yearofplenty

Regulations on Cow Burps Stripped From Legislation

A friend signed me up to receive the Ag Weekly newsletter out of Twin Falls, Idaho. So every week I get a bunch of Ag industry news in my email inbox. As someone who has looked at the food conversation primarily from the consumer's perspective, it has been a real education to get a window into the farmer/producer's world. For those of us who want to engage our local food system from the consumer side, I think it's important to raise awareness of life on the farmer/producer side.

Here's todays headline: EPA Livestock Tax on Methane Emissions Blocked. As the article explains,

Late last week, the House Appropriations Committee adopted the Tiahrt Amendment preventing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from regulating livestock as a greenhouse gas source.

It looks like it's an end around maneuver to bring livestock emissions uner the Clean Air Act and regulate them as greenhouse gases. I don't have any great insights other than to say I had no idea until I got my Ag Weekly newsletter. In other random ag news, Warm Weather Improves Potato Condition.

God's Golf Course

 
The Palouse as seen from Steptoe Butte. I guess God is into links courses.

It's Time for a Spokane County Local Foods Initiative

As recent events have shown, our community’s farmers’ markets are vulnerable to unexpected regulatory action. Thankfully it looks like things are working out this go around, but I’m more worried about the next surprise. The rapid growth of farmers’ markets has moved out ahead of the regulatory environment, meaning that most energy is spent trying to retro-fit and deal with things as they crop up (pun intended). Instead of continually reacting, it’s time for interested parties in Spokane County to put together a good piece of legislation that strengthens our local food systems and provides needed support to farmers’ markets and other organizations seeking to close the gap between farmer and consumer.

A year ago the Seattle City Council passed a local food initiative that could serve as a good model. As reported in the Capital Press:

…the initiative’s goals include strengthening local farmers’ markets, securing their locations, expanding resources for food banks, developing solutions to reduce the cost of food for urban consumers and planning for a secure food supply during emergencies and disasters. One year later, the initiative has borne fruit, and work is continuing on implementing the goals that received funding.

Lowering fees is perhaps the most important part of any such kind of initiative we might pursue in Spokane County. At a Farmers Market Managers meeting early this week, high fees paid by farmers, especially from the Spokane County Health District, were the greatest concern expressed in the group. If a Farmers’ Market is not a restaurant, a grocery store, Pig Out In the Park or Hoopfest  - why should it be treated with the same set of fees.

An example of the change in Seattle is that the Lake City Market has gone from paying $4500 to close the street for the day of the market to $251. That’s change you can believe in. It’s in everyone’s interest to move towards a healthier, more local and sustainable food system. The question is, which organization or, as in the case of Seattle, which politician, is going to step up to the plate and take the lead on these issues? Slow Food? Spokane Ag Bureau? Washington Extension? Or maybe it will be you. I look forward to seeing if our community has the activist mojo to pull it off.

Inland Northwest Wildflowers Site Up and Running

Noel and I have the first post up on our web site on local wildflowers. The plan is to add posts and then categorize them for those wanting to investigate and learn. It's a summer project and based on the first post it looks like we're going to learn a lot about Lewis and Clark. Clarkia Pulchella is a beauty!

View From Your Garden - Upside Down Tomatoes

Awhile back I invited folks  to submit some pictures of their gardens as the summer progresses. I plan on posting some of the pictures with an ongoing “View From Your Garden” segment on the blog. The pictures are starting to trickle in and thought I would get us started with a garden I ran across in the Millwood area. (That’s right, if you don’t send in pictures to the email address listed to the right, I’ll come to your home and take pictures myself.)

They have taken a plain old lawn and turned it into a raised bed garden. I noticed the upside down tomato plants on hangers. I’m not sure how those work but they seem to be all the rage this year. Let me know if anyone has had experience with them. If you’re limited by horizontal space in the yard, go vertical.

Tiger Lily

Food Inc. Movie Is a Shot Across the Bow of Industrial Food Practices

Here’s the latest installment in the Public Relations wars around our sick food systems. First there was the book, “Fast Food Nation”, then Michael Pollan’s series of books culminating in “Ominvore’s Dilemma”, and now the two authors of those books, among others, join forces on the movie, “Food Inc.” I’m thinking it’s probably similar to the the wonderful documentary, “King Korn”, but with a much larger budget.

Here’s the description from the web site;

In Food, Inc., filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the veil on our nation’s food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that has been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government’s regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA. Our nation’s food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment. We have bigger-breasted chickens, the perfect pork chop, insecticide-resistant soybean seeds, even tomatoes that won’t go bad, but we also have new strains of E. coli—the harmful bacteria that causes illness for an estimated 73,000 Americans annually. We are riddled with widespread obesity, particularly among children, and an epidemic level of diabetes among adults.

