Back to the Land
Local Farm Volunteers Get in Touch with Their Roots
originally published July 16, 2008
Michael Goethe
Todd Stockham, an apprentice at Full Moon Farms, processes radishes.
According to the USDA, organic agriculture is growing at an annual rate of 20 percent, though organic farms still account for just one percent of all American farms. Here in Athens, there are roughly six farms that provide the community with organic fruits and vegetables. Two of these farms, Roots and Full Moon, which are both located in nearby Winterville, have opened their doors to an enthusiastic public eager to spend its free time in the hot Georgia sun. In mid-April, as part of my conversion to the revived Voluntary Simplicity movement, I joined this small, dedicated volunteer army, splitting my time between Roots and Full Moon two days a week, working in the fields alongside other aspiring campesinos.
Each of the volunteers I spoke with for this article offered slightly different reasons for their time in the fields. For some, the decision was a pragmatic one. Cheran Bodry came to Athens in 1992 to attend UGA and never left. After several years in the restaurant business, she earned a graduate degree and now works as a mental health counselor at a local non-profit. Like many young professionals in Athens, Bodry has to balance her desire for organic foods with her financial obligations, like student loans and car payments. By coming out to Full Moon on Tuesday mornings to help with the harvest, she buys her weekly supply of fruits and vegetables from the farm at a significant discount. As is the case with many other volunteers, she is also delighted at the opportunity to leave the office and get some exercise.
Michael Goethe
Richard Saunders and Catarina Passidomo pick blueberries at Roots Farm.
For Catarina Passidomo, a PhD candidate in UGA’s anthropology department, volunteering at Roots is an extension of her research on local food systems. Along with a leadership role at the Athens-based Promoting Local Agriculture and Cultural Experiences (or P.L.A.C.E.), her time at Roots has enriched her understanding of how local communities are responding to problems of unsustainable food practices and energy shortages.
“What’s happening in Athens is happening all over the world,” Passidomo says, as she picks blackberries one steamy Friday morning. “People are reconnecting with the land and gaining an understanding of those who work the land and produce the food.”
Michael Goethe
(l to r) Roger Stahl, Matthew Taylor and Kate Morrissey pick blueberries at Roots Farm.
Meanwhile, Roger Stahl, who teaches rhetoric at UGA, and his wife Kate Morrissey, a musician, live just a short bike ride away from Roots and wandered over to the farm largely out of curiosity. “I really wanted to know what makes this place tick,” Stahl says.
Of course, there’s also a strong social component to volunteering, something I observed in my first week when I was invited to two backyard parties. “I could always go out and work alone in my garden," Stahl says, "but out here, there’s always somebody interesting to work alongside with.”
For the full-time professional farmers, volunteers are indispensable assets. “We’ve gotten a lot of help when we needed it,” Roots farm manager Kevin Yates says as he sprays a cocktail of bat guano, fish emulsion and seaweed extract. And Stacey Sharer, who coordinates the volunteer program at Roots, agrees. “Even with two dedicated, full-time farmers, there is always more work to be done," she says by email. "When we have more hands in the field, we can think bigger, plant more, harvest quicker, tend to crops that just need a little more attention than the others and create structure for future crops.”
Michael Goethe
Michelle Hoekstra processes kale at Full Moon Farms.
Michelle Hoekstra, who just finished her degree at UGA in May, watched her friends leave college and take teaching jobs or prepare for law school. But she has decided to do an unofficial internship at Full Moon through the fall, and for now, a future career as a community educator is on hold. “I really want to see how the farm changes through the different seasons,” she says, relaxing at a picnic table after finishing a Tuesday harvest.
The symbiotic relationship between farmers and volunteers doesn’t exist without some tension, however. Some other organic farms in Athens won’t work with volunteers because they don’t want to take the time to instruct a volunteer on a particular chore, nor do they have the patience to just grin and bear it after an inevitable screw up. “They think there’s too much hand holding,” Yates speculates.
According to Yates, none of the tasks performed by the volunteers in the fields can be considered unskilled. “Our goal is to train them so that they can do things without our supervision,” he says.
There’s also the problem of turnover. Though there are familiar faces each time I go to the farms, I almost always meet someone new, such as a dietetics intern from Arkansas who tells me she would have done almost anything to get out of the classroom, even if it meant just a few hours weeding and then a tour with other interns.
But uniting the professional farmers and their acolytes is an intoxicating sense that organic farming is a key step to making the world a better place. Once again, the nostalgia for the late 1960s is evident. “Organic farming means making political choices, making a political statement,” says Jason Mann, who runs Full Moon. “It is a form of resistance, a subversive act. You’re doing something beautiful and taking control of your life.”
Or perhaps getting our hands dirty satisfies an even deeper need to reconnect with what we’ve been doing for tens of thousands of years, as anthropologists remind us. In 1900, 40 percent of Americans worked in agriculture, according to the USDA. By 2000, that number had dropped to less than two percent. Nevertheless, the good fight continues. “There’s a farmer in all of us,” says Mann.
