, is how far we want to be pushed away from our food system just to serve the greater interests of global agribusiness.

Having just read Ominovore’s Dilemma and been a farmer for more than half my life, many of Michael Pollan’s http://www.michaelpollan.com/ feelings about killing something with a face hit very close to home. I too have killed many an animal destined to be dinner. It is not easy. But at least you have that visceral connection to what you are about to eat, and that’s important. The point being that this latest annoucement moves us ever closer to a global food machine with which we have absolutely no connections remaining.

We already have an immense number of negative issues in our global food system. Most of which can be overcome with a variety of remedies. But now the FDA is presumably going to allow genetically identical animals to be butchered for general sale. That means, they will all have the same defects, as in the same susceptibility to pests. And because they will have the same susceptibility that means most likely they’ll get stronger more frequent doses of antibiotics to fight the diseases that could now spread easily from one animal to the next because they have no genetic diversity (or very little). More antibiotics is not good for the person about to chow down, but it is also not good for environment as it only ensures a more virulent population of bacteria running around.

The issue I have is not about creating a cow in a Petri dish using a unique egg and fertilizing with unique sperm, or even artificial insemination. It is about taking genetically identical cells from a single animal and turning them into an animal destined for your dinner table. The Bush administration won’t even allow this type of process to be used to help fight human diseases and defects because he feels it is unethical.

Evolution is what it is because of genetic diversity. Nature has chosen to not narrow the gene pool because a diverse gene pool means a stronger web of life. The FDA is now proposing taking a perfectly dysfunctional food system and weakening it even further. At some point something is going to give in a big way. For me, I’ll continue to eat my beef from Slope Farms and my chickens from Cooper’s Ark. I know the farmers. Heck, I may have even known the animal. Mostly, I know they were healthy, happy animals bred and raised in a natural environment, not a test tube. And they taste great! Know Your Roots.

When is Local not Really Local?

2006-12-22T13:40:00.000-05:00

Stone Ridge Orchard is by default local. Trends by consumers and trade buyers to focus on and feature locally grown produce are powerful allies in our daily missive to get more of our products to the people that really want them. So just about this time of year, as the seasons shift and people start buying other than local, I ask the question, “When is Local Not Really Local?” We’ve learned from the recent transmogrification of the organic industry that nothing is sacred. Local can be and is becoming an easily co-optable message. For example, a produce buyer for a large chain store recently stated to me that “Global is the new local.” That statement says a lot about how the produce industry at large views what should be inviolable. And that’s important because what shouldn’t be co-optable is the reality of Local, and that’s where we as local farmers and business people need to focus our marketing efforts: getting consumers to understand the reality of Local.

Now, by default most farms are located in some fairly rural areas, located a reasonable distance from the markets they need to serve to make a living. In our case those markets are the greater New York City area including southern Connecticut and northern New Jersey. Yes, we do ship to Boston and our products do find their way in the Maryland/DC area. So, can we—or better, should we—consider those areas local? Our definition of local is anything within a 6-hour drive from Stone Ridge, NY. If farmers, including us, depended on their local community to make a living, we’d all be broke. So, by our definition, the answer is yes.

But every day people say they want more of something else and they want it cheaper. We still battle daily with food grown in California, South America, and Canada. Why? Their crops are not necessarily grown any better than the way we grow our crops—we're heavily invested in the Integrated Pest Management and plan on transitioning to biodynamic next year. The farmers don't care about your local community to the same degree as we do—since we have a more direct connection with consumers in our region). Their food is not any safer—the recent food safety scares prove that point pretty definitively. Its not better for you—in fact, our crops are fresher and more nutritious than anything else in the market by virtue of the fact that they are grown locally. And its certainly not local. So what is going on? Well, there are three things going on: price, instant gratification, and seasonality.

The first, price, is something we can’t easily compete with or do anything about. Many corporate buyers know it, so they negotiate it as if we were talking about the same products, even though we aren't. Locally grown food is good food, not cheap food, and it provides so many benefits to local communities that we can barely even begin to calculate their value. Consumers are the only ones that can make a difference here in the way they make buying decisions.

The second issue that affects local buying trends is instant gratification. Here again the consumer is the only one that can make a difference. If people want strawberries in February, then there is going to be someone out there to get it to them. Consumers often focus on buying locally grown products only when they are “in season,” instead of looking to use them throughout the year. Many local products can be processed for use throughout the year, but we don’t do that much anymore. And others like apples store quite well for many months throughout the winter.

Second, as soon as the leaves are off the tree and snow starts to fly, people start thinking about citrus, Christmas, the New Year, almost anything but local produce. But the fact is that local is around us year long. Those vine ripe tomatoes may be gone, but local farms still have an immense amount to offer. Milk, eggs, apples, potatoes, cheese, and more are there for the asking. Unbeknownst to many consumers, local is accessible even in the middle of winter.

