Mark Winne

Picture this: three long-haired college kids are unloading crates of food from the bed of a battered pick-up truck. It’s parked curbside at the Androscoggin Food Co-op located in the equally battered mill town of Lewiston, Maine. The year is 1971 and these kids are, unbeknownst to them, the vanguard of the local food movement.

They’ve spent the day rounding up goods directly from local farms and food processors, not because they’re devout locavores (the word wouldn’t be invented for another 35 years) but because sourcing locally was the cheapest way to get food for a co-op whose members were largely lower income. Some crates are full of apples from a nearby orchard; others contain 12-pound wheels of a so-so cheddar from a small cheese plant; and one cardboard box contains 30 dozen eggs from a chicken farm only 10 miles down the road. That box is labeled DeCoster Farms.

Yes, the product of this family egg farm (now headquartered in Iowa) at the eye of the current salmonella storm was being handled contentedly by these prehistoric foodies, I among them. As a company that was started with 125 hens in the mid-1960s by Austin “Jack” DeCoster in the farm town of Turner (pronounced “Turna” by everybody except out-of-state college kids), it was as local as you could get.

Funny how times change. Jack, now 71, was an ambitious man who wasn’t going to be happy selling locally produced eggs just in northern New England. According to one DeCoster employee, Jack is a born-again Christian who doesn’t engage in any leisure pursuits other than work, which he apparently pursues 18-hours a day. With a work ethic like that, growth was inevitable. Now operating under the names of Wright County Egg and Quality Egg, Jack’s egg empire now produces 2.3 million dozen eggs a week in Iowa while his “starter” farm back in Turner, renamed Maine Contract Farming, keeps 3.5 million hens gainfully employed.

But Jack paid a steep price for getting big and going global. Though town folks in Maine and Iowa love the jobs, huge property tax payments, and Jack’s “community mindedness” (new playgrounds and all the free eggs you can eat at local fundraising breakfasts), they are less than sanguine about the factory farms’ legacy of pollution, labor abuse, and animal cruelty. In 1994 the State of Iowa fined DeCoster for environmental pollution and designated the business a “habitual violator.” Back in Maine DeCoster paid a $2 million fine in 1997 to the U.S. Department of Labor for egregious health and safety violations that led to then Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich describing the farm’s working conditions “as dangerous and oppressive as any sweatshop.” The federal Equal Opportunity Commission settled a $1.5 million sexual harassment suit brought against one of DeCoster’s Iowa operations in 2002. And again in Turner, as recently as June of this year, the State of Maine fined Maine Contract Farming $125,000 for animal cruelty. And now dirty eggs – 380 million of them are Jack’s – have been recalled following 1500 reported cases of salmonella poisoning (another Iowa producer, Hillandale Farms, not a DeCoster operation, was forced to recall 170 million eggs).

Had Jack developed some leisure activities earlier in life he might have become a relatively successful Androscoggin homey. But holding his personality traits aside, remaining a small egg business was probably not an option. Like other agricultural operations, “get big or get out” has been the driving reality. This has led to the egg industry’s consolidation with fewer but larger producers now controlling most of the egg supply in this country. That means, of course, massive egg-laying factories that often hold as many as 150,000 hens in a single warehouse, non-therapeutic use of antibiotics, and the production of Himalayan mountains of chicken manure.

For those of us who take refuge from the industrial food system by purchasing oddly sized and colored eggs packaged in a mish-mash assortment of cartons at a farmers’ market, or who are willing to pay $4 a dozen for certified organic eggs at Whole Foods, we have to be reminded from time to time that we are the exception. According to the New York Times, out of every 100 eggs produced in the US, 97 come from hens that are kept in tightly packed battery cages, 2 come from hens that are “cage-free” but always kept indoors, and just 1 from a “free-range” source where chickens can spend some time outdoors.

If the Jacks of the world rule, whether we’re talking eggs or eggplant, then how do we avoid the mischief that our industrial food system is heir to? Better government regulation and monitoring are the answers on the lips of many policy makers and consumer advocates these days. While there is always room to improve government efficiency – ending the divide between USDA and FDA food safety oversight is one obvious choice – I’m not confident that government can protect the consumer in an age of industrial agriculture. Our faith in science, technology, and regulatory oversight can be as misplaced as our trust in mega food and farm corporations. With tremendous resources at their disposal, our industrial food players are more than able to game the system. And in what could be the ultimate irony, the biggest violators often have the deepest pockets which positions them nicely to comply, at least on paper, with ever increasing (and costly) regulatory requirements. The little guy – the small farmer, the ones who are local and whom we know and genuinely trust – could be put out of business if a one-size-fits-all approach to regulation is implemented.

Perhaps there is another fear as well, one that we feel in our hearts more than our heads, but is nevertheless suitable for the 21st century. As the industrial food system becomes ever more dominant and government feels the need to escalate its authority, don’t we run the risk of sacrificing ever greater measures of our freedom and independence? Could the days of an all-powerful national Food Czar be far off? Holding aside the anti-government nonsense of the Tea Party, it is now possible to imagine food production being so remote and so beyond our understanding that we have no choice but to place all control and authority in the hands of a few food corporations and a board of government overseers.

A healthy antidote to this distinct set of possibilities, both in terms of food system control and human health, might come in the form of direct engagement by citizen-consumers in their food supply. For instance, there is ample room to educate ourselves about safe food handling, particularly if local school boards recognize the importance of (and fund) food education. The individual, after all, is the last and probably best line of defense against salmonella and other food-borne bacteria.

What about raising our own chickens? The backyard poultry movement may be even bigger these days than the Tea Party, and certainly more useful. A dozen hens can provide all the eggs that several neighborhood families could eat in a week and provide a lot of education and fun (a leisure pursuit, Jack?) along the way.

And what about food democracy? Food policy councils now exist in over 100 cities and states and are beginning to shape the direction of their local food systems. To support the backyard poultry movement, for instance, councils in places like Cleveland, Chicago, and Missoula have passed chicken ordinances which make it legal, easy, and safe to raise a few hens on city lots and in backyards.

Clean hands on sanitized cutting boards, building our own chicken coops, and bringing our voices loud and clear to city hall offer us a distinctly brighter set of possibilities than the prospect of ponderous bureaucracies locked in mortal combat with resistant food corporations. And who knows, maybe today’s clean-cut crop of college students could organize and stock the next wave of co-ops with authentically local food. The good old days may be coming back, but this time they could be even better.

Mark Winne is the author of the upcoming book “Food Rebels, Guerrilla Gardeners, and Smart-Cookin’ Mamas: Fighting Back in an Age of Industrial Agriculture” (Beacon Press, October 2010).

