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Siskiyou Food Summit Part
1 of 2: A few weeks back, I attended a
conference on local food as a strategy to economic
recovery. Agriculture economist Ken Meter from the Crossroads Resource Center talked
about strengthening local food systems as a way to
build community health, wealth, connection and
capacity. He said that Americans spend about $1.2
billion on food. “Local food” is when community
members spend most of those dollars doing business
with each other purchasing produce that is produced
locally.
Meter pointed out that that the United
States is
losing its farmers. The average age of a farmer is
57-59 years old. According to the 2007 agriculture
census, one of every three farms actually lost
income. From 1969-2010 farm sales went from $100
million to $600 million, however, the costs of farm
inputs also went up. To top it off, the dollar is
now worth a sixth of what it was back then. Although
productivity doubled, real farm income has actually
been declining. Adjusted for inflation, the average
farmer in 2011 made less than one in 1929. Profit is
$5 million less today than it was 41 years ago.
Since $500 million more was added to the economy
from agriculture over that period, the middle man
walked away with it.
Californians spend $912 million at the market on
food per year. $800 million of this is spent on food
produced far away. If everyone spent five dollars on
local food a week, that would add $89 million in
local economic stimulus.
According to Meter, there has been a 10 percent
rise per year in direct sales by farmers to
consumers. A trend has been for some of these new
farmers to be early retirees. Many younger farmers
are farming organic produce on smaller amounts of
land.
Kirsten Olson, co-owner of Hunter Orchards is an
organic grower in Siskiyou County.
She sells at the Mt. Shasta and
San Francisco Farmer’s Markets. When she started in
1990, it was difficult. Major stores would not buy
organic produce, so she had to seek markets in the
Bay Area. Olson talked about how important it is to
incorporate hands-in-the-dirt agricultural
experiences into our school curriculum.
Selling directly to customers can be done
through a subscription-type service, what is called
as CSA- Community Supported Agriculture. In ScottValley,
a consumer can select from 13 “shares.” Offerings
include fruit and vegetables (in season,) honey,
eggs, bread, soap, firewood, chicken from Craig
Thompson’s Rockside Ranch and organic beef from
Scott Valley Ranch.
Dr. Glenda Humiston from USDA talked about how
important agriculture is to California’s
economy with $344 billion in direct sales expanded
by associated transportation, distribution, sales
and marketing businesses to a whopping $635 billion
system. If California pursues
a strategy of seeking more in-state processing and
handling, instead of shipping out raw product, we
could add as many as 181,000 jobs between farm and
fork in the “food value chain.” For example, in the
beef industry, this would include more slaughter
houses and cut and wrap facilities.
According to Dr. Humiston, a new generation of
farmers will use vertical walls in cities for
farming and develop bio-based products. She also
talked about a farmer/veteran coalition to help
veterans farm and a new initiative to educate
farmers on how to access capital. For example, there
are an estimated $1.1 billion in retirement funds in
our region that could be invested in local ag-based
business.
Mark Klever is the ranch manager of Belcampo
Farms, which
has ranches in Gazelle and Grenada and
an animal harvest/slaughter facility in Yreka. They
raise pastured and free range beef cattle, pork,
lamb, goat, turkey, rabbit, chicken, duck, quail,
pheasant and squab. Klever talked about his
experiences as a boy on his father’s grain farm
where he was given six acres of his own land to do
with what he wanted. He remembered what it was like
using a portion of the grain after it was grown,
harvested and ground to make homemade bread – a true
farm to fork experience.
Plant Sciences operates in Butte Valley.
General Manager Eric Levesque explained that their
research facility is at Watsonville,
where they create new varieties of strawberries,
blueberries and raspberries. The purpose of the
nursery at 4,300 foot elevation in Macdoel is to
create as many plants as possible for California use
and export. For instance, 16-17,000 mother starter
plants will produce 200-380,000 daughter plants per
acre. The cold weather at harvest time in Macdoel
will slow down the production rate, so the plants
can be pulled up and shipped. Commercial customers
buy the right to harvest the plants, but the plants
themselves remain the property of Plant Sciences and
are used for only one year. |
