Locally Grown - Availability for September 4th, 2013

Hey Local Food Lovers,

Hope everyone is having a great Labor Day. This is one of those holidays where we’re glad to have the day off but we might not pause long enough to remember what it is we’re celebrating.

Labor Day began as a celebration of the nation’s labor movement most commonly associated with the manufacturing sector of our economy. There has been a labor movement of sorts in agriculture for the last twenty years (or longer) and its just another component of why and how EATING LOCAL is as important a social and civil movement as it is an environmental, health and gastronomic movement.

Despite the mechanization of agriculture, large scale commercial agriculture still requires agricultural workers. This workforce is actually relatively small (just under 800,000 which is .26% of the US population). Rather than get into the typical workforce injustice issues such as low pay, lack of benefits, or issues of foreign workers I think its more useful to talk about the benefits of a Local FARM ECONOMY workforce.

Small Scale Local Food Farm business swelled to an all time high of $4.8 billion dollars in 2012. These businesses are self owned, and that means that farm owners are vested in the long-term, have an entrepreneurial spirit, and because they are selling to local people in the community, are focused on building and revitalizing connections in the community.

My good friend Steve Whiteman often reminds me that he is selling more than just really good quality food. Local Farms nourish customers in many other ways, sharing their growing knowledge, cooking knowledge, and their creative innovation towards a food system that is unique to the North Georgia Mountains. We often think of regions known for just a few specialty crops like Maine is known for blueberries, Napa for wine grapes, Iowa for corn. Wouldn’t it be great if North Georgia was known because we have a little of everything with one farm really good at Melons, another specializing in figs and potatoes. And together they meet everyones expectations of good delicious food.

In honor of Labor Day and all the good folks that make Locally Grown happen, I want to acknowledge that there would be no Locally Grown and no locally grown food without the inspiration, sweat and dedication of our Farmer Laborers who in our case own their farms, and strive to make their farms produce food for us. I personally have gotten to the point where it just doesn’t feel right to buy a pepper at the grocery if I know a local farmer has a much better tasting one. It takes some effort to either get up early for a Saturday market, or remember to order online Friday-Monday and then also remember to pick up on Wednesday. But remember whatever special effort you take is small compared to that of local growers. The differences between those two peppers (the store bought vs. the local farmer grown) are so vast (the taste, quality, nutrition, gas miles, labor issues, environment, who keeps the dollar). Since I know I’m getting a vastly superior product the most important thing to me is making that conscious decision each week to put my dollars where my values guide me. I like good food, but I love living in a community where people are working hard to do something great, something unique, something very challenging and difficult, because they love it and because they believe it makes their community and this world a slightly better place. The growth of the Local Food Farms and their farm owners is one of the things that gives me the most hope for our region and its ability to solve its problems in the best possible way.

So this Labor Day and all days forward and in between I hope to always make a point to EAT LOCAL and …..

EAT WELL,
Justin in Habersham
and
Chuck in Rabun