“What attracted me to sustainable agriculture,” the Harvard-trained family physician continued, “was looking outside of that reductionist approach and seeing colleagues who were thinking about the sun, moon, rain, microbes, animals, and humans in this incredible, complex ecosystem. They were thinking in a way that I, as a physician, wanted to think.”

Jaded by modern medicine’s emphasis on isolating symptoms rather than treating the whole patient, Dr. Miller went back to the land to inspire her practice and set out on a journey to visit farmers who are eschewing business as usual. She shares her stories and discoveries in her new book, Farmacology: What Innovative Family Farming Can Teach Us about Health and Healing.

In her travels, she met Erick Haakenson of Jubilee Biodynamic Farm, who transformed a depleted plot of land into a thriving vegetable and fruit farm. As a beginning farmer, Haakenson at first followed the conventional “test-and-replace” method of soil management, sending samples to a lab for testing and then adding nutrients and minerals to compensate for deficiencies.

After dumping some 50 tons of amendments in the earth and seeing little progress, he turned to the holistic farming methods of Biodynamic pioneers such as Rudolph Steiner. He traded in nitrogen-based fertilizers for cows and compost and started farming in concert with nature’s cycles. Over time, he was able to build healthy, bioactive soil yielding vibrant, nutrient-dense plants.

Dr. Miller shared a parallel story from her medical practice. A patient named Allie had shown up at her office plagued by exhaustion and gastrointestinal problems, caught in a diet of energy bars, prescription pills, and over-the-counter supplements. Rather than take the test-and-replace approach that many of Allie’s previous doctors had used, Dr. Miller prescribed lifestyle and diet changes such as subscribing to a CSA program and gardening. Just as Haakenson’s farm sprang back to life, Allie’s health improved.

Like any farm or ecosystem, the human body is greater than sum of its parts, and according to Dr. Miller, the similarities between farm ecology and human health run deep. For example, the ideal pH and the carbon-to-nitrogen ratio in humans and soil are almost identical. The interplay of micoorganisms in healthy soil is not unlike our own human microbiome. And where do those carbs, fats, and proteins that compose our bodies come from? The food we eat and the soil it’s grown in, naturally.

Reconnecting with the soil is one of the most basic ways we can support our bodies to heal and stay healthy. Dr. Miller provided a few pointers:

1. Eat a little dirt (and even a couple bugs). If you’re eating from healthy soil,don’t scrub your vegetables. The nutrients and beneficial microorganisms are not just in the food itself, but they’re also in what the food was grown in. Conversely, unhealthy, chemically treated soil can contain toxins.
2. Buy with your nose and taste buds, not with your eyes. Pick your food up and smell it. Smell is an indicator of nutritional value, and good food should smell good. If it doesn’t smell, it might be because the seed it was grown from was selected for productivity or ease of transport instead of taste and nutrition. Food that comes from sustainable agriculture might look imperfect, but those bug-nibbled bits can be the most nutritious and delicious.
3. Choose food that has a story. Know the faces behind your food. Wendell Berry says a good way to find healthy food is to ask whether the farmer lives on the land. Farmers who live on and eat from the land, and who want to pass it down to their children and grandchildren, are more likely to take care of their soil than farmers who live off site.
4. Cook. Put simply, cooking is a way to get to know your raw ingredients and connect with the farms. See Michael Pollan’s new book to learn more about why cooking matters.
5. Give back to the soil and farms. Even if you live in the city, you can contribute to the soil cycle by joining a composting program, so your greens go back to the farm. You can also conserve water in the home, so that it can be saved for agricultural use.
6. Bring the farm to you. Whether it’s tending a vegetable garden or bringing plants into your school or workplace, being around plants can actually make people happier and healthier (a phenomenon known as biophilia).
7. Treat your body and your house with things that you don’t mind finding in your food. Sunscreens with lauryl sulfate and paint with VOCs not only enter our bodies through our skin and lungs, but they eventually wind up in our water supply. Those chemicals make their way back to the farm and ultimately into our food.
8. Enjoy fermented foods. Instead of taking expensive probiotics in pill form, eat fermented vegetables. Fermentation is controlled rotting that uses the beneficial bacteria that live on foods and in the soil they were grown in. Ferment vegetables yourself or support a local fermenter. You only need a tablespoon a day to support healthy microflora in your gut.

Modern medicine has its place in treating many diseases and health issues, Dr. Miller acknowledges, but ideally, there should be a balance between holistic and scientific approaches. “There are two ways to get your information both in healing and in farming,” she said. “One is through experience and one is through scientific method. The true art for both the physician and the farmer is knowing when to use one, when to use the other, and when to meld them.”

Learn more about Farmacology. Listen to a recording of the talk here.

Photos courtesy of Daphne Miller, MD.

This post originally appeared on the CUESA blog.

As the daughter of a botanist, Madison inherited a natural curiosity for the plant kingdom. In her latest book, Vegetable Literacy (Ten Speed Press, 2013), she unearths the botany, history, and culinary connections within 12 plant families. From her home in New Mexico, she talked with CUESA about her discoveries in the garden, how understanding plant relationships can help us be more confident cooks, and why a radish top is a terrible thing to waste.

CUESA: What was your inspiration for writing this book?

Deborah Madison: It was an idea I’d been thinking about for many years. As I describe in the introduction, what finally got me going were these carrots that wintered over in my garden. They bloomed, and the flowers were so enchanting. I noticed other flowers that were similar to them, and I started thinking about how they are all in the same family, Umbelliferae. I thought, “Isn’t it interesting that the herbs in that family—cilantro, chervil, parsley, fennel, anise, cumin, caraway, and so on—happen to go well with the vegetables in that family? There must be something underlying the relationship between them.”

CUESA: How can spending time in the garden help us be better cooks?