 I chose the lusty month of May to visit Great Britain and my first granddaughter, the 10-week old Zoe. Something of a life-long Anglophile, my daughter had married a fine young British gentleman, and together they’ve feathered a nest for themselves in a lovely little village not far from Oxford. Like most American visitors to England, she was smitten with the sheep dotted countryside whose rolling hills were elegantly threaded with centuries-old hedgerows. But as a practical woman contemplating motherhood she simply couldn’t resist the charms of Britain’s National Health Service. Not only was everything-natal ably provided absolutely free, my daughter and son-in-law were handed a check for 190 British pounds sterling upon leaving the hospital with their precious new bundle. This “bonus,” designed to cover any accessories from nappies to nursing bras, was soon followed by another 250 pounds from the British government to start little Zoe’s very own trust fund. As everyone knows, attending Oxford isn’t getting any cheaper.

I had predicted that being a doting grandpa would have its limits, so I decided to also use this trip to catch up on the British food system. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing more exciting than holding your grandchild in your arms for the first time, it’s just that I knew that the UK’s local food movement had advanced considerably beyond fish ‘n chips, and I needed a fresh look. So wrangling invitations to speak to groups in Oxford, Cardiff, and London, I carved out a few days in between diaper changing to catch a glimpse of their progress.

Wow – Oxford!

Amidst the most ancient of scholastic buildings and Oxford’s venerable grounds, I spoke to 60 local foodies in the equally sainted Vault and Garden Café (local, organic, and the site of Oxfam’s founding). A range of community food activists, farmers, gardeners, and whip-smart college students, loosely led by the wife-husband team of Ruth West and Colin Trudge, are trying to form a local food hub. To my surprise, the occasion of my speaking also turned out to be the initial meeting of this group.

Their food system challenges and opportunities are not unlike those in U.S. communities: interest in local food is zooming, farmers’ markets (UK’s first wasn’t opened until 1998), “box schemes” (similar to CSAs) are exploding, and institutional demand for healthy food (schools a la Jamie Oliver) is strong. The supply and distribution networks, however, aren’t up to snuff. A food hub that aggregates supply and facilitates distribution may be just the ticket.

But social justice concerns were also on the table. While Oxford’s pub life may be vigorous, the city also has food deserts, and participation at farmers’ markets by the area’s lower income families is weak. Long waiting lists for allotments (community garden plots) mean that it could be years, if ever, before some people would have access to land. At another level, farmers voiced concern about European Union rules that placed limits on their ability to grow a wider variety of crops. And in what might be the greatest affront to British pride, I learned that over 30 percent of the grass that is used to make England’s iconic thatched roofs comes from China!

Pounding my usual drum for a more focused form of public food policy, I offered community food stories and ideas from the States. The most appealing ones seemed to be incentive-style programs like farmers’ market coupons and even electronic systems (EBT) like those that allow food stamp recipients to use their benefits at farmers’ markets. The coupon idea was endorsed by everyone, but since Britain doesn’t have the mish mash of USDA-type nutrition assistance programs like food stamps, choosing to opt for a more rational and comprehensive approach to social welfare, EBT wasn’t an option.

The concept of food policy councils also resonated with the Oxford-istas. While several large cities like London and Brighton have developed local food strategies – strong and detailed statements about promoting a healthy food system for all – they rarely have citizen groups that are empowered to advocate for the strategies.  Our local and state food policy councils offered them a positive model for putting good policies into practice.

In less than 5 minutes the assembled crowd created a 12-point action plan (e.g. more allotments, research into coupon schemes, work on an aggregation strategy), three or four Oxford students volunteered their services, and a date for a next meeting was set. Local cheeses, beer, and accented chatter followed well into the evening. Things seem to be off to a good start in Oxford.

London Swings

Arriving in London in the aftermath of the national election, my wife and I carefully picked our way through the miles of TV cable and comely news anchors that surrounded the Houses of Parliament. Knowing that the Tories, Labor, and Liberal Democrats were trying to cobble together a new government only blocks away was nearly as exciting as watching the 2000 Florida recount. Regardless of your politics, the British process was entirely more satisfying.

I gave a talk to the London-based new economics foundation a day after the formation of the Lib-Dem/Conservative coalition. As a self-styled alternative think-tank that draws on the teachings of E.F. Schumacher, nef (it prefers the lower-case acronym, perhaps in deference to the notion that small is beautiful) puts forward a number of envelope pushing proposals such as one that advocates for a 21-hour work week (I don’t think I could get use to it).

While the conversation with the audience led to similar comparisons between the British and U.S food systems, I was most intrigued by two women in the group who were community activists. Susan Steed works in Brixton, a hardscrabble working class section of London where she oversees the Brixton Pound project. Like our local currency projects in such places as Ithaca and the Berkshires that value local goods and services for barter and exchange purposes, the Brixton Pound supports local businesses, community connections, and a smaller carbon footprint. Unlike these rarefied U.S. communities, Brixton is a rough and tumble place with a reputation for sticking it to the man on occasion (think “The Guns of Brixton” by the Clash). The image on the Brixton Pound, set against a decidedly inner-city landscape, is of a bull-horn toting young black man rousting the community to action. Contrast this with the image on “Berkshares” – a 19^th century bearded white man set against the gentle splendor of the Berkshire Mountains. Call it Brit Grit versus Mass Mellow.

The other woman was artist and bon vivant Clare Patey who’s made a name for herself as the creator of “Feast on the Bridge” which for the past three Septembers has turned the Thames Southwark Bridge into the site of Britain’s premiere food celebration. She showed me photos of the entire span, closed to traffic, and covered from end to end with white linen clothed tables and thousands of chairs. The food served by the country’s best chefs is the feature event, of course, but it’s nearly upstaged by thousands of children who parade across the bridge in beautiful and silly food costumes while showing off their own splendid forms of food art. You can bob for apples, stomp grapes, partake in the Sacred Mayonnaise Ritual (you gotta be British to get it), and help create a 20-feet long cake (also known as the Beast of the Bridge). This is a communal harvest supper of the highest order that draws 30,000 people and turns the nation’s spotlight on its best sustainable producers.

While in London, I noticed that like other nations, the British girth is expanding. Though the svelte, pin-striped suit crowd of London’s professional classes is as slim as ever, portly men and women, especially those whose attire identifies them as trade and service workers were the norm. But still, the Brits are going to have to consume a lot of chips smothered in gravy to catch up to America. During our tour of the Tower of London, my wife and I played a little game called “Spot the American.” While mingling on the grounds with hundreds of other tourists, we would sidle up to the most overweight people in sight and listen in on their conversation. Sure enough, the accents of nine out of ten of the beefiest (not to be confused with Beefeaters) gave themselves away as Yanks. My joy in being so clever was soon eclipsed by the depressing realization of what we Americans look like when placed along side the rest of the world.

