IrisOpReis: March 2010

I feel his eyes scanning my body from top to bottom and back. When his eyes meet mine again, instead of saying good to see you after 6 months, he says: "You are still fat!" I guess best friends never lie, and I can only agree. I have indeed some extra weight on me and this road trip with the Oto, didn't help me at all (bike where are you?). What have I been eating in the USA? I once had a faint attempt to grow my own herbs and to make my own whole wheat pasta. The rat race of the Silicon Valley however pushed my good intention to the side, and I found myself more going out for lunch/dinner than cooking at home. And that starts showing, no matter how hard I trained.

After working on the –W ranch my interest on organic farming and healthy food has come back. More questions than answers are occupying my brains about what are we actually eating. After a one day wonder on another wwoofer farm (the woman didn’t know what she was doing, was way in over her head and was also mean) I take things in my own hands. I want to know for real how this farming works and where my food comes from. And so with the incredible help of J (its actually his hands), who calls all the people he knows in the farming world, I farm hop for 3 more weeks for food and free veggies. I gain more understanding of the label Organic, the ideology, Local Grown, vital companies and sustainable farming then I ever have bargained for.

Organic label
Whole Foods
Here is Austin the first Whole Foods store (a mostly organic supermarket) opened its doors 30 years ago. What started as a small store for wholesome local food became a 270 store chain selling natural and organic food.

And when something becomes big and uncontrollable by the general public, the government in the shape of the Department of Agriculture (USDA) stepped in and regulated the Organic Label to protect us, the customers. To make it still workable for the big organic farms like the once in California, now delivering to Whole Foods, the standard is setup very loose. With sustainability this has not much to do, but with a commercial niche in the market, everything. For the same crop of salad, consumers suddenly are willing to pay more and some people care about that. Indeed the salad is grown organic, and what we eat is what who we are, but that it is after harvest put in big energy sucking freezers, driven cross country in truck fridges, packaged in plastic is very far from what at least I had in mind with the Organic label. But I can’t complain, while at least I eat healthier, there are no chemicals sprayed on these big plots of land and no pesticide leaks into the Mexican gulf (which affects big parts of the marine life). Its still a win win situation, although it can be done better.

Ideology
GreenGateFarm
At the Whole Foods you believe in the label, not in the farmer behind the food. There is no face to face with the farmer feel. For that you have to go to Green Gate Farm. Just 8 miles out of town and run by two amazing people with a mission: Cultivating Healthy Food and Communities. For 4 days I help out, as if I have never done anything else in my life then farming.

There are chickens, goats and pigs, fed on organic leftovers from the Whole Foods. They are the supreme dumpster divers, and are eating better then many of us. and produce organic manure for the garden. The farm has a back to the basic feel, a real farm feel and that is exactly what S and E have in mind.

Instead of going to the farmers market, they invite the community on their farm. And so the produce are sold twice a week from their onsite farm stand and for 4hrs/week working on the farm volunteers can get a discount on their CSA (Community Supported Agriculture, a pre-paid weekly box of produce from the farm). Besides the produce there are workshops and tours given at the farm and K is building an outdoor kitchen classroom, to teach healthy cooking.

In the days I spend on the farm seeding, transplanting, weeding, harvesting, I see many families strolling by and people hugging baby goats. It seems the farm is at the basis of a new movement, back to healthy food and a healthy lifestyle, and it seems to work.

Shades of Green
With the farmboy from GreenGate and B, who works his way around the USA farming and cooking, I go on a field trip to the “organic” chicken farm Shades of Green. Three minutes after we arrive its clear I made a big misjudgment. Instead of being toured around we are put to work, and there I am standing with my dress on flipflops. The boys are laughing. Being told I was the coolest woman on the farm (even with a barn full of half naked photo models for a photo shoot) because of my Xtratuffs, I had thrown them at least last minute into the car. And so with a California flowery dress and Alaskan rubber boots, I am able to give a little bit of a helping hand. Well, the boys a little bit more then me.

