Governor O’Malley put out the challenge to all Marylanders to eat something that is grown, produced or harvested from a Maryland farm each day during the week of July 23 to 30. The request is part of the annual Buy Local Challenge, an initiative started by the Southern Maryland Agricultural Development Commission with the goal of highlighting the benefits of buying local to the state’s economy and environment. Although started in Maryland, all states have been invited to participate since 2010 with the hope of building a unified, nationwide effort that would demonstrate the need to support local farms. So far just over 3,000 people have signed up. Surely there are more people participating. Are you? Well, here is my pledge. I am going to eat at least one item every day from a local farm AND I will write about it daily on the Farmland Report blog. I am going to highlight a number of aspects of the pleasure, business, trials and rewards of local food and farming and how it all relates to our mission—to save the land that sustains us! From enjoying the weekly surprise of my Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) share to dining out where local cashew butter pizza sauce is featured on the restaurant menu, it is sure to be quite an adventure! I hope you read and eat along with me, and certainly share your comments below to let me know what local delights you are enjoying!

Buy Local Challenge Week

Tomorrow Is DAY 1 for Maryland’s Buy Local Challenge week. Celebrations were kicked off at the fourth annual picnic at the Governor’s Mansion in Annapolis yesterday. If you EVER have a chance to go to that “backyard cook-out” don’t miss out! I attended the first year, hitching a ride with Homestead Farms grower Luke Howard (we brought the potatoes). The food was incredible, Martin O’Malley is a big bluegrass fan, and I had my first taste of Merlot and Chardonnay ice cream from Kilby’s Creamery in Cecil County. Can’t wait for tomorrow’s local food adventure!

Day One: July 23

Right now local is as close as my fridge. Chock-a-block with kale, bok choy, pecans n’ plums, six tomatoes, a bunch of delicate white turnips, and fresh cut basil. After this scorching day, the best part of local is a large bowl of Tzaziki—with the freshest of cucumbers, grated up with plain yogurt, sour cream, lemon and dill. It’s what I am bringing to the potluck barbecue at a neighbor’s. The cucumbers and all the rest came from my Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) share, which as it happens, is delivered right up the street in my Takoma Park neighborhood. My neighbor is the farmer. The spirit and economic concept of a CSA are vital to the localization of our food system. Farming is all about risk. Whether you are a grain farmer or vegetable grower, the stakes are high when it stays cold and wet into May, or a heat wave scorches crops in July. Small local growers often invest a lot of cash early in the season,long before things are ready to sell. With a CSA, the community supports the operation by paying up front for the food and sharing in the risk with the farmer. This year with my CSA share, heavy hail meant the first crops were wiped out and that distribution was delayed two weeks. The farmer apologized in the weekly email but the support was there. This week I can barely fit the haul into the fridge. It’s so much different than loading up the shopping cart with anything I want any month of the year—it’s about realizing that the farmers and the eaters are the same community. And speaking of community, it’s time for dinner! Off to the neighbors!

Day Two: July 24

Just like most things that people invest in (a house, a new camera, a baby stroller), there is a bit of research that the consumer can put into various CSA features. There is cost, pick-up location (mine is only four houses up the street!), if the farm provides recipes, whether the farm employees pack the share or if it is the buyer’s responsibility. But for my money, it’s ALL about the fruit. Sure we all love to say how much we enjoy the greens and the thrill of nailing that killer kohlrabi recipe. In my humble recommendation, go with a farmer who has peach trees and apple trees and pears and plums and, believe it or not, black cherries. Right now the peaches and plums are starting to come in a colorful array. For peaches there are yellow ones and white, plus the flying saucer-shaped doughnut peach.

The plums are tart yellows and a blushing ruby red. Take a minute to inhale deeply right at the skin and the fragrance is heavenly. The last bite is as sweet as the first but with the tinge of sadness since it’s the last. But there are more in the bowl and next week there will be another share! Tonight, I am having peaches from Licking Creek Bend Farm, along with ones from the peach tree in my own back yard. We only get what the blue jays and catbirds and the dog do not steal away first. We are in a cornucopia of peaches and plums and tonight, we will finish dinner (a little zucchini, tomato number I whipped up on the grill) with the fruit slicked cold and heaped over cereal and Island Style ice cream from Mt. Rainer, Maryland. I must admit that yesterday I technically did not fulfill the pledge to eat produce from a Maryland farm. Even though the farmer is a Marylander. Licking Creek Bend Farm is actually not in Maryland but just over the border in Pennsylvania. That is what I have found for a lot of the local produce in the Washington, D.C. area. Some more rural counties have more local production, but the market for local produce can be challenging where land values are so high. More recently horticultural operations are producing the trees and bushes for new houses on what used to be farmland. “Local” can take many definitions. More on that later this week.

