A idea for the Farmers Market
As you know, I don’t publish anonymous comments on my blog, but I got one this week that included a link to a website about a British community that was trying to become as self- sufficient as possible, mostly by growing their own food, and relying less on supermarkets. The idea is, I guess, to look for ways to promote a healthy lifestyle by becoming less dependant on processed foods. It also mentioned the need for alternative fuels (the comment came in the blog about wood burning furnaces).
Anyway it sort of reminded my of my college days in northern California where we had a local food coop, and lots of mother earth types to run it. Arcata California, home to Humboldt State University, is one of the most liberal places in the country thanks to a large college population.
It also sits smack dab in the middle of the more conservative Humboldt County, where many residents make their living from logging and fishing. Confrontation between the locals and the college crowd was inevitable, but, in my experience, infrequent and usually more loud than dangerous.
It is without question one of the most beautiful natural areas in the country, right in the heart of the giant Redwood forests. My love of the outdoors, and concern for environmental issues, are due in large part to the years I spent there. It is also where I first confronted the idea that when it came to emotional issues, such as logging old growth redwoods, there could diametrically opposed, but no less sincere or valid, arguments on both sides. Not every logger was a beer swilling, earth-raper, nor was every college student a pot-smoking, hippie, tree hugger. There were gray areas, and it seems to me that’s where reasonable people could come together, and if not agree, at least compromise.
I don’t think we need to abandon supermarkets, it’s thanks to them that we have access to the most healthy, diverse diet on earth. The fact that many make less than healthy choices is hardly their fault. Besides, the chance of that actually happening is, thankfully, zip.
But I do like the idea of giving consumers more choices, and developing a community identity, through ideas such as developing a vibrant Farmers Market.
I know we have a Farmers Market in Atlantic, last year it was set up in Orscheln’s parking lot. I believe it was held on Tuesday or Thursdays and seemed to be pretty well attended.
But maybe it could be better.
Wouldn’t it be nice if it could be held on Saturday mornings along Sixth Street between Chestnut and Poplar. The poo-pooers will claim you can’t close down the street because of the terrible traffic problems it will cause. But that section of street is routinely closed for other events without problem. And what it would do is draw people to downtown and the city park.
Events could be scheduled in the park such as craft shows, music concerts and art shows, to coincide with the Farmers Market. Maybe expand the idea to an outdoor market, and welcome other types of vendors.
Why not hold contests or games that draw people down Chestnut street? There are lots of walkers in this community, so how about a weekly 2, 3 or 5K walk through the downtown area that begins and ends at the city park? Maybe something like the “poker runs” motorcyclists and snowmobilers hold with downtown businesses? Maybe a historical tour?
Why not come together as a community and promote a healthy lifestyle, including exercise and fresh locally grown foods? If we can envision it, we can make it happen. The power to change is in our hands, we just have to use it.
Trail Update
Last week SWIPCO officials presented the “Cass County Recreational Trails Plan” to the County Board of Supervisors. Thanks to John McCurdy for the work he put into it. It’s an interesting plan, and filled with good ideas, and yet I can’t seem to get too excited about it.
It seems to me the key to developing new trails, an idea I support, depends on finding a committed, determined, individual to carry the ball. Without that the plan becomes little more than a dust-collector sitting on a shelf somewhere in the courthouse. I’m not sure we have that person.
That’s too bad because I believe trails are important to communities, not just for the recreation benefits they bring, but for the health and economic development aspects as well.
In fact the study references studies by the Center of Disease Control about the benefits of outdoor physical activity. It also noted several economic benefits, stating that a study in Minnesota, a state with lots of trails, “estimated that trails systems provide an additional $1 million in annual activity for cities with trails.” Nice!
A couple more from the study:
• In a 2002 survey of recent home buyers sponsored by the National Association of Realtors and the National Association of Home Builders, trails ranked as the second most important community amenity out of a list of 18 choices.
• a 1998 study of property values along the Mountain Bay Trail in Brown County, Wisconsin showed that lots adjacent to the trail sold faster and for an average of 9 percent more than similar property not located next to the trail.
A couple of communities are already actively working expanding their trail systems, notably Lewis and Anita.
Atlantic, which has its own plan and was not included in the study, is also expanding its trail system. But it’s been a slow process, with little enthusiasm from council members, other than councilman Dave Jones.
Whether there will be a pedestrian bridge across Troublesome Creek, connecting to the well-field trails and Little League fields, remains up in the air. The city’s bike trail continues to cross the Olive Street Bridge, (now without paint marking the pedestrian area and in a state of disrepair.) It is, I believe, an accident waiting to happen, and a needless one, since a solution exists. Why not get some bids and find out what it costs? Maybe then we could start raising some money or help to install the bridge. Why the delay?
4 comments:
:) Good positive healthy energy!
There are lots of articles and news from around the nation about the "negative"
From a new study on bad air http://bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601124&sid=awmyMfXdAqZ8&refer=home to high gas prices , higher food prices, decling dollar ,war, credit card debt , forclosures , etc.
However in Atlantic and southwest Iowa, as you have pointed out, we are headed in a positive progressive direction.
Great air quality, scenic nature, community support, self sufficency with local low cost food, good water, easy commute, technology,and great people!
Thanks!
I love all the suggestions you have made on the healthy positive recreation and lifestye we have availabe here in Atlantic.
One more suggestion would be a community garden plot in the empty field next to the depot? It would bring the focus to bear on the fact that food prices are going up (due to a lower dollar and high fuel prices) and that we have a wonderful opportunity to produce local crops. Both Hy-Vee and Fairway support and purchase local produce.
