Finding your foodshed

We're back from a pleasant and sunny but cold drive through west central Wisconsin farm country and lower North Woods. The freezer in our garage now has about 28 or 30 pounds of pork in it. It turns out that the farm where we purchased a "quarter hog" of pasture raised meat is near the northeast corner of the St. Croix Watershed. That's prompted me to think about having the watershed serve as a bioregional basis for explorations of our "foodshed." That immediately gets complicated by the fact that neither of the food coops we belong to are located in the watershed, although the CSA farm from which we've purchased shares this year is.

our local farmers market

Photo by J. Harrington

There are numerous reasons we're working to minimizing our support of the corporate-industrial-agriculture complex. One is to help support those who are working to restore heritage breeds. That broadens the gene pool and breed options available to farmers as they  cope with the  effects of our broken  climate. Another is that we're curious about the taste of non-standard fare. Yet another is that we believe a rural renaissance is more dependent on an increased number of smaller farms rather than larger tractors being operated by robots plowing, planting and harvesting larger and larger fields. Corporate persons have not been noteworthy in minimizing environmental or social harms. Although it currently seems beyond reach, I'd like my children to live on an earth less damaged and more restored than the one I grew up and old in. The more sustainable farming becomes, the more greenhouse gas emissions can be avoided and the more carbon can be sequestered. We really need a carbon neutral economy, including agriculture, by or before 2050.

our Community Supported Agriculture sheds

Photo by J. Harrington

During the past couple of years, I've become more and more curious about the argument between those who suggest that individual actions are unlikely to solve our climate problem, and those who tout individual actions as being essential contributors. We've become accustomed to lots of convenience and low cost in our food supply. That's led to more concentrated animal feeding operations [CAFOs] and overproduction in the dairy and other sectors. We need a better agricultural system from farm to fork it  seems to me. I'm not sure what that looks like so I'm going to look at and try some different approaches and see how much my real world experience is or is not reflected in media coverage as we move ahead. One small example: I've never really cared for sweet potatoes until last night. The Better Half carmelized some chunks and I actually liked them. I wouldn't know that today if I hadn't tried something new. Don't be a Mikey.

The Good Life

By Tracy K. Smith

When some people talk about money

They speak as if it were a mysterious lover

Who went out to buy milk and never

Came back, and it makes me nostalgic

For the years I lived on coffee and bread,

Hungry all the time, walking to work on payday

Like a woman journeying for water

From a village without a well, then living

One or two nights like everyone else

On roast chicken and red wine.

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