Day Three: July 25

If you want my opinion, sometimes the local food thing is too chic. Of course that’s me as an eater talking. Being the farmer provides a whole different perspective. It’s that premium being paid that allows the loving care and labor cost. So if a farmers market in Takoma Park can fetch top dollar for chives or a restaurant can pay enough to make growing heirloom tomatoes worthwhile, then more power to them!

Still, high-end is not the whole story. For a really sustainable food and farm system, we need more than just the fresh veggies. We need everyday things that can be on the shelf and feed the kids while reminding us of simpler times. That’s why I picked the PB&J for this post. The ingredients all came from the Takoma Park/Silver Spring Co-op. Truthfully, the only locally grown part of the meal are the cherries in the McCutcheon’s Cherry Butter. The peanut butter actually comes from Montana. But let’s not sweat the small stuff; this is about the processing part of the story.

The bread is made at the Firehook Bakery in Washington, D.C. The co-op offers its members a discount on a number of “basic” items so that some simple and sustaining food is always at an affordable price. McCutcheon’s is being run by the fourth generation of a family from Frederick, Maryland, who started with an apple press in 1938 and now have their products all over the Mid-Atlantic and on the web. It shows the kind of local processing of local foods that was the way of life here at one time.

Peanut butter and jelly may not be the answer to all of our problems. But taking thoughtful steps to make sure we can provide the basics as well as the gourmet — and that we can add value to what we produce right here — is more than sustainable, it’s neighborly.

Day Five: July 27

How local is local? That is the big question.

Today, to fulfill my Buy Local Challenge pledge, I biked to Charlie Koiner’s farm. It has to be the closest actual farm (not including a community or backyard garden) to Washington, D.C. It is two blocks off busy Georgia Avenue on a quiet suburban street that is lined with single family homes going back to the 1940s.Charlie lives in the white house and grows fruits and vegetables on about an acre of this lovely lot where he decided to grow vegetables instead of splitting the lot up for houses in 1982. Charlie is in his early 90s. He remembers when Silver Spring was the only sizable crossroads between the District and Rockville and recalls Saturday nights when all the young people piled in from surrounding farms looking for fun. It’s a half-mile from my house.

The whole local phenomenon owes much to consumer concerns about just how far food travels these days. The Buy Local Challenge is promoting Maryland farms, but many retailers and markets use a mileage figure. One hundred to 150 miles is common, and the USDA defines local and regional as up to 400 miles. Much concern is raised over food miles as a carbon footprint issue, with images of refrigerated trucks traveling all over the country and the world, and numerous studies point to food miles. But clearly there is more to food production than how it is transported.

More to the point is the economic reality: the closer we spend our dollars to home, the more benefit the community gets from the purchase. Having local dollars flowing into local agriculture means local investments in the infrastructure that allows more production and processing and food security for our communities. Charlie will take the $5 I paid him for my beets and tomatoes and will put it back into the community and state economy – paying his water bill, renting his space at the Silver Spring Farmers Market and buying supplies at the hardware store.

But truthfully, riding home from the Metro station on my bike, strolling through the garden listening to Charlie worry about the rain, eating fresh food a couple of hours later in the cool of a summer evening – that’s of value too.

The recipe I used for the beets from Koiner’s Farm,  adapted from the Marinated Summer Vegetable recipe in How to Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bittman:

• ½ cup red wine vinegar
• 1 qt water
• Spices and herbs (Bittman suggests, garlic, two bay leaves, oregano, salt and pepper – this time I tried fresh thyme and parsley, and dried cumin)
• Put in whatever vegetables you like (zucchini, onion, peppers – WARNING Beets will turn EVERYTHING RED!)

Bring vinegar, water and spices to a boil.

Put in the vegetables, take off the heat and let cool. Easy peasy!

(Note: I let the beets cook for two minutes to get a bit softer. Zucchini has all the heat it needs). Bittman says the vegetables kept in the liquid will keep for weeks. My last batch was great after two.