Poultry, eggs, milk, beef and livestock are all being produced locally and what a wonderful opportunity we have to showcase this local production to support our communitys wealth. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/29/AR2008042903092.html?wpisrc=newsletter
Here is a great positive idea for our wonder full community :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCPEBM5ol0Q
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Clarence and Rudine Ridgley can feed their entire block with the produce from their "Edible Estate", a community garden and art project commissioned by the Contemporary Museum in Baltimore that seeks to bring the garden from the backyard to the front.. - Leslie Furlong photo
Clarence Ridgley is the most popular guy on his block, and it’s all thanks to his lawn. In April, Ridgley transformed his neatly trimmed yard into a garden of tomatoes, blueberries, strawberries, lettuce, beets and herbs. And because the plot sits in front of his home in Baltimore, the bountiful harvest is visible — and available — to anyone who wanders by."People will come to my yard and pick up an onion sprout and start eating it on the spot," he says. "I’ve met more people in the past two months than I have the past 22 years of living here.."
Ridgley is one of five homeowners in the US to participate in the project known as "Edible Estates," in which homeowners trade their mowed and ornamental lawns for artistic arrangements of organic produce. Los Angeles-based architect Fritz Haeg launched the campaign in July 2005, after pundits and politicians had divided the country into Red and Blue states for the presidential election. Haeg says he was drawn to the lawn — that "iconic American space" — because it cut across social, political and economic boundaries. "The lawn really struck me as one of the few places that we all share," he says. "It represents what we’re all supposedly working so hard for — the American dream.."
The problem, as Haeg sees it, is that the "hyper-manicured lawn" is looking increasingly out of date. In the 1950s, when suburbia first began to sprawl, a perfectly trimmed front yard embodied the post-war prosperity Americans aspired to. Today, amid rising fuel costs, food safety scares and growing environmental awareness, a chemically treated and verdant but nutritionally barren lawn seems wasteful, he says..
The concept of tilling one’s front yard is not a new one..
In 1942, as the US emerged from the Great Depression and mobilized for World War II, Agriculture Secretary Claude R Wickard encouraged Americans to plant "Victory Gardens" to boost civic morale and relieve the war’s pressure on food supplies — an idea first introduced during The Great War and picked up by Canada, the U.S. and Great Britain. The slogan: "Have Your Garden, and Eat It Too." Soon gardens began popping up everywhere, and not just American lawns: the Chicago County Jail, a downtown parking lot in New Orleans, a zoo in Portland, Ore. In 1943, Americans planted 20.5 million Victory Gardens, and the harvest accounted for nearly one-third of all the vegetables consumed in the country that year..
Though Haeg’s approach to home-grown produce is unique; his enthusiasm for gardening is not. Twenty-five million US households planted vegetable and fruit gardens in 2007, according to Bruce Butterfield of the National Gardener’s Association, and that number is expected to increase by several million this year. The waiting list for the USDA’s Master Gardener Program, which involves nearly 90,000 volunteers in all 50 states who educate and assist the public with horticulture projects, is getting longer every year, says Bill Hoffman, National Program Leader for Agriculture Homeland Security. Even urban dwellers are returning to the land; in Austin, Texas, for example, the wait for community gardens is three years..
"It comes as no surprise to me," Butterfield says. "Gas prices, food prices, salmonella — the world has gone absolutely crazy. And for a lot of people, that brings up this need to take control over what happens in their own yard. If all goes to hell, you can just lock the gate and stay at home.."
In fact, the average American garden has proven to be a surprisingly accurate social and economic barometer...
The upsurge in fuel prices in 1975 spawned a similar gardening boom, with nearly 49% of the population growing some sort of produce. Then, as the prosperity of the ’90s trickled down to American yards, the pendulum swung back toward aesthetics over sustenance..
"Back in the 1990s, when things were booming, the gardening movement was all about Martha Stewart — spending lots of money hiring people to make these beautiful, ornamental spaces," says Charlie Nardozzi, senior horticulturist at the National Gardening Association. Nowadays, "growing your own food can be a political statement that you have a personal connection with your food and where it’s coming from, versus going to a grocery store and grabbing whatever is on the shelf.."
But while some gardeners might be trying to save a few bucks or avoid commercially farmed produce, many horticulturists believe the gardening boom is more about lifestyle than economics. And unlike the concept of government-sponsored, "top-down" Victory Gardens, Edible Estates is a grassroots effort. Ridgley, for one, says his garden is as much about community and beauty as it is about food. "This is an art exhibit that just happens to be in my front yard," he says..
Haeg, meanwhile, hopes his project will prompt more Americans to rethink their yards, and where they plant their gardens. He hopes to plant two more Edible Estates next year. "This is a wonderful opportunity to reconsider how we’re living, which I don’t think is so great anyway." And with 80% of Americans living in homes with access to a yard, the potential for growth is enormous. As Haeg says, "the front lawns are there waiting.."
M J Stephey - June 26, 2008 - source
http://www. time. com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1816764,00. html
"If we can envision it, we can make it happen" Clearly,you can take the boy out of Humboldt County, but you can't take Humboldt County out of the boy. Put down that bong!
The eminent historian and raisin farmer Victor Davis Hanson once cuttingly characterized farmer's markets as "the petting zoos of American agriculture" and too often they have a forced, self-concious air of hipness attached to them but I like them nevertheless. They provide not just a diversity of produce, meats, and (some really fantastic)baked goods but a diversity of oppurtunity for the grower/vendor. It would be a mistake to assume all those who participate in farmer's market are of the mother-earther mold. Many of the vendors I've talked to are socially conservative people seeking economic independence in much the same way they educate their children independently or otherwise resist the influences of the dominant culture. In any event, I enjoy your blog and it's healthy even-handed attitude.
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