Wrapping Up the Season….The Bounty & The Blessings

By Andrea Yoder

Aerial view looking down our valley

It is simply amazing just how much food can be produced off of our 110 acres of land tucked away in a valley.  In comparison to some of the large produce farms out west, 110 acres is just a little drop in a bucket, and yet we can produce tons (literally) of food!  It doesn’t matter how many seasons I go through, I think it will always amaze me to see how the seeds that we store in one small room can, over the course of the season, be turned into tons of produce that at times comes close to exceeding our storage facilities!  This week we wanted to give you a little glimpse of what’s been happening on the farm this fall.

The past seven weeks have been a bit of a whirlwind of activities.  Up until about the last week of October we continued to harvest some herbs, greens and other fresh vegetables.  Thankfully we had a pretty mild fall and some of our late planted gamble crops of cilantro, red radishes, baby bok choi and mustard had enough time to mature so we could harvest them.  While we continued those harvests, we also had to prioritize harvesting our crops to put into storage!  First it was a push to get all the sweet potatoes in, totaling around 30,000 pounds.  Next it was burdock root.  This is a high dollar value crop that is very important to our farm.  We can store it for almost an entire year and there are only a few growers in this country who produce burdock root so we have many customers who depend on us!  It also has very long roots so it’s best to dig it when conditions are dry.  We started harvesting some in mid-September, but really did a push to get it all out by the end of the first week of October.  Thankfully we managed to get it all dug before we had rain and our harvest came in at well over 60 bins or about 25,000-30,000 pounds!  That’s a lot of burdock root and to think it came from only about 8 pounds of seed!

Rows and rows of
Beauty Heart Radishes!

Beauty heart radishes were also a priority and with the warm fall we had, they were growing rapidly pushing them close to the edge of being too big.  But we know they are best after some cold weather so we tried to hold off until we got a few frosty nights.  Thankfully we did get that little bit of cold and we started the harvest.  The other tricky part of harvesting beauty heart radishes is they can be very brittle.  If we machine harvest them we often lose a lot that crack in the process.  So we made the decision to maximize our yields and harvest them all by hand this year.  Overall we harvested well over 20,000 pounds and we still have about 14,000 pounds remaining in the cooler that we’ll continue to wash for orders and CSA boxes we’ll be delivering through the end of the year.  

Brussels Sprouts on the stalk,
going into storage

As our main cooler started to fill up, I knew it was almost time to transition our warm temperature cooler to a cold storage area.  No problem, except at that time we were storing about 30 bins of potatoes in that cooler!  I held off as long as possible, but then Richard declared it time to harvest Brussels sprouts.  In late October we saw the first forecasts for temperatures dipping into the low 20’s.  While Brussels sprouts can withstand multiple frosty nights, dangerously low temperatures in the 20’s can cause damage.  In Richard’s 30 plus years of living in this valley, he also knows that a forecasted temperature of 25 degrees can mean an actual temperature of up to 10 degrees colder in the valley.  Brussels sprouts are too important of a crop to lose, so we started loading up wagon after wagon with bins to bring them in on the stalk.  It takes a lot more storage space, but it’s a much faster harvest and on frosty mornings we can snap them off the stalks.  Just before the first load came in, we emptied the potato storage cooler and moved all the potato bins to a refrigerated trailer that we use once a year in the fall.  I decreased the temperature in our previously warm cooler to 34 degrees and it was ready to store Brussels sprouts.  I lost track of how many bins we harvested overall, but it was around 40 or maybe a little more.  We still have about 20 bins in the cooler and overall we’ll yield about 5,000-6,000 pounds of sprouts!  

As we closed out the month of October, we’d fill up our already full coolers at the beginning of the week as we prepared to pack CSA boxes on Wednesday and ship wholesale orders for the first part of the week.  We had to get creative, we had to remain very organized.  Everything had to have a place and there were some days when there was one way into a cooler and one way out.  On a few occasions, we had 20-30 bins of root vegetables stacked outside at the end of a busy harvest day.  But after the crews unloaded we always managed to find more space to get everything into the appropriate storage environment.  At the end of the day on Wednesday after we had loaded all the trucks, we’d breathe a sigh of relief only to wake up the next morning and do it all again for the end of the week!  While our rutabaga crop was mostly a loss and this year’s carrot crop was a disappointment with very low production, we have still had a very bountiful fall harvest and year overall!  So facing the challenge of exceeding storage capacities is actually a good problem to have!   

The majority of our crops are in now.  We still have a little tat soi in the field along with our little planting of specialty crosnes.  Aside from that, our mission now is to trim, wash, pack and deliver all these vegetables!  This week we’ll be delivering about 52,000 pounds of vegetables total including all of our CSA deliveries as well as orders we’re sending to our wholesale and retail partners.  That’s a lot of vegetables!!   Our crew has been working very hard all season, but especially over the past few weeks to help us get everything harvested as well as working diligently so we can fill our orders, pack CSA boxes and meet all of our deadlines.  We’ve already said goodbye to 11 of our H2A crew members who returned to Mexico at the end of October.  This week we’ll be sending 14 crew members back to their families who are very anxious to welcome them home!  We’ll be taking a little break next week to celebrate Thanksgiving, but we’ll be back at it the next week washing and trimming more vegetables, finishing the last of our field work and some of the other outside missions still remaining on the list.  It’s been a busy, yet very rewarding fall.