Day Six: July 28

When rating a pizza, one ingredient rises to the top: the cheese. With this in mind, I recently embarked on an adventure to find the best cheese-less pizza in the D.C. metro area. I thought it an impossible task, however my doubts are all history since the Roscoe’s Pizzeria teamed up with Dr. Nazirahk Amen of  Purple Mountain Organics for the Purple Mountain Pizza, a seasonal specialty at this Takoma Park eatery and “meet-ery.”

Having slaved in the kitchen each of the first four nights of Buy Local Challenge Week, I decided to take the night off and have somebody else do the cooking. Finding locally sourced restaurant meals is certainly becoming easier but can still be a challenge. The restaurant business is a bare knuckles industry with high costs for inputs and labor, razor-thin margins and a clientele that is very sensitive to the economy. So paying more for fresh local food that may not always be in-season is a chancy thing UNLESS people are actually coming BECAUSE you offer it.

When I first called Roscoe’s, the manager said they had almost everything that was grown sustainably but not much that was fresh all the time. “Oh, except for the Purple Mountain Pizza,” he said. Now I know the “Purple People” who live on Takoma Park’s main thoroughfare and grow all the vegetable plants the co-op sells, but I didn’t realize they were in the pizza business. It turns out they have cracked the insipid cheese-less pizza dilemma. The secret weapon? In addition to fresh sautéed kale, roasted peppers and musky mushrooms—all grown a couple of blocks from the restaurant and delivered that morning—is the cashew butter sauce! This is obviously a big departure from the usual tomato sauces we are used to. It’s tawny brown and slightly sweet. Ground with cayenne pepper, it adds a soft flame under the savory vegetable mélange, all on top of the crispy-soft pizza dough that Roscoe’s staff makes daily. Though we had ordered take-out, we couldn’t resist a bite at the bar while we finished our wine. Spectacular! Not just for a cheese-less pizza but for breaking new taste territory.

With the pizza prep area and brick wood oven (it cooks at 800^o) right out in plain sight, we got to witness the whole process and take a couple of pictures (coming soon!). Co-owner Murat Black was happy to chat. “We are very committed to freshness and taste,” he explained. “We try as much as possible to get ingredients locally. Customers definitely ask about it. I go to the (Takoma Park) farmers market each Sunday, but it’s hard because things won’t keep until the weekend when we do most of our business.”

“This relationship with Purple Mountain has been wonderful,” Black added. “They bring the vegetables in each morning.”

Economics, health and community. It’s all in the local sauce!!

Day Seven: July 29

What a fun week! While I’m a pretty committed locavore, this challenge has gotten me out to places I don’t get to enough: Charlie Koiner’s farm and to Roscoe’s on a Thursday. And it’s given me a chance to muse on some of the challenges of rebuilding a local food network as well as the delights.

So what to do for the final night? Invite the neighbors of course!

We are having several friends over for a local food cook-out. From the grill, we’ll have Chesapeake Bay Rockfish (marinated in lemon and herbs all day) and a variety of sausages recommended to us by the butcher. She thought the local challenge was a great idea and steered me to spicy lamb sausages from Mt. Airy, Maryland, and a couple of flavors of chicken sausage grown on the Eastern Shore. Neighbors are bringing fresh sweet corn and garden salad and what is advertized as a “killer eggplant dip.” I’ve even all out and buy a bottle of Maryland wine.

Happy Buy Local Challenge Week!

The boxy white tool truck is hard to miss as it darts around New York City, a bright logo splashed across the vehicle’s side that says, “Good earth. Good eats.” Wherever it stops in the five boroughs, farm-fresh produce and Holton Farms workers with welcoming smiles spill out, bringing a new twist on healthy food for urban residents.

The farm truck, a CSA on wheels, is the brainchild of cousins Seth Holton and Jurrien Swarts of Holton Farms in Westminster, Vermont. This innovative approach to direct farmer-to-consumer relationships could serve as a model for helping farmers sustain their businesses while providing low-income residents in urban centers with access to fresh food.

Holton Farms Farm Truck

Swarts and Holton have infused an entrepreneurial spirit into the historical legacy of their eighth generation farm. “For two years, the farm has been going through a generational transition,” explains Swarts, who manages the New York City operations while Holton runs the farm in Vermont. “Seth and I talked to our uncle and he was ready to let us take over. We made the decision – what can we do to differentiate ourselves?” Now with nearly 400 members and a unique “CSA Select” design that allows customers to select the items they want, Holton Farms has set itself apart.

