To all those that have started to buy local...

Saturday, February 27. 2010

To all those that have started to buy local...

We receive emails or calls daily from new folks we didn't know before who are looking for good, honest, wholesome food grown locally and ethically. This is a trend that has been increasing for the past several month. We appreciate all the interest, and we thoroughly enjoy it when you enjoy our food in return. It works for all of us.

However, as you search for local food, there will be some challenges. I think I speak for other local producers when I say that I hope you will work with us as we all figure this thing out together. The biggest challenge you may face is in finding a reliable supply of local products. I am not sure anyone could have predicted the surge in demand for local food. We didn't a year ago when we should have been breeding all our sows and selecting new ones. We find ourselves at the moment unable to keep up with the demand. A good problem in a way, but not without concerns.

My biggest concern is that, while we and others ramp up production, folks will get tired of waiting and give up on local food. If you want to be in touch with your food supply, part of the picture is understanding the process of production. From conception to table, it takes roughly a year to produce a pork chop. Beef and bison take much longer. Lamb is somewhere in the middle. A sudden ramp-up in demand for milk takes many months to fulfill. In the process of ramping up, the farmer takes essentially all the risk. This is generally not a problem if we can be assured that the demand will still be there after we increase production. But if we all ramp up production and find in a year or so that this local food thing was only a fad and folks lost patience and went and shopped elsewhere, we all lose.

So please, let's look at getting to local food as a process. Let's work together, you voting with your food dollars to buy local. We as producers will be more than happy to respond and increase production ... it's what we have dreamed of for years. But please, please, don't lose patience during this process. We'll get there, and our food supply and our community will be better and more resilient in the end. Not to mention we'll all be enjoying better tasting, more nutritious, fresher food.

Posted by John Socolofsky at 23:24 | Comments (3) | Trackbacks (0)

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It's very easy to fall into the pattern of buying all of your food from a big chain store - it's reasonably cheap, it's convenient (in a way) and it's a habit many people find hard to break. After all, why shouldn't I buy that really cheap orange or even lamb from Australia? And hey, how about those cheap organic frozen vegetables from China? And if your beef, pork or chicken comes in nice plastic wrap, all the better for all of us to forget where it comes from.

Buying and supporting local means you care about one of the most fundamental of human activities - eating! You do it each and every day. Shifting your way of thinking just slightly by making a conscious effort to think about where you food comes from and how it is grown and raised can make an enormous difference in not only your life but your community. After all - keeping money local and supporting those who grow the food we eat pays dividends you can see directly.

So make that effort and see the difference it makes - in flavor, quality and in your community.

#1 Ray Harrison on 2010-02-28 10:48 (Reply)

I should add that you haven't lived until you've had John and Jennifer's bacon with pancakes cooked in the fat, as I've just done. I guarantee you don't get that flavor with factory raised pigs from North Carolina. This is the real deal!

When you support local farmers, you support real families like John and Jennifer right in your local community. You know where your food comes from and where your hard-earned dollars are going. No, you can't go to Walmart and get this pork at 50 cents per pound but who wants to support poorly raised, tasteless factory farmed food anyway? There's something fundamentally wrong with that picture and it's too bad that our society feels that cheap endless, tasteless, processed food is some sort of fundamental right.

But what you can do is build your community and put better food on your family's table by supporting local family farms.

#2 Ray Harrison on 2010-02-28 11:50 (Reply)

Ray,

I couldn't agree more... very nicely stated. And thanks for the great feedback on our bacon. People who appreciate good pork are why we're doing what we do.

John Socolofsky

#2.1 John Socolofsky (Homepage) on 2010-02-28 16:02 (Reply)

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