DM: The garden helps you get things into view. Whether you have potted plants or a big garden, relating to growing plants can inspire you to ask questions and discover similarities. Then, when you use those plants in the kitchen, you know more about them. For example chard, beet, spinach, and quinoa are all in the same family (Amaranthaceae), and their leaves taste similar. As you note these flavor relationships, you might say, “I don’t happen to have chard, but I’ve got beet greens. I think I’ll use those instead.” You’ll be fine. Spinach is going to cook down more than chard and less than beet greens, but the flavor essence is there. And the same is true of wild spinach, or lamb’s-quarters.

CUESA: There are some surprising plant relationships, like asparagus having once belonged to the same family as onions. What were some of your favorite discoveries?

DM: The daisy family (Asteraceae) is one that I find to be especially interesting and strange. My father was a botanist, and before he died, his memory had pretty much gone. I showed him pictures of the plant families, thinking it would be amusing for him. He was not interested at all until we got to the Asteraceae family. He paused and said, “Looks like some rough stuff from the out of doors.” I thought that was so beautiful, and so right on!

It’s true. Asteraceae is a rough and challenging family, and I like that about it. You have prickly artichokes, cardoons—which are like saws when you work with them—and other bitter plants. You also have lettuce, which takes on a bitterness as it matures and bolts. The flowers of these plants, like asters, daisies, and sunflowers, are the most innocent-looking blooms, but there’s a bitterness and difficulty in the vegetables.

CUESA: For those of us who don’t have gardens, how can understanding relationships between plants help us be more informed food shoppers and eaters?

DM: You don’t have to have a garden. In the book, I try to distill some essential relationships among plants, so that when you go to the market, you’re armed with that knowledge. You can ask a farmer, “Are these two things related?” You can also learn a lot by visiting a botanical garden or taking a farm tour, where you can see vegetables growing.

The farmers market or grocery store is like a butcher counter for vegetables. You just see parts and pieces of plants. I know it’s impractical, but I wish more farmers would bring the whole plant or more of the plant to market—such as a big cardoon leaf, a whole cabbage plant, or a leek with its three feet of flags. People would say, “Oh, really! That’s what that plant looks like.” And they’d be awed.

CUESA: In the book, you provide tips for using the whole plant. How does food waste fit into your cooking philosophy?

DM: People talk a lot about food waste, and it’s usually on the level of cooked food that gets thrown out at home, restaurants, or schools. There’s another kind of waste in using just the choice parts of the plant. It’s like eating steak all the time, instead of an arm roast or kidneys. We ignore the fact that radish leaves have much more nutrients than the root, and you can use them in a salad or soup. Maybe you don’t want to eat the gnarly, prickly, or yellowed ones, but here’s a food that we easily have access to that we don’t use.

I just saw a recipe in a food magazine for cauliflower, and the first thing it said was, “Cut out and discard the core.” The core’s absolutely delicious, and it’s food, so why throw it away? When you grow food yourself, you’re not careless, because you’ve invested so much of your energy in growing it. You begin to question, “Hmm, I wonder if I could eat this or that part?” In Santa Fe, we have a farmer who started bringing broccoli leaves to the farmers market. He made up a name for them, “broccoli kale.” He had discovered you could eat the whole plant and started thinking, “Why am I throwing these leaves out?” And people bought them!

CUESA: Do you have a cooking motto?

DM: I don’t have a motto, but something I’ve been living by a lot more is, “If you don’t have it, figure out something else.” I live in the country, where it’s a 15- to 20-minute drive to the market, so I never get in the car and drive in order to buy an ingredient. So often our pantries become part of our landscape—those jars of beans—and we don’t really see them after a while. They’re almost decorative. But not running to the store all the time opens up so many possibilities, including eating what you have in the cupboard or the garden.

Try Deborah Madison’s recipe for Spring Garden Hodgepodge of Radishes, Leeks, and Peas Depending …

Photos by Christopher Hirsheimer and Melissa Hamilton, courtesy of Ten Speed Press.

This post originally appeared on CUESA.

Despite the rumors, Hog Island is alive and kicking, celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. With more than 100 employees, a thriving Tomales Bay oyster farm, two restaurants and a café, and additional projects in the works, Terry and his partner John Finger have turned what was once a modest dream into a Bay Area institution.

But despite the farm’s success, Terry is worried about the oyster’s future, as are many farmers, marine biologists, ecologists, and bivalve lovers.

Located nearby on Drake’s Estero, Drake’s Bay Oyster Company is facing closure. Last November, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar informed Drake’s Bay owner Kevin Lunny that the National Park Service would not be renewing the operation’s 40-year lease, fulfilling provisions in the Point Reyes Wilderness Act of 1976 to restore the strip of national seashore to wilderness.

Some environmentalists have applauded Salazar’s decision, while others have rallied to Lunny’s defense, noting the farm’s sustainability practices and vital role in the local oyster supply. The shellfish operation is one of the largest in California, harvesting more than 460,000 pounds of oyster meat a year—40 percent of the state’s production.

Rather than rejoicing the loss of such a formidable player, Terry is outraged and alarmed by the news. “That’s a huge hole, and it’s at a time when the industry can’t provide enough oysters to meet the demand,” he laments. “I can hardly get enough seed oysters out of the hatcheries because of ocean acidification, and Drake’s Bay is having to throw 10 million seeds into the dumpster. It’s a travesty.”

Oyster seed is now a rare resource, as a result of both the consolidation of large Pacific Northwest hatcheries and the effects of ocean acidification—the “evil twin” of climate change. As humans release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, much of it is taken up by our oceans, causing pH levels to decrease. This is bad news for baby oysters, whose fragile calcium carbonate shells don’t form well under acidic conditions, and for marine life in general. “Ocean acidification is real, it’s happening, and we can quantify it,” says Terry.

To compensate for dwindling oyster seed sources, Hog Island has started accepting less mature seed from hatcheries and setting its own seed stock. Raising oyster larvae is labor intensive and risky, putting the farm at the mercy of upswells and other uncontrollable natural forces. “It’s been a direction we wanted to avoid, but now we have to do it because we just can’t get seed,” says Terry.

