Holley Camp, on Alabama Agriculture
This week my family and I went to the farmers’ market on Finley Avenue in Birmingham. We bought two pounds of walnuts for $2. Three pounds of carrots for $1. Forty ounces of honey for $8. Leaving, my nine-year-old asked, “Mama, how can the farmers make a living?” It’s a troubling axiom of modern society that we pay very little to those who labor to feed us.
“Farming has changed completely in our lifetime,” Alabama’s Commissioner of Agriculture, Ron Sparks, says. “Our state farmed 19 million acres fifty years ago. Today we farm 9 million. The average farm is about 210 acres. The average age of a farmer is 55 years old. And the income they make is ridiculous. We’ve got to find a way to show our farmers that they can make a profit.”
From my four years of interviewing chefs and farmers around the country, I’ve come to believe that the local-sustainable food movement will save us. It will save our farmers when we agree to pay a bit more for food without pesticides, chemical fertilizers, hormones, or antibiotics. And it will save consumers when our health thrives without those elements in our bodies. Food grown as nature intended: it sounds too simple to be called salvation.
“If we can change the way the food system currently works, we can radically increase the demand for locally, sustainably grown produce,” says Edwin Marty, director of Jones Valley Urban Farm in Birmingham. “Consumers, for the most part, don’t realize that it’s their choice.”
It’s a powerful choice—and one on which most of us can agree. The terms red and blue, bandied about in politics, don’t really define us; individuals are much more complicated than that. But buying food grown in Alabama, keeping dollars in Alabama, appeals economically to us all, across the political spectrum. As the Senate debates the Farm Bill this week, now is the perfect time to let our senators know we want to support sustainable farmers. “Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are,” wrote Brillat-Savarin. Tell me from whom you buy it, and we will learn something just as dear.
Posted by Holley Camp
“Farming has changed completely in our lifetime,” Alabama’s Commissioner of Agriculture, Ron Sparks, says. “Our state farmed 19 million acres fifty years ago. Today we farm 9 million. The average farm is about 210 acres. The average age of a farmer is 55 years old. And the income they make is ridiculous. We’ve got to find a way to show our farmers that they can make a profit.”
From my four years of interviewing chefs and farmers around the country, I’ve come to believe that the local-sustainable food movement will save us. It will save our farmers when we agree to pay a bit more for food without pesticides, chemical fertilizers, hormones, or antibiotics. And it will save consumers when our health thrives without those elements in our bodies. Food grown as nature intended: it sounds too simple to be called salvation.
“If we can change the way the food system currently works, we can radically increase the demand for locally, sustainably grown produce,” says Edwin Marty, director of Jones Valley Urban Farm in Birmingham. “Consumers, for the most part, don’t realize that it’s their choice.”
It’s a powerful choice—and one on which most of us can agree. The terms red and blue, bandied about in politics, don’t really define us; individuals are much more complicated than that. But buying food grown in Alabama, keeping dollars in Alabama, appeals economically to us all, across the political spectrum. As the Senate debates the Farm Bill this week, now is the perfect time to let our senators know we want to support sustainable farmers. “Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are,” wrote Brillat-Savarin. Tell me from whom you buy it, and we will learn something just as dear.
Posted by Holley Camp
at
7:15 AM
1 Comments:
Your article on Alabama farming in the first issue was a great reminder of the need for us all to be more diligent in seeking out fresh, organic foods produced in our state by local farmers. It is interesting how a state with such a rich farming history and such potential for producing a wide range of products could move so far away from our roots. Thanks for working to raise our consciousness.
Amy Morgan
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