Wales Awash in Innovation

As cosmopolitan and stimulating as London and Oxford were, Cardiff, the capitol of Wales, personified for me the progress that the British food system had made. Known as the place that fueled the industrial revolution, Cardiff was the port city that shipped the Welsh coal that stoked England’s factories. Thanks to Margaret Thatcher, the coalfields are dead (and the communities that depended on them for their economic life are mired in poverty), but Cardiff reinvented itself as both the heart of Welsh culture – including its unpronounceable language – and its own form of new Euro-urbanism. Cardiff hustles with ancient castles and edgy modern architecture, a refurbished waterfront, a world class university, and streets alive with the sounds of 30 foreign languages.

I had the distinct privilege of spending the day with two fine Cardiff-men, Steven Garrett and Professor Kevin Morgan, both of whom stand tall in the growing world of Welsh food consciousness. Garrett – long-haired, black-bereted, and a self-described “child of the sixties” – is one of those special cats who can get away with starting trouble because he has so much charm and integrity.  He runs the Riverside Community Market Association which is responsible for operating several farmers’ markets, developing urban gardens including a brand new 10-acre city youth farm, and generally agitating for a healthy and sustainable Cardiff food system.

Just to show us the dark side of British cuisine Steven took us to the old Cardiff Market (Marchand Caerdydd) for lunch. The market hall dates back to the 19^th century, and based on what I observed of its vendor mix, has seen better days. It was filled with knick knack shops and eateries whose menus alone will clog your arteries, and there was hardly a green vegetable in sight. But just to tweak our delicate foodie sensibilities, Steven guided us through a lunchtime order that included faggots (meatballs) and peas, Clark’s pie (a gooey meat concoction wrapped in barely cooked dough), and chips (nothing else!) smothered in gravy.

Noting our lack of gustatory enthusiasm, Steven proceeded to tell us that the city had given him permission to locate one of his farmers’ market on the public market’s main street which will then be closed permanently to traffic. This will raise the profile of local food even more and give shoppers access to some top-notch produce. When I asked Steven what he thought was behind the dramatic uptick in local food interest he noted that the mad cow disease outbreak of several years ago had wilted the stiff upper lip of most Englishpersons. “We had to pay attention to local food in ways that we hadn’t since World War Two. Food insecurity was no longer a distant memory,” he said. Later, Steven noted that a BBC series called Future of Food, the Jamie Oliver craze, and recent screenings of Food, Inc had all contributed to the interest in healthy food grown in the British Isles. “Food is the new sex,” is the way Steven put it, which in his opinion was less a commentary on the state of British sex lives as it was a statement on the depths to which the nation’s food scene had previously sunk.

His court jester persona aside, Steven is a thoughtful and committed person who resides in one of Cardiff’s lower income immigrant neighborhoods (based on his own independent assessment, he’s the only white guy who lives there). He’s working on all manner of local food projects – he waxed enthusiastic about the poly-tunnels they were installing on their new urban farm, and was proud of the one staff person he had doing cooking classes – but he’s looking for ways to take all this work to a higher level. Like the folks in Oxford, Steven noted that it’s hard to attract low-income people to the farmers’ markets (he loved the Farmers Market Nutrition Program idea), and while the City of Cardiff has a food strategy on the books, there’s no one advocating for it (he immediately latched on to the food policy council idea). He’s proud to have played a part in a unique Welsh initiative that developed as many as 200 food coops in some of the poorest areas of Wales where economic opportunity is weak and healthy food options are nearly non-existent. This initiative saw the Welsh government fund four rural development staff (much like our cooperative extension agents) who organized these independent, community-based buying units.

What’s next for Steven? He was just accepted into a PhD program at the University of Cardiff and according to one reliable source, he’s on the short-list to be named “Welsh Man of the Year.”

After speaking to a University audience that evening, my wife and I got a chance to spend some time with Kevin Morgan, a gregarious Welshman whose deep, resonant voice sounds like its about to break into a Dylan Thomas poem. He is Professor of Governance and Development in the School of City and Regional Planning at Cardiff, and with his co-author, Roberta Sonnino, wrote The School Food Revolution. Over the best lamb shank dish I’ve ever eaten (related no doubt to those fleeced darlings I saw leaping gaily across Welsh hillsides), I asked him about the book’s central theme: using the purchasing power of government – the “power of the public plate” as Kevin calls it – to leverage a wide range of economic, social, and environmental benefits.

Kevin’s academic sheen does little to conceal the fact that he’s the son of a coal miner and grew up in Welsh valleys that were in their economic death throes. Like many people of his generation, Kevin is not shy about expressing his disdain for the laissez-faire market policies of conservative economic theorists and politicians. He feels passionately that government must intervene aggressively when the market place fails, which it most certainly did in the valleys of his youth. Hence, why not use the power of the public purse to stimulate economic growth, healthy eating, and lower carbon emissions?  As he says in his book which argues for the re-localization of the food chain, “the power of purchase is one of the most influential means through which the state can effect behavioral change in economy and society…The story of public procurement [however] is largely a tale of untapped potential.”

Kevin told me about school district in places like Carmarthenshire (south Wales), East Ayrshire (Scotland), and Gloucestershire (England) where purchasing officials decided to wring as much good as they could out of every public pound. What distinguishes these strategies from say the rapidly expanding farm-to-school movement in the U.S. is that it doesn’t just focus on getting more locally produced food into the school cafeterias; it asks, and in many cases demands, that the food be produced sustainably if not organically, that fair wages be paid to everyone in the food chain, that packaging be reduced and recycling promoted, that job training programs are available to unskilled and disadvantaged people, and that the distance between the source and the user be shortened as much as possible.

In his East Ayrshire example, Kevin notes that school lunches must not only meet nutritional standards but that 75 percent of the food must be from unprocessed food, 50 percent must be locally sourced, and 30 percent should be from organic ingredients. The school district awards bonus points to those bidders with shorter delivery distances, higher use of traditional, seasonal and Fair Trade food, training opportunities for staff, contribution to biodiversity, and use of composting. In this district of 120,000 people, food miles were reduced from 330 miles, on average, to 99 miles, and the economic multiplier effect contributed an additional $260,000 to the local economy.  And, oh yes, student satisfaction with the meals was significantly higher when compared to the previous regime.

