Doug Fine: Author, Journalist, Adventurer, Goat-Herder

Local Living seems to be coming of age. Or returning to Age. That is to say, returning to how it’s been for most of human agricultural existence. Maybe the apparent critical mass in community-based eating and goods-exchange is about cost, global environmental and human rights awareness, or a sense that the petroleum fueled cheap produce era might not have long to go. Maybe, as it is with me, it’s about health – so called “conventional” produce is almost always in some way poisonous or at least dangerous due to pesticides, growth hormones, flavor additives, partial hydrogenization, or corn-fed animals that are supposed to be grass-fed. But I don’t really care about the reasons. I’m just glad it’s happening. And I hope folks read Michael Pollan’s classic The Omnivore’s Dilemma to get a sense of not just how dangerous the industrial “food” chain is, but how iffy organic but non-local food is, in terms of community and planetary health. Organic asparagus from Chile is better than poison asparagus from anywhere, but better is to grow it yourself or get it from a community member. If the latter, you can ask the grower yourself to make sure that sustainable, soil-building and healthy growing practices were used (as opposed to the absurd pesticides and fertilizers forced upon the world over the past three quarters of a century).

This photo is from the recent Mimbres Valey Harvest Festival, where community members decided that all the apples, veggies, crafts and artwork made in our remote New Mexican valley but deemed (in the case of the delicious heirloom apples) un-marketable in an age of designer, waxy, tasteless, homogenous food in most large distribution supermarkets, should be exchanged and enjoyed. It tastes better, in the case of the food, is fresh, and studies show, is higher in nutrients than food grown far away in monoculture-degraded soil.

This was the first year I was an (albeit tentative) producer in my community, selling carrots, zucchini and kombucha. Next year, if all goes well with Natalie’s upcoming breeding, it’ll be goat milk, yogurt, cheese and ice cream as well. I’ve been offered a neighbor’s billy goat, but for reasons anyone who’s had to spend five minutes within a half mile of a billy goat will understand, I don’t want to keep him after he and Natalie have dated. But, also for reasons anyone who’s had to spend five minutes within a half mile of a billy goat will understand, I haven’t yet found a taker for this fellow Walt, who seems like a relatively docile creature. Operative word “relative.” I’ll certainly post updates here.

Anyway, almost zero carbon miles accrued on all the healthy food exchanged at the Harvest Festival. Hope these kind of things (and farmers markets and the Community Supported Agriculture model) catch on world wide. Or return to being the obvious way of doing things.
It can be profitable. I think I grossed almost $14 that day. And ate a lot of carrots.

6 Responses: