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Column Salads fresh from John and Judys backyard
By RICH HEFFERN
In January the seed catalogs arrive.
Shortly after, here in the Midwest the red cardinals begin to sing, no matter
how frigid the weather or how dark the mornings. My spring hunger really cranks
up then. I wake up having dreamed of fresh salads, plates piled with peppery
arugula, fresh sprouts and crisp radishes. Then its time to fill out the
CSA form, lick the envelope and send it off.
Every spring now for the last five years we have signed up with a
local farmer in a CSA subscription. CSA stands for community-supported
agriculture. As with all CSAs, we pay a fixed amount up front in February or
March. In return, we can expect to receive 24 or more weeks of fresh organic
produce beginning in May and ending in late October or early November. The
advantages of CSA are many. We get quality produce first, the freshest pick,
the best selection. We receive an astonishing variety, depending on what is in
season. By participating, we support a local family farm operation that is
ecologically and environmentally sound, locally focused and sustainable. By
paying for food in advance, we help keep the farmer from borrowing for seeds
and start-up costs. Theres a slight risk if poor weather produces poor
harvests, but CSA farmers are usually so diversified that the risk is
minimal.
Best of all, we know the people who grow our food. We have shared
potlucks with them, visited the farm, perused their organic certification
papers. Our farmers are John and Judy Kaiahua of J.J. Farms in Raytown, a
Kansas City, Mo., suburb. John is retired from the Marines. His
farm spreads over his spacious backyard -- and over a number of
other half-acre backyards leased from neighbors. In this limited space, John
and Judy grow enough scrumptious produce to feed 40 customers and sell at the
local organic market.
Why shell out the extra money for organic? We pay because we know
most supermarket food is grown, distributed and managed by a few corporate
giants that annually use about 2 to 3 billion pounds of pesticides and 250
billion pounds of artificial fertilizer. Because the foodstuffs travel long
distances and are doctored with artificial colors, waxes and sprays to give the
illusion of freshness, it is often two weeks or more from picking by the time
the store clerk neatly piles them in Aisle 2 at the local food emporium. Such
wasteful and unsustainable practices not only result in food that is unsafe to
eat and lacking in nutrition, but also our topsoil disappears and our air and
groundwater are gravely polluted. The nearby state of Kansas came in last of
all 50 states two years running on water quality because of agricultural
runoff.
Theres a justice angle here as well as an environmental one.
The anemic tomato that appears on winter produce shelves is most likely grown
in Mexico or even Peru, sprayed with chemicals banned in the United States and
picked by a worker paid $2.50 a day who is given no protection such as gloves,
masks or safety instructions and has no access to health care. Organic is not
only a contribution to personal and environmental health, it also serves the
cause of justice in a direct way. We vote with our dollars. Spending them on
organic simply tips the scales back toward a better world. Eating nowadays is a
profoundly moral act.
We like it that we are buying locally. As small family farmers,
John and Judy belong to an endangered species. Recent statistics show that 80
percent of farms in our agricultural state cannot sustain themselves
financially by farming alone, mainly because of competition from large
agribusiness operations. Three hundred thousand family farms have disappeared
since 1979. Family farmers, once the mainstay of our society, are forced to
either become huge business operators, an indentured kind of sharecropper or
sell their holdings and find jobs in town or city. The National Catholic Rural
Life Conference puts it this way: We are forced to choose between a
sustainable food system or an industrial one. Sustainable food systems factor
in the environment and future generations; industrial systems factor these out
and focus only on profit.
A native of Hawaii, John likes the fact that he is cultivating the
earth naturally. I plant in half an acre what most people plant in one
full one, he boasts, referring to his technique of staggering double rows
of crops crowded so close they are able to create their own shade, preventing
sunburn and discouraging weeds. His success is due largely to his intimate
knowledge of the ways and means of his soil and location. John and Judy take
great pride in their produce, rich with vitamins and minerals. Their buyers
often get their goods the same day they are picked. A lot of agribusiness
produce has to be picked when its still green so by the time they
transport, its ripe, John says offhandedly. By contrast, his
produce is fresh and mature, which translates into some of the finest eating
imaginable.
Not only did we have a freezer full of tomato sauce, spinach,
turnips and green beans for this winter, we also stored away fond memories of
last years dining highlights: A simple meal of grilled salmon, along with
Swiss chard doctored with plum and hoisin sauce; fresh relish made with beets,
carrots, lime juice and sweet onions, with a sliver of habanero pepper thrown
in for flavorsome pep. Or green peppers stuffed with seasoned rice, shitake
mushrooms and fresh parmesan. Or ratatouille made with fresh eggplant,
zucchini, plum tomatoes and red peppers, seasoned with basil and oregano just
picked from our backyard. One weekend we got some lamb from another local farm
couple, David Shaffer and Alice Dobbs, who raise their animals humanely and
graze them on pastures that belonged to Davids grandparents. We grilled
the lamb on sticks with peppers and onions, served a fresh salad and some rice
and applesauce made from windfall pippins, green tomatoes and sage, all washed
down with homemade beer from a little Ozark microbrewery. It was the kind of
meal in which every bite is savored, lingered over, memorable. Such delicious
food is tangible proof that God is good. Lovingly preparing it is a true
contemplative exercise.
Youll have to excuse me. Its time to sign up again for
this year!
Rich Heffern is the former editor of Praying magazine
and a frequent contributor to NCR. His e-mail address is
Tinseltigr@aol.com
National Catholic Reporter, January 19,
2001
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