Hello and welcome to another edition of a failed weekly series devoted to Americans who are bringing about change. I intend to try and revive this inspirational series once the election (or perhaps primaries) are over but there is a story in the New York Times today that so fits the description of Outstanding in the Field.
Leaving Behind the Trucker Hat is actually on the front page of Sunday Styles;
But there is much more to the story than Carhartts becoming a practical fashion statement. It is the story of a growth in food awareness and a trend toward locally produced organic farming where educated young Americans are leaving the city to take a chance at farming. According to Severine von Tscharner Fleming who is making a documentary called "The Greenhorns,"
"Young farmers are an emerging social movement."
Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens. They are the most vigorous, the most independent, the most virtuous, and they are tied to their country and wedded to its liberty and interests by the most lasting bonds.
–Thomas Jefferson, Letter to John Jay (Aug. 23, 1785)
The New York Times offers a very positive story that points out the growing demand for food from small farms. It could represent another chance for both young Americans and the Americans table.
Steeped in years of talk around college campuses and in stylish urban enclaves about the evils of factory farms...some young urbanites are starting to put their muscles where their pro-environment, antiglobalization mouths are. They are creating small-scale farms near urban areas hungry for quality produce and willing to pay a premium.
While still small and supported mostly by people who have a good deal of disposable income, the premium paid is making it possible for idealistic young people to actually make a living off the land.
The statistics definitely represents a step in the right direction.
"We’ve had a big spike in the last decade and especially in the last few years of people who are new to farming applying to sell at Greenmarket," said Gabrielle Langholtz, manager of special projects for the Manhattan-based Greenmarket, which runs 46 farmers’ markets around the city. "Maybe they went to liberal arts schools and read Michael Pollan," she said, referring to the author of "The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals," (Penguin Press HC, 2006), "and shopped at farmers markets and said, ‘I’m going to buy a farm upstate and sell to Greenmarket.’ " The typical size of farms that sell at Greenmarket is 50 to 100 acres, she said.
Nationally, there were 8,493 certified organic farms in 2005, using just over 4 million acres of land, more than double the acreage in 2000, according to the United States Department of Agriculture. (The federal government introduced a uniform standard for organic certification in 2002.) New York had more than twice as many certified organic farms, 735, in 2007 as it did in 2004, according to the state Department of Agriculture and Markets. The agency estimates there are three to five times that many organic farms in New York which, like Hearty Roots, choose not to spend the $500 to $1,000 it costs to become certified.
This does not represent an answer to rural farms that are far from city centers because part of this trend is driving the food to market to places like the Union Square Greenmarket but since the success of these city vegetable stands is growing it has made a large contribution to the attitude about food processing.
Ther is far more to Leaving Behind the Trucker Hat including an interactive video but a quote about the changes in Williamsburg points out the new attitude.
The Billyburg scene has changed, said Annaliese Griffin, who contributes to a blog called Grocery Guy. "Having a cool cheese in your fridge has taken the place of knowing what the cool band is, or even of playing in that band," she said. "Our rock stars are ricotta makers."
Definitely an Outstanding in the Field sort of story.