SEGMENT: SLOW FOOD & URBAN FARMING

Dr. Deanna Glosser>ISM Interviews A-L>ISM Interviews A-L, Segment 10

SEGMENT: SLOW FOOD & URBAN FARMING,

duration 09:49
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SLOW FOOD
Grocery stores don't have to mark where produce comes from. Gives example of asparagus from Chile available during the winter. Tries to avoid out of country food, if possible. Chooses local versus organic foods, although not opposed to organic. CSA operates by paying a farmer a "share" or "half share" at the beginning of the growing season. In return for this investment, which gives the farmer cash upfront, the investor gets his or her share of produce from the farmer's land. Risk is shared with the farmer if crops do not do well (i.e. if strawberries do not do well, the investor receives no strawberries).
URBAN FARMING
In some larger cities, when people want gardens, but don't have the time to tend them, businesses have been created to till the soil, plant the crops, harvest the produce and deliver it to your door, for a fee. Participants say that locally grown food is the only way to ensure fresh produce is available to them.
SLOW FOOD
Some criticism of slow food includes the need to drive around to get freshest local food. In the future, farmland could be leased by a group of small CSA farmers and the produce from the land would then be sold at a "fresh produce mall". This approach would eliminate the need for farmers to actually be at the mall (as they must be in farmers' markets) and also allow people to purchase all varieties of local produce in one place. Does not feel that CSA will have much, if any, impact on industrial agriculture in Illinois. Federal subsidies are available to commodity crops such as soybeans and corn, but not available to CSA farmers. This tends to make the price of locally produced food (CSA) higher. Notes that in Woodbury County, Iowa industrial agriculture changing to organic methods.