So, who doesn’t want to buy great produce at a good price and with some degree of instant gratification? But when these things come with hefty environmental and social price tags what then? And that's where the local comes in. As for us at Stone Ridge Orchard, we encourage consumers and trade buyers alike to buy as locally as possible. Think outside the box and look for local even in the dead of winter. Ask where your food comes from. Who grew it? Better yet, tell us how do you define local. In what ways does it matter to you and how you make purchasing decisions? Are open space, clean air, and good food worth the additional cost of buying locally grown farm products?

We want customers that want our products as much as we want them to have them. It benefits us all. Let us know what local means to you. Know your roots.

KNOW YOUR ROOTS

2006-12-15T11:47:00.000-05:00

OK, this time I promise is the last....I hope. It has just been reported in the media that over 600 people were sickened after eating at an Olive Garden restaurant near Indianapolis. There has been not verification of the root cause. But health officials did say that there weren't any health code violations. So we're back to square One and the investigation begins.

The CDC (Center for Disease Control) reports that although food borne illness incidents have declined since the 1990s, they are keeping a close eye on things. Yeah, right! The fact is they couldn't do an adequate job unless they had the Hubbel telescope as their magnifying glass. And it is not their fault. No it is the fault of the system. Our food system, that is.

With all the stop gap protectionary measures we have throughout our food system, the one we don't use often enough is to buy more locally. Wereally don't. At least not as much as we could be. Sure, everyone likes to get out in the summer and fall to visit their favorite farm or orchard. But once the season is over, the leaves have fallen, and the snow begins to fly, we head back to the generic shelves lining every large grocery store in America. And the food all really comes from the same place: a long way from home.

The time has come to get back to our roots. And as much as we may feel we're already there, we need to look again. Spend this winter and find a local farmer. Ask questions. Join a CSA. Read labels. Ask your server where your dinner came from. If you can't get the answers you want, then keep digging. The only way we're ever help a healthy, vibrant, safe food system evolve is to dig. Dig deep. Know Your Roots!

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Never Mind!

2006-12-12T08:41:00.000-05:00

Whoops! The FDA just released a statement that it may not have been green onions that sickened hundreds in the recent Taco Bell E coli extravaganza. Due to a lab screw up, the results erroneuosly implicated green onions when in fact it may be something else.

So, put another star next to "Buy Local" as one of your New Year's resolutions. If the FDA can't get it right, and with all of the food safety and traceability steps in place at the farm/food processor/distributor level, then it is time to start buying food grown closer to home.

As I have said, just because something is locally grown doesn't automatically mean it is going to be safe. What is does mean is that the links backwards from your plate to the ground it was grown on are much, much shorter. Know Your Roots!

Food Safety: The New Frontier

2006-12-11T12:56:00.000-05:00

It almost seems like a contradiction in terms: farmers that normally spend their days outside in the elements having to don hazmat suits and work in aseptic conditions just to ensure that the wholesome products they grow are safe to eat. Yet, with all the recent attention to food borne illness outbreaks related to the consumption of fresh produce this may be the only practical way to go. In fact, if you visit any modern food processing facility today that's just about what you get. But it has not been enough.

In a very general way, food can only be contaminated at three points within the farm to fork continuum: in the field, during processing, or during preparation. To use the recent Taco Bell situation as an example, those green onions could have been contaminated in the field, at the Ready Pac processing plant, or during preparation at the Taco Bells. In order to reduce (can you really eliminate anything?) food borne pathogen exposure, you essentially have "plans" to reduce points of contamination. You could have GAPs, GMPs, HAACP, or some other plan in place. Ultimately, with processed food you have a "kill step," something you can't easily have with fresh produce. In some cases, buyers may even require you to be audited by a third party to ensure that all guidelines (some of which exceed government regulations) to be conducted at supplier expense. None of this is cheap, but all of it is necessary. The problem is that growers balk at the thought of being told what to do, much less being forced to conduct third party audits at their expense.

For the past 20 years, apple growers have been faced with increasing supply in the face of declining consumption. In other words we have been growing more apples globally, while the human population has been eating fewer per capita. We have had to deal with pesticide issues such as Alar and Guthion that have raised concerns by the public over the safety of our produce from a pesticide residue standpoint. Fortunately, we have been able to stave off these "threats" and ensure the public that our products are safe. Which it was and is, and yet now we have food safety to add to the list of threats. Can we oversome this threat, too?

