Farm-To-Table
Initiative
Recently, the Gunnison Valley
Farm-To-Table Conference was held at Western State Colorado University to bring
together local producers, consumers, restaurant and market owners, and
community leaders to address where our food comes from, comparing the
industrial commercial farming markets to local food sources purchased by the
consumer base. The key points addressed by the panel were a disconnect through
education (commercial to organic farming) to the consumer base of the quality,
locality, and distribution of food (import to regional food sources).
Problems
addressed: no local food infrastructure, a cultural consumer gap (who is our
farmer, what’s in our food), lost cooking and preparation skills. Example: cooking from scratch, gardening, canning, preserving foods, convenient
shopping, government regulations
limiting the local producers, food markets under contracts with global marketed
corporations with no access to the conventional consumer. In the film Ingredients, were a positive exploration
of the possibilities of what world we could have if the consumer base is
educated having the choice of what food they choose to eat. The film’s key
point noted that the chefs and the consumer determine the industry which
supplies our food. Consumers are driven mainly by price point, driving the
industrial food market to provide the cheapest quality and quantity at the
expensive of nutrition to the explosion of both animal and human disease.
Furthermore, the films states most seeds are controlled by three global
corporations and if continued the consolidating to one hundred percent is in
our near future unless local small organic farms are maintained and supported
by the local food consumers.
The local Colorado panel
addressed that the Colorado agricultural land is diminishing from 8000 archers
(ex: apple production, 1990) to 1000 archers in which the global market can
distribute one ton of apples at twenty dollars compared to the local Colorado
farmer of fifty dollars per ton to the local market. Furthermore, the panel
noted that the U.S. agricultural lands is currently at 2% and
is at the mercy of public opinion and government control regulation encouraging
imports which have increased fourfold in the last decade. The current trend in
Colorado expressed by Dr. Dawn Thilmany of CSU Agriculture and Resource
Economist is encouraging. She noted the consumer psychology has changed in the
relationship of food quality (from industrial food supplier), impacted of local
economy (using local farmers) was gaining importance to the food purchaser. The
Colorado Farm to School initiative, started in 2010, has been adopted by many
of the Colorado school districts within 2 years due in large part of local
people making the difference for their children with the help of new school
greenhouses.
The consumer surveys showed that 22% of homeowners supply twenty
percent or more of their own food by private gardens with the remainder of the
possibility of no access or the lack of education of food sustainability. Colorado colleges (noted: Fort Lewis) are
developing local incubation centers (using private and government lands) to
train and develop the organic farming practices to future farming leaders
through stipend funds. The overall point: if we do not change and educate the
public on sustainable foods, we can lose access to organic foods and farming
and be under the control of multinational suppliers mainly money as motive.
Remember, the only vote that counts is how we spend the DOLLAR which the market follows the trends in how we spend. The Change is up to us.
Remember, the only vote that counts is how we spend the DOLLAR which the market follows the trends in how we spend. The Change is up to us.
Troy Hyyppa
Western State
Colorado University