But more than just protecting their own operation, Hog Island is actively working to be a part of the effort to save the oysters. The farm has partnered with the UC Davis Bodega Marine Laboratory to monitor ocean pH levels and their effects on young bivalves. By collecting and sharing this data, the scientists are hoping to better predict changes in ocean conditions and help farmers and hatcheries figure out management strategies to adapt.

Like many shellfish farmers, Terry is acutely aware of the importance of oysters in healthy marine ecosystems. “You can’t just talk about one species,” he says. The endangerment of this keystone species points to a greater threat to our oceans.

Oysters can filter up to 50 gallons of water a day, improving water quality by digesting nutrients such as plankton, algae, and other particles. In the absence of such filter feeders, ocean particulate builds up, blocking sunlight and impeding the growth of plants like eel grass, which provides habitat for fish and other marine animals. Their absence can also contribute to harmful algal blooms and dead zones.

Oyster farms can play an important role in restoring balance to aquatic ecosystems. According to the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch, the majority of oyster operations are managed sustainably, giving farmed oysters a “Best Choice” rating.

While native Pacific bivalve populations like Olympia oysters have been diminished by human development and land use practices, the oysters and clams that Hog Island raises are helping to bring back the filter feeders. “We’re active in introducing a nonnative that’s certified not to spread, which helps replace what was out there,” Terry explains. “At the same time, we’re out there planting Olympias and working on habitat restoration for them as well.” He also notes that many land use practices have improved due to policy work by shellfish farmers, who are water-conscious by necessity.

With the fate of Drake’s Bay Oysters uncertain (the farm was granted a temporary reprieve on Monday, allowing them to stay until at least mid-May), restaurants, consumers, and industry leaders worry that the price of oysters could increase. But the loss of one major grower is only one complicating factor in bringing this increasingly precious delicacy to market. “We have to raise our prices because of rising fuel prices and the cost of running our business, but not to take advantage of the absence,” says Terry.

Given how challenging the oyster industry has become over the last 30 years and how murky the outlook may be for these beloved sea creatures, Terry remains surprisingly optimistic. “It’s a complicated system, and the more we know the better,” he reflects. “I may be an idealist, but I have to have hope.”

Originally published by CUESA

Roasters and experts explored these questions at a “Coffee and Sustainability” panel discussion hosted by the Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture (CUESA) at the Ferry Building on January 21. “The farmer and consumer are most important [in the supply chain], and they’re the most disconnected geographically and emotionally,” said Colby Barr, co-owner of Verve Coffee Roasters in Santa Cruz.

Most U.S. coffee drinkers have little concept of where their $3 goes after they get their artfully brewed cappuccino. “One of the perplexing facts about coffee is that it is primarily grown in countries that have developing economies, and it is primarily consumed in countries that have developed economies, which sometimes presents moral dilemmas,” said Hanna Neuschwander, author of Left Coast Roast, who moderated the discussion. The United States is the world’s top consumer of coffee, while the majority of coffee is grown in equatorial countries, with Brazil, Vietnam, Columbia, and Indonesia being the largest producers.

Most coffee farmers are poor, and eking out a livelihood can be difficult for them. Before reaching the consumer, coffee passes through processors, co-ops, brokers, exporters, importers, roasters, and retailers. These intermediaries all take their cut, which leaves only a small piece of the pie for the grower. Like most crops, coffee is seasonal, with the harvest lasting just a few weeks—a fact that may be lost on many coffee drinkers, who rarely see any fluctuation in supply at the café. But its seasonality is acutely felt by many growers who rely on the income from the harvest to sustain them year-round, exposing their families to periods of seasonal hunger. Coffee farming also carries other risks: the trees are sensitive, making farmers especially vulnerable to severe weather and climate change.

Another key factor in the supply chain is the volatile global market. Like wheat and oil, the price of coffee is set by the commodity market, which is dictated less by supply and demand than by the whims of Wall Street. Certification programs like fair trade attempt to bring some stability to farmers by adding a premium to the base commodity price (known as the “C price”), but if the market takes a steep fall, fair trade farmers may still not make a livable income.

Many third-wave coffee roasters, represented on the panel by Barr of Verve and Steven Vick, quality control manager at Blue Bottle Coffee Co., attempt to bridge the gap through direct trade with growers. Roasters generally negotiate a price with the farmer, placing a higher premium on high-quality beans. If a roaster likes a grower’s beans, they might agree to a pay a set price on future harvests (“forward contract”), bypassing the unpredictable commodity market. (While “direct trade” might sound like roasters are importing their beans straight from the farm, intermediaries still play an important role in connecting roasters and growers.)

Finding quality beans can be a challenge, since many growers may not know how to gauge the quality of their own product. “The worst coffee you’ll ever taste in your life is in coffee-producing regions, because they export the good stuff and drink the bad stuff,” said Barr. Both Verve and Blue Bottle practice “cupping” (coffee-speak for professional tasting) with their growers to help educate them on U.S. coffee drinkers’ tastes. “A big part of it for us is to calibrate with the farmers and say, ‘This is what we’re looking for, this is how we roast coffee, and this is what we’re going to pay more money for,’” Vick added. “It really empowers the farmer to know what their quality is so that they can demand the right price.”

Quality doesn’t necessarily translate to sustainability, though, if growers aren’t adequately compensated. Growers can’t invest in more sustainable infrastructure (say, for composting) if they aren’t making enough money to maintain their operation and feed their families.

How can coffee lovers help push the industry toward more environmentally, economically, and socially sustainable practices? “If you love quality coffee, but you don’t know how that money is being spent, you should be asking questions,” said Neuschwander. “If consumers aren’t demanding that information, why would [roasters] spend the time or effort to put it out there?” Some roasters, such as Counter Culture Coffee and Just Coffee, provide detailed information about their relationships and financials online.

And what about labels? From organic to fair trade to Rainforest Alliance to Smithsonian Bird-Friendly, there’s a dizzying array of certifications for coffee drinkers to sort through, and different certifications address different pieces of the sustainability puzzle. “Certification itself isn’t a guarantor of sustainability, but it sets up criteria that move us closer to sustainability,” said Christopher Bacon, an environmental social scientist and co-author of Confronting the Coffee Crisis.