2021 HVF Crew Photo (brief moment without masks)

Thus is the nature of our business, the push and the pull, the cycles and the seasons.  As we move into winter we look forward to a little bit of rest and rejuvenation.  We also pause to reflect on the many blessings we’ve received this year, the bountiful harvests we’ve brought in and the thousands of people who have received nourishment from the food that has come off our land.  As we celebrate Thanksgiving next week, it’s an understatement to say we have a lot to be thankful for this year.  

As we wrap up this growing season, we’re already working towards next year.  Our garlic, horseradish and sunchoke crops are planted as is our overwintered spinach.  Fields have been composted and planted to cover crops.  Irrigation equipment is tucked away in storage and we have a list of supplies that need to be ordered to be ready for next season.  Now we’re focusing on cutting and storing firewood, maintenance and repair projects and cleaning up some brush and field perimeters of overgrown trees, etc.  We’re also working on the 2022 CSA season and will be sharing more information about that with the next CSA delivery in December.  

We hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving in whatever way you choose to celebrate.  We are grateful for your support of our farm and hope you have enjoyed the bounty of the 2021 season.  Take care and we’ll see you in December to officially wrap up our 2021 CSA Season!

So What Food System Will You Support?

By Farmer Richard

Towards the beginning of this CSA season, we were faced with the buyout of Whole Foods Market by Amazon.  Given we grow a significant amount of produce for Whole Foods Market, this buyout weighed heavy on our minds and left us wondering how this business decision may trickle down and directly impact our farm.  It also left us wondering what may happen to our food system in general as we as a society adapt to the changes in the market place.  We truly believe our future and the future of society is in the hands of the consumers.  Over the course of the season we have tried to report on a variety of  topics to impress upon our readers about how our food purchasing choices affect our health, our community, our downstream communities and more.  Our choices will sculpt our future food system and are based on and related to more than just the basic price of an item.  So what are the issues?

One of the most important issues that plays into the bigger picture view we are seeking is our health.  Choosing to eat more organic vegetables grown locally and in their season is one of the best ways to maximize the nutrition you get from your food as produce received directly from the farm typically is more fresh and thereby has retained more nutrients.  Vegetables grown in nutrient dense soils are especially high in antioxidants and other nutrients.  Just as you would seek out an experienced surgeon with lots of experience to perform a surgery, so it is with finding an experienced farmer to grow your vegetables!  For those who choose to include meat in their diets, choosing to eat only meat produced locally from pastured animals and grass-fed beef may be the healthiest choice.  Eating local and in season is also beneficial for community health.  When food is grown locally, there is an opportunity for any “extras” to go to a local food pantry, thereby opening up access to fresh, nutritious produce in communities that may otherwise have limited access or be unable to afford purchasing fresh food.  This year we donated over 30,000 pounds of fresh vegetables to our local food pantry that picks up weekly at our farm during the growing season. 

More and more people are choosing organic for health reasons including to minimize pesticide residues and to raise healthy children!  We applaud your choice.  But organic is available everywhere now.  Not just the co-ops and farmers markets, but almost every grocery chain including Wal-Mart.  Even convenience stores, ie in our area Kiwk Trip, now carry some organic products.  But is all organic the same?  Unfortunately, the answer is No!

Rooster keeping an eye on his hens!

Muscovy Duck with ducklings.

When I started as an organic farmer in 1973, there were very, very few organic customers.  Now something like 65% say they buy organic at least sometimes.  Organic now represents 10% of food purchases and some 10 billion dollars, enough of an impact on the market to attract the “big business” players.  That is good and yet a huge complicated “bad.”  Money, greed and politics all come into play in what once was our small scale arena of trust and integrity.  Now we have big business, “green washing,” “white wash and hog wash” politics and fraud infiltrating into the organic market place too!  Take eggs as an example.  We have a small flock of chickens in a mobile coop that are totally free range.  They scratch and forage in the pastures and are really healthy and happy birds.  Their eggs are fantastic!  Their yolks are not just yellow, but rich golden in color with the same rich flavor.  Our hens will raise new chicks in the spring to sustain our flock and continually be replacing birds that pass away from old age and the occasional bird that falls victim to predation.  Same with our flock of ducks.  They raise their own replacements, they live on the creek, they fly and only come home at dark to eat a little organic grain and then retire to their safe house that we secure them in for nighttime safety from predators.  We could expand our chicken flock to 400-500 birds housed in a mobile coop the size of a school bus and move them to new pasture every few days and produce those eggs with golden rich yolks, but we are not looking for a new business and with the labor involved, we would need to get $5-$6 per dozen for those wonderfully tasty and nutritious eggs.  How many of you would sign on to that?

So we went to our neighbors who raise organic eggs for a major co-op.  They have 2 chicken barns that hold 10,000 chickens in each and look very much like an industrial egg factory, but with some important distinctions.  They have no cages for laying hens and they give their birds 2.5 sq ft of space inside and provide a nice outdoor yard with shade and dirt to scratch.  Their egg yolks have a little color, but nothing like a totally free range bird.  They need to get $4.00/dozen eggs to survive.  They are lamenting that their co-op has lost market share because the new organic rules for pasture and outside access has again been delayed by large scale factory farm lobbyists who are also producing organic eggs.  While our neighbor is already in compliance with the new organic rules, the factory farm lobbyists want to stick with their 1.5 sq ft of space and little or no meaningful outdoor access.  Those eggs sell for $3.00/dozen at many, many supermarkets. 

So there is my example.  Beware of the sales promos that show young girls in a dress carrying fresh flowers with happy chickens or cows and a red barn in the background!  It is marketing PR, pure and simple and a certain amount of “hogwash.”  On the bright side, at least they are eating organic feed and not being fed antibiotics and/or hormones.  Organic is now “big business” and it is a difficult task for you the consumer to sort out the truth from the hogwash or chicken wash or green wash!

The same is true for vegetables, most of the big players now also do organic including Grimmway, the largest producer of vegetables in the world.  And frankly, they do have the resources to do a pretty good job!  We can’t forget about the home delivery meals and CSA style “look-a-likes” that claim to be helping support local farmers, but substitute cheaper conventional to help their bottom line with less than transparent disclosure.  Read the recent NY Times article about the local farmers left with crops in the field when the delivery service with their sophisticated software to offer “your choice” for “your box” suddenly goes into bankruptcy.  We experienced the same with Door to Door Organics, a home delivery company in Chicago that we grew for previously.

So what about the original, traditional CSA model where consumers, eaters, pledge/commit to support a farm and farmer for better or worse!?  That is the model that is suffering and experiencing decline across the nation.  Why is this? 

It requires a “two way street” and a little give and take between farmer and eater.  The farmer pledges to do their best job, given their experience or inexperience to provide a season of produce or meat, or eggs, etc for the supporting eater.  The CSA member agrees to learn to “eat out of the box” and eat seasonally.  The catch is that a real CSA commitment requires a very experienced farmer team who can grow a very wide variety of crops throughout the season in order to provide a balanced full box for a long season, 30 weeks in our case.  We refer to it as “graduate level” growing, not for beginners, and we are confident that we do the best job of any!  But the two way street?

Harvest Party at Harmony Valley Farm

We read and understand the requests to customize boxes, let us order just what we want.  We looked at the sophisticated software for individual boxes, the crew time to pack those boxes, and the chance of pickup mistakes that we are expected to remedy and those costs are huge!  We can do special orders to help you meet your needs, but for now we are pinning our hopes on our solid, members who have been able to make the transition to seasonal eating.  We hope these successful members will help us find those increasingly rare families that do cook and want to learn about new vegetables.  This is a necessary part of a successful CSA experience. In other words, rather than us transitioning to a personalized delivery service, we need to find those that will make the transition to seasonal eating.

I hesitate to say this, but here it is!  It is not just about “me,” “what I want now,” easy order, delivered to my door, now!  This may be the present climate and there are a world of companies preparing to meet that “me, now” mentality, but we are pinning our survival on a more traditional Community Supported Agriculture, where it is a two-way street of learning, new foods, etc.  Kids can come to the farm, even only once to experience picking all the strawberries they can eat or picking their own pumpkins.  We have seen, and many of you have experienced, the transformation that can come from that experience that changes lives forever.  That is our core, that is our wish.  In this day and age of “me first” please help us continue a historic connection to food and land, our land, your farm, we your farmers.

Farmer Richard and Chef Andrea

Carrots & People: What Really Matters?

By Andrea Yoder

Andrea motoring around the cooler!

Waste…it’s hard to face, for some, yet in my day to day work it is inevitable.  Yes, I’m the one scrounging through the bin of vegetable waste and trimmings on the wash line trying to save every last vegetable with thoughts like these rolling through my mind:  Why are there so many carrots being discarded?  These look just fine!  This crew is being too picky….and then I pick them up and realize the crew is doing just fine.  The vegetable may look fine on one side, but was discarded because maybe it had a split, a small bad spot, was shaped funny, maybe slightly discolored, too short, too fat…the list goes on.  Throughout the year, but especially during fall/winter root crop season, my days are filled with tracking inventories—How many bins of carrots do we have?  How many more do we estimate we’ll be able to harvest?  Where will we store them?  How many do we need to reserve for CSA boxes?  Who will buy the extras?  Do we have enough or do we need more?  Along with tracking inventories, I do a lot of forecasting, anticipating what we’ll need for CSA boxes, reading the minds of our buyers to anticipate the items and quantities they might buy between October and the end of December.  Of course, in the midst of inventories, forecasting, packing CSA and wholesale boxes, I’m tracking yields.  This lot of carrots is only yielding 500# per bin instead of the usual 650#....why is that?  Wet harvest day and we brought in a lot of mud?  Too many forked carrots that have to be discarded?  Too many splits? 

Bin of 'funny' carrots.

Earlier this week as I was motoring around the cooler on my forklift pulling bins for the crews to wash, carrots was the subject matter that laid heavy on my mind occupying my brain space.  The pallet of ‘funny carrots’ (the name we lovingly give to odd-shaped carrots) is getting pretty big.  Where are they going?  Will I ever find a buyer for them?  We’re generating more than the food pantry can take, perhaps I should just compost them.  But they’re good carrots!!!  They’re sweet, delicious, and well—they’re interesting and have character!  In the course of washing tons (literally) of carrots, we have to face the sobering fact that they are not all perfect.  Despite the fact that they are perfectly wholesome, delicious, sweet carrots, they are considered of lesser quality and value in the marketplace!  I can’t say I like this reality, but it’s not a bias I can change singlehandedly.  Of course, our goal is to maximize yields and get a favorable return on the crop.  But what do you do when no one wants these less than perfect carrots?  Are they truly worthless?  Who decided the “perfect” carrot is long & straight?