“It’s been quite a learning experience,” says Teddy Winthrop, who has worked on the farm truck since graduating from college. Winthrop’s family owns a tree farm in South Carolina and they are long-time supporters of American Farmland Trust.

Seth with daughter, Hannah

The Holton Farms unique business model is centered on access, with the mobile farm truck reaching clientele across the economic spectrum in different parts of the city. The truck delivers CSA orders to areas that lack access to fresh, healthy food. More recently, Holton Farms received their retail mobile-food vending license and can sell food to anyone including low income New Yorkers at subsidized prices.

“I think we’re proving our model. We’re pretty happy with how far we’ve taken it,” said Swarts. “Next year, we’d like to have five trucks on the road.”

Access to healthy food also requires affordability, and Holton and Swarts understand the value of attracting business beyond their philanthropic goals. The Holton Farm programs are more than the initiatives of just another start-up. Low-income residents receive a 20 percent discount on CSA memberships, an expense that is subsidized by customers who do not qualify for the reduced price. Even without discounted pricing, a share can cost less than $10 per week during the growing season. The model not only broadens the membership reach but also connects everyone to contribute toward a common cause.

For Holton and Swarts, their work goes beyond creating a successful business. “We’re looking to make as big an impact as we can,” Swarts explained. “I left a desk job. Now I can take pride in getting dirty, getting sweaty, seeing the smiling faces of parents getting high quality food for their kids.” And, fortunately for New York City residents, they have only just begun.

This is National Farmers Market Week … a time to celebrate the colorful and flavorful bounty of fresh produce that is so important to a healthy diet. This week there is wonderful news to celebrate because today the USDA just announced that farmers markets have grown 16% in the last year to 6,132 markets nationwide. But for many Americans, access to a balanced and nutritious diet is limited by a host of political and economic factors – from food deserts to farmland conversion.

In June, two important publications were released to help promote the use of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Programs (SNAP) in farmers markets. The Farmers Market Coalition and Community Food Security Coalition’s Real Food, Real Choices: Connecting SNAP Recipients with Farmers Markets examines the need for improved access to farmers markets in underserved communities and outlines a “Roadmap for Change.” A complementary guide resulting from a joint project by the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service, USDA Food and Nutrition Service and Project for Public Spaces, Inc., Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) at Farmers Markets: A How to Handbook, provides a comprehensive guide for farmers markets to serve more members of their communities.

I am very hopeful about how people and communities are embracing local farms and farmers markets resulting in the impressive growth of markets across the country. I am also excited about the role of several key organizations who are supporting farmers markets with staff

and resources, such as the Farmers Market Coalition and the Wallace Center at Winrock International, who just released a new YouTube channel and Farmers Market Manager and Organizer FAQ to answer key questions about how to start a farmers market and expand access to markets.  While the farmers market movement is growing by leaps and bounds, it is constrained by policy barriers at levels of government.  One way to push back is to vote with your fork by supporting local farms and farmers in farmers’ markets, community supported agriculture (CSA)s, U-pick and other direct markets, and by demanding healthier food in school lunch programs and college cafeterias. But it’s also important to get involved with your community to make sure your city or town is “farm friendly”, and to fight for policies at the state and at the federal levels. Right now two pieces of legislation are pending that improve access to healthy food: the Child Nutrition Act and the Greening Food Deserts Act and the First Lady has taken a strong leadership role with her Let’s Move campaign.

But we can’t bring about our vision of healthy farms, healthy food and healthy communities without saving the land that sustains us. USDA estimates that we don’t grow enough fruits and vegetables in this country to ensure a healthy diet for all Americans – a situation exacerbated by the fact that the vast number of our fruits and nuts (91%) and vegetables and melons (78%) are grown in urban-influenced areas in the path of development. They estimate we need another 13 million acres of fruit and vegetable production to meet the nation’s minimum daily dietary requirements with domestic production.

This summer, American Farmland Trust is celebrating the role that farmers markets play in supporting the farms and farmland necessary to grow healthy local food. You can support the food revolution – voting not only with your fork but also with your vote in America’s Favorite Farmers Markets™ contest.

About the Author: Julia Freedgood is Managing Director for Farmland and Communities at American Farmland Trust.

A weekly roundup of news and events concerning food, farms, the environment, local communities- and anything else that may catch our eye.

This week, an editorial from the Hartford Courant addressed the reality of farmland preservation in Connecticut.  Although saving more land than in previous years, the 1,370 acres protected in 2009 was almost 500 acres shy of the agricultural land lost to development.  The need to protect America’s farmland before it is too late is as vital as ever!