We would have preferred to tarry a bit longer in Cardiff, but I had to hold little Zoe one more time before our mad dash to Heathrow airport (two days after we left, the Icelandic ash cloud grounded the airport’s flights). At least I know that my granddaughter’s food future is relatively bright, especially if people like the ones I met in Oxford, London, and Cardiff continue along the dynamic path they have set for themselves. And perhaps a little cross-fertilization across the Pond will help as well.

Testimony Submitted to the New Mexico Water Quality Control Commission by Mark Winne

Starting on April 13 and continuing into May, the New Mexico Water Quality Control Commission is taking testimony on proposed changes to the state’s regulations governing the operation of dairy farms that qualify as concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs). National groups like Food and Water Watch and state organizations such as Amigos Bravos and the New Mexico chapter of the Sierra Club have taken a position that is generally supportive of the changes, while the dairy industry and its allied trade and industry groups are strongly opposed. As the nation’s seventh largest milk producing state that is home to 172 factory-scale dairies and 355,000 dairy cows, there is a lot at stake. Jobs, revenues, investments, and even a way of life for the farmers may be at risk. For everyone else, clean air and water, the quality of rural life, and even democratic control over the state’s resources may be in jeopardy. After all, two-thirds of the state’s dairy CAFOs are polluting their groundwater above the levels permitted by the state’s regulatory agencies.

 While it may be overly dramatic to suggest that battle lines between good and evil are being drawn in New Mexico’s hard clay soil, there is something emblematic about this confrontation. For those who care about the direction of the nation’s food system, the continued growth in industrial farm operations will have consequences for the food we eat and the water we drink far into the future, not just in New Mexico but across North America. If factory farms are forced by regulators to pay the true cost of their operations – in other words, not externalize them as they do now – the playing field may be partially leveled. That would help the smaller dairy farms of the Northeast and Midwest compete with the behemoth milk machines of the West. Governmental agencies like New Mexico’s WQCC may be all that stand between healthy food and a clean environment, and a form of food production that, if left unchecked and under-regulated, will one day overrun the carrying capacity of the earth.

 As someone who has reported on New Mexico’s dairy industry and the dairy industry in my former home region of New England, I recently submitted the following testimony to New Mexico’s WQCC.

 Testimony

I strongly support the regulatory changes proposed by the New Mexico Environment Department and urge the Water Quality Control Commission to also accept the proposed amendments offered by Food and Water Watch as well as a host of New Mexico organizations.

 Over the course of reporting on the dairy industry (2005 to 2008) I learned that factory scale dairy farms came to New Mexico because land was cheap. Unfortunately, so were we. We asked little of the industry and got little in return. An underdeveloped state regulatory system could not keep up with the avalanche of groundwater permit applications. Limited funding and staff prevented the responsible agencies from keeping up with demand for new dairies and, as time went on, unable to sustain adequate monitoring and enforcement procedures as well. And while the agencies focused their limited resources on groundwater pollution, they were unable, and usually un-mandated, to look at a variety of public health and community impacts such as air pollution, increased crime rates, inadequate roads, and soaring cost of services resulting from so many large and often disruptive new dairy businesses.

 In this lax regulatory climate – one that was supported by elected officials, economic development interests, and communities hungry for jobs – the dairy industry took full advantage. Traditional family farms and ranches (real family-scale operations, I might add) gave way to enormous CAFOs. Small businesses were supplanted by North America’s largest cheese plant. Once independent rural communities found themselves dependent on a single industry, the vast majority of whose owners were not from New Mexico.

 The dairy industry’s environmental, social, and economic record has been well-documented by others over the course of this hearing. I need not recount it here. What I would like to comment on is the culture of arrogance and entitlement that is so pervasive among dairy owners and their business associations. During the course of my research over the past few years, county public health officials would only talk to me off the record for fear of losing their jobs if they publicly shared information about the industry’s behavior. At least one New Mexico State University researcher was kept from pursuing his early discovery of dairy-related public health problems after he reported his findings in a scientific journal. The dairy industry prevented the release of a publication that I wrote that recommended additional research be done on the economic and social impacts of New Mexico’s dairies. The organization that paid for the publication was told that if the publication was distributed, the industry would block all legislation which that organization proposed; that is legislation that pertained to such benign proposals as increasing market opportunities for small farmers and the consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables by New Mexico’s children. The industry’s influence was enhanced by its orchestrated practice of securing seats on county commissions and other governing bodies in order to block local attempts to restrict dairy operations. And its ability to sabotage virtually any state legislation that might run contrary to its interests is legendary. In partnership with other New Mexico agriculture interests, the dairy industry scuttled attempts in the legislature last year to bring workmen’s compensation insurance coverage to the state’s farm workers. This makes New Mexico one of only seven states to not mandate this most basic form of worker protection.

Like the tobacco industry before it, the dairy industry criticizes the science behind regulations, refers to government entities as “Big Brother,” threatens to move out of state if more regulations are imposed, and does everything in its power to postpone the day of reckoning. Its public relations efforts include billboard advertising that depicts a small number of Holsteins grazing peacefully on very green grass with a New England-style red barn in the background. Anyone who has seen a New Mexico dairy CAFO will know such images are fiction bordering on fraud. Their tag-line in every public presentation is to tell us they’re “just family farms” when everyone knows that who owns a business is not important; its how the business behaves that counts.

 The proposed new regulations and amendments are designed to serve the public interest. They are sensible rules that will protect our health and preserve a legacy of clean air and water for generations of New Mexicans to come. As elected and appointed officials you are required in this way to manage our resources responsibly, and if the dairy industry can’t abide by these rules, if it doesn’t feel that it can operate profitably under these requirements, then it will have to go elsewhere. New Mexico can no longer allow anyone to conduct business in this state without paying the full cost of preventing damage to the environment and human health. If businesses don’t pay now, the citizens of New Mexico and our environment will pay later.

 Thank you.

By Mark Winne

The outstretched limbs of Savannah’s live oaks sent dappled sunlight along a wide promenade separating two rows of farm stalls in Forsyth Park. The Saturday morning farmers market was in full swing, with boxes heaped high with red peppers, collard greens, and bright orange carrots.

Hilton Graham was doing a brisk business in just-picked organic produce from his nearby Telfair County farm. Dressed in an old polo shirt and well-worn jeans, Graham was assisted by two sheepish teenage boys whose baggy shorts and designer sweatshirts gave them a decidedly un-farmer like appearance. While one hand was fluffing up bunches of greens and the other pointing his helpers in the direction of a waiting customer, he told me with a big wide grin that, “It’s a great day for a market, and as crazy as this place gets, it still gives me peace of mind being here.”