The farm is only a couple years old and run by J and her partner. So far it has been a struggle to make the farm into a vital cooperation and I get an insight how grass root the slow-food (vs fast food) movement still is. With no local organic hatchery the baby chicks are shipped in from Pennsylvania. With Europe leading the way, this hatchery falls back on the French very strict organic meat label “Label Rouge”, for the slow growing, outdoor sturdy genetic stock. The little chicks have a happy life on the farm, with every week a new pasture, defined by a portable electrical fence, to roam around on.

The hot Texan summers however will turn the pasture into dust and with no irrigation due to a non-functioning water well, expensive organic food from the only organic feed producer in Texas has to be brought in. The struggle is not over yet, because with USDA standards setup for big corporations, there is no way this little farm is able to setup its own organic slaughterhouse onsite. With no organic processor nearby, Js only option is to bring the happy healthy chickens to a regular abattoir still loosing the option to apply for the Organic Label. However with a new investment to fix the well, and word about an organic portable abattoir soon available around Austin, there is light on the horizon. Time has to tell how things will work out, but I am impressed till what length J goes to live her dream and grow a healthy chicken and deliver some healthy eggs to GreenGate.

We conclude our fieldtrip a couple days later when its time to eat the damm chicken. It is freaking expensive for when you live on the road, but its good for at least 2-3 meals and B saves the bones for later to make some stock. Also when you look at it, I rather spend my money on healthy food then a cell phone bill or in a restaurant. Because it became one of these perfect evenings spend with people I only met a week ago, but started to love from the beginning. And while eating our organic meal, we talk about farming, our lives, our responsibilities, our past and our future. Love you both.

Local Organic Grown
Finca Pura Vida

Grown up as a farmer in Costa Rica, its in Es blood to farm organically. I spend almost a week on his and his wife Gs farm, Finca Pura Vida, where I am set to work, fed amazingly by G, who is a chef and learn all there is to learn in 1 week. E teaches me about the importance of fertilization, about pest control on aphids by lady bugs, about worms to air the soil, about molasses for extra energy, about heirloom compared to hybrids, about growing a varieties of vegetables to avoid mono culture diseases, about…my brain goes in high speed mode with so much information and all in Spanish!

The dynamics between G and me is interesting due the opposite sides we have in politics. I am a socialist and G is not in favor of a central government. And so when Obamas health care bill goes through G is upset and I clap in my hands. We however find each other when it comes to food. And I totally agree with her about the absurdity that it’s not allowed to sell raw milk without certifications. I understand that consumers in supermarkets have to be protected, but when I want to buy it straight from a farm, I can judge the risk for myself. To sell a home made pie, a home made marmalade it needs to be processed in a certified commercial kitchen. Where did the USA go wrong? Luckily I am staying at the farm and G bakes what ever we like to eat. She teaches me about raw milk (I even milk a cow), about kombucha, about food in general. And we eat really really well. Thank you both so much !!!

On Saturday its time to harvest and we work well around the clock. Harvesting, cleaning, bundling, packing and late at night the chicken, turkey and goose eggs still have to be collected and the cows have to be milked. It’s a hard but very rewarding life.

On Sunday we go the Hope Farmers market and it’s a delight to see all the Yuppies in town lining up to buy our produce. As E proudly exclaims, its because Pura Vida has the best produce around, and they indeed look very good. We make a good amount of money, but it doesn’t add up to a good Bay Area company.

Its good that in the morning neighbour farmer B from HomeSweetFarm had dropped by to pick up some more produce. A farmer, a very good marketing guy and with bright shining eyes a very smart person. I am invited to follow the other trail of the Pura Vida veggies and visit his farm the next week for 2 hours.

