I attended one of the Commonwealth Club Speaker events that is sponsored by Eat Local SF as part of the October Eat Local Challenge. This event was entitled "From Farm to Feast: How chefs, farmers and artisans strengthen our community."
It began with a local food and beverage reception where Butterfly restaurant served a Thai chicken noodle soup, Kika's Treats (a graduate of the La Cocina food incubator program) served Brazilian Honey Cakes with Dark Chocolate and Caramelized Graham Crackers with Milk Chocolate, Back to Earth Catering served an assortment of olives, meats & cheeses, there was a platter of meats and cheeses from Boccalone and from Cowgirl Creamery , and wine from Buckland Winery.
The presentation was comprised of a diverse panel that included:
- Joan Simon - current co-chair of Eat Local SF and a food industry consultant via her practice Full Plate Consulting;
- Sue Conley - founder and co-owner of Cowgirl Creamery, an artisan maker of cheeses based in Point Reyes Station and with a retail store at the Ferry Building Marketplace;
- Jered Lawson - farmer and owner of Pie Ranch , a farm located in Davenport (San Mateo County) and of Mission Pie, a retail bakery located in San Francisco that uses ingredients from the farm;
- Ari Derfel - owner of Back to Earth Catering, a 100% organic catering business that is a subset of a larger Back to Earth concept that includes mountain yoga and other outdoor retreats;
- Dave Stockdale - Executive Director of CUESA (Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture), an organization that educates and creates links between urban dwellers and farmers. CUESA also manages the Ferry Plaza Farmer's Market.
Each of the panelists gave a brief background of how they've arrived at their current place as spokespeople for the local food movement, and they shared stories and their visions for how local foods develop a sense of community.
- Joan made a point that dining at a restaurant is not only about eating food, but about how dining is a way to share time and moments with people who are a part of our communities;
- Sue shared stories of how Marin County has been able to sustain farming by dedicating one-third of its land to agriculture, and how farmers have been able to organize and sustain themselves through groups such as Marin Organic to expand the number of certified organic farms, and to help what was once 5 farms selling direct to consumers to grow to 45 farms;
- Jered discussed his outreach programs to area high schools to bring school kids to the farm, show them the "seed to meal" process and to hopefully develop apprentices who embrace agriculture as a livelihood;
- Ari discussed how he sees part of his greater mission in life being to bring people together around organic food, and how preparing loving meals for hard working people is a way to nourish them (physically and spiritually) and to celebrate their efforts to make the world a better place;
- Dave talked about how chefs are increasingly working in concert with specific farms to plant new crops for use in their restaurants and how consumers ultimately benefit from these alliances. He also talked about the many educational programs run by CUESA to bring urbanites in closer contact with farmers, be it Farmer's Markets or farm visits and tours.
The most interesting portion of the evening came during the Q&A session, when the audience asked how the local food movement can expand to the mainstream, beyond the audience members who have already drunken the proverbial Kool-Aid. The answers were diverse, ranging from the abstract to concrete, and included:
- Ask retail workers where their foods and other merchandise come from. Tell them you prefer to buy locally sourced and produced products;
- To overcome perceptions that food from Farmer's Markets are often more expensive than that found at mega-marts, share the results of research studies completed by CUESA and a (unnamed) Seattle group that show Farmer's Market prices to be comparable and sometimes less expensive than that found at national chains [NOTE: I plan to find these studies and share the findings];
- Point them to existing resources and organizations such as Eat Local SF, Community Alliance with Family Farmers , CUESA, or Local Harvest .
My personal observations from the responses is that while there are plenty of resources available to help motivated urban consumers to make eating local a commitment, it's still not simple enough education or services available to make it an easy transition to make for the average American family. Changing consumer behavior is a very difficult thing to do (absent of any crisis). But that just means that there is an opportunity for somebody to find a consumer solution that makes it easier for more families to make this a choice. Whoever figures it out will surely bring tremendous value to all participants of this movement.
Ari made a very insightful comment to wrap up the evening when he said (and I'm paraphrasing here):
This is a movement not motivated by profit, but by a desire to reconnect to a way of life that once was. We're not trying to create something new here. Rather, it's returning to something that once was. The knowledge and the wisdom to do so is already out there.
What would persuade you to start eating local more often?
Oh yeah, Jered gave away some Sonoma wheat stalks (he said they are an heirloom wheat variety - but I couldn't find any information about it on the web) anmd challenged each of us to plant the seeds for harvest in August 2009.
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