1. I cook. Locally grown food simply tastes better.
2. I support my community, including farmers.
3. I want to eat healthier and locally grown food has more nutrients.
4. I’m scared about the overuse of pesticides on conventionally grown produce. I feel more comfortable buying from a farmer I know.

The interesting thing is that I used to think of the buyers profiled above as distinct groups: health conscious buyers distinct from foodies distinct from people advocating food justice.

Give Me a Reason to Buy Locally

But the reality is that you can start at any one point above, and within a short period of time—sometimes days, sometimes months—slide right into another. Care about taste most? Great! But then it’s harder to spray pesticides on the berries you grow in your garden or spray that toxic cleanser you use on your kitchen counter.

Like to support local farmers? Hurray! And you know what? It turns out their food tastes amazing. Funny how food tastes so much better when it was dug out of the ground that morning. With something like a tomato it’s not even a fair fight when you try local vs. a tomato that is picked “dead green” and shipped 1,500 miles.

Big CPG (that’s consumer packaged goods to you and me) companies didn’t focus on green for the longest time. Not big enough they said. Not enough scale. A niche market.  Now everyone is jumping on the green bandwagon.

But before that word “ green” gets completely mangled beyond recognition, there is real cause for hope. Imagine that Hellman’s is coming out with a mayonnaise using cage-free eggs. Okay, that’s not local, but it will have an impact on growing practices. Next McDonalds will be featuring organic beef. Actually there was a rumor that was going to happen last year.

Survey Says There’s Green in Green

Research featured in a recent marketing post by David Almy talked up the Shelton Group’s Eco Pulse 2009 Report, in which researchers asked: “In which product categories are you searching for greener products?”

• Home cleaning products: 75%
• Food and beverages: 65%
• Personal care products (shampoo, lotion, etc.) 55%
• Appliances: 47%
• Home improvement products (windows, insulation, etc.): 46%
• Automobiles: 32%

Now you don’t buy a car or an appliance every day but you do buy food every day if you want to survive and cleaning products on a regular basis, too, if you prefer a tidy home.

I felt pretty smart noting in a recent Friend of the Farmer post on organics:

“If every US citizen ate just one meal a week that was composed of locally and organically raised meats and produce, we would reduce our country’s oil consumption by 1.1 million barrels every week. Small changes in buying habits make big differences.”

But that statement assumes that people actually care about the big picture.  What they really care about is “me”—well, ourselves. Here are the products that will benefit from true green:

“Products That Are Good For Me: Home cleaning, food and beverages, and personal care. People are increasingly concerned with the safety of the products they use in their homes and put in and on their bodies.”

In my recent interview with sustainable Chef Peter Hoffman, he was incredulous that people could brag about a fancy watch or car and then a minute later crow about how little they spent on a slice of ham—something they put in their bodies. (click here for more on this interview.)

“Products That Are Good For My Budget: Appliances, home improvement, automobiles. Selling a big-ticket item like a dishwasher or car in a tough economy is hard enough; focusing exclusively on environmental benefits makes it even harder. Saving the planet takes a back seat to personal finances, unless a connection is clearly made between the product and potential future savings. When asked why it’s important to reduce energy consumption, 73 % of respondents chose ‘to reduce my bills’; 26 % chose ‘to lessen my impact on the environment’.”

David Almy describes this as his Homer (Simpson) moment.

“While environmentally friendly attributes in a product are important, the real interest lies in what personal benefits the products deliver. In other words: what’s in it for them?

By actively promoting a product’s greener attributes (e.g. fewer, more recognizable and natural ingredients) marketers have been able to successfully position their wares as improving a personal environment while also benefiting the global environment. Success comes from emphasizing the former rather than the latter.

What’s a farmer to do? If you sell steak and it costs a bit more than conventional, suggest to a prospective buyer that “it’s so darn satisfying and good for you that you and your family don’t need to eat a pound per person. And you might skip that multivitamin when you have grass-fed beef.”

If you’re a consumer, know that once you start down this slippery slope there’s no going back, unless your budget really can’t take it.

How can you buy Mrs. Meyer Lemon Verbena countertop spray and then get a steak that was grown in half the time of its grass-fed cousins through the use of antibiotics and feedlots. You can’t—or at least it’s a lot harder. And that’s good news whether you’re working as a marketer for a big CPG company or a producer in small sustainable farming communities like those in Litchfield County or The Berkshires.