But the experience of Graham and other African-Americans farmers selling organic produce in this park at this time is not just another farmers’ market story. Excluded for decades after World War Two from public funds that helped white farmers prosper, black farmers have also been left out of the growing ranks of organic farming, a movement that is giving small farmers across the country a chance at success. Fortunately, that is now changing. By taking matters into their own hands, black farmers formed the Southeast African American Organic Network (SAAFON). And at the same time that they were converting more of their members to organic agriculture, black farmers, with partners in local multiracial organizations, were organizing a farmers’ market in a public space previously denied to them.

Forsyth Park is an idyllic place – Spanish moss drips from the trees; the park’s open space is filled with Frisbee-chasing dogs and laughing children. But as recently as 1963, segregation still ruled the South, and Forsyth Park was for whites only. Today, the park’s weekly farmers’ market is evidence of a slow reversal of history. “When black kids were all grown up they left the farms for the cities to get jobs,” Graham said. That is part of the reason, he explains, why there are only 29,000 African-American farmers left in the United States, down from nearly 1 million in the 1920s. Another reason, which Graham is more reticent to discuss, is the legacy of discrimination and neglect from government agencies like the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Graham, now 61, stayed behind to secure the heritage of black-owned farmland in the American South. Continuing the work of several generations of Grahams, Hilton raises timber, cattle, and collard greens for wholesale commercial markets, and several acres of organic vegetables for sale at farmers’ markets.

Though nothing comes easily to any farmer, black farmers must add racism to the list of battles they wage, along with droughts, floods, and pests. That’s why Hilton snarls when he thinks about events of the recent past, “We had a Republican world whose mission it was to kill the small farmer. The big farmers were getting $8 a bushel for their soybeans but I was only getting $4. It doesn’t take one long to figure that out.”

While there is no single path to prosperity for farmers today, an increasing number of farmers are going organic. Between 2002 and 2007, the USDA Agricultural Census noted a national increase from 12,000 organic farms to 18,000, by far the most significant growth in any farming category. The USDA organic seal is no guarantee that a farmer will become profitable, but it does give its bearer access to markets that often earn the farmer a premium price, whether it’s from Whole Foods or the neighborhood farmers’ market.

“Customers told us they wanted organic food,” said Cynthia Hayes, who co-founded SAAFON. But she also knew that black farmers were not fully participating in the organic marketplace, and, in an effort to change that, she teamed up with Southern University agriculture professor Owusu Bandele. Out of their shared passion for change was born what is by most accounts the nation’s first black farmer-controlled organic organization. In addition to its advocacy for organic and sustainable farming, SAAFON has also worked hard to develop direct marketing programs for their 120 members.

In the opinion of Hayes, the circumstances facing black farmers were different enough to warrant the development of their own program. This conclusion was fed by the perception that African American farmers couldn’t get culturally sensitive assistance from organic programs because all of those programs were white-led. “We weren’t comfortable with the way that private groups were addressing the need. And this feeling was reinforced by the public sector whose agricultural extension agents were telling black farmers they couldn’t afford to go organic.”

While there is much in the nuance of words relating to the topic of race that perplexes well-intentioned white people, there was another factor that was just as dominant in SAAFON’s decision to go it alone. “Our farmers have a lot of pride,” said Hayes, “and they wanted a chance to do it their way.”

So under the auspices of SAAFON, Hayes and Bandele established a four-day training program. It is designed to teach farmers how to complete the USDA organic producer application, thus helping to transition them from conventional to organic growing methods. For example, teaching farmers to substitute animal manures and approved biological insect control for petro-chemical fertilizers and pesticides is one part of the curriculum. And in an ironic twist, SAAFON’s trainees are given a historical review of African-American farming in the South that reminds them that “organic” was the form of farming they embraced long ago.

While expert trainers and a strong curriculum are essential to the program’s success, Hayes likes to reinforce the importance of peer support and the shared cultural experience of black farming. “It is common for most of the participants from previous trainings to mentor and support the new trainees. A real bond of solidarity develops among all the farmers.”

At their first training session three years ago, 15 farmers showed up—three times the turnout they expected. That training went so well that they were soon invited to South Carolina, where they trained another 15 farmers. Today, 41 SAAFON members are USDA-certified organic, and another 10 will join their ranks shortly after the next training class in March 2010.

Farmers’ markets have become critical for small farmers who need the higher return that comes from retail venues. This is because it doesn’t do a farmer much good to be certified organic without having access to a market that can command a higher price. “The first two years as a certified organic farmer I had no outlets, which meant I had to sell at a conventional price,” Graham said. So SAAFON decided to reach out to Savannah residents of all races, joining forces with others in the city’s “foodie” community. Together, they set their sights on Forsyth Park as a prime site for a farmers’ market.

Teri Schnell, a homeless advocate and founding member of the farmers’ market, said the park “is the place where everyone feels comfortable. It’s our ‘melting pot.’” As Savannah’s geographic center, Forsyth Park is the city’s most accessible physical location, a strong selling point for people like Schell who wanted the farmers’ market to serve everybody, not just elite shoppers.

Though the city is well known for its parks and meticulously restored anti-bellum mansions, Savannah also has a dark side. Like hundreds of urban areas across the country, gentrification has pushed up the city’s housing costs and put a severe crimp in the lives of the city’s low-income community. With a poverty rate that is 23 percent, and more than 28 percent of the city’s children enrolled in the food stamp program, Savannah’s lush Southern veneer has a less visible tattered core.

“SAAFON wants to assure access to local, organic food for everyone,” Hayes said. To that end, she joined forces with Schell and several local food organizations to form the Savannah Food Collaborative. This multiracial coalition set out on a five-month trek to secure approval from the City of Savannah to open the market in Forsyth Park.

Initially, city officials were wary of allowing farmers to sell their fresh produce beneath the shade of the venerable oaks. In their eyes, a farmers’ market was not in keeping with their pristine image of the park. Even though Savannah’s population is over 50 percent black, SAAFON alone was not sufficient to instantly change the city’s mind. But with the intervention of the broad-based food coalition, aided in no small part by Savannah’s Mayor Otis Johnson who has distinguished himself by his promotion of health policies, permission to open the market was eventually granted.

The Wholesome Wave Foundation, a recent creation of celebrity chef Michel Nischan, whose business partner was the late Paul Newman, gave the market a grant to double the amount of fresh produce purchased by lower income families when using food stamps.  This healthy eating incentive has boosted sales for farmers while increasing consumption of fresh produce.