Over the years, there have been any number of food safety incidents that have called the safety of our domestic food supply into question. And it just seems like they are happening more frequently these days. The answer? Well, people can't, of course, stop eating. They can, however, stop or reduce their consumption of fresh produce. People have shifted eating patterns before. We, as an industry, could more heavily process our food (pasteurize, irradiate, treat, etc.) to make sure that nothing deleterious can survive the treatments and harm us. But even something as heavily processed as a Taco Bell chalupa proved to be suscpetible to food borne pathogens. Or we could better regulate ourselves and our operations so that we don't have wild pigs running through our spinach fields, or deadly E. coli in hamburger meat because someone didn't wash their hands. The simple truth is that if we don't regulate ourselves, then our customers and/or the government will. You think we can't afford regulation? We can't afford anymore food safety issues, folks.

Farmers are the last of the great American independents. They wear rings of garlic (dried, of course) to ward off the evil government regulator. In New York state, the Farm bureau caved to demands from some cider producers to prevent implementation of a law requiring them to treat cider. Anything coming from growers that rails against action during times like these sends the message that we don't care and that consumer concerns are irrelevant.

Sure it may be expensive and pain to deal with. But it is necessary. If the public gets anymore wary about the safety of our food supply, then it is possible we could see a strong shift in how people consume food. There are things that it would be very easy for them to stop eating if the mere possibility they could get sick or even die exists. We have to step to the plate and deal with this issue now. Sticking our heads in the sand and avoiding the situation is not the answer. Welcome questions, inspection, and scrutiny. We're about to enter a new age of food safety, folks, better get used to it, or else!

The Bell Tolls for Taco Lovers Everywhere

2006-12-07T07:55:00.000-05:00

Not that Taco Bell's tacos actually resemble anything close to real food, but its "food" is consumed as a food item by millions of people year. The recent outbreak of E. coli emanating from area Taco Bells has spread from New York and New Jersey to Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Connecticut. The most likely culprit seems to now be the dreaded green onion packed by Ready Pac Foods in Irwindale, CA. Preliminary tests show contamination with E. coli strain 0157 on three batches. Ready Pac has pulled these from distribution, but there is still no clear evidence where the point of contamination was and whether this is the only item involved it he outbreak. Not so long ago green onions were implicated in an outbreak of Hepatitis A in western PA.

So the issue at hand once again is how consumers can be assured of a safe food supply in this day and age when so much of our food supply is produced a long way away from where it is consumed and so much of its highly processed. (In my estimation, the more steps it takes to turn raw produce into "food," the easier it is to not only contaminate, but to also obfuscate any contamination sources.) Even something as simple as bagged spinach was difficult to trace accurately when the recent E. coli scare sickened hundreds of people.

This is not the last food safety situation we'll face. I encourage everyone this winter to find a local farm and begin a dialogue with the grower so you can begin to understand what it takes to get food from their farm to your plate. Understand why if consumers don't more forthrightly support local farms that they will simply fade away. These kinds of outbreaks can't be prevented by simply buying and eating locally. However, by knowing your roots (e.g., your farmer), eating lower on the food chain (fewer processing steps), and understanding why the global, corporatized food system is really only interested in itself, everyone that cares about what they eat can take steps to avoid being in situations like the one consumers of Taco Bell "food" have faced the past week.

Here we Go Again!

2006-12-05T08:35:00.000-05:00

It is going to be interesting to see how the whole E. coli calamity at area Taco Bells plays out. At this time there have been 36 illnesses linked to three restaurants in New Jersey and one on Long Island. Although they have not been sickened by the deadly 0157 strain, 2 of the 22 in NJ suffered a potentially deadly kidney problem called hemolytic uremic syndrome. Beyond the obvious that it came from some food substance, there hasn't been a disclosed probable source yet. How the food became contaminated in the first place is the big question. Was it poor food handling procedures by restaurant employees or was the food contaminated before it arrived at the restaurants? Whatever the final verdict is, we are in the midst of a series (I hesitate to use the word epidemic) of E. coli outbreaks that could be a harbinger of things to come. Either we're getting much poorer at handling our food at all levels within the food system, or the pesky bacteria is simply becoming more pervasive and difficult to control. At the very least this is all illustrative of a broken food chain that starts on massive corporate farms, leads through food processing plants, and onto the plates of American consumers.

It seems unlikely that poor food handling techniques by Taco Bell employees is the root cause because the reports do not have the affected people eating at the same restaurants. It seems more likely that the food was contaminated before it arrived at the restaurants. It remains to be seen what ingredients caused the outbreak, but I'd place money on the fact that it is the same stuff at all restaurants and came from the same root source (whether it be farm or processing plant).

As I have stated elsewhere, simply buying local does not ensure that these kinds of events will not happen again. But what buying local does is shorten the chain between farm and consumer. It gives consumers the opportunity to know where, how, and by whom their food is grown. By creating closer connections (shortening the chain), you get everyone involved and invested in the quality and safety of our food supply. Know your roots, Buy Local.