Further Reading

Organic Food is Not Just for Rich People

Great Questions to Ask Your Farmer

“It’s the Sustainability, Stupid.”

Let’s Have a Fair Food Fight

You can almost hear Dick Cheney saying “organic food is a nice personal virtue for the radical fringe, but it’s not going to feed the world.” Actually, when you level the playing field, organic (and more importantly, sustainable) food comes out on top.

The fact is organic farmers don’t receive federal subsidies the same way conventional farmers do. Organic and small-time farmers receive “specialty crop grants” that are measured in thousands rather than in millions of dollars.  Sad truth: If you’re not growing corn, wheat or soybeans, you get the merest of crumbs from the federal table.

Myth: Organic Food is More Expensive

Today, organic food does cost more than conventional food. Watch an organic farmer hand-weed a row of carrots and you’ll immediately know why. Smaller organic farms require more time, attention and labor to get produce to market.

By comparison, conventional farmers have certain advantages. Rather than using the age-old practice of crop rotation to keep soil healthy, they can apply cocktails of synthetic fertilizers and herbicides to fields.

An organic farmer, by comparison, might mix up 200 pounds of old pasta salad, 100 pounds of rotting lettuce, and other assorted odds and ends to create a rich and fragrant compost.

Conventional farmers receive subsidies in the Farm Bill: more than $3 billion per year for corn and wheat alone. Unsold food will be bought up by the USDA for school lunches. One calculation estimated the national all-in subsidy for industrially grown agriculture at $80 billion per year. That’s $725 per American household.

Crappy food is certainly cheap in America. A study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition determined that a dollar buys 1,200 calories of potato chips, but just 250 calories of vegetables or 170 calories of fresh fruit.

Paul Wigtsen, produce buyer at the Culinary Institute of America, has doubled the amount of produce purchased by the school without increasing thebudget. His secret? Go local. Sure local produce can cost 5% to 20% more than produce shipped across the country. But, according to Wigtsen, with local fare there is “no trim, no waste. With California, you loose ten or twenty percent in kitchen prep.”

Myth:  Organic is My Only Healthy Option

Under some circumstances, food grown sustainably and purchased from a local farmer can be cheaper than organic food shipped in from China or California.

You know what local means: Your food shouldn’t travel further than you typically go on a vacation. But what about “sustainable”?  To me, sustainable means that you can raise food in perpetuity without doing harm to your land.  Sustainable farming principles often are closely aligned with organic principles, so you’re getting food that is healthier for all concerned.

In fact, organic has become so associated with elitism and higher prices that some farmers have stopped touting their organic growing practices. They prefer to have you taste the difference and let you determine whether it’s worth the cost.

Myth: I Can’t Afford Organic.

So let’s start with a simple truth: organic and sustainable food reflects the true cost of growing food. Then let’s find a new way to shop for organic and sustainable food when you dine in and dine out. Not every time—just more often.

If you have a choice, consider mixing and matching. See a great deal on tomatoes at the farmers market? Buy way more than you need, then make some sauce and freeze it. Love those organic grapes from California? Stock up when they’re on sale in the supermarket. No need to get uppity, either: Toss in a head of lettuce from Mexico or California’s Central Coast every so often, just because it’s cheap and easy. And to stay clear about the value of the work that goes into putting food on your plate, grow your own.

When you dine out, ask about that steak. “Is it local?  Organic? No? Natural? It’s not?  Well okay. Is there anything local on the menu? I really like supporting local farmers.” Don’t get all preachy; just ask for an alternative.

Big food companies are coming around. As part of its ongoing commitment to “real food” using “simple ingredients,” Hellmann’s (“America’s favorite mayonnaise brand”) recently announced that its “Light Mayonnaise recipe in North America will feature 100% certified cage-free eggs in the United States,” because, as Jamey Fish, Hellmann’s senior brand manager, said “people are increasingly attuned to what’s in their food and where it comes from.”

Protect America’s Independence! Sing the Star-Spangled Banner!

Still need convincing to buy local?  Barbara Kingsolver, in her book Animal, Vegetable and Mineral wrote:

“If every US citizen ate just one meal a week that was composed of locally and organically raised meats and produce, we would reduce our country’s oil consumption by 1.1 million barrels every week. Small changes in buying habits make big differences.”

So it’s not longer elitist to eat organic or sustainable food. You’re supporting energy independence. You’re a true vegetable-eating patriot.  And you know what? Your food will actually taste better.

