Food Security in Clark County, Part 3 - Deston Denniston

Once again, I am pleased to bring you the latest installment in Deston Denniston's series of articles on Food Security in Clark County. Here's a teaser and a click on the link at the bottom of this post will take you to Deston's blog and the entire article.

Food Security in Clark County, Part 3

“The history of every nation is eventually written in the way in which it cares for its soil.”
-Franklin Roosevelt

Every farmer knows that the health of the soil is the key to productivity in the long run. Most are aware that industrial practices such as tilling, fertilizing, and bio-cide spraying, lead to the decline of soil health. However, lack of funds and free time to experiment with holistic methods keeps them trapped in negative feedback practices: in order to produce marketable goods, farms must provide volumes which are demanded by produce distributors and market collectives. If the farmer's volume is low, or the price high, these buyers will pass the farmer, and so force his or her hand to commit to practices which are known to be undesirable, even degenerative. The cumulative effects of this trend show up in our riparian zones and fisheries as silt, in our forests and fields as erosion, and in our production units as lower profit margins and losses. It shows up in our children as weak immune systems, and in our elders as cancer. It shows up in our air as pollution from the fossil fuel consumption and in our pocketbooks as a gouge.

You can read the rest of the article by clicking here.

A Long Overdue Thank You

About a month ago I was exchanging e-mails with a gentleman named Justin who had questions about purchasing meat. We discussed the ins and outs of the process and I related to him a number of the mistakes & errors I had made when I was first starting to buy meat direct from the farm. As usual, I'm sure that I went way overboard with some of my answers and lengthy explanations. But at least I felt like I gave Justin honest and thorough answers to his questions.

Buying whole animals and dealing with a butcher can be a bit daunting the first few times you go through the process. Communicating with the butcher about meat cuts and what you want and/or don't want to keep from your animal is difficult when you don't have much experience or knowledge with butchering technique and types of cuts. You can always throw caution to the wind and hope that the butcher will cut up your animal pretty much the way you'd like it done, but if you're the least bit particular, it's unlikely that you'll get much satisfaction going that route. A good example would be the first time I bought a pig. I let the butcher handle everything and gave very minimal input on my wants & needs. The end result was the entire loin portion was made into chops, I didn't get any of the offal (despite my asking for it), the ribs were trimmed down to "baby backs" and I have no idea where the rest went. No leaf lard, no tail, no ears, no jowls, no feet (I had requested all of these as well). I basically lost a fair portion of the animal I had paid for and had no way of retrieving it. A number of things I had carefully planned to use my pig for were not going to happen. I was crushed, but much smarter for the experience.

Anyways, back to Justin. A couple of weeks ago I was yakking it up with Summer & Anita from Dee Creek Farm at their stand at the Vancouver Farmer's Market and a young couple was standing nearby. The young man overheard our conversation and asked if I was the guy who had the blog. It was a bit of an ambiguous question, but I hesitantly told him I did have a blog, but so did many other guys. We quickly figured out that he was indeed talking about Clark County Food & Farm and that he was the fella who had communicated with me via e-mail about buying meat. He thanked me for my time and told me that he had already gone in on a beef with a friend and was going to get a pig from Dee Creek this year too. Those words were like music to my ears.

One of the main reasons I continue to rant and ramble here is with the hope that folks will realize that there are significant opportunities to purchase locally produced food that is, in the words of Slow Food founder Carlo Petrini, "Good, Clean, and Fair". Supporting our local agricultural families and businesses is one of the best ways we can support our local economy and ensure a secure food system for our community. Although I never expect to hear that what I do is actually making much of a difference, when I do...man it feels good.

So thank you, Justin. You really made my day when we spoke at the VFM. I'm happy to hear that you're purchasing locally raised meat, even happier that you're patronizing one of our finest farm families at Dee Ceek Farm, and I hope your experience is a good one.

Agriculture is Dead in Clark County? Really? Are you sure?

So I went to the 78th Street workshop last night and all I can say is WOW. What a turnout and what an awesome, intelligent, thoughtful, and community-conscious group of folks who participated. Looks like the TAC report got some heavy support thrown behind it by participants of the workshop (God bless you Deston) and people had all sorts of excellent ideas about how the property could be developed as a catalyst for the future of agriculture in Clark County and yet stay true to the historical, agricultural use of the site. Seems like we've come a long way from the relatively recent comments and reports that agriculture was dead in Clark County. Looks like it's time for a few folks to pull their chair up to the table and eat some crow...

I want to express my most sincere thanks to Commissioner Marc Boldt, the county planning staff, and the many volunteers who helped facilitate last night's workshop. Great job everyone!

And I'd like to let the members of the 78th Street Aggies how much I love you folks for all you did last night and for everything you do for our community every day. I know that many, many of the folks were there last night because of you. You are the lifeblood of the sustainable agriculture revolution taking place in our community. Here's to making the 78th Street site the heart of the revolution!

It was so cool to see folks from the Farm Bureau Clark County agriculture's "Old Guard", earthy young folks, CSA farmers, Master Gardeners, Vancouver Food Co-op members, Tom Wagner of Tater-Mater Seeds (independent plant breeder and educator extraordinaire) and the 2009 Tom Wagner Great Tater Mater Grow Out, the WSU Extension, folks who are just plain passionate about local agriculture and farming, young professionals, folks from the Clark County Food Bank Coalition, permaculture enthusiasts, Clark County's very own cowboy poet Boyd Johnson and ag geeks like yours truly all together and all working towards a common goal.

I am positively stoked about the energy that filled the Gaiser Middle School cafeteria. And at the end of the night, as we all strolled around the room and stuck our dots on the uses for 78th Street that we were in favor of, it was rapidly apparent that we have given our county government and WSU a mandate to develop the site as a center for agriculturally focused sustainability, education, research, community programs, and agriculture/food related recreation & business. development. Woo-Hoo!

We are on the verge of raising the national bar for what community supported sustainability and agriculture means. The 78th Street site has a long way to go before it represents the dreams of the participants in last night's workshop, but we're off to a strong start. Let's keep the momentum going!

If you missed the workshop or if you have never heard of the 78th Street/former WSU Extension/Old Poor Farm site, click on the links below and you can get up speed.

http://www.clark.wa.gov/78WSU/
http://www.abundancepermaculture.com/papers.html
http://clarkfoodfarm.blogspot.com/2009/03/wsu-78th-st-master-plan-whats-happening.html
http://clarkfoodfarm.blogspot.com/2009/03/wsu78th-street-project-update.html
http://clarkfoodfarm.blogspot.com/2009/03/comment-regarding-wsu78th-street.html
http://clarkfoodfarm.blogspot.com/2009/03/78th-street-aggies.html
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=59654344791&ref=nf
http://clarkfoodfarm.blogspot.com/2009/03/78th-street-project-april-9th-workshop.html