You know, carrots and people have more in common than any of us may ever have taken the time to reflect on.  Carrots, just like people, come in a rainbow of colors…yes, there are more colors of carrots than just orange.  We grow beautiful bright orange carrots, but we also grow some stunning dark purple varieties as well as bright, golden yellow carrots, red carrots and even white carrots!  Carrot seed is produced all around the world, with some seed coming from Oregon state in the US while other seed is produced in France and even South Africa to name just a few locations.  But when someone looks at a carrot or takes a bite of it, does it really matter where that carrot came from originally or what color it is?  I might choose to use purple carrots for roasting and orange carrots to make a soup because these are the preparations where each color will shine the most, but aside from that the color of the carrot doesn’t matter as long as it’s a delicious tasting carrot!   

In the vegetable industry, there is a classification system for sorting vegetables.  Straight carrots are sorted as “number 1,” carrots that are slightly less than perfect end up labeled as “number 2,” really crazy looking carrots are called “number 3,” etc and with each class ranking the value of the carrot decreases.  The reality is that every crop of carrots is different and the perfect, straight, number 1 carrots may only be a small percentage of some crops.  Of course these perfect carrots are what every buyer and customer wants, they’re obviously more desirable and more valuable…is that true?  And those less than perfect carrots that are left behind?  What are we supposed to do with all of those?  Does an imperfection in the shape of how a carrot grew make the carrot bitter or somehow inedible?  In my experience these carrots taste just as good as the straight ones, we just haven’t grown to the point as a society where we can willingly accept and embrace their uniqueness.  Yet every carrot has a purpose and in the hands of the right person, that carrot can realize its purpose. 

'Funny' Shaped vegetaables are beautiful in their own way!

As with carrots, so with people.  We’re not all “perfect,” but we all have purpose and value.  Is it fair to toss aside those people/carrots that aren’t perfect and deem them “less valuable” than the others?  Perhaps they require a little more care and attention to trim them up and make them usable, but if you make a pot of delicious carrot soup, when its done you won’t know if it was made from a straight, perfect carrot or a funny shaped carrot.  If it was a good tasting carrot, that is the characteristic that will leave the lasting impact.  Those funny shaped carrots demonstrate the harsh realities of life in a field.  Sometimes you hit a rock or a hard spot in life that might set you back.  You can give up, wither and fade away, or you can push through and overcome the obstacle.  In the case of a carrot with a funny shape, that doesn’t represent an inferior carrot, the shape demonstrates the fact that this is a carrot that came up against adversity and continued to push through, determined to grow and make something of itself.  Carrots can’t get up and choose to relocate to a different field.  They have to do the best they can with what they have.  This year our carrots had some trying times---first it was too dry, then it was too wet.  Yes, all these life events played a role in shaping their final outcome, just as we too are shaped by our life experiences.  Just because we may look or seem a little different than someone else doesn’t mean we’re less valuable.  Yes, funny carrots require a little more time and attention to trim and clean them, but on the inside they are still sweet and delicious!  Funny and broken carrots that might be tossed to the side, discarded and ignored, may be the most valuable carrots to some.  A farmer might snatch them up…. “Hey I’ll take these.  They’ll be a great source of nutrition for my animals.”  Or another farmer might want them to work into his compost pile to create compost to put on the field to feed another year’s crop.  A chef might spot them and say, “Oh, let me toss these in my stockpot.  They’ll add depth of flavor and a special sweetness to this stock!” 

And so it is with people.  We all have our own purpose in life and while some may seem to have a more glorious purpose than others, at the end of the day it takes all of us to make this world work.    Let us not be too quick to judge, but rather lets embrace the diversity and uniqueness of each person/carrot while focusing on the positive qualities that really matter, offering a little extra time and patience to work with them, and allowing them to become the something beautiful, sweet and valuable that they were meant to be.

No, I never really thought a carrot could teach me anything about life, but there are some important parallels we can embrace.  With open minds, hearts and appetites, I hope we can all move forward into this season of Thanksgiving and a new year with a heart of gratitude and acceptance for all the people of this world and all the carrots of the fields.  Happy Thanksgiving.  

Glyphosate: An Important Update

By Andrea Yoder

We’ve included reports about glyphosate in our newsletters in previous years, but sadly this chemical and its issues have not miraculously disappeared from the headlines or from our lives.  We all have reason to be concerned about this chemical as it is now the world’s most widely used herbicide and can be found extensively throughout our environment, our food supply and in human bodies across the country and world.  Glyphosate has been in the headlines recently, including just last week when the European Union held their initial round of votes on October 25, 2017 regarding the proposed 10 year re-license for glyphosate use within the European Union, which expires on December 15, 2017.   The majority voted against the re-license and has voted to ban glyphosate completely by 2022.  Additionally, they have voted to impose restrictions on its use starting in 2018.  While we could write volumes about glyphosate and the controversy and health & environmental impacts it has caused, we wanted to provide you with a brief update.  For those of you who are not as familiar with glyphosate, its use, etc, we’ve also provided several resources for you to further your own understanding of this dilemma we’re all in, whether we like it or not.  As consumers, we need to practice our right to make informed decisions regarding our purchases, and in this case specifically food purchases.  The choices we make can have great implications on our own health and well-being as well as casting a vote in the marketplace.

Glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide, patented in 1974, is now the world’s most widely used pesticide.  When it was initially introduced into the market, farmers used it as a pre-emergent herbicide to kill weeds before planting their fields as well as for weed control in non-crop areas.  In 1987 6 to 8 million pounds of glyphosate based herbicides (GBH) were applied in the US.  The first genetically modified (GMO) seeds were commercially planted in 1996 and were made to have resistance to glyphosate, thus the two were meant to be used together.  By 2007, the amount of GBH being applied in this country rose to 180-185 million pounds.  In more recent years GBH have been used as a pre-harvest desiccant for small grain crops including wheat, barley, oats, lentils, flax and dried beans with the intention of accelerating the dry down of the crop before harvest.  Because the chemical is applied so close to harvest, high levels of the chemical are found in the crop and the food products made from them.  GBH are now being used quite extensively on both GMO and non-GMO crops which has led to even more chemical being applied on US agricultural land.  In 2014, approximately 240 million pounds of GBH were applied in the US alone.

While the manufacturers of GBH continue to claim it is harmless, there is plenty of evidence to the contrary.  In 2015 the World Health Organization’s (WHO) International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified glyphosate as a probable carcinogen to humans.  On July 7, 2017, California’s Environmental Protection Agency added glyphosate to their Proposition 65 list of chemicals known to cause cancer.  The IARC’s classification of glyphosate as a probable carcinogen prompted many to file lawsuits against Monsanto by people alleging that exposure to Roundup herbicide caused them or their loved ones to develop cancer.  There are currently more than 50 lawsuits pending in the U.S. District Court in San Francisco.   

There are many problems with the use of glyphosate, making it overwhelming to even know where to start.  The use of GBH as a desiccant so close to harvest has led to a significant increase in glyphosate and its primary metabolite in food products including seemingly benign foods like Cheerios!  While food products are not being extensively tested for glyphosate, Food Democracy Now in coordination with the Detox Project requested testing of some food products at a FDA-registered food safety testing laboratory.  They found extremely high levels of glyphosate in common food products including Cheerios breakfast cereal, Ritz Crackers, Oreos, Doritos and even Goldfish crackers.  Glyphosate has also been found in honey, beer and wine.  Last week a research letter was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) regarding the findings of increased levels of glyphosate in urine specimens collected from participants in a prospective study being conducted in Southern California.  The mean glyphosate levels in urine specimens increased from 0.024 ug/L in 1993-1996 rising to as much as 0.449 ug/L in 2014-2016 for 71 participants with detectable levels.  This was a very small study, but nonetheless it raises concern for the rest of us in the population and demonstrates a need for future research to study the relationship between chronic glyphosate exposure and human health impact.

Monsanto has laced the industry with lies and deceit in exchange for economic gain.  They’ve influenced governments to make regulations, or drop regulations based on their proprietary studies which are not available for independent review and the credibility of which are very questionable. Last week a German publication, Spiegel Online, released an article reporting on the recent release of the “Monsanto Papers” which included internal emails, presentations, and memos suggesting they have participated in ghostwriting, scientific manipulation and withholding important information from government regulatory agencies and the public. 

So, where do we go from here?  Do we really know and understand the full impact glyphosate has and is having on human health and our environment?  If we continue on the current trajectory, where will we be in another 10, 20, 30 years?  Cancer, allergies, birth defects, endocrine disorders and the list of possible health concerns associated with glyphosate goes on.  I mentioned the Detox Project earlier.  This is an organization that has set up a means for testing glyphosate levels in participants all across the nation.  Anyone can participate as long as you’re willing to purchase a test kit and submit a urine sample.The purpose of their study and testing is to start tracking glyphosate levels in the population, but also to help individuals understand what their personal exposure is based on the levels found in their own body.  The Detox Project website also has a lot of informative resources for the general public as well as links to scientific research and papers.

The research group that published the research letter in JAMA mentioned above is expanding their work at the University of California, San Diego.  They have initiated the Herbicide Awareness and Research Project to conduct research in the areas of how glyphosate exposure might have changed over time since the introduction of GMO foods and to set up longitudinal epidemiological studies to look at glyphosate exposure and human health. 

A picture of one of our CSA share boxes.
This has become our medicine!

All of these things are good moves in the right direction, but do we have time to wait for the research?  What can we do in the meantime?  Organic food has become our medicine now more than ever.  For those who do not feel comfortable wondering if the foods they eat have herbicides and pesticides in them and/or don’t want to wait to find out if there really are negative health consequences, choosing to eat certified organic food may be the best choice.  Taking it one step further, knowing more about your food and where it comes from is more important now than ever.  Sadly, there is corruption within the organic industry as well and the organic credibility of some companies, both domestic and  international, have been questioned.  “Know your farmer, Know your food” is not just a catchy phrase to support a feel-good campaign to support local farmers.  It’s an important tool in your tool box to help you make informed food purchasing decisions.