Further Reading

Great Questions to Ask Your Farmer

“It’s the Sustainability, Stupid.”

Encourage your grocer to carry more organic products with this helpful form.

As currently deployed, New York State’s 36,000 farms can supply perhaps 40% of local food needs, so unless all New York residents become victory gardeners overnight, we will continue to depend on food imported from thousands of miles away.

But what if you started putting farms in new and unexpected areas closer to home? Areas with plenty of sunlight. Look up. Think green roofs.

Building owners motivated to lower HVAC costs, speed building approvals, and lower construction costs are turning to green roofs. But the roofs—while they provide significant business, health, environmental, and aesthetic benefits—are not always farms. They could be. They should be.

Welcome to Farms in the Sky

At investor conference Agriculture 2.0, I met Bob Fireman, a long-time real estate executive, who is now the president of Sky Vegetables. Bob dreams big. His vision is to have rooftop greenhouses raising vegetables 12 months of the year in communities from the Bronx to Boston, from the Bay Area to Detroit.

In the process, Sky Vegetables creates jobs and reduces the distance food has to travel—from a thousand miles to as little as five hundred feet, if you pick up your produce in the parking lot of one of his sky top farms.  “Our goal,” said Fireman, “is for food to be harvested and consumed within forty-eight hours.”

The typical old-line factory or warehouse roof is strong enough for cultivation. In Brooklyn, former e*Trade marketing manager Ben Flanner and New York Botanical Garden educational director Annie Novak started a farm on the roof of a former bagel factory.

Fireman favors standard-issue hydroponic technology. One example, a 44,000-square-foot project slated for the roof of a former shoe factory in struggling Brockton MA, would raise both plants and incomes.

Fifty workers would build the hydroponic farm; 20 full-time staffers and 10 part-timers would manage it once it is operational. Fireman estimates the one-acre garden can produce 300-400 tons of produce a year, “five to fifteen times the yield of conventional farming with only five percent of the water.”

While he declined to say what that produce would be worth, I’d calculate that, at $1.00 per pound for organic greens, that’s the equivalent of $600,00 to $800,000 per year. Fireman wants to supply local schools and hospitals with “greens and beans that you can’t get fresh twelve months of the year.” The balance will go to food banks and farmers markets.

Funding Should Be No Problem. Right?

Fireman is focusing on Brockton as a “gateway city looking for jobs and fresh food.” Once known as Shoe City USA, Brockton now wants to be a leader in sustainable growth. Support and funding will come from the State of Massachussets, block grants, tax incentives and development credits.

One would expect that—between the USDA’s newfound focus on local production and the Administration’s goal of creating new jobs—Fireman would be overwhelmed with funding options.

The reality is a bit different.

“Stimulus money,” according to Fireman, “tends to go shovel-ready projects.” ‘Shovel-ready’ means planning and approvals are done and people could be put to work immediately (generally interpreted as ‘within 90 days’). The focus has been on speed. By comparison, rooftop farming may take a bit more time to plan, but it still offers powerful long-term investment value.

To its credit, the USDA is focusing on local food production and specialty crops (aka vegetables) for the first time in a very long time. Secretary Vilsack even started a garden on the grounds of his Washington, D.C. headquarters. But projects they traditionally fund tend to be more focused on rural than urban sites.

“As many champions as we get from the municipal, state and federal levels,” Fireman says, “we still have to fight for funding.”

While he allows that “we’re not going to put California out of business,” Fireman is clear that the regional food system has to change. Will rooftop gardens and farms solve all our food production challenges? No more than wind power will replace our near-term dependence on oil. But there has never been a better time to make an investment in our future.

More on Sky Vegetables

Boston Globe

Company website

Hoffman didn’t use local foods for political reasons.  “Building recipes from what was available, seasonal and local was what was most exciting to me in the creative process as a chef.”

“When Alain Ducasse was running the restaurant here in New York, he knew that great products come from close to home. Traditionally, the great three-star restaurants in France, especially in the 60s, were located in agricultural regions and were based on direct relationships with local farmers. That’s what we showcase at Savoy.”

The Best Chefs Are Inspired By Their Ingredients

“Whether you’re going to write a book or paint a picture, you start with a blank canvas or pad of paper.  I start with an empty pot and ask so what am I going to cook?  I am interested in what’s in season. What do I feel like eating today?  What are the traditional methods of preparation and combinations that are time honored that I can use? Some chefs like creating food and combinations that have never been created before. I like cuisines that have been cooked in certain ways for many generations.”