The Hypocrisy of Local--Prologue

2006-12-03T16:55:00.000-05:00

The business of marketing and advertising usually includes the rampant overuse of buzzwords when telling a “story” if it ensures gaining a little more “shelf space” in the minds of consumers. Not such a bad thing if we can take our businesses from basic survival to thrival. More often than not though these buzzwords are little more than self-important aggrandizements used by producers for their products. All in all they are intended to reshape the minds of the average consumer, because, as we all know, reality is perception. And, if we can create the perception in the minds of consumers that something is healthier, more luxurious, cheaper, or simply more like the real thing, then it most certainly must be.

Over the course of the next few weeks, I will publish a number of blogs that address the misuse and abuse of select buzzwords in the agricultural world where I live and run a business. Locally Grown, Value Added, and Organic are the first three to be taken on. I’ll start with Locally-grown because I have begun to take a particular dislike at how this seemingly innocuous term is being abused by everyone from farmers, some of which are my neighbors, to Wal-Mart, my not-so-neighbor. Questions to ponder as I go through this are: when is local no longer local? When is value-added a dirty word? Is organic certification more important than that over-the-fencepost chat you can’t have with that 1000-acre industrial farmer in central California?

In the end this business of marketing and advertising is all about adding value to the crops and products we produce no matter our size, sales geography, or ownership. It is about our particular story and what is ultimately inside the business shell we operate within. How we define and convey the terminology we use as we grow (literally and figuratively) and market our crops is everything to our success.

Blue Marble Farms’ story is about who we are, what we do, and how we grow our crops. It is about giving our customers the tools they need to discern and understand the difference between buying California organic and ecologically grown New York apples. It gives our customers the opportunity, should they take it, to come up to that fencepost and find out that this is not the land of Oz, but just another farm utilizing new, innovative tools and approaches to help grow and market ourselves and our products, and ultimately survive, in a world where small farms have suffered at the hands of failed US farm policy. Where getting larger is not an option because land costs far exceed a farmer’s ability to recoup any investment, much less come up with the cash to run a larger farm. We have to look at our businesses from the other end.

But let’s be truthful. These buzzwords have value only if we utilize them properly and retain their integrity. We need to add value to what we do in a way that keeps us from becoming just another fizzy, over-priced, over-caffeinated “energy” drink. I invite everyone to look inside Blue Marble Farms and see us for what we are: growers and purveyors of local, gourmet, and ecologically grown food. I’ll be at the fencepost.

2006-10-21T12:16:00.000-04:00

There’s a passage in “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” that always grabs me, as it speaks about the narrator’s dedication to the philosophy of reason. His dedication comes not from a profound belief in the philosophy itself, but the exact opposite: disbelief. “No one is truly dedicated to something they have complete faith in.”

I suppose that’s where I am at with farming these days. I have been farming for 23 seasons, achieved two degrees from major universities, have worked in four states, traveled throughout North America to study tree fruit growing, and settled in the Hudson Valley to farm. I hate to tell everyone, but farming as a stalwart industry in the Hudson Valley has moved on. It has moved to Washington, California, Chile, Mexico, and many other distant places. Fortunately there are a few obstinate folks, like myself, that stick to it not out of a profound belief that farming has much of a future in the Hudson Valley, but because we want it to have a future and we love what we do.

Most farmers these days are farming their land not for the crops, but for the actual real estate value. Growing stuff these days pays the tax bill and generates some income, but it does not create real value except when the price of an acre of land goes up. The realities of local agriculture are that it is what it is because we can’t compete with large, multinational, corporatized farms (read: industrial food factories). I see more land up for sale, being sold, and being converted to architectural litter than ever before. So how do we put real value back into farming when we have two forces working against each other? How do we create an almost Zen-like dedication to farming; one where we don’t question tomorrow?

I think the simplest answer is for communities to Buy Locally Grown Food. Our only advantage is geography. We’re closer to the people and markets, so…..

1. Local transportation is cheaper and better for the environment. Plus, it tastes better because it is fresher.
2. We support local communities by employing local people (when they can be found) and
3. By keeping local dollars local
4. Most importantly, people can visit, learn about, and interact with local farms and farmers. They can see, touch, feel, smell, and hear their food being grown. They can know their roots and know their food!

Am I dedicated to farming? Yes, but not because I am convinced we’ll be here tomorrow. I am dedicated because I believe we need local farms and a local food supply, and it should be our primary food supply. I am dedicated because most food found in mega-grocery stores is junk. I am dedicated because my great-grandparents homesteaded 600 acres of the finest bottom land in Kansas and were kicked off the land by the Army Corpse of Engineers to build a reservoir. I am dedicated because this big Blue Marble we depend on is all we have. Clean air and water, biodiversity, scenic vistas, and vibrant communities are all dependent on one thing: open space. In the Rondout Valley that open space is predominantly farms. Without them we lose it all.