I’ve included several resources below and encourage you to do some further investigation into this topic on your own. There really is something for everyone here.  If you’re interested in health and want to read the scientific papers, I’ve included a consensus statement published in Environmental Health.  If you’re interested in the legal issues, policy, etc you might find it interesting to look into the “Monsanto Papers”.  If you just want some easy to read documents to bring you up to speed and guide you in making decisions for your family, I’ve included several good resources for that as well.  I hope you’ll take the time to become more informed, if you are not already, about the realities of glyphosate in our food and environment today.  It’s an issue that impacts us all and we all have the right to know about it.

• Glyphosate:  Unsafe on any Plate-- Food Testing Results and Scientific Reasons for Concern.  www.fooddemocracynow.org
• DetoxProject.org—Information about glyphosate and testing
• US Right To Know (usrtk.org)—Information and links to resources about many different topics related to glyphosate, Monsanto, etc.
• Bethge, Philip.  Monsanto Faces Blowback Over Cancer Cover-Up, Spiegel Online, Oct 24,2017 
• Mills, PJ, et al.  Excretion of the Herbicide Glyphosate in Older Adults Between 1993 and 2016.  JAMA 2017; 1610-1611. 
• Myers JP, Antonious MN, Blumberg B, et al.  Concerns over use of glyphosate-based herbicides and risks associated with exposures:  A consensus statement.  Environ Health  2016;  15:19 
• UC San Diego School of Medicine, Herbicide Awareness & Research Project 

Labor and the Cost of Food

By Farmer Richard de Wilde

Captain Jack and Rafael chillin out at lunch time!

Chef/Farmer Andrea and I work very hard to make it all happen, to set the standards for our farm and to lead the way.  But there would be a very different HVF if it were not for Kelly, Scott, Simon, Gerardo, Beatriz, Rafael and his brothers, JMC, Juan and every other person on our crew.  Our core group of employees has been the same for 5, 10, and some approaching 20 years.  Their years of experience and expertise are what make this farm “work” and they are dedicated to continuing to keep this farm going into the future because, as many of them say, “it is the best job they have ever had!”  From our perspective, they are the best work force we have ever had!

Here’s a little history for you.  Labor costs on our vegetable farm make up roughly half (50%) of gross revenue.  Hiring and managing that labor force occupies more than 50% of our time.  It takes a full year of on-the-job experience for a new crew member to learn how our farm operates.  Once they enter the second year of experience, they really start to build skills and build on their initial training investment.  Thus, we are really looking for long term crew members who will be with us for more than one or two seasons.  Over the forty plus years I have farmed, I have had many different employees.  “Interns” who work only one season for low pay and to gain experience, older Laotian Hmong people who had few other job opportunities, local high school and college students who start too late and leave just when our peak fall season starts, not very workable!  The inmates from the Vernon County jail work program were very dependable!  That is until they got out of jail and could not make it to work on time for even 5 days in a row!  We’ve also had many excellent employees that were with us for a season or two and showed great potential.  However, just when they were really becoming established on the farm, they chose to leave to pursue other opportunities and experiences. 

Our farm is very complex with about 150 crops planted over about a 25 week period.  Each crop has its own specifications and requires specific skills and expertise, which means there is a lot to learn!  We need and thrive when we have a stable, trained, dedicated and long term work force.  Unfortunately, our local community has not been able to provide that!  As part of the H2A visa process, we have to advertise our farm worker positions in great detail for several weeks in our local newspapers and on the WI job center website. We also have to post that position in newspapers in three different states as required by the United Sates Department of Labor.  This year was typical of the other years.  We only had two local young men with farming experience apply.  We hired both to start on the following Monday.  Neither showed up or even had the courtesy to call and explain!  This is not just a tractor driving job, but tractor driving is necessary.  We would never be able to staff our farm with individuals from our local or surrounding areas.  In contrast, our crew members who come to us through the H2A visa program are dependable and, in situations such as this week, exceed our expectations.  This week we had a crew of guys who finished our sweet potato harvest in two days despite working the last 3 hours in a light rain with mud building up on their boots, wet and cold.  Nonetheless, they finished the harvest with pride!  The sweet potatoes are safely stored in the greenhouse and the curing process has begun! 

This is the part of the conversation where we need to bring the Zuniga, Cervantes and Rodriguez families into the conversation!  They started working on our farm in the mid-90’s and in 1998 we were able to bring them here on H2A visas (agricultural guest worker program).  While many of the country’s vegetable workers are “undocumented,” the H2A visa program is the only legal way for farm workers to work in the U.S. aside from permanent residency.  Starting in 1998 we set out to learn the complexities of the H2A visa program so our workers could come and go legally while working here.  This allowed them to cross the border and return legally if they needed to and it has proven very important to many crew members who have gone home for the birth of a child, to attend funerals, see loved ones who may be ill, attend their children’s graduations, etc.  Unfortunately it is a very difficult and agonizing process.  We started by paying $5,000 to an agency to do the paperwork, but quickly learned that we could do it better.  Kelly and I, with help from Omar, a lawyer who works in Mexico, have been successful in bringing our present work force back each year.  It is very expensive and complicated.  We have to provide free housing, transportation to and from Mexico as well as to and from work each day, and we cover all the visa fees.  Once we put all of the expenses associated with this program together, the reality is that these workers have a cost of about $16 per hour.  This makes it very hard to compete in the wholesale market as we are trying to be competitive with other growers who may be paying $8.00 per hour, use contract labor, hire illegally, etc.  It is a challenge, but our dedicated crew totally “gets it”.  They need to be fast and efficient so we can compete and have high quality food and please our CSA members and other customers.  They are invested in making our farm “work” so they can continue to have a long term job!