Locavores Have More Fun
Locally Grown Fruits and Vegetables Are Becoming Easier to Enjoy
originally published July 16, 2008
Michael Goethe
Anyone who has ever taken a bite from a fresh-picked, sun-ripened Georgia peach has experienced a succulent, sweet taste that can’t be found in a supermarket, where most of the produce has traveled as much as 1,500 miles. Eating foods grown in and around the Athens area can be the perfect solution to satisfying cravings for fresh and ripe fruits and vegetables.
Eating locally is not just a passing fad, even in Athens. According to the 2002 Census of Agriculture, the number of farms in Athens-Clarke County has been increasing, as well as their market production. Nationwide, eating locally has become such a popular movement recently that bestselling books have been written on the subject, and new words are being created. The New Oxford American Dictionary named the term “locavore” as its word of the year for 2007. A locavore is anyone who seeks out locally produced food. The word began with four women in San Francisco making the effort to eat foods grown or harvested within a 100-mile radius for a month. For these women and for many other people around the U.S., this challenge eventually turned from a month-long feat to a lifestyle change.
Why Local?
One of the most rewarding benefits of eating locally grown foods is the taste: that fall-off-the-vine, ripe taste that factory farms can’t afford because they need a long shelf life as well as restrictions caused by travel.
“I grow a berry for flavor,” says John Washington, owner of Washington Farms. “They are softer and juicier and not made for shipping.”
Maria Dondero, an Athens resident, gets all of her milk, eggs and vegetables from local farms, especially Roots Farm, where her husband, Kevin Yates, is a farmer. “You get a variety of flavors from fresh produce; you don’t need to season it at all,” she says. “It’s spoiling me from eating other foods.”
Purchasing local products supports the economy of nearby farmers. “I like the idea of keeping my money local,” says Yates. "I would rather pay my neighbor's salary than some CEO in California.”
Shopping at Athens’ own local farmers' market, held at Bishop Park on Saturday mornings, gives the opportunity to purchase fresh-picked veggies straight from the growers, hassle-free. This is probably the easiest way to pick up what's needed for the week, as well as the easiest way for farmers to pick up some money.
How Local?
Michael Goethe
Jason Granfield sells a farm-fresh cuke at Daily Groceries.
Community-supported agriculture, CSAs, can also be a great way to find fresh food, personally connect with local farmers and meet others joining in the quest for good food. One of the benefits of joining certain CSAs is the opportunity to be surprised by what comes in the weekly basket of produce.
“The nice thing is you get to try vegetables that you never would have tried before,” says Stephanne Thornton, a member of Roots Farm’s CSA. Thornton recalls learning more about vegetables and their unique flavors from Roots Farm’s previous year. Roots Farm’s CSA works from a membership-based community that pays an upfront fee to provide the farmers with supplies and a salary for that year’s crop.
“There is a shared risk, as well as a shared responsibility,” says Yates. If there is a drought or the crops fail, the community shares the financial burden of the loss. With the farmers not taking the entire economic fall, they are able to stay in operation and provide services to the community longer. When the crop is ready to harvest, members pick up their share from the farm with no extra fees. Each week is different and comes with a newsletter explaining the yield and new recipes that use it. Each individual CSA operates differently. For example, locallygrown.net, is an Internet-based CSA that has a small annual membership fee that allows members to shop their website for local products in order to pick them up at Gosford Wine, in the Alps Shopping Center. According to the website, “with Locally Grown you get to order what you want, in the quantities that you want, from the farms that you want.” It is a true cooperative that joins together several farms to provide local produce, as well as other local and regional products including dairy, meats and artisan goods. Even chain groceries like Earth Fare help local-food lovers in their support of local farmers and the community.
“We get a lot of locavores even though the word organic is still on the tip of people's tongues,” says Michael Perkins, the community coordinator for Earth Fare in Athens. “Local farmers come in with, literally, crates of okra in their trunk.” Although Earth Fare can’t take food from unknown farmers, after a two-week application process farmers can become Earth Fare vendors who can sell their foods there regularly.
The Daily Groceries Food Co-op located on Prince Avenue is another grocery that sells local and organic products. Although most of their local items are produce, they also have little treasures such as Georgia honey. The store itself is a membership-based grocery that allows everyone to shop, but offers discounts and eligibility for a seat on the board to the paying members. “It’s all about supporting a local economy as opposed to a large distributor,” says Trevor Almon, an employee at The Daily Groceries Food Co-op.