My dedication to farming comes from an uncertainty about its future. The only way to secure a future is to invigorate and reenergize the farms and farmers themselves through healthy economies. That can only come from local communities. I am dedicated to farming because I am not sure it can be done, but I sure want it to be done.

You want cheap food? Go to Wal-Mart. If you want clean air and water, scenic vistas, healthy biodiversity, and great food, then Buy Locally-grown food from real farmers. Know Your Roots!

Not All Ciders Are Created Equal

2006-10-03T16:29:00.000-04:00

Make no mistake about it, not all cider is created equal. In this day and age when the average consumer is looking for the best, most refreshing farm products they can find there are a few mass producers of cider that actually work against the grain. They utilize any old apples around, blend in the wash water from the cleaning process (diluting the cider), and ply it full of preservatives. The crowning moment is when a sell by date rivaling Egyptian sarcophagi is added giving warehouse purchasing agents carte blanche to order trailer loads and let it sit in inventory for as long as 8 weeks. The end product is about the furthest thing I can imagine from real, farm fresh apple cider.

No matter where you’re from, the process of making apple cider is pretty simple. You start with a generous mix of good sound apples (no rotten ones, please) that are washed and scrubbed before they are ground up into pumice or mash. Once the mash is ready, it is pumped into bags or onto cloths made of porous fabric resembling cheesecloth. The “pumice cakes” are then squeezed between racks using a large hydraulic press releasing the apple cider. The expressed cider from each pressing is then blended to create a complex tasting, delicious beverage.

In commercial facilities (including orchards and small farms), the cider must be pasteurized or treated with a special ultraviolet (UV) treatment system to kill dangerous bacteria. Some producers may also add a preservative, other do not. Adding a preservative increases the shelf life of the product, which is not a bad thing unless the advantages of the preservative are abused (as is often the case). No matter whether a preservative is used or not, the cider changes over time. The longer it sits waiting to be consumed the less fresh it will be by the time it reaches you.

And that’s it to making apple cider. Pretty simple, huh?

While the process of making cider is pretty simple, the real magic comes with the choices a producer makes. The type of apples, how many different kinds, drops or not, preservative or not, how long of a shelf life, UV or pasteurization, plastic or glass….the list goes on…all play a role in the quality of cider. I can’t speak to how all cider producers make cider, but I can say that large mass producers are easily the biggest violators when it comes to quality. Volume is the key to their success and low prices; something smaller, quality producers can’t easily compete with. Please, don’t let anything get in their way.

The first problem with mass produced apple cider and juice is that most producers use whatever apples are available throughout the year leaving the quality inconsistent and mediocre at best.

The second is that, although most don’t use drops (apples that have fallen from the tree), some do. In general, the quality of the apple is not the most important thing on their list. As long as it isn’t rotten and falling apart, they’ll generally use it without hesitation.

Third, though most large processors require a farmers spray records to verify compliance with EPA and state regulations (and often the processors own standards), the documentation process is generally a formality and not an actual mechanism for providing the consumer with a safer product. Several years ago I was privy to one case where the grower’s records were actually doctored in order to comply.

Fourth, since large processors are more concerned with maximum utilization and less so with the integrity of their product, some use the water from the wash down process to bring any remaining juice into the holding vats. This, of course, also adds water to the product which dilutes the cider which…well, you get the idea.

Fifth, the final concoction is then heat pasteurized to kill any harmful bacteria. This process, while creating a mighty safe product, also destroys the texture and flavors of the cider adding yet to the reductionist process they are using. There is a process called flash pasteurization that uses a minimal amount of heat for a short period of time to kill the bacteria. Flash pasteurization has less of an affect of the cider’s flavor and texture than regular pasteurization process, but still more than that of UV.

Finally, the addition of preservative brings the whole process to an end. Actually it is not the addition of preservative that’s the big problem; it is the calculated “sell by” date that’s critical. It’s true: cider with a full dose of preservative can sit on the shelf for a long time. This gives produce buyers and managers, as well as grocery store shelf stockers the option and flexibility of ordering a lot at one time and not having to worry about it going bad (i.e., fermenting). The problem is that the cider continues to degrade as it sits on the shelf and by the time an eight week old cider is purchased and consumed it has gone through a lifetime full of changes and barely resembles what it was the day it was pressed.

Fresh apple cider is like fresh produce and has a short shelf life by nature. Anything that is done to unnaturally extend the shelf life of a product results in a product that is less fresh, less wholesome, and less recognizable than it was nearer the point of production or harvest. Fresh apple cider is not a fine wine. It is not meant to be aged for future consumption. It is meant to be drunk as soon as possible after it is made. Autumn may be the best time to drink apple cider, but really, cider made at any time of year from fresh whole apples is just as great. You just have to make sure where it is coming from.

