Farm To Table Talk

Eggs are good for you and "Hens are Fun"! What more should we know? Well, more than you think. Jesse LeFlamme came back to the family farm and is leading the way to producing free range organic egss that meet the needs of today's consumers who care about more than just nutrtion; they care about how animals are raised. Jesse's family farm, today's Pete & Gerry's, has created a model of sustainably producing eggs and has helped other farmers join their journey, resulting in Pete & Gerry's organic free range eggs being available in nearly every state in the country. In this Farm To Table Talk podcast we explore consumer demand, retail response and the journey being followed by progressive farmers, doing the right things for the right reasons. www.peteandgerrys.com @peteandgerrys

60% of deaths in the US have poor diet as a contributing cause--we're eating ourselves sick, says Cathryn Couch, the Founder and Executive Director of Ceres Community Project. If people just ate the recommended servings of fruits and vegetables, mortality would be reduced by 40%. A 3 year medically tailored meal pilot project is setting out to prove that providing poor people with healthy meals will save millions of dollars in health care costs and more importantly save lives. Cathryn says that we can provide meals for someone for a full year for the cost of one day in a hospital. The Food Is Medicine Coalition is engaged in supporting medically tailored meal programs across America. There is legitimate optimism about these projects because there is such an epidemic of chronic disease putting tremendous pressure on health care costs, providing good food options is 'low hanging fruit'. If we invest in food, we save money and insurers will have reason to jump on the bandwagon. www.ceresproject.org #fimcoalition

Steve Forbes is bullish about the future of food and feeding the world. We speak to him at the Forbes AgTech Summit where he challenged Silicon Valley and Agriculture to connect for long term sustainability.

The front line for battling weeds may well be Arkansas, where weed resistance to Monsanto's Round Up ready products has led to new GMO seeds that are resistant to applications of two or more additional pesticides, notably Dicamba. Dicamba helps control the toughest weeds, but it can drift on to other crops or Soybean fields that are not planted with the newest GMO variety. This has led to extreme, neighbor, public and political battles about the future for Dicamba and possibly other products as well. To set the stage of what' happening from the farm level perspectives, we welcome Dr. Bob Scott, Extension Weed Specialist with the University of Arkansas for table talk: "weeds find a way". Attention is focused on Arkansas now, but other states are expected to follow.

We are witnessing the birth of a new food activism that is both oppositional and collaborative. Dr. Julie Guthman teaches and writes to encourage budding agrarians and the rest of us to pick a battle, take stances, be political work on policy or simply just work