I think we have to be careful not to demonize people involved with industrial ag and I hope this film does not do that. Michael Moore styled gotchas get the blood pumping but they don’t do much for constructive engagement. As the folks at the Spokane Ag Bureau told me, they want the Foodie Revolutionaries to know that these are families too. The big corporations are made up of families too.

I’m eager to see the film. Unfortunately Spokane is not groovy enough to have a release date listed. Where is the Magic Lantern when you need it?

Could a Farmers' Market be an Act of Worship?

The Spokesman is running an article in today’s paper on the situation with churches and property taxes that I’ve recently highlighted on the blog. I scanned the the comments on the article and this one jumped out to me; “Why are churches tax exempt anyway?” That’s a great question among many others that I’ve heard percolating around this issue.

For example, while talking with the photographer from the Spokesman he mentioned something about the church as engaging in “spiritual” activities while the Farmers’ Market was a different kind of activity. Is a Farmers’ Market in any way a spiritual activity? Are churches as defined by our culture relegated to a “spiritual” ghetto? Are churches as defined by the Bible and Jesus spiritual entities that have nothing to do with material realities like the marketplace and farming?

Another question came up while talking to a reporter from the Inlander. He mentioned at the end of the interview, “On a lighter note, what about Jesus turning over the tables of the money changers? Could holding the market in the parking lot be seen as something comparable to that?” He meant the question in jest, but it’s actually a great question for the church and for the community that seeks to understand why a church would have tax exempt status.

My question that I’ll open up now and revisit with a Sunday Edition faith related post is, “Could it be that a church’s involvement with a Farmers’ Market is an act of spiritual worship?” You might be surprised at my answer.

Spokane Farmers' Markets & Department of Revenue Update

I previously reported that the actions of the Department of Revenue may disrupt several Spokane Farmers' Markets by removing the tax exempts status of the church parking lots used to host the markets. Of the three markets effected, both the Millwood Farmers' Market and the Downtown Farmers' Market will accept the ruling of the Dept. of Revenue and absorb the costs of property taxes into the operation of the markets. The session of Millwood Presbyterian has agreed to cover the cost of around $700 in annual property taxes for the parking lot and the downtown market non-profit corporation will pay the much more substantial cost of just under $3,000 of annual property taxes. I haven't heard about the plans of the South Perry Market. I think the Spokesman Review is running an article in tomorrow's edition about the situation.

Summer 2009 Wildflower Project

One experience from our Year of Plenty has been that sometimes when you decide to do something unlikely and audacious, you actually do it and it's wonderfully fruitful. It wasn't just the decision to consume local for a year. It was all of the smaller big decisions like taking our insurance money from the car and buying $4,000 worth of plane tickets to Thailand and starting a blog and tearing out the lawn and putting in a labyrinth. This year we bought some chickens, built a coop and even ended up on the chicken coop version of the Street of Dreams. Sometimes you say you'll do something bold and challenging and it works out.

Another contrasting experience is that sometimes you make a bold statement of action and intent and things don't work out. The realities of time and energy and resources conspire against its fulfillment. We said we would do a field trip to every local producer during the year and that didn't work out. We said we'd buy coffee from Thailand, but ended up settling for Thomas Hammer and Craven's. I said we'd facilitate an Eat Local Challenge in September 2008 and I didn't have time to pull it together. I said we'd get a Community Garden going in the West Valley this summer and it didn't quite come together. (I had trouble getting my own garden planted.)

So I'm aware of the tension between these two experiences as Lily, Noel and I embark on a project of chronicling the wildflowers of the Inland Northwest as our summer adventure. We'd like to take some nice pictures of each flower and put them in a journal and also start a blog on wildflowers. And it may not work out. The kids may get bored with it. I may get sidetracked. It may not be realistic. Who knows? Regardless of the result, it's worth the risk of stepping out in hopefulness. The enduring lesson from our year is that sometimes things do work out in a series of wonderful serendipities that rekindle joy and wonder.

Besides, when they don't work out there's always next year. I haven't given up on the eat local challenge. The folks at Community Minded Enterprises are already on the ball with a bunch of other activities in September that will fit well with something like the Eat Local Challenge. And the community garden in Pasadena Park is still on the long term agenda.

Does anyone know the identity of the flower pictured above. The leaves are oval when fully bloom. I'm think some kind of Forget Me Not or Phlox.