The Boulder Daily Camera reported on a unique partnership in the Denver metro area.  Kaiser Permanente and the Denver Botanic Gardens have teamed up to operate a Community Supported Agriculture farm that provides healthy food to low-income families.  The project seeks to combat the city’s food deserts and subsequent health problems by making nutritious, sustainable food available to those with limited access.

What is a farmers market? A task force organized by the Farmers Market Coalition has helped to answer this question. The group recently developed a baseline definition to address confusion among policymakers and consumers.  The definition will also improve communication outreach efforts and provide for more accurate data collection in the future.

The price of the best farmland is predicted to rise in coming years due to increasing world food demand, reported the Omaha World-Herald.  This forecast is based on estimates of growing populations compared to available and productive farmland.  Along with this shift comes additional challenges, including efficient water use and rising food prices.

Montgomery County, Maryland has taken a step toward addressing climate change by instituting a local carbon tax. Revenue from the tax is expected to be used in energy efficiency projects throughout the county. Read the full bill here.

A Senate resolution to block the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to regulate greenhouse gases failed late Thursday with a vote of 47 to 53.  Read our response here.

Lastly, the final regulations for the USDA’s Conservation Stewardship Program have been published with a number of changes.  Make note of the deadline change for the CSP application from June 11 to June 25, 2010.

In Fairfax County, Virginia, next to Tyson’s Corner—one of the nation’s biggest malls—is a small farm stand with a green sign reading, “Potomac Vegetable Farms.”  Multi-million dollar houses sprout up in surrounding fields, but farm owner Hiu Newcomb, her daughter Hana and their partner Ellen Polishuk have found a way to turn the intensely suburban location into more of a boon than a burden. 

A worker picks garlic scapes out of green buckets, as a neighboring Salvadoran family stops by the farm to purchase a live chicken. The garlic scapes are bundled with rubber bands to prepare for the week’s farmers markets in Washington, D.C., where the farm sells a cornucopia of freshly picked veggies (50 total), flowers, herbs and fruits: lettuce, Chinese cabbage, mixed mustards, Swiss chard, sugar snap peas, sweet onions, dandelion greens.

In the 1960s, when Newcomb and her husband Tony first started farming in the area, Tyson’s Corner was a little crossroads, with “cattle lolling under the peach trees.” The couple grew sweet corn on 1,000 acres of rented land. “That was our main crop,” Newcomb says. “We had a reputation for great sweet corn.”

No longer farming primarily on rented land, Potomac Vegetable Farms now has a production farm in Loudoun County, near Purcellville, in addition to their original farm and roadside stand on Leesburg Pike in Vienna. “When we started, we were 100 percent wholesale. Now we’re five percent wholesale,” Newcomb says. “Our preference is to direct market.”

Like Newcomb, many farmers around the country—especially those in urban-edge locations—are selling their goods directly to consumers who are eager to buy locally grown food. Some customers are driven by concerns about food safety; others find that farm fresh food tastes better and enjoy the experience of knowing the person who grew the food.

“We didn’t know in the early 1960s that we were the vanguard of a movement,” Newcomb says. “There weren’t many vegetable farms around Fairfax County then.”

These days, the farm generates about a third of its income from farmers markets, a third from its roadside stand and a third from selling CSA shares (where customers purchase a portion of the season’s harvest). It also sells directly to a few restaurants and delis in the area. The farm’s CSA shares typically sell out in less than a day.

Some of the farm’s 460 CSA customers are even its employees and neighbors. To make sure the farm “always had good neighbors,” Newcomb built Blueberry Hill, a cohousing community built on the back corner of the Vienna farm where some of her workers, family members and CSA share-holders live. But overall, the farm “ended up having really friendly neighbors who would never give us trouble,” Newcomb says.

A good relationship with the community, and her customers, means Newcomb never has trouble finding labor. “Our labor [in the past] was always college kids. My children thought that was great,” she says. “But now we have more local people and part-time workers. Some are volunteers, some work for pay and some work for food. There’s always something for somebody to do.”

Despite the economic downturn, Newcomb says the farm’s sales are better than ever. “If someone complains that it’s three dollars for a bunch of chard, I say, ‘What else are you buying for three dollars that’s as good and healthy for you?’” Newcomb says. “What’s more important than what you put in your mouth and body?”