The group, Promoting Local Agriculture & Cultural Experience, P.L.A.C.E.; is an organization that dedicates itself to encouraging and teaching people how to get involved with agriculture in Athens. P.L.A.C.E. is currently sponsoring "Taste Your Place" July 17-26, featuring 12 restaurants giving customers the opportunity to eat locally grown food: Five and Ten, The National, Farm 255, Speakeasy, The Last Resort, Casa Mia, DePalma's Downtown, Harry Bissett's Café, Lumpkin Café, Marti's at Midday, Mama's Boy and East/West Bistro.
Farm 255 not only serves local, organic, sustainable and seasonal foods, it also owns and operates its own seven-acre farm, Full Moon Farms, which is located only a few miles away. In a good season, Farm 255 will receive 75 percent of its food from Full Moon Farms where they even raise their own livestock. The interaction doesn’t stop there, either. Olivia Sargeant, General Manager at Farm 255, works at Full Moon Farms on her days off from the restaurant. “There are mandatory monthly farm duties for the employees,” says Sargeant. “It is totally integral to what we do at the restaurant.” In addition to educating the employees, Farm 255 finds it important to influence the customers who come for the atmosphere, not knowing about the local food benefits. “We are interested in attracting people that don’t know about these issues; that’s why there is a big bar and a stage,” said Sargeant. “I think it is important for people to know where their food came from.”
“The first step toward valuing and trusting food is probably eating food that has some integrity,” says Camille Kingsolver on the website for the bestselling book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. As a co-writer, along with her mother Barbara Kingsolver and Steven L. Hopp, Camille offers several essays about her family’s year-long endeavor to eat only foods they produced themselves. “Becoming familiar with the process of food production generates both respect and a greater sense of calm about the whole idea of dinner,” she says. Just being able to know the history of the food that you are consuming, is a benefit within itself.
“Knowing that this is the land the food is coming from means a lot,” says Thornton, while at Roots Farm. When buying from a grocery store, you are unaware of any chemicals that could have been used. “You don’t know what you may or may not find on the crops,” says Washington of produce from a grocery.
Do the Math
“Being aware and being educated about the fact that food doesn’t come out of a box or from Kroger is important,” says Sargeant. Many people don’t even acknowledge the fact that a farmer planted the seed, tended to the crop, and harvested the vegetable that you grab while whirling through a supermarket. Eating foods that have traveled less distance, cuts out the financial and environmental costs of transportation. It has been shown that eating locally grown foods can be better for the environment than eating organically because less pollution is caused by the transportation. “Eating local used to be more about helping out your buddy, but now that gas prices are getting so high we are starting to look to local products to control our global footprint,” says Perkins. “Energy calories consumed by production, packaging and shipping far outweigh the energy calories we receive from the food,” says Hopp on the website, www.animalvegetablemiracle.com. Hopp is a supporter of the idea that small changes can make large differences. “If every U.S. citizen ate just one meal a week composed of locally and organically raised meats and produce," he says, "we would reduce our country's oil consumption by over 1.1 million barrels of oil every week.”
Do the Dirt
The P.L.A.C.E. website, localplace.org, is chock full of information about where, when, how and why to get involved. Other websites, such as georgiaorganics.org and localharvest.org, link to farms, CSAs, groceries and farmers markets in Athens, as well as other areas. Also, many farms, such as Roots Farm, offer opportunities to volunteer or attend workshops that provide the chance to get out on the farm in the dirt and learn a few things. (See the article on farm volunteers accompanying this one.)
“Harvest days are a lot of fun; there is a lot of snacking going on,” Kevin Yates says about the volunteer opportunity to help Roots Farm harvest its crop. “Our workshops are an extension for a real community farm,” he adds. “We want people to come and experience this place.”
Washington Farms is another hands on-experience. Being a family-oriented farm that grows strawberries, blueberries, blackberries and even pumpkins for the picking, Washington Farms prides itself on melding education with genuine farm fun. “We have field trips where children who have never picked anything before will come and experience a day on the farm,” says Washington. And sure enough, as soon as strawberry season rolls around, there are flocks of young children and their parents huddling over rows of sun-ripened fruit. And for those most dedicated and with time to spare, there is always the option of learning to grow herbs and vegetables. Herb gardens can be very simple to grow and take up very little space but can make a significant contribution to favorite recipes.
“Herbs are always an easy way to start growing,” says Sargeant. “You can grow them in containers on your windowsill or on your doorstep.”
As far as growing veggies goes: tomatoes, peppers and greens are a good way to start. “Grow tomatoes, because they will taste better than anything you will find in a store and will be very rewarding,” says Yates. “Grow your own greens, too. It’s comically easy, delicious and extremely nutritious.”
“Grow something that isn’t going to be a chore at the end of the day,” says Sargeant. Supporting local farmers today, helps local farmers for the future, ensuring fresh produce and healthy land for the next generations. Being a locavore may have a new name, but it is not a new trend and can become a habit, not just a fad. Now, take a bite of that big, fresh, hand-picked strawberry that was plucked from the vine just this morning. How does it taste?
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