While no certification is perfect, Bacon indicated that fair trade offers a model for creating a more democratic global coffee trade. “It’s one of the few certifications that raises the issue of justice in the food system.” He also urged drinkers to look for coffee that is shade-grown, meaning it was grown using agroforestry methods that protect biodiversity and provide edible tree crops for coffee-growing communities.

Blue Bottle’s and Verve’s coffees are mostly certified organic, though they are not certified fair trade. Their hope is that the demand for quality will help inspire more transparency and more sustainability throughout the supply chain, as roasters pay higher premiums through direct relationships with growers.

For Barr, sustainability is inextricably linked to economic viability, which is why paying a fair price for high-quality coffee benefits growers, roasters, and drinkers. “To have longevity, you need to have a relationship, and to have a relationship, you have to pay farmers well,” he said.

Cappuccino photo by Stephen Rees/Flickr. “Journey of the Bean” art from Left Coast Roast.

Originally published by CUESA

Out the rubble of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, a vision for a grand public market on the waterfront was born. A dedicated group of food lovers and city planners formed the San Francisco Public Market Collaborative to realize this vision, and on September 12, 1992, they organized the one-time Ferry Plaza Harvest Market across the Embarcadero from the Ferry Building.

“It was just a beautiful, inspiring, and auspicious day,” recalls Sibella Kraus, one of the founding members of the San Francisco Public Market Collaborative, founder of the Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture, or  CUESA, and current president and founder of Sustainable Agriculture Education (SAGE). More than 50 regional farmers and food producers sold produce, meats, and artisanal products that day, and about 15 of San Francisco’s best-known restaurants (such as Zuni Cafe) prepared street food. Generating $75,000 in sales, more than 10,000 people attended the event, and 2,122 of them signed a petition demanding a permanent market.

The concept took root. While the City had initially resisted the idea, the Harvest Market was such a success that the following spring, the weekly Ferry Plaza Farmers Market was inaugurated.

In spring of 2013, CUESA will officially celebrate 20 years of the permanent Ferry Plaza Farmers Market with reflections, special guests, and events. Now we commemorate the anniversary of that very first market that started it all. We spoke with Kraus to learn more about the market’s inception and its growth over the years.

What was the inspiration for starting a farmers market at the Ferry Plaza?

In the mid- to late 1980s, there was a public market movement going on across the country. In San Francisco, the vision for a public market was strongly held by some forward-thinking developers, restaurateurs, food producers, and architects, several of whom had worked hard to start a public market in Oakland a few years previously. I think what brings these things to life is a broad set of people who really believe in it and want to see it happen.

What was the Collaborative’s vision for the market?

The goal of the San Francisco Public Market Collaborative was to develop a permanent public market, and the idea was that a farmers market would be an initial step toward that. The Collaborative’s board and supporters were familiar with markets all over the world, from Pike Place in Seattle, Granville Island in Vancouver, and La Boqueria in Barcelona to smaller markets. The concept was to create something similar here.

Two developers behind the San Francisco public market movement, Tom Sargent and Joe Weiner, had been talking to the City for a few years about possible locations for a public market, mainly on one of the wider piers. In 1989, the earthquake damaged the freeway over the Embarcadero between the Bay Bridge and Broadway, and it was taken down in 1991. Seemingly overnight, the central part of the city was reconnected with its waterfront. In those days, there was a two-acre interim parking lot in front of the Ferry Building, and that’s where we started the farmers market. It took over a decade and lots of contention to transition from the freeway-grimed waterfront of the 1980s to the sparkling place it is today. The market was part of making that transition happen.

How did the first market evolve into a permanent, year-round market?

When we first approached the Port with the idea of a permanent farmers market, they said no, so we did the market on September 12, 1992, as a demonstration. It was a phenomenal success, attracting about 10,000 people. Out of that, we got permission to do the seasonal market in 1993. That first year, the market was supposed to go May through October, but by the end of August it looked like it had really taken. Suddenly, we were thinking about all the things we would have to do to close the market and then reopen it, so by early September, we said maybe we should just be open year-round.

Once the City saw that the market was being widely used, I think there was a sense and spirit to facilitate it and work through problems rather than throw up brick walls. There were a couple donors in the beginning to help with cash flow, but we were able to do it pretty economically. In those first years, there were just a couple part-time people running everything—a market manager and me, and some staff running the education programs.

How did education become an integral part of the market?

When we started permanently in May of 1993, it was a little slow, quite frankly, and some of the farmers were saying, “San Francisco is full of single people who just want to buy one peach. Where are the families?” We started Market Cooking for Kids and our Seasonal Celebrations as a way to attract families, with activities for kids. In 1994, CUESA was formed as a nonprofit to fulfill the educational mandate of the Collaborative.

When you started the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market, there were just two other markets in San Francisco, Alemany and Heart of the City. Now there are more than 25. How has the farmers market landscape changed over the last 20 years?

During the 1990s there was an interest in starting more markets, especially by neighborhood groups. But there were a lot of obstacles around permits, and not much streamlining or understanding of what the regulations were. We did a lot of work with the public health department on the issue of sampling at the market. Having temporary food stalls was also rather complicated because the law didn’t readily allow for those food stalls to be there every week. As the systems within the city got more streamlined and there got to be a broader body of knowledge about running farmers markets, it built up from there.

What role has the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market played in the evolution of San Francisco food culture?

The Ferry Plaza Farmers Market and Ferry Building Marketplace contribute significantly to San Francisco’s reputation and draw as a great food city. If I think back to the language in the 1994 promotional brochure, where we imagined the San Francisco Public Market as a “showcase for our region’s extraordinary agricultural bounty,” that’s really what it’s become. It’s obviously directly important for the vendors and the shoppers, and it’s a real point of pride for the city.

Originally published by CUESA

This month, as the nation grapples with the worst drought in decades, the USDA added more than 218 counties to its list of natural disaster areas, bringing the total to 1,584—more than half of all US counties. Farmers in the Midwest and Great Plains have been the hardest hit, but the drought is a growing reality for farmers across the country, including California. While the Secretary of Agriculture won’t comment on the drought’s link to climate change, it’s at the forefront of everyone’s mind, and as global warming unfolds, knowledge of dryland agriculture will become increasingly valuable.

David Little of Little Organic Farm has had to adapt to water scarcity in Marin and Sonoma Counties, where most farmers and ranchers rely on their own reservoirs, wells, and springs, making them particularly vulnerable in years with light rainfall. Through a technique known as dry farming, Little’s potatoes and squash receive no irrigation, getting all of their water from the soil.

Mediterranean grape and olive growers have dry-farmed for thousands of years. The practice was common on the California coast from the 1800s through the early 20th century, but it became a lost art during the mid-century. Today, it is experiencing a modest resurgence along the coast, where temperate, foggy summers offer ideal conditions for dry-farming grapes, tomatoes, potatoes, cucumbers, melons, grains, and some tree fruit.

“In the beginning, I searched out people who were known dry-farmers,” says Little, who started in farming in 1995. “It seemed like no one had done it for 30 years or so, and then it wasn’t done much.”

To find mentors, Little made the rounds at local bars, asking older farmers about their experiences. “They were very humble,” he says. “They told stories about how things were done, and I would pick up tidbits.” After years of trial and error, he now considers himself an expert.

To help people understand how dry farming works, Little often evokes the image of a wet sponge covered with cellophane. Following winter and spring rains, soil is cultivated to break it up and create a moist “sponge,” then the top layer is compacted using a roller to form a dry crust (the “cellophane”). This three- to four-inch layer, sometimes referred to as a dust mulch, seals in water and prevents evaporation.

“It’s very challenging because you have to hold the moisture for long periods of time, and you don’t know how different crops are going to react in different areas,” Little says. Much of the land he farms is rolling hills and valleys, which present additional challenges because they hold and move groundwater differently than flat land.

Deprived of any surface irrigation besides the coastal fog, dry-farmed plants develop deep, robust roots to seek out and soak up soil moisture. Because they absorb less water than their conventionally irrigated counterparts, dry-farmed crops are characteristically smaller but more nutrient-dense and flavorful.

“When you water a tree, it dilutes the flavor a lot in some cases,” says Stan Devoto, who dry-farms more than 50 varieties of heirloom apples at Devoto Gardens. “Instead of having a really hard, crisp, firm texture, your apple will be two or three times the size of a dry-farmed apple, and you just don’t get the flavor.”

Devoto has been dry-farming in Sebastopol since the 1970s. “We had no choice,” he says. “There’s just not enough water in West [Sonoma] County to water orchards. Pretty much all the orchards are dry-farmed, with the exception of the orchards where trees are planted super close or use dwarf rootstock.”

Having wide orchard rows, which allow tree roots to spread out, is essential for dry-farming apples, as is thinning (removing much of the fruit early in its development) to ensure that each apple gets as much water as possible. In dryer years (like this one), Devoto must work extra hard to control weeds, which drink water needed by thirsty trees. As the summer progresses, the ground slowly dries out, stressing out the fruits as they ripen, which helps the sugars become more concentrated.

But while water conservation and intensely flavorful crops are the clear benefits of dry farming, the major tradeoff is yield. Devoto says that apple growers in West Sonoma County, which was once home to a booming apple industry, only get about 12 tons per acre, compared to 30 to 40 tons produced by large apple farms in the Central Valley.

Similarly, Joe Schirmer of Dirty Girl Produce says that his famous dry-farmed Early Girl tomatoes sometimes yield only about a third of what their irrigated counterparts produce, and Little estimates that he gets about a quarter to a third the yield of large organic potato growers. “It it’s hard to compete with some of these big organic farms that are watering,” he says.

Without irrigation, his crops are at the mercy of seasonal rainfall and varying soil conditions from year to year. “You’re on the edge constantly, and one little thing could tip you over,” Little reflects. “We’re barely making it, really, but I believe in coastal farming. I believe we’re going to come back to it.”

While dry farming has geographic limitations, it could pave the way for more coastal agriculture and offer techniques for farmers in dryer areas to farm with less water. “The coast of California used to be our main source of food in the state, until they started developing farms in the Central Valley because of all the water,” Little continues. “Now they’re running out of water.”

Originally posted on CUESA.

National Pollinator Week was the perfect occasion to pay homage one of the small but mighty heroes of our food system: the honeybee. One out of every three bites of food we eat is made possible because of this popular pollinator, and annually, honeybees help in the production of about $15 billion worth of US crops, including many of our favorite fruits, vegetables, and nuts.

But honeybees and other pollinators are under threat. In recent years, beekeepers have reported 30 to 90 percent losses of their hives due to colony collapse disorder (CCD). The exact causes of CCD are still undetermined, but widespread use of synthetic pesticides is believed to be the primary culprit, along with other factors such as parasites, poor nutrition, environmental stress, and migratory beekeeping practices.

Beekeepers are prime players in the fate of the honeybee, and some practices that are standard in the apiculture industry may be doing more harm than good. Most commercial beekeepers place their hives on or near farms where pesticides are in common use and routinely feed their bees high-fructose corn syrup—derived from corn treated with neonicotinoids, a family of pesticides that is a prime suspect in CCD.

In addition to their vital service as pollinators, bees are, of course, the only creatures capable of making honey. Supporting local beekeepers who use sustainable and nontoxic practices may be one piece of the puzzle in sustaining healthy honeybee populations.

Honey is concentrated flower nectar. Bees gather the nectar from flowers, add enzymes to it, and store it in the hive, where other bees fan their wings to reduce the honey’s moisture content to about 18 percent. At the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market, artisanal beekeepers offer a dizzying array of honey varietals sourced from Bay Area blooms such as eucalyptus, toyon, tanbark oak, sage, and manzanita, each one offering its own complex flavor profile and resinous hue of amber or gold.