Turns out more and more chefs plan to follow Peter Hoffman’s lead. Local sourcing for restaurants was even identified as a “hot trend for 2010” in a national survey by The National Restaurant Association.

But what Hoffman really wants people to do is to value and take pleasure in the food they eat.  So brag about your new Tag Heuer watch or iPhone. But let’s be sure to equally savor the ephemeral joys of the table.

Robin Cockerline of Whippoorwill Farm in Lakeville, CT said “there is an amazing rhythm to farming, and scenes of indescribable beauty.”  For author and grower Michael Ableman, farming was just like falling in love. “Nature seduced me,” he wrote in his book, On Good Land. “When that intoxicating, blinding draw faded, a deeper relationship formed.”

Farmers enjoy what they do more than most of us.  A Gallup-Healthways poll of professions found that farmers came in fourth in terms of overall well-being.

Source: Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index

Judy Flint, who works as a personal consultant for NY Farm Net, said that farmers are “incredibly hard working.  Just really good people who love what they do, and being their own bosses even when they are working at the whim of the weather.”

Most farmers just squeak by financially, and yet they continue to love what they do.

The Pressure Can Be Overwhelming

So many things can go wrong.  The weather, a tomato blight, a tractor engine seizes up, an employee walks away at the absolute worst time, the freezer fails—and takes $10K in beef with it. The fact is that farming can be “a heartbreaking way to earn a living,” says family farmer Paul Wigsten. “It’s a horrible addiction. Probably worse than heroin.”

And sometimes you don’t see an alternative.

Robin Cockerline feels that dairy farming can be the worst. “With a dairy farm you never have the feeling that you’re getting anywhere. Once that drain starts emptying, it is hard to get it to go the other way.  It’s not unusual for a farm to be carrying $40,000 in accounts payable, due in 30 days. You’re always juggling. There used to be beautiful farms in the Northeast. All the money got drained out to pay bills. The pressure is unbelievable.”

Helping Farmers in Crisis

More than 20 years ago farmer-suicides in the Midwest went through the roof. Farm Net was established in New York in just six weeks to help farms and farmers stay healthy and profitable.  According to Ed Staehr, Executive Director of Farm Net, “over 90% of the farms we work with not only stay in business but actually expand. A great amount of what we do keeps rural communities going.”

Farm Net fields 6,000 inquiries each year from farmers, agribusiness, the Farm Bureau and Farm Service Agency, and other agencies. They have been experts at identifying signs of stress. Their 50 part-time consultants, including social worker Judy Flint, are brought in by a farmer’s hotline call, a family member, a neighbor, or a staffer at Farm Credit or the Farm Security Administration.

“Personal and financial lives” said Staehr, “are often so intertwined.” That’s why Farm Net is uniquely focused on the personal as well as financial aspects of farming. “While many questions can be answered over the phone,” he adds, “most of our work is face to face.”

Budget Cuts Endanger Lives, Livelihoods and Legacies

Imagine you’re a fourth generation farmer.  Despite your best efforts, your farm is failing. The legacy of the family farm is also a burden: You’re not just failing yourself and your family; you’re failing generations past.

Generally, farmers really don’t like to ask for help. “They are so proud and autonomous,” notes Flint. “And they believe that if only they work harder they can get it to pan out.”

When you’re under that kind of pressure, it’s ideal to have someone come in with an objective viewpoint.

But at this critical juncture Farm Net’s budget, which supports a small full-time staff and 50 part-time consultants, is being cut again.  Two years ago the budget was $600K. This year the proposal is to reduce the budget to $384K.  While the State is not the sole funding source, many grants require a match. Cut $1,000 from the Governor’s budget and the impact could be three times that amount.

What You Can Do

Digital Contact: Ask that funding be restored to Farm Net. It takes 10 seconds to complete the form.

Personal Contact: When you interact with farmers, show respect for their products and awareness of the value that they bring to our lives. Little things like “my, that’s a beautiful carrot.” Or “how in the world did you grow heirloom tomatoes? Mine have been a total disaster.” Or as one convert to grass-feed beef wrote on this site “That was the best steak I have had in my life.” We should never forget that a farmer’s hard work, ingenuity and—yes—love, puts food on the table.