Vital company
HomeSweetFarm
When I arrive at the HomeSweetFarm, B and J are working hard on building a new big walk-in cooler. They are wonderful people and I can totally relate to the way they set up their business. A very attractive website has inspired many CSA members from Houston and a farmers market on the farm attracts local buyers. The CSA boxes are driven 3 times a week to a distribution point, a volunteer CSA member, where people can fill up their box with the veggies of the week. When the farm doesn’t produce enough to fill all the boxes, neighbour farmers are helping out to give the CSA members a security and the neighbour farms an extra financial injection. Also here beef, lamb, poultry, cheese, eggs and dairy can be ordered from neighbour farms, to make a one point stop for customers.

But by setting it up this way, the HomeSweetFarm might be the first step to the Whole Foods concept, no face to face to the farmer anymore. For now it seems one of the only/few ways to build up a vital company and I would be definitely a customer of their CSA box, had I lived in Houston.

Sustainable
The 2 most established organic farms in Austin are not welcoming me with open arms. These farms are run as serious businesses and there is no place for a random traveling hippie. Guess its better to meet them face to face, because I have been a farm girl for almost a month now.

Boggy Creek
When I talk a little with C from Boggy Creek, I am invited for a couple of hours of cultivating. C thinks about every step on the farm in terms of sustainability. Organic bat guano from Chile as fertilizer, or “non-organic” feather meal, a waste product of a local poultry processor. With a very good reputation and an in town location, the farm stand is the only selling point, cutting away the distribution and adding the face to face aspect.

The near Austin location has also a downside. With new development spreading the town, at the end of the season the well on the farm goes dry. And like several nearby farmers, the drip irrigation system has to be hook up to expensive chloride and fluoride city water (ruining most of the strawberries last year). This is when I realize that besides the slow-food movement being new, also this country is new. In Texas water intake (ground water as well as river water) is not regulated and the person with the biggest pump gets the most water. I must have sounded very stupid when I asked several farms how the water intake was regulated, though for me coming from the Netherlands its mind boggling. Water, like air (pollution), is a communal possession and should not be left to the individual, city planners, factories or farmer to decide how much can be used. But this is the USA where cities like Las Vegas are places in the middle of the desert, where the Colorado River hardly reaches the coast, and apparently ground water overdrafting is allowed.

Tecolote
I get the change to talk a little bit with D, from the Tecolote farm. I am very impressed by his appearance. This might have to do that he borrows me a hiking book for Big Bend NP, he has farmed in Alaska, and the fact that he shows me his own build wooden telescope (danggg). But it might also have to do with the professional way the farm feels. Here produce are only grown for the spring/summer CSA members and “leftovers” are sold on the farmers market. Besides local Turkey manure, hardly any fertilizer is used and all the work is done by seasonal employees.

Its that the road starts to pull on me again, otherwise I would have loved to spend some more time talking over a good glass of wine with D and his wife K, about their farm and their philosophy.

Reflection
I met many people on this trip who don't eat everyday all of the 5 food categories (carbohydrates/vegetables and fruit/proteins/oils and fats/beverages). Its something wired in my brain to do so. Or people who don't sit down with the family to eat. My mom cooked for me every day in my childhood and we sat down with the four of us. During my studies, one of my roommates would cook for the whole house and we talked. When I started working, S could call me at work to tell that dinner was ready. Living with Tore we alternated the cooking days between us and it was a moment of rest in our lives. And now I talk with people who grown up on fast food and this totally normal lifestyle I had, has become a slow food movement here in the USA. Wow.

So what to do? No doubt eating local organic sustainable is the best. But do we really need water sucking tomatoes out of Texas, or should we get them from South America where they are native? Do we buy far away Organic or non-organic Local Grown?
We talk about food, but shouldn't we also talk about all goods we buy? A Japanese Oto in America?

I realize that every item has its own answer, has its own environmental footprint. Every person will have its own budget. With this small world also where ever it is the cheapest products will be made and shipped from.

The only thing I can ask for: buy local organic sustainable food straight from your farmer. If that’s not possible, at least think about every item you put in your shopping basket and every item you put in your mouth, where it comes from and what it really is. Its pretty healthy.

