Sometimes it takes something cataclysmic to help us see how interdependent we all are, and how globally interconnected our economy is. It seems that we’re in such a situation right now with Covid 19. This column is about local food, about growers on the Iron Range who can provide many of our food needs and grow our local economy in the process. So let’s take a moment to look at local food systems through the lens of cataclysm.
If you ate a banana for breakfast or tomatoes on your salad for lunch today, they might have come from outside the U.S., especially since it’s winter here. Will the supply chains function when borders are closed? Will production workers, either in California or Mexico or Honduras stay well enough to tend and harvest the produce? We’ve seen severe international supply chain disruptions in personal protective equipment lately. And we’ve read about how many of our critical drugs are manufactured in China. Here’s a headline from February 28: “With most drug ingredients coming from China, FDA says shortages have begun.” We are learning the vulnerability of international supply chains now.
Folks propose solutions like “make more of what we need in the U.S.” which makes sense, but would take years to ramp up, given our abundant but distant existing supply chains. In the case of food supplies, we would need to ramp up, too. That’s what the whole local food movement is about. Increasing demand for local food so that farmers know that they can sell what they grow—and increasing farm production of food for humans so that we eaters know that we can get what we need locally. But that would take some adjustment on consumers’ part. We would need to learn to eat what can grow locally and to eat seasonally. That’s a challenge! No bananas for breakfast--how about berries, apples, cherries frozen from Minnesota’s summer harvest? Maybe hothouse tomatoes for those winter salads and hydroponic or aeroponic lettuce? Top the salad off with microgreens from your own stash?
Microgreens in my basement grow room.
At my house, we have a small soil sprout/microgreen operation in our basement under grow lights. That gives us fresh sunflower, radish, mung bean, pea, broccoli, adzuki, fenugreek, lentil, kale…..a huge variety of microgreens that are about 2 inches tall when we cut them. They use less water and soil than fully mature vegetables grown here or in California, and they don’t have to be transported by truck. We also grow lettuce, arugula, basil, and mizuna for salads. Here’s a book that gives easy-to-follow steps for growing your own microgreens: “Year-Round Indoor Salad Gardening” by Peter Burke, Chelsea Green Publishing. You don’t even need grow lights—window sills will do!
Back to supply chains and local food. Americans eat mostly U.S.-produced food, though the percent of imported foods has doubled from 1993 to now. But, generally, 82% of what we eat was produced in the U.S. Will U.S. supply chains experience difficulties? Here’s a headline from March 18: “COVID-19 Threatens Food Supply Chain As Farms Worry About Workers Falling Ill.” U.S. farms employ hundreds of thousands of seasonal workers, mostly from Mexico, who enter the country on H-2A visas. What will the impact of the coronavirus on seasonal workers be? On local workers as states order residents to shelter in place? We don’t know.
Through this lens of cataclysm, what becomes apparent is that it might be smart to focus on local food. For example, on the Iron Range, we have local milk and butter available through Dahl’s Dairy. We have lots of local farmers selling eggs. Ask around, and if you can’t find anyone, check out the Iron Range Grown page on Facebook. You can post a request there and get answers from area growers. We have local honey and maple syrup and wild rice up here in northern Minnesota—read the label to make sure it’s local or regional. And we have local meat producers. I’ve profiled a number of them in this column in the past months. You can get grass-fed beef and pork, or corn-fed without antibiotics, free range chickens fed organic and/or non-GMO feed, duck and lamb all grown locally.
When you buy locally, you can choose producers that meet your standards. For example, I buy grass fed beef, free range chickens fed non-GMO feed, and pastured pork. But others might not care about pasturing or free ranging and just want meat from animals not dosed with antibiotics. Meet and dairy are available all winter, too, on the Range. Our challenge up here is that we don’t have nearby U.S.D.A. meat processors, so local farmers have to travel fair distances to get their meat processed. If we had a local processor, our meat could be even less expensive by conserving on fuel for transport. But it is still available.
Having local veggies with your meat in the winter here requires that you either grew them and preserved them or bought them from a farmer and preserved them. There’s a renewed interest in canning and dehydrating summer’s bounty for the lean months. Just like our grandmothers did. But as we get closer to growing season here, farmers markets will be open and offering what’s in season. In northern Minnesota, that means rhubarb, radishes, lettuce, spinach, and some herbs early in the season. You won’t find tomatoes until the end of July and sweet corn until well into August. That’s frustrating for many farmers market shoppers, I know. I manage the Virginia Market Square Farmers Market and we always have folks asking for tomatoes in June.
If you do find tomatoes in June at a farmers market or farm stand, they’re either hydroponic or grown farther south and re-sold here. Many farmers markets apply a distance rule for their vendors to insure that the produce being sold is really local. In Virginia, we use a 50 mile radius—your product must be grown or made within 50 miles of Virginia in order to be sold at Virginia Market Square. Yes, that inconveniences customers who want sweet corn in June, but it does something positive and far more significant for the local economy. It keeps our food dollars here in our region, going into the pockets of farmers who grow right here.
I’ve mentioned many times the local food study commissioned by the Iron Range Partnership for Sustainability and published in 2018. That study concluded that, if we bought just 20% of our food locally, we could generate 248-694 local jobs and keep $51 million per year in our local economy. Now seems like a good time to set that goal and go for it!