While commercial honeys are blended from multiple floral sources and geographic locations, varietal honeys represent a particular terroir, the special characteristics of a unique location and season, much like fine wines and cheeses. Polyfloral honey, often called wildflower honey, is derived from the nectars of multiple types of flowers in a single locale and varies depending on the blooms in a given season. Monofloral, or single-source, honey originates primarily from the nectar of a single type of flower. Beekeepers position their hives based on where and when a particular flower blooms, and plan their harvest as the bloom is ending. While it’s impossible to control exactly where the bees forage for their nectar, experienced beekeepers like Bill Snyders of Snyders Honey are able to confirm the dominant flower source by observing the blooms and tasting.

Like farmers, beekeepers are at the mercy of the seasons and elements. For Snyders, the honey harvest usually runs from mid-May into summer, though it fluctuates from year to year. “All plants need a certain temperature to give a certain amount of nectar,” he explains. “If you get a freak streak of weather like a cooling period or a rain, that’ll wipe a bloom out. The best we can do is to have the hives prepped and ready to go.”

Another key difference between local honeys and commercial brands is processing. A recent study by Food Safety News found that 76 percent of honey bought at conventional grocery stores had been ultra-filtered, meaning that the honey was heated and filtered with high pressure to remove all traces of pollen, most likely in China. Marketing this pollenless product as “honey” is actually illegal in the US, but the FDA isn’t checking.

Small beekeepers like Snyders and Marshall’s Farm Natural Honey use minimal to no heat or filtering, to preserve the honey’s healthful (and flavorful) enzymes and minerals. “For me, processing is everything—or rather, the lack of processing,” says Snyders. His raw wildflower “cappings” honey is their least processed honey, scraped straight off the caps of the honeycomb. Raw honey crystallizes over time and exhibits a cloudy appearance due to the presence of particles of wax and pollen.

What about local organic honey? Currently, CCOF does not certify honey and the USDA National Organic Program does not have specific standards for apiaries (they fall under the broad category of “livestock”). Any honey you find in the store bearing the “USDA Organic” seal is worth questioning. Though it might be packaged in the US, most “certified organic” honey is generally imported from countries like Brazil, using standards set by the EU or other entities.

Although the hives kept by Marshall’s Farm used to be registered organic through the Napa County agricultural commissioner, the Marshalls were subsequently informed that they could not label their honey as such. In order to have a truly organic honey, all blooms that bees might visit—a 2.5-mile radius—would have to be inspected. “It’s sort of like fish,” says Helene Marshall. “Fish swim, bees fly. You can’t tell them where and where not to go.”

Marshall’s Farm continues to use the same practices they did before they had to “stop using the ‘O’ word,” she says. “We don’t treat with anything. It’s survival of the fittest.” Snyders Honey does not treat their hives either, except for applying thymol (a natural thyme extract) in the fall to help control the lethal varroa mite, which has devastated up to a third of their colonies annually.

The only surefire way you can support sustainable apiculture is to get to know your beekeepers. “If you just go by packaging, it’s ambiguous,” says Marshall. “The beauty about shopping at a farmers market is you can ask the producer, ‘When was this harvested? Where is this actually from?’”

For recipes for cooking with honey, see the CUESA website. Marshall’s Farm Natural Honey can be found at the Thursday and Saturday markets, while Snyders Honey is at the Tuesday market.

Take action! Tell the EPA to protect bees from pestcides.

Originally published in CUESA’s weekly e-letter.

Wendell Berry has said that eating is an agricultural act, but what about drinking beer? A thirst for fermented beverages may have inspired the world’s first farmers to plant crops some 13,000 years ago, yet today beer is rarely part of the larger conversation about where our food comes from.

A handful of California craft brewers are starting to tap into that primitive connection. Taking up the motto “Beer is agriculture,” Almanac Beer Co. works directly with local farmers to source specialty ingredients for their seasonal brews. “For most people, beer is what shows up in the bottle or can,” says Almanac brewer Damien Fagan. “We’re trying to create a foundation that beer is rooted deeply in agriculture.”

Fagan founded Almanac with fellow brewer and Beer & Nosh blogger Jesse Friedman last year, after they met in a home-brewing club, where they traded brewing experiments. (“I’d show up with a fig beer or a puréed turnip beer. Not always great ideas,” Fagan admits.) The two instantly bonded over their interest in San Francisco’s farm-to-table food culture. “We saw a real opening to think and talk about the brewing process using that same vocabulary and ideology,” says Friedman.

No stranger to farmers markets, Friedman launched SodaCraft last summer, offering naturally carbonated sodas using fresh produce from his fellow vendors at the Ferry Plaza. He has since sold the business to turn his attention to Almanac, where his sourcing and brewing ethos remains the same. “Both businesses were born out of the idea that you can take farmers market produce and make something special out of it,” says Friedman.

From the Farm to the Barrel

While the term terroir is usually reserved for fine wines, Almanac has found creative ways to “infuse a sense of time and place in each brew,” as Friedman says, by integrating fresh produce into the mash. Since last summer, Almanac has collaborated with Sebastopol Berry Farm, Twin Girls Farm, Hamada Farms, Marshall’s Farm Natural Honey, and most recently, Heirloom Organic Gardens. For each of their beers, made in small batches and released seasonally, Friedman and Fagan meet with the farmer, tour their farm, and feature it prominently on the bottle’s label and Almanac’s website.

Like the Farmers’ Almanac, each brew serves as a record of the season. The Autumn Farmhouse Pale Ale celebrated the last of Twin Girls Farm’s fall plums, while the Winter Wit preserved the end of December at Hamada Farms, with a mix of Cara Cara, navel, and new blood oranges. “If we’d brewed two weeks earlier or later, the mix of oranges would have been different,” Friedman notes.

Their most recent release, Bière de Mars (March beer), is a French-style farmhouse ale highlighting baby fennel from Heirloom Organic Gardens. While fennel might sound like an unexpected choice for beer, farmer Grant Brians thought it made a lot of sense when Almanac approached him. “The flavors in fennel are carried in an oil and slightly alkaline base,” he explains. “It’s perfect to mix into the brewing process.”

