the beat

Hello! My name is Anna Villarruel and I will be interning at Farmplate for the next few months. I’m a senior at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, but originally hail from Santa Barbara, California. My love affair with food started when I was suddenly separated from my mother’s cooking the summer before freshmen year of college. Suddenly, avocados, mangos, and oranges weren’t in season year-round and sunlight was completely out of the question for six or seven months. As I became more acquainted with the Northeast, words like “local food,” “sustainable agriculture,” and “CSA’s” quickly became a part of my vocabulary. My constant trips back and forth across the country have...

Originally posted on the Slow Food USA Blog. The numbers clearly show that demand for local food is growing. According to the USDA, the market for local food “sales to intermediaries, such as local grocers and restaurants, as well as directly to consumers through farmers markets, roadside stands and the like” could reach $7 billion this year, up from about $5 billion in 2008. There are lots of ways to support the local food movement. Of course, starting a farm, investing in sustainable food businesses – even buying organic – all require relatively significant financial resources. Increasingly – and particularly through the use of technology – people from all sorts of backgrounds are able to...

Originally posted on the Slow Food USA Blog. In farming, it seems that size is often rewarded. Government subsidies, economies of scale, and the use of chemical pesticides all conspire to make life easier for large-scale industrial farming operations. But there are a number of advantages to being small. Chief among them may be the ability to connect with individual customers and achieve a level of transparency impossible (or at least undesirable) for larger, factory type farming operations. “I think a lot of people are finding out – not just farmers, but also fish providers and other producers – that transparency in and of itself is a great marketing tool,” says Barry Estabrook, James...

The FoodCorps MissionGetting local food into local schools is not impossible. In fact, on November 22nd — for the first time since anyone can remember — my county school system will be serving local sweet potatoes. I am a young farmer and cook who is taking a year to serve with FoodCorps, a great new national nonprofit made up of fifty leaders who are trying to foster some much-needed change in our nation’s school food system.  One of the ways we do this is through getting local produce into our school cafeterias. Our goal is to make a big impact on the health of our nation’s kids, while making a smaller impact on the health of our nation’s environment. Side effects include stronger...

  The bustle of summer has quieted, the fall rains have arrived and the school buses are busily retracing their routes along the woodsy dirt roads in rural New Hampshire and Maine this morning.  Not all are headed to your typical school, however. In South Tamworth, New Hampshire, a few dozen students arrive each morning at The Community School (TCS), a sprawling 19th century farmhouse on a hill, surrounded by 310 acres of woods, marshes and fields. During the weekly school meeting, the 7th-13th graders  often hear from the resident farmer about what’s ripe on the farm and what needs weeding.  During mid-day breaks, groups of students can be found  in the gardens...

For three lively, food-filled days between March 17 and 19, the sixth annual FamilyFarmed EXPO brought together sustainable food movement leaders, good food advocates and others to promote locally grown and responsibly produced food. Presented by FamilyFarmed.org, a Chicago-based organization dedicated to expanding the production, marketing and distribution of good food, the EXPO, held at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), was a combined trade show, conference and food festival celebrating the local food movement. Known as the Midwest’s premier good food event, it featured renowned speakers, networking opportunities, workshops, demonstrations and delicious local food from small...

FarmPlate staffers share some of their favorite holiday images in this pictorial essay celebrating the season. Each snap captures something either reminiscent of the past or integral to the every day. Some evoke memories, others will become memories. All are a fitting tribute to the close of 2010 and the start of 2011. May your New Year be filled with love, laughter and lots of local food! Our barn with a wreath. - Reinhold Lange Drinking coffee and enjoying fresh-baked Korvapuustit aka Finnish cinnamon ears from a recipe in Beatrice Ojakangas's The Great Scandinavian Baking Book. - Susan Stuck Our little Davey Crockett can't wait for Christmas! - Kim Werner My family's gorgeous tree...