2016 Crew Picture

Our current crew is the best work force we have ever had.  It is easy to show them respect because they deserve and earn it and it’s a welcome change from other jobs they have had that require a “yes, sir” to their employer.  At HVF they enjoy the opportunity to improve our processes, improve efficiency so much that we can almost compete with the other lower cost labor options.  It is a constant challenge in the whole sale market place.  In our CSA, the same efficiencies have allowed us to continue to deliver $1200-$1500 value for less than $1000 for a weekly vegetable share. 

Most of you as CSA members are in the workforce or have been in the work force.  You work hard to provide for your families.  For your health, we hope you value and purchase organic food, household and body care products.  As you make your purchases, we encourage you to not forget the people that produce these products for you! 

We are one out of only a few farms/companies who seek to change the world and strive to care for a healthy environment with healthy people as well as a healthy “respect” for those who work very hard to make sure we all have wholesome food to eat.  Will you continue to support them and others like them with your purchases or will you choose to support a system that is built on a cheap price and keeps the story of the food and its origin a mystery?

Right now there is a bill called the “Ag Jobs” bill in the House of Representatives.  This program is being proposed as a replacement for the H2A visa program and would instead be called H2C.  As currently proposed it would be a boon to employers, but not for workers.  The cost of the labor would be less for us as employers, but our employees would not benefit from the program.  We’ll keep you posted as that bill progresses. 

Our country has a long history of “cheap” food which comes only by exploiting someone along the supply chain with “cheap” compensation. There has been a shortage of “cheap” labor because of increased border security and raids on farms and businesses to expose illegal employees.  So something like 30% of fruit and vegetable production has moved south of the border, including organic production! As we consider what we want the future of our food system to be, we can’t overlook the topic of labor.  We must consider the “real” cost of producing fruits and vegetables and compensate fairly.  Will enough consumers be willing to pay the real price of food?  This is just one of many issues that goes into each and every purchasing decision you make, and your choices do make a difference!

Manuel, Rafael, Jose Alejandro, and Alvaro Morales Peralta

As we continue to explore this topic as well as others that impact the future of our food supply, there are a few resources we’d like to recommend.  Food First just published a book entitled A Foodie’s Guide to Capitalism:  Understanding the Political Economy of What We Eat, written by Eric Holt-Giménez.  We hope to receive our copy soon and will likely report more about the ideas in this book in the future.  Another book by Food First that you might be interested in reading is entitled Land Justice:  Re-imagining Land, Food, and the Commons in the United States.  This book is an anthology edited by Justine M. Williams and Eric Holt-Giménez.  Lastly, we recently watched a newly released documentary entitled, The Road to Ruin or the Path to Prosperity.  This movie was produced by Dr. Pedram Shojai and is currently available for free online screening.  You can find out more about this film and how to view it at Well.org.  The film takes a close look at how our individual choices as consumers can have a big impact on our world and our future.  It takes a look at some of the positive things companies and individuals are doing to point our future in a more positive direction and empowers each individual to look at their own choices and lifestyles to impact the world positively.  While this film does include a look at food systems, it goes beyond just food. 

CSA Charter Release and CSA Day Celebration!

Hello!

     It’s hard to believe we are just 10 weeks away from the first CSA delivery of the 2017 season.  This year will mark our 24th year of CSA and we’re already looking forward to the bounty of a new year.  Our first greenhouse is set up and our winter crew has been seeding onions this week.  It won’t be long before the hustle-and-bustle returns to the fields and we’ll all have the opportunity to enjoy fresh vegetables again!
     Friday, February 24th is CSA Sign-Up Day, a day being recognized by farms across the country as a day to celebrate CSA.  CSA is a concept that came onto the scene in the United States about 30 years ago and we were among the first farms to start a CSA in this region in the early 90’s.  Over the years we have built a strong membership and, in fact, we still have many members who have been with us since the early years!  The market place and our food system has changed quite a bit over the past 20-30 years.  About 6 years ago we started to see a slight downward trend in our membership.  Soon we started to hear other farms across the country were experiencing similar trends.  Why is this happening?  No one knows for sure, but it’s clear that there are more outlets available for consumers to choose from when making their food choices.  Farmers’ markets, food co-ops, natural foods stores, upscale grocery stores, gas stations and convenience stores, home delivery companies and even home delivery meal services.  So where does that leave us at the end of the day?  Where does CSA fit into the picture?