The goal with each brew is to provide a distinct but subtle accent that does not dominate the flavor profile, but adds depth and pairs well with seasonal dishes. “We want the ingredient to be an integrated part of the beer,” Friedman insists. “It should not be a fennel cocktail.”

How’s the finished result? “It’s good!” says Brians. “I’m generally a wine drinker, but I enjoy full-bodied and well-balanced flavors in beers. And it was nice to taste the end result of our collaboration.”

Bottlenecks for Local Brewers

While Almanac has sourced some local grains for their brews, including wheat from Massa Organics, brewing a truly Californian beer is fraught with challenges when it comes to hops and barley malt. “Unfortunately, the beer world is defined by the big American brewers,” says Friedman.

California was once home to a thriving hops industry, but by the 1950s, the mechanization of hops harvesting, outbreaks of downy mildew, and changing beer tastes wiped hops growers out. Today, the majority of U.S. hops are grown in Washington and Oregon.

Sourcing specialty malt poses another obstacle, since there are no malt houses in California, and out-of-state industrial malting facilities prefer to work with large brewers. “You can grow high-quality barley here, but the issue is malting,” says Ron Silberstein of Thirsty Bear Brewing Company. “Part of the problem is that local growers are competing with commodity growers who can grow and malt their barley very inexpensively.” Organic malt from locally grown barley is even rarer.

San Francisco’s first and only brewery to carry the California Certified Organic Farmers seal, Thirsty Bear experimented with brewing a 100-percent local and organic beer in 2010, collaborating with Eatwell Farm in Dixon and Hop-Meister in Clearlake. Since there are no local malt houses, Eatwell had to ship its barley to Colorado Malt Company, which hand-malts in small batches.

In launching the Locavore Ale, Silberstein had hoped to enlist more local craft brewers to commit to purchasing organic malting barley from Eatwell Farm, but the buy-in wasn’t there, and Eatwell has since abandoned the project.
“You have to get enough brewers who want to tell a story, who want to have an heirloom varietal of the barley, and who are willing to pay a premium for that,” Silberstein says. He is hoping to build momentum to start a small artisan malting facility, which would make local, small-batch malting more feasible.

While the process of reconnecting local brewers and beer drinkers with local farms still has a long way to go, Silberstein and Friedman are optimistic that the farm-to-bottle movement is growing. “We need to build larger systems to support local brewing, and that’s a challenge we’re excited to tackle,” says Friedman. “In the meantime, we’ve contented ourselves with highlighting specialty ingredients from local farms.”

You can find Almanac Beer on tap at Il Cane Rosso in the Ferry Building, as well as at Bi-Rite Market and other local sellers of fine beer.

Originally published by CUESA

Mary Davis started feeling the squeeze of city life about a year ago. She had grown up gardening and spent a stint working on an organic farm while attending grad school in Missouri. Now an architect living in San Francisco’s Mission District, she longed to reconnect with her gardening roots, but her small apartment was lacking in the dirt department. “There was no garden, no outdoors,” she says. “I really wanted a place with some soil.”

She started looking around her neighborhood and fell in love with the historic Dearborn Community Garden. But when she inquired about getting a plot, she was told there was a 22-year waiting list.

She signed up nonetheless and continued her search, adding her name to the Potrero Hill Community Garden’s list as well, which had a comparatively modest seven-year wait. Since then, Davis has moved into a house with a shared backyard garden, but she still longs for a plot of her own.

Davis’s experience is not uncommon among would-be gardeners in San Francisco. Most of the city’s community gardens have waiting lists of two years or more, according to Public Harvest, a new report by San Francisco Urban Planning + Urban Research Association (SPUR). The most comprehensive report of its kind in recent years, it paints a sweeping portrait of the current urban agriculture landscape and presents a bold agenda to help San Francisco meet the demands of a burgeoning movement.

Since the dissolution of the San Francisco League of Urban Gardeners (SLUG) in 2004, there have been no centralized city-funded efforts to maintain or expand urban agriculture. Residents hoping to start new projects face many bureaucratic hurdles, since public land and urban agricultural activities are managed by multiple agencies, with little coordination. From commercial urban farms to rooftop plots and shared gardens, more than two dozen private and public urban agriculture projects have sprouted up in the City over the last four years as a result of the resurgence of interest in gardening. “We need to start looking to our public land to meet this demand,” said SPUR program manager Eli Zigas at a recent press event at Michelangelo Playground Community Garden in Nob Hill (pictured below).

While San Francisco Recreation & Parks oversees 35 community gardens on public land, those gardens are generally operated by volunteers, not staff. “The gardens are run by gardeners,” says Andrea Jadwin, a founding and active member of San Francisco Gardening Resource Organization (SFGRO), which offers support and training for community gardeners throughout the city. “That’s good and that’s bad because some gardens aren’t very well run.” Garden managers are often inadequately prepared to deal with issues like vandalism or garden members who neglect their plots while waiting lists grow. “If there were an agency helping people run the gardens better, it’d be easy to keep them going with minimal budget,” she adds.

According to SPUR’s findings, San Francisco’s urban agriculture program is middling compared to other large cities. With an annual operating budget of $800,000, or about $6,615 per site, San Francisco spends more than New York but far less than Seattle, which invests $11,940 per site.

Taking SPUR’s findings and recommendations to heart, District 3 Supervisor David Chiu has proposed new legislation that would create a strategic plan and a centralized program to streamline the management of urban agricultural projects, either through the city or a city-funded nonprofit.

The proposed ordinance includes a six-month audit of city-owned building rooftops that could be used for urban agriculture, the creation of a “one-stop shop” for individuals and organizations looking to engage in agricultural activities, and the establishment of garden resource centers that would provide residents with compost, seeds, and tools. By 2014, Chiu aims to develop at least 10 new urban agricultural projects on public land and reduce waiting lists for plot-based gardens to one year.

Zigas emphasizes the minimal cost of such a program for the returns it offers to the city of San Francisco, such as greening the urban landscape and reducing stormwater runoff, which in turn reduce public spending on landscaping and sewage treatment.