Here at Stone Ridge Orchard we’re taking an approach that is winning us rave reviews. And while we want to have a product we can provide year-round, we also want a consistently high quality product that tastes just as good in April as it does in October. Not all ciders are created equal. Know your farmer, know your cider, know your roots.

Holy Spinach, Organic Man!

2006-09-27T09:07:00.000-04:00

For days I have perseverated on the E. coli & spinach topic to get to the bottom of what I wanted to write about. Then last night it came to me. It wasn’t about large corporate farms or evil greedy CEOs. And the solutions were not as simple as only buying organic or locally grown food. The problem lies deeper—and therefore we have to look deeper for solutions. Disturbingly it is illustrative of a pervasive food crisis in our society. One where the things that matter, like food safety, take a back seat to "business."

First off, large corporate farms, while perhaps more prone to large scale outbreaks of the sort that just occurred with spinach, are not the ones to blame. Two years ago hundreds of people became sick from drinking unpasteurized apple cider made at a small upstate New York apple orchard. In 1999, hundreds became sick from consuming food and beverages contaminated from unprotected well water at the Washington County Fair. These were not large corporate farms hell bent on maximizing profits, but rather small business owners just going about business. So buying only local, or from small rather large food processors is not the entire solution.

Second, buying strictly organic is not the entire solution either. Ten years ago Odwalla, the organic beverage processor, was implicated in the poisoning of dozens after they drank Odwalla fruit drinks containing unpasteurized apple juice. The most recent incident involves spinach grown for the organic food processor Natural Selection Foods, LLC from California. Over 175 people have been injured including one death from this incident.

E. coli is a natural bacterium that lives in the intestine of all humans. Its nefarious, mutated cousin O157:H7, however, is the strain responsible for all of the above illnesses and deaths. It was first identified in 1982 after dozens became sick from eating contaminated ground beef. Unfortunately, bacteria mutate as a survival mechanism and O157:H7 is no exception. They adapt and only get stronger. Even though food safety standards have been raised and technology improved to help prevent further outbreaks, the threat still exists and, at a minimum, it will happen again and probably be much worse the next time around. But the simple fact remains that these incidents and others could have and should have been prevented. So, what’re the possible solutions?

If we outlaw large, corporate farming, then we do severely reduce the risk and potential for very large outbreaks of any sort of food safety or environmental hazards. As long as corporate farms remain centralized and sometimes even proximate to hazard sources like dairy farms and feedlots (as is the case in the spinach debacle), the risk for large problems remains high. You can reduce the risk by having many smaller farms spread throughout the landscape, but not prevent the potential threats. Sure, I suppose if there had been a hundred farms involved instead just a handful, locating the source of the problem would have been more difficult. However, it would have reduced the degree of the spread since no one farm could have supplied all of the recalled products. Unless, of course, the point of contamination was the processing plant and not the farm, then it wouldn’t matter where it came from.

If you were to buy only organic produce that wouldn’t solve the problem. As I mentioned, Natural Selection Foods is a processor of organic produce. The Odwalla incident a decade ago should tell enough about why organic growers or processors are not immune to these problems. Organic farming is not the solution, although I do believe that the general mindset of small, organic growers might lead them to be more responsible as growers and processors of fruits and vegetables, but not necessarily so. The fact remains that all of the above issues are food safety and not environmental or production issues.

So, would buying only local produce be the best solution? When a farmer or processor knows his customers, I mean really knows them, then he or she is more likely to care about the little things like food safety, environmental quality, and community relations, which, by the way, are the really important things. When these are right and community connections are strong, businesses succeed in all the right ways including profitability. Buying local won’t ever rule out an outbreak of this sort. But it certainly goes a long way to preventing it through social mechanisms rather than bureaucratic or regulatory ones.

But buying local or only from small farmers or only organic are not going to solve these problems by themselves. The farmers and processors have to have ethics and attention to detail when it comes to food safety. Of course, nobody went out their way to intentionally harm people, but all of the above outbreaks could have been prevented if people had just paid attention to the details and truly cared about their customers and their community. To use some baseball vernacular, they didn’t keep their eye on the pitch. And that malady can affect anyone large, medium, or small; organic or not organic; local or not local.

If Odwalla had pasteurized, or Jack in the Box had thoroughly cooked the burgers, or the beef processor had adequate food safety mechanisms in place, or the state fair health inspectors had actually ensured that the water was safe to drink…these incidents could have been prevented. But they didn’t. More troubling is that in spite of E. coli’s history, growers and processors still complain, often vehemently, about stricter food safety laws. This suggests an ethical, not a regulatory, dilemma.