The market’s goal of serving the healthy food needs of the community was further supported by the establishment of the “Health Pavilion.” This bi-weekly event is a creation of the county’s health department and provides a much needed educational complement to the market’s robust offering of fruits and vegetables.

But the heart of the matter still revolves around the revitalization of black agriculture. “What gets me up in the morning,” Hayes said, “is knowing that farmers are returning to their land in the South.” Hayes is of course referring to the farmers who make up the membership of SAAFON, people who left their ancestral lands for jobs as teachers or social workers in the North. Other “returning farmers” are former conventional farmers who had given up because they couldn’t make a living in agriculture. “They are returning,” says Hayes, “because organic farming is allowing them to make money.”

Her long-term challenge, however, is making farming attractive to young African Americans.  Hayes and others are working with the 1890 Land Grants Institutions, better known as Historical Black Colleges and Universities, to provide training and resources to nurture a new generation of African-American farmers. Through the work of one of SAAFON’s partner organizations, the Southeastern Green Network, students at these institutions are learning how they can make their campuses, including their dining halls, more sustainable. Hayes’s hope is that this broader interest in the environment and health will lead young people into farming. “Youth find organic food a little more ‘jazzy’ than conventional food. It just might be the way that more of our young people find their way back to the land.”

At a recent Saturday market, Mary Curley sat at her table, displaying at least two dozen varieties of herbs, fruits, and vegetables. At 70, Mary is the oldest, and her quarter-acre farm the smallest, of these African-American farmers. She grew up in Savannah in the 1940s and ‘50s but left for a long teaching stint on the West coast. The city she returned to in the 1990s was vastly different from the one she left. A beatific smile lights up her face as she ticks off the names of her organic offerings, urging customers to sniff and taste each one: Japanese orange, Thai basil, lemon grass, Cuban oregano, pineapple sage, and Serrano, habanera, and banana peppers. It’s in this delicious present where she prefers to dwell even though the past is only a flicker away. “I grew up during segregation when I wasn’t allowed in this park. Now I’m here and I think that’s wonderful.”

Two Million Angry Moms and One Sociologist

By Mark Winne

Early in Free for All: Fixing School Food in America (University of California Press, 2010) former Texas Agriculture Secretary Susan Coombs declares that, “it will take 2 million angry moms to change school food”. Based on what we now know of the dreary state of our children’s cafeteria fare, there must be at least that many mamas, as well as a good number of papas who are ready to storm the barricades. Fortunately for them and America’s 55 million students who gulp down something resembling a meal every school day, they’ve been joined by Hunter College sociologist Janet Poppendieck who gives us the best reasons yet for unconditional school food reform.

We are already indebted to Poppendieck for her earlier works Knee Deep in Breadlines and Sweet Charity where she employed her sleuthing skills to unravel the historical contradictions and compounding irrationalities associated with feeding our nation’s neediest citizens. As she did then, Poppendieck combines her talents as historian and sociologist with those of an institutional psychologist to help us get in touch with our nation’s school food neurosis.

Why, for instance, have we developed three different ways to pay the lunch lady – one for the poor students, one for the nearly poor, and one for those who supposedly drive BMWs to school? The logical answer might be because that’s fair; the rich kids should pay more and the government should subsidize the cost of feeding lower income children, as it does currently to the tune of $11 billion annually. But as Poppendieck peels back the layers of the onion, we find the issue has always been less about compassion for needy children and more about accommodating political and commercial interests. Harry Truman (school lunch is good for national security), Ronald Reagan (ketchup is a vegetable), nutritionists and nutritionism (its nutrients that count, not the quality and taste of food), and various agricultural lobbies wanting to unload their farm surpluses are just a sampling of what has driven the school food agenda. Somewhere low on the totem pole you’ll find concern for the health and well-being of boys and girls.

Like any parent, I love to regale my own children with tales of the good old days.  I tell them about my high school cafeteria which had exactly one vending machine in the 1960s: a mechanically operated metal box that dispensed a red or golden, uncut, unpackaged and unadorned fresh apple for 25 cents. Far from feeling deprived (my children asked me if my school was the same one attended by Abe Lincoln), we were a healthy and reasonably bright group of young people. But today, vending machines (I once counted 51 in just one Albuquerque, New Mexico high school) are as ubiquitous as dog droppings in the melting snow. What has happened during the intervening decades?

Poppendieck’s jargon-free narrative takes us step-by-step through the deals, concessions, and compromises that have bureaucratized the school food process while simultaneously dumbing down the food. Why is so much processed food used to prepare school meals? Because it’s cheaper and “cooking from scratch” kitchens have been removed from the schools. Why does it have to be cheaper when we’re talking about feeding our children? Because the federal government (or anyone else for that matter) will not provide enough funding to enable schools to buy fresh, whole ingredients. (And by the way, taxpayers are spending billions of dollars to subsidize corn and soybeans, the prime ingredients in processed food.) Why do we have so many junk food items sold “a la carte” in our schools? Well, in addition to using a French culinary phrase to disguise what is otherwise crappy food, schools must sell these items to those with discretionary cash – supposedly the ones driving the BMWs – to compensate for the low reimbursements they receive for meals that meet mandated USDA standards. And on it goes.

Perhaps what I found most astonishing, and central to Poppendieck’s thesis, is the evolution of the three-tiered payment system. While the free, reduced-price, and full-pay categories are the “wins” secured by anti-hunger advocates over many years of legislative battles, Poppendieck argues that the cure may have been worse than the disease. The high cost of determining student eligibility, the administrative reporting burdens imposed by USDA, and of course, the stigma that falls on poor students exacts a high toll. On this last point, Poppendieck has this to say: “The biggest problem is the stigma that comes from being different, from being marked as poor, from being unable to pay in a culture that places excessive value on being able to pay.”

Poppendieck has a solution that is as elegant as it will be hard to achieve – universal free meals for all students K through 12. She acknowledges the cost, an additional $12 billion per year (our present wars, please note, are costing about the same amount each month) that would not only feed all students for free, but also improve the quality of the food.

If the arguments for universal school meals – efficiency, equity, no one excluded – sound eerily familiar, then you’ve probably been paying attention to the arguments for universal health care. If nothing else, it’s certainly ironic to consider the consequences of removing each system’s respective middlemen: processed food purveyors for school food, and private health insurers for health care. Might we all be healthier as a result?

In a long chapter called “Local Heroes” Poppendieck acknowledges the pioneering work of many innovative school food directors like Ann Cooper, as well as movements to connect schools to local farms and even create school gardens. These and others have made important contributions, she says, but they all need to be “scaled up” by becoming institutionalized (my word choice here would be “naturalized”) into the system. This by the way is the role of public policy, and it is why every one who cares about what our children eat should be in touch with their members of Congress.  The future of school food will be decided in the 2010 Child Nutrition reauthorization now before Congress.

Free for All is well researched and written. While Poppendieck studies her subject with the thoroughness of a sociologist, fortunately she doesn’t sound like one. We are treated to a careful review of the facts that flow through a lively and personal narrative. The reader is kept closely by her side as Poppendieck travels through school cafeterias and pores over government reports. Along the way we observe, touch, and taste what 55 million American children consume each school day. Most importantly, she tells us why it’s the way it is, and how, if we could somehow put ourselves in the little shoes of people smaller than us, we would do everything we could to make it better.

Mark Winne is the author of “Closing the Food Gap: Resetting the Table in the Land of Plenty” (Beacon Press, 2008). His second book “Food Rebels, Guerilla Gardeners, and Smart Cookin’ Mamas” will be released in October.

By Mark Winne

(an edited version of this piece appeared in the Hartford Courant – July 5, 2009)

Willie Nelson was recently quoted as saying, “Dairy farmers are among the hardest workers I know.” Having hung around with a couple of dozen Connecticut dairy farmers off and on for 25 years, I’m inclined to agree with him. Cows are milked two or three times a day, 365 days a year. It doesn’t matter if it’s Christmas, your birthday, or 10 degrees below zero. They don’t ever give you a day off.

While hard work might earn dairy farmers a better place in heaven, it hasn’t earned them much else. According to figures compiled by Robert Wellington, the chief economist for the dairy co-op, Agri-Mark, Connecticut dairy farmers have made a profit in only 9 of the past 76 months. That’s probably why the state only has 157 dairy farms left – down from 663 in 1980 – and why the Connecticut legislature passed a short term dairy bail-out bill this past session.

But sitting in the boardroom of The Farmers Cow office in Lebanon, one gets a more optimistic impression. Maybe it’s the 300 multi-colored push-pins stuck in a Connecticut map marking the stores that carry this locally branded milk. Or maybe it’s the hand made table fashioned from beautifully finished cedar planks salvaged from a tumbled down grain silo. Whatever it is, you feel like this could be the end of the dairyman blues that have been sung in these parts for far too long.

Robin Chesmer is one of six state dairy farmers who make up The Farmers Cow, LLC. He’s bearded, bespectacled and stout enough to throw and pin a 1200 pound heifer in less than 30 seconds. Not that he would of course. He simply loves his cows too much to ever get rough with them. Chesmer, who with his son Lincoln own the 700-acre Graywall Farm, explains at some length how attentive they are to the cows’ diet, comfort and happiness. “A cow’s utter is a giant fermentation vat with lots of delicate bacterial flora. You have to give her just the right ratio of grass, protein, and energy.” And sounding a bit like an over-indulgent parent, Chesmer adds that “cows need 19 hours a day to do their own thing. They need to be stress-free.” Like all six of his fellow dairypersons, he says you will find neither bovine growth hormones (rBGH) nor antibiotics in The Farmers Cow milk.

But as the Beatles said, “Your lovin’ gives me a thrill, but your lovin’ don’t pay my bills.”  For all his compassionate husbandry and careful land stewardship, the prices he receives for his milk are determined by the federal milk marketing order, one of the more arcane forms of economic wizardry ever developed by a civilized society. In New England, where the cost of producing milk runs from $18 to $20 per hundred pounds, the farmer is currently receiving only about $13.

“We decided to go ahead with The Farmers Cow in 2004 because we’re in the middle of the one of the largest consumer markets in the world, but we couldn’t take advantage of that because we had a faceless product,” said Chesmer referring to the fact that his milk and that of nearly every other New England farmer gets dumped into one undifferentiated regional pool. Graywall Farm, in cooperation with Maple Leaf Farm (Hebron), Cushman Farm (North Franklin), Fairvue Farm (Woodstock), Hytone Farm (Coventry), and Fort Hill Farm (Thompson), collects only their milk in one place. Together, they printed their own milk cartons, created some impressive graphics, and even wrote their own song (though not a Grammy winner, you can hear it at www.thefarmerscow.com). Their milk is now available at small stores and big stores alike, including Stop and Shop, Big Y, and Shaw’s.

That a commodity like milk could establish a commercial scale local identity is just one more symptom of locavore-itis, that near feverish condition afflicting ever growing numbers of people who grave a more intimate relationship with their food. And Chesmer and his colleagues share a great deal of culpability for feeding that frenzy. All six farmers and their families have a non-stop schedule of appearances in stores, at farmers’ markets and festivals around the state to promote their product and educate consumers about cows and farming. “We had a farm tour at Nate Cushman’s dairy that drew 600 people,” he tells me in disbelief.

While The Farmers Cow is a dynamic enterprise that gives the consumer a direct connection to Connecticut’s farms, it’s still not out of the financial woods. The recession has hurt sales because struggling consumers are buying more of the slightly less expensive regional brands. Revenues must be plowed back into the business, postponing any immediate benefit to the farmers. And even though other farmers are clamoring to join The Farmers Cow, there is still excess capacity among the current six.

Outside of the The Farmers Cow’s office window is a landscape to die for – rolling pastures, gently swelling hills and a barn or two are all that you see.  Losing this open and productive land is ultimately what’s at stake. Giving the state’s remaining dairy farmers a chance to make a decent living is also on the line. And satisfying the innate human desire to touch that which feeds us is crying to be met. If The Farmers Cow isn’t a big part of the answer, we better find something that is pretty soon.

The United Methodist Women, one of the nation’s oldest and largest women-led mission organizations, has selected Closing the Food Gap: Resetting the Table in the Land of Plenty for their 2010 national reading list. Over 40,000 members of United Methodist Women are organized at the congregation level into reading groups to pursue interests related to the church’s mission work, social action, and spiritual growth. The inclusion of Closing the Food Gap in the denomination’s reading list means that the book’s issues of food justice, empowerment, and equal access to affordable and healthy food will be considered by thousands of socially concerned women nationwide.

When I was much younger, I would take solo backpacking trips in the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York. On one occasion, I found myself at a very remote campsite deep in the forest. My original plan was to commune in some vague, Thoreau-like fashion with nature, and with a congenial assist from the Almighty, discover heretofore unseen truths.

After taking two hours to fastidiously set up my campsite, I soon realized I had nothing to do. I grew nervous, impatient; paced around the site and back down the trail I had entered on.

Fortunately, the necessities of wilderness survival intervened. I needed to collect firewood to make a fire. I had to haul water from the nearby stream for drinking and cooking. Boiling enough water for three days took more wood, water and time than I thought. And before I knew it, my worries were over; I would haul water and collect wood, haul water and collect wood, haul water and collect wood.

This act of enforced simplification – reducing one’s daily life to a few essential tasks – became a kind of mantra for me later in life, and rough guidepost for the way I would approach food.

Like my experience with water and wood, I decided to narrow my range of options and take a more mindful approach to what I eat. I am trying to eat locally and seasonally, and as much as possible, assemble my daily menus from an admittedly narrower, but happily tastier range of choices that closer at hand.

I start with my household garden and then move to the farmers’ market for the produce I eat. I buy beef from a nearby New Mexico rancher whom I know personally and whose cows are  raised entirely on grass. I’ve been to the facility where the cows are slaughtered; it’s locally owned, employs 10 people in a small town where every job counts and operates humanely.

Not all my food is local. I buy Organic Valley milk from Colorado farms because our New Mexico milk is produced from hormone-injected cows raised in factory farms. Connecticut is lucky; it has its own small dairies that market their milk locally. Coffee comes from a fair trade company out of Massachusetts. The rest of the I shop at conventional supermarkets for such things as bananas, cereal, and of course, beer and wine (locally produced when available).

The simplifying act is to start with what I have first and to put together simple meals around those foods. A hole, free-range chicken from the natural food store was more the accessory to the carrots, parsnips and onions from my garden a few nights ago. New Mexico beef anchored my dried chiles, canned tomatoes and cold storage potatoes the night before.

I’m not trying to imitate Barbara Kingsolver or eat only the 100-mile diet. I’m not a food purist nor do I while away my days in a state of hyper-anxiety over the health, origin or method of production of the food I buy. I love to garden; it’s my recreation, my fitness club, my calisthenics. I learn about other foods – what’s good and what’s not- when I have time. When I haven’t been fortunate enough to have my own garden, I’ve joined a community garden, shopped more at the farmers’ market and bought a share in a community-supported agriculture farm.

But there’s one more facet to the process of simplification, and its not so simple. In my opinion, it’s not enough to only satisfy your desire for simplicity and good food. You need to be a good food citize as well.

This means two things: The first is that if you believe that you should have the best and healthiest food available, then shouldn’t everybody, regardeless of income? This is what we call food justice. To that end in may be worth supporiting socially disadvantaged farmers, initiatives that protect the area’s precious farmland and projects that encourage the purchase of our local bounty by lower-income families.

The second characteristic of good food citizenship has to do with public policy. Bills will come before out state lawmakers that will promote local agriculture, healthier and locally grown food for students in our public schools, and more opportunities for low-income people to better feed their families. We need to support those initiatives. As good food citizens we need to speak up for policies and practices that promote local and healthy food for all.

This piece originally appeared in the Santa Fe New Mexican (January 1, 2009) and the Hartford Courant (April 19, 2009)

(First appeared in the Kennebec (Maine) Journal)

By Mark Winne

Let me say from the outset that I eat well. Not well in a maternal, “please finish your broccoli, dear” sense. I mean very well. I cultivate a large organic garden, buy grass-fed beef from a local rancher, and when I’m feeling particularly flush with cash, frequent my local Whole Foods.

I’ll even eat at one of those bastions of gastronomic elitism like Stone Barns in New York or that citadel of all things “foodie”, Chez Panisse in Berkeley. On one such occasion I celebrated my son’s college graduation with a dinner at Stone Barns where the tab for the two of us came to a cool $325. It dawned on me as I was staggering out of the restaurant that I could have paid for 126 low-income children to eat school lunch that day at the current USDA reimbursement rate of $2.57 per meal. Better yet, 283 food stamp recipients might have had dinner on me that night at the average meal allotment of $1.15.

Such disparities in the way that different classes of Americans eat are disconcerting. With our nation teetering on the brink of economic meltdown, a record 31.8 million of us are receiving help from the food stamp program. Nearly 190,000 Mainers currently receive food stamp benefits, 15 percent more than last year.

Food banks and food pantries have been overrun as well. Over 25 million Americans are using emergency food assistance annually. Maine’s Freeport Community Services’ Food Pantry alone received 20,000 visits from people seeking food last year, but estimate that will grow to 28,000 this year.

In light of the fact that demand for “free” food is reaching levels not seen since the Great Depression, at a cost to the taxpayer of $73 billion a year and climbing, it might seem odd that there is also an infatuation with higher-priced local and organic food.

Chez Panisse’s Alice Waters, regarded by many as the nation’s premiere food elitist, appeared recently on 60 Minutes to proclaim the virtues of local and organic.  She snootily dismissed its high cost by saying, “some people buy Nike shoes, two pairs, and other people want to nourish themselves.” And in a recent New York Times op-ed, Waters slashed the quality of the nation’s school lunch program, pronouncing that its federal subsidy should be doubled to $5.00.

But when it comes to the cost of good food for our children as well as for those who have hit a rough patch on the economic highway, I find the arguments over food elitism a bit spurious. Why can’t our society ensure that all our well fed? After all, aren’t we a nation that just bailed out the financial industry to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars, including bonuses for those who put our economy in the toilet?

Perhaps it was this group of financial elitists who were among the party of 12 at Spaggio’s, Chicago’s premier eatery, (yes, the Obamas’ “special occasion” restaurant) who spent $18,000 on one meal this past November. Not only would that feed 15,652 food stamp recipients, it makes my dinner at Stone Barns look like a Happy Meal.

The fact of the matter is it will take money to make sure that everyone eats well. And I place the emphasis on well because we must ensure that everyone has regular access to healthy food. If we don’t, we run the very real risk of sustaining one food system for the poor and near poor, and one for everyone else – a divide, my friends, which is as unconscionable as it is unsustainable.

While the Maine state legislature should be congratulated for its support of school breakfast and lunch programs, the answers are not all about government spending. They are also about commonsense and compassion, qualities that I have found Mainers have in uncommon abundance. Take the new Fresh from the Pantry program currently being devised by the Freeport Food Pantry and two area CSAs farms – Laughing Stock and Tir na NOg. Together they will use the pantry’s ability to help people, the growing skills of the farmers, and the generosity of their CSA members to bring the best food to people who need it the most.

Ideas like Fresh from the Pantry combined with a citizenry willing to support the simple notion that all should be well fed will lift both the economic and personal health of the nation. And in the end, we all may become little food elitists. Wouldn’t that be grand!