He also notes the benefits of urban agriculture for San Francisco residents and the food system at large, connecting city dwellers with the miracles and challenges of growing food. “I think a many gardeners in San Francisco have a great appreciation for a fresh tomato because they know how hard it is to grow a tomato,” says Zigas. “There are a lot of people in the city who learn about food and how it’s produced through that process.”

Having been a member of White Crane Springs Community Garden in the Sunset for nine years, Jadwin has witnessed the benefits that such spaces offer by bringing neighbors together.

“People garden for the same reasons they go to the farmers market,” she observes. “You see your friends and neighbors. You talk about the weather and what’s in season. It not only allows people to have a broader connection to food, but it also builds community.”

Originally published in CUESA‘s newsletter

When we think about the people behind our food, the familiar faces at the farmers market may readily come to mind. But the many other individuals who do the hard work of planting, growing, and harvesting that food may remain only a distant picture for us. These agricultural workers, who often have specialized skills and many years of experience, are generally among the least recognized and respected members of our food system.

As socially conscious eaters know, farmworkers are excluded from federal labor laws that guarantee the right to organize and, in some cases, they are not afforded basic protections such as minimum wage, overtime pay, and workers’ compensation. According to the US Department of Labor, three-fourths of agricultural workers earn less than $10,000 annually. At many farms, the employment terms are not spelled out on paper, leaving even greater room for abuses. People of color and undocumented workers fare the worst in this system. Even on organic farms, although workers are exposed to fewer toxic chemicals, the labor conditions aren’t necessarily much better.

As recently reported in Grist, however, a growing “domestic fair trade” movement aims to formally recognize and reward farms that are working to address social justice. The Agricultural Justice Project (AJP) has developed a set of fair labor guidelines under the Food Justice Certified label, which was born out of dissatisfaction with the US National Organic Program’s failure to address workers’ dignity and rights.

While more than 70 Canadian farms are Food Justice Certified, only eight in the United States have received certification. There is now a burgeoning effort to bring the label to California, with Santa Cruz County-based strawberry grower Swanton Berry Farm among those leading the way.

Farming with Dignity

Last week, the AJP conducted a certification training at Swanton Berry Farm for representatives from such organizations as California Certified Organic Farmers (CCOF) and Líderes Campesinas. Over the last few years, Swanton has been a testing ground for the Food Justice Certified program, providing input as AJP has developed their standards.

“They (Swanton) have put a lot of attention into making the relationship between the farmers and managers and the people who work on the farm different from what you so often see in agriculture,” says AJP co-founder Elizabeth Henderson, who helped lead the training.

As the first organic farm to sign a contract with the United Farm Workers of America, the nation’s largest farm labor union, Swanton has is considered a model of fair agricultural labor practices. Workers are guaranteed a decent pay scale as well as benefits such as health insurance, a retirement plan, and paid time off, plus access to affordable housing. The farm helps workers avoid repetitive strain injuries (the most common type of injuries in agriculture) by offering a variety of work. In addition, Swanton makes an effort to involve workers in business decisions. Swanton was also the first farm to offer its employees the opportunity to own own stock in the company.

While the farm still has some work to do before they can brandish the Food Justice Certified label, co-owner Sandy Brown says that they are firmly committed to the process. “We think it’s a worthwhile investment because it helps us think through our management systems,” she notes. “It’s another set of eyes looking at the operation and helping us figure out how to do a better job.”

Certification requires both a third-party certifier and a worker organization to conduct interviews and verify that employers’ claims are true. From the initial assessment to the final audit, the whole process can take about a year. If CCOF signs on as a certifier, they plan to offer Food Justice Certification as an adjunct to their organic inspection, making the process less onerous and costly for cash-strapped organic farmers.

“It’s a time commitment, and it’s a financial commitment,” admits Brown. “Farms are busy, just trying to get through the day, and it’s hard to think about adding more on.”

Despite the red tape, Brown feels that the Food Justice Certified label offers the best package for socially conscious farms and eaters. “There are plenty of certification programs that don’t really do much,” she continues. “One of the reasons we’ve stuck with AJP is they have incorporated into their program the idea that workers’ ability to exercise a collective voice is critical to the enforcement of fair labor standards.”

Building Momentum

To share the costs of getting the certification program up and running in California, it will take a team of dedicated stakeholders. AJP and Swanton have participated in outreach to regional farms and organizations to build awareness about the program, but Brown admits that they have much more work to do in order to achieve a critical mass. “A lot of farms don’t see the need because there isn’t a whole lot of consumer demand,” Brown observes.

For eaters who want to see the Food Justice Certified label, she recommends opening a conversation with farmers, food vendors, grocery stores, and restaurants, as well as reaching out to organizations invested in sustainable agriculture. Getting buy-in from all levels of the food chain, particularly institutional and retail purchasers, is crucial. “The good news is there’s growing interest in the social relations of organic production and agriculture in general,” she adds.

But the onus does not rest solely on farmers, many of whom struggle to make a living themselves. “The biggest hurdle is the United States’ cheap food policy,” says Henderson. “People are used to paying low prices for food. There’s constant downward pressure on farms and food businesses, and as a result, the people who do the basic work aren’t paid well.”

For AJP, the ultimate goal is to transform not just labor on farms but all aspects of the food system, which represents 20 million workers, most of whom are among the lowest paid in our workforce. They hope to expand the program by working with organizations such as Restaurant Opportunities Centers United and Food Chain Workers Alliance.

While creating a socially just food system is a long row to hoe, Henderson sees the Food Justice Certified label as an important first step. By offering tools and support for farmers to evaluate and improve their labor policies, the AJP intends to raise awareness about the vital role workers play in a sustainable food system.

“Our emphasis is on changing the relationship, so that people who do this work are treated with respect and have decent standards of living,” she says. “Farm work is wonderful work, and it is absolutely necessary to the human race.”

Originally published by CUESA

Photo courtesy of Swanton Berry Farm