The Bounty Around Us: From Farmers to Families, They Hope to Fix Global by Eating Local
Help OCA mobilize millions of organic and socially responsible consumers into a powerful force for change, both in the marketplace and in the political arena.By John B. Saul
The Seattle Times - WA, Aug 19, 2007
Straight to the Source
The food world is catching up with Fred Berman.
The emphasis lately in that changing and often socially conscious world has been on eating local foods, organic alone not being enough to cure the ills of the world. No pesticides or herbicides, yes, but also no food that burns up more calories getting to the dinner plate than it can deliver once it’s there.
Author Barbara Kingsolver is the latest to discover food doesn’t have to travel hundreds of miles in a refrigerated truck. She writes about that discovery in her new book “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life.”
And for their book, Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon spent a year eating only food that came from within 100 miles of their Vancouver, B.C., apartment.
That’s nothing for Berman: Most of the food he and his family ate for more than 20 years came from within 500 yards of where they lived. An organic farmer for 27 years and a chef for 24, he’s glad the books have made more people aware of the benefits of eating locally grown food. But he was already there.
He’s seeing that awareness in his job of the past 16 months as Small Farms Program coordinator for the Washington State Department of Agriculture. As “farmbudsman,” he’s working to develop markets for local farmers, awarding grants and trying to make it easier in general to eat something grown here instead of there, especially when “there” is thousands of miles away.
The reasons for eating local offered by both Berman and the more recent advocates are many: Cutting down on the fuel used to transport food could help slow global warming, and a local food system makes it easier to police for food safety, puts more money into the local economy and fresher, better-tasting food in your mouth.
Berman, 62, says his views on food and agriculture sprouted not from growing up on a farm but from living across the street from one. His family’s home was on the leading edge of the suburbs about to sweep over the fields of Southern California’s San Fernando Valley. From his front yard, he watched the dairy farm across the street disappear. Then the walnut orchards. Then the fruit and vegetable fields.
By the time he finished his degree in environmental science at California State University, Northridge, suburban lawns and strip-mall planter boxes were the closest things to farming left in the valley.
Berman didn’t think it was the only thing going wrong with America…
For more: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/pacificnw08192007/2…
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