Dag,
Iris (Austin, 35322 miles)

Upon arriving in this country I had a hard time to eat healthy. Almost every single processed food item in the supermarket has high fructose corn syrup as an ingredient, meat is stuffed with hormones and produce are sprayed with chemicals. To make it worse organic food is almost twice the prices of regular food (in the Netherlands 10 to 50% is more the norm). And with a third of the American population obese, I started worrying. My rescue was called a good salary, Trader Joe's, a bread machine and a yogurt maker. Hence my curiosity was piqued about the origin of organic food. Why is it so expensive?

Thinking of Texas, you think of republicans with cowboy heads. Its true. You think of large trucks with guns in the back. Its true. You think of Texas BBQ and big cattle ranches. Its true.

Yet, I was thinking Wwoof. The WorldWide Opportunities on Organic Farm organisation which links volunteers to organic farms. And so I get in contact with J from the -W Ranch (pronounced as "bar W ranch" and used to brand cattle for identification) for 2 weeks of wwoofing. Working for a bed and food while learning all there is to know about organic farming. Six miles down a dirt road from a small countryside town I become a Texan peasant.

The -W Ranch is home to 4 chicken, 3 sheep, 1 dog and a herd of Texas longhorn cattle. And with 120 hectares of land to roam around on, they have a good life.

There are 2 hectares of cultivated land (the garden) and a greenhouse, which becomes my home. I love it. Its nice and warm and the little baby plants and I settle into a nice exchange of CO2 + H2O for O2. The only down side is that I wake up every morning with a soaking wet sleeping bag.

I also meet the other wwoofers. There are the punkers, J and J from Canada, on a road trip along organic farms and gifted with the joy for life.

And there is the talented artist K, who just received a degree in Biology and is taking a break from the expected life line. On the day the others are on the farmers market, we kayak a canoe down the creek along the property boundary.

Besides the wwoofers there are H and W, who live in a cottage/shed in the garden.

W is the all round handy man and never stops working.

H is the organic person I was looking for. And when there is the nasty task of making tomato cages, we both volunteer so we can hang out together and talk. There are enough subjects to kill the time and forget the work we are doing. We talk about organic food, men, fright train hopping, freak shows, the people in Austin we both know, the feel of belonging, traveling, group dynamics, and mostly about cooking.

We bake bread together and several nights we cook together, because apparently being on an organic farm, doesn't necessarily embrace an organic lifestyle. It bothers me a lot, while my payment is in food and volunteering for a corporate organisation is not my style. But the food I am eating is way below the standard I have for myself.

I need a break to think things over and I meet R for a day of climbing. After climbing together the sport routes on the overhanging limestone of the downtown Austin Green Belt, now its time for trad on Enchanted Rock granite domes.

Also after a day of climbing, healthy food is overrated. We are beyond any doubt in Texas and then you have to eat Texas BBQ. Organic? For sure not, but o-sooo good!

With the fortunate break, a shift to more organic food on the ranch and with some advice from friends, I can handle a couple more days on the ranch. Still the main reason I stay hasn't been mentioned yet. J, the proud owner of the garden. Twenty five years young, sparkling eyes, an ever lasting smile and a love for plants. I am always intrigued by people who love what they are doing and I can watch him for hours wondering along and caring for his plants.

Every day I am learning from him. About potting mix, seeding, greenhouse management, thinning, weeding, cover crops, transplanting, row covers, harvesting, spring fed water ponds, gravitational irrigation systems. And every day I love the work I am doing and realize how much hand work goes into gardening. It becomes really obvious why organic food is so expensive. Its simply a lot of work.

After a day of hard work, the group is a bit to much for me....I feel older. I seek the solitude, a sun set, some crackers with cheese, a bottle of wine.

Its very different from what I had expected, but I am glad for the experience and that I stayed. J, I am very impressed what you have managed so far, keep going because the world needs organic farmers like you. Thanks.

Dag,
Iris (Mullin, 34499 miles)

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Blog Archive

31 March 2010

35322 - March update

30 March 2010

35322 - I am a farm girl

22 March 2010

34968 - Home in Austin

14 March 2010

34499 - Organic Food