Read more about CSA Day on their website

     The concept of CSA has remained the same and we believe it will continue to be an important part of our farm.  After 30 years this concept remains rooted in establishing a direct connection between a consumer and a farm.  This is a connection that brings greater value to the table than just the face value of a vegetable—for both the farm and the consumer.  Even in the midst of a wide variety of food purchasing options, it’s important to remember that the story of our food goes beyond just the act of eating to satisfy the immediate hunger.  Our food choices have the ability to impact our environment, our health, the health and well-being of others, politics, economics and much more.  All food is not equal, and transparency is not always evident on grocery store shelves.  Understanding the story of our food leads to community….which is what “Community Supported Agriculture” is all about.
     So on Friday, February 24th, and every other day of the year, we will continue to celebrate the impact CSA has had on our farm and the community of people that we have been blessed with through our CSA.  We enjoy the opportunity and the challenge of growing a wide variety of vegetables over the course of the season for our CSA members.  Growing for CSA is not an entry-level position.  It takes skill, experience and a desire to keep learning and improving.  We have to work hard to make sure we have vegetables ready for you every week for 30 weeks and there are some challenging parts of the season.  While we’re all anxiously awaiting the first green beans, strawberries and zucchini, we learn how to incorporate kohlrabi, fennel and beets into our early summer meals.  Learning to eat and cook out of a CSA box may be a challenge the first year or so when you’re faced with new vegetables you’ve never seen or used before.  It takes time to learn to choose your recipes based on what is in your box instead of picking out a recipe and buying the ingredients.  Our long time members tell us it takes 2-3 years to fully make the transition to seasonal eating, but remember we’re here to help.  Once you have learned to eat with the seasons, you begin to anticipate what’s coming next and learn to eat a wide variety of vegetables!
     Last fall, a group of CSA farmers from across the United States and Canada started working together to create a CSA Charter.  The CSA values outlined in the charter are included in this newsletter and help all of us remember and understand the core values CSA was built upon.  It reminds us of the relationship that must be established between a member and the farm.  There is responsibility on both sides of the equation, but there’s also great rewards for both parties.  We reflect on the relationships we’ve formed over the years with some of those early members.  They made the choice to feed their children the highest quality food and placed value on including organic vegetables in their meals.  Their children grew up as CSA kids, helped pick up and unpack the weekly boxes, visited the farm and ate out of the fields, learned to recognize and were willing to eat a wide variety of vegetables, and the families built their seasonal repertoire of favorite recipes.  Now, their children are moving on to college, careers, and starting their own families….and they take their CSA upbringing with them.  They have learned to “eat out of the box” and we are now realizing how much the simple act of eating vegetables from “their farm” has had on their lives.  Sometimes we get the opportunity to see them again as they circle back to the farm for a farm event, send us an email, or stop by the farmers’ market for a visit.  They are now beautiful, intelligent, creative members of society and are evidence that it pays to invest in good food and community.  We are grateful to have the opportunity to grow with these families and look forward to continuing to build that connection with members into the future.
     As we approach the start of a new CSA season, we want to say “Thank You” to those of you who have already signed up for another year.  Your early commitment to 2017 CSA Shares is important for our farm.  We hope you’ll consider sharing your CSA experiences with other members of your community and encourage them to consider making CSA a part of their lives this year.  If you’re still contemplating signing up for 2017, we hope the CSA Charter will encourage you to take the CSA leap for another season.  Your membership in our farm does make a difference.

Sincerely,
Farmers Richard, Andrea and the Entire HVF Crew

We invite you to read more about the CSA Charter
and why it is important on the website!

1.     Farm members buy directly from the farm or group of farms. There is no middleman.

2.     The farm provides member families with high quality, healthy, nutrient-dense, fresh and preserved, local and low fossil-fuel food or fiber, filling the share primarily with products grown on the farm or, if purchased from other farms, clearly identified as to origin.

3.     Farm members commit to the CSA, sharing the risks and rewards of farming by signing an agreement with the CSA and paying some part in advance, even as little as two weeks for those on Food Stamps.

4.     The farm nurtures biodiversity through healthy production that is adapted to the rhythm of the seasons and is respectful of the natural environment, of cultural heritage, and that builds healthy soils, restores soil carbon, conserves water and minimizes pollution of soil, air and water.

5.     Farmers and members commit to good faith efforts for continuous development of mutual trust and understanding, and to solidarity and responsibility for one another as co-producers.

6.     Farm members respect the connection with the land upon which the CSA grows their food and strive to learn more and to understand the nature of growing food in their locale.

7.     Farmers practice safe-handling procedures to ensure that the produce is safe to eat and at its freshest, tastiest, and most nutritious.

8.     CSA prices reflect a fair balance between the farmers’ needs to cover costs of production and pay living wages to themselves and all farm workers so that they can live in a dignified manner, and members’ needs for food that is accessible and affordable.

9.     Farmers consult with members, take their preferences into account when deciding what crops to grow and communicate regularly about the realities of the farm.

10.   Farm members commit to cooperation with the community of members and to fulfill their commitments to the CSA.

11.   Farmers commit to using locally adapted seeds and breeds to the greatest extent possible.

12.   The CSA seeks paths to social inclusiveness to enable the less well-off to access high quality food and commits to growing the CSA movement through increasing the number of CSAs and collaboration among them.

Harmony Valley Farm Special Offer

     In celebration of CSA Day, Harmony Valley Farm is offering a special $10 coupon to all new members as well as the usual $10 referral gift certificate to all current members that refer a friend! #CSADay