We can’t do anything about the nature of bacteria. But we can do something about how we approach food systems in the United States. We can start to view food production and processing systems in different, more ethical way. Buying more local, ecologically grown produce is a great start. When the consumer (the person that eats the food) and farmer or processor have mutual interests in the health and wellbeing of their food systems you create stronger communities. Community connections create a different and stronger sense of responsibility and system of accountability than what currently exists in our global food system. These are the only things that’ve ever mattered and ever should.

Spinacea oleracea, or is it?

2006-09-18T18:39:00.000-04:00

A few quick questions about everyone's favorite dark green leafy vegetable.

1. Is spinach higher in iron than other leafy vegetables?

2. What famous cartoon character ate a can of spinach to gain instant strength?

3. Spinach is related to which of the following crops: beet, carrot, or chard?

4. Where does over half of the country's spinach production occur?

5. What high profile, Organic processor of spinach is being linked to the recent outbreak of E. coli in 19 states that have lead to one death and over 100 illnesses?

6. What California industry was warned over a year ago by the FDA to clean up their act regarding food safety?

I'm currently working on a piece addressing the recent E. coli outbreak resulting from contaminated bagged spinach and why organic may not always be organic (how did contaminated irrigation water get on certified organic crops) and why buying locally grown produce may have helped prevent this situation (or at least limited its extent).

Answers:
1. No; 2. Popeye the Sailor Man; 3. beet and chard; 4. California; 5. Natural Selections, LLC; 6. The California spinach industry located in the Salinas valley,of course!

Organic Schmorganic

2006-08-08T08:07:00.000-04:00

That’s right, organic schmorganic; it’s the title of our new blog. We’ll try over the course of time to debunk any and all misconceptions that organic produce is better than local, sustainably grown farm products. Just to be clear, we’re not out to deride anyone who grows local organic produce—in fact we’re big supporters and consumers of organic produce—we just don’t feel it is any better than local sustainably grown farm products, especially when that organic food is grown somewhere else in the world other than here. More importantly, we feel many in the produce biz are misrepresenting organic farm products and their value to consumers and the environment alike—and it has to stop. We’re here to stand up for sustainably grown local produce as the only real choice for people that like to eat. We’ll start by debunking a few misconceptions.

1. ORGANIC IS NOT ALWAYS LOCAL. Much of the organic produce we see and buy in supermarkets is grown a long way away from where it is consumed. Not only is an incredible amount of energy used to grow it and get it to you, but the money used to purchase that food goes out of the community. And because it is not local, the impact on local communities is immense: diminished economies, loss of open space, disconnection with where food comes from, and increased food safety issues.

Local by default is, of course, well, local.

2. ORGANIC IS NOT NO-SPRAY. Despite what anyone tells you, almost all produce gets sprayed to some degree. In organic production, many of the products used are just as noxious as those used in regular agriculture. The big difference is that organic pesticides are “naturally” derived versus synthetic. In sustainable farming—what we practice in Stone Ridge—we choose our pest control materials not based on production method, but based on their impact on the overall environment, or orchard ecosystem. We choose ecosystem health over ideology.

Many consumers of organic food believe their food has never been sprayed. I hate to tell you this, but it probably has. Local isn’t no-spray either, but it has never passed itself off as something it is not. We feel the best way to know how your crops are grown is to know the farmer, not the sticker.

3. ORGANIC IS NOT WARM AND FUZZY. Over the past few decades, large corporate farms have taken organic farming to a multinational corporatized level. Most of the organic produce we see and eat is grown on huge farms, requiring large tractors, and a massive amount of resources. Sure, it may be organic according to the USDA….but is this how we want our food grown? Wouldn’t you rather be outstanding in a field or orchard with your local farmer discussing how your fruit is grown, rather than eating a refrigerator full of BTUs that’s most redeeming quality is that is certified OK by the USDA?

Local farming is not warm and fuzzy either, but it is real. It is real because you can visit, talk to, and shake the hand of the person that grows the food you’re about to eat. At the end of the day our tractors get stuck and we’ve got mud on our boots. We’re real people, growing real food, on real soil…in yours, ours, everyone’s backyard.

4. ORGANIC IS NOT ALWAYS ORGANIC. Over the decades, many people have worked hard to develop the organic farming industry into the fastest growing sector of the produce industry. Its sales still pale in comparison to sales of conventionally grown produce, but that could easily change in the next few years. In order to take advantage of this hot trend, many, especially on the less scrutinized ends of the spectrums, are passing off non-organic as organic in hopes that no one will notice.

I get asked on a routine basis if our produce is organic. I try and explain how to tell whether something is organic (USDA certification emblem) and why ours is not, and can’t be in our climate. I then talk about how our products are sustainably grown. What’s that, they say? It’s like a jigsaw puzzle, I respond. Every piece represents a part of our farm. If we can exchange a “conventional” piece for an organic piece, we do. Even though we may only ever get to 80% of an organic puzzle, at least we’re making progress and bringing you good, safe, local food at the same time. Most importantly, we’re telling you like it is. We’re not organic and probably won’t ever be. What we are is honest.

We don’t pretend to be saints or saviors…we’re farmers. Farming is hard work, and we work hard at it. Sometimes we need a little help. As stewards of the land, we seek out the most environmentally sensitive methods for making sure your food is good and safe to eat, and that the peaches don’t rot on the trees. As I have said before, local IS your backyard. Buy local. It benefits everyone, especially you.

The Emperor's Indictment

2006-08-02T07:58:00.000-04:00

I knew the end was near when several years ago the organic farm industry was forced to comply with new USDA organic farming standards. This was NOT the organic farming I grew up learning about through the pages of Mother Earth News and various Rodale publications. The government and big business took a perfectly good cottage industry and have co-opted it to the point that myself and many others don't know what organic means anymore, nor do I really care. I have other fish to fry, thank you. Which brings us to today.

The newest big trend in produce is LOCAL. You see it everywhere, and if you're in the biz you hear about everyone from Wal-Mart to your local supermarket wanting, buying, and generally supporting local farms. But are they? Take a close look at the produce you re buying....are your peaches mixed in with non-local peaches? Have those PLU stickers been cleverly removed to give it a more down-home appeal? Is the signage arranged in such a way that you can't really tell what's local and what's not?

I recently found my own TriStar strawberries tucked away in the remote organic section of our local supermarket...even though they are not organic. Why? because some grocers will often go to unscrupulous ends to appear to be something they are not. This is true with organics and it is now true with locally grown produce. Wal-Mart recently announced a big push to purchasing more organic produce. Will they get it locally? Doubtful, because of the cost. They'll get it from somwhere far, far away, ship it back here, and profit off the perception that organic=local...which it is definitely not. I'm here to tell you the Emperor has no clothes on.

I do want to say that there are many grocers large and small that have made a significant investment in support of local farms AND they make sure everything is identified properly in the store. But for the ones that are just taking advantage of another hot food trend, I offer this:

Please do us farmers a favor and don't confuse shoppers with improperly labeled produce. Don't obfuscate what is and isn't local by using the "if it looks local it must be local" marketing approach. Keeping farming going in NY is hard enough without hearing complaints about how those "local" (read: non-local) peaches taste horrible. Its because they were picked green, placed in cold storage, packed, shipped thousands of miles, placed in cold storage again, put on your grocers shelf, purchased by you, taken home, put in a refrigerator, washed & peeled, and finally eaten.....sound appetizing?

There are a lot of great products grown all around the world that can't be grown locally. But for those that can, please, Mr. Grocer, don't confuse the consumer by obfuscating the reality of your produce displays. When you buy our peaches, they usually go from tree to stomach in less than 72 hours. It is what local is and what we are all about. Local produce isn't going to be cheaper than imported produce, but it is better, fresher, and you're supporting your neighbors. Local works because it is your backyard.

Here's to Mud On Your Boots.

2006-07-26T17:37:00.000-04:00

OK, so here's the deal. The clamor towards more and more organic production has meant a migration of our farms and fields to other states, coasts, and countries. With that migration we've lost communities, economies, and connections. We no longer know our food or the people that grow it. Fortunately, rushing to the rescue are people like you and me that have an acute need to stick our toes in the soil that grows our crops. We revel in the fact that we can have a intimate conversation with the critters that oversee the farm environment. We like to know where our food comes from and who grew it.

Today, you can buy food grown practically anywhere--Washington, Mexico, Peru, New Zealand, China--where it is often grown because of cheaper labor, relaxed enviromnental laws, friendlier corporate business environments, and, most importantly, because it can often be grown organically. But, these days local is where it is at. To be fair, organically grown produce has a place in our food system, but only when it can be done locally, as well. When that production takes place on the other side of the planet, the amount of petroleum energy it takes to transport food from the far reaches of the world far exceeds any benefit you get by having it grown there. Food grown sustainably and locally takes far fewer resources to get from seed to salad than the same crop grown 5000 miles or more away. Food grown sustainably and locally has the personal investment of the farmer because they have to live, eat, work, breathe, and survive here, too.

Most importantly locally grown means a connection, or a reconnection in many cases, with the land, the water, and the people that nurture the soil to bring you the best food possible. It means jobs, stable local economies, thriving rural communities, clean air and water, and safe food. It means at the end of the day you can stop at your local farm or farm market, pick up dinner, look the famer in the eye, and say "Thanks, I'll see you tomorrow." That food dollar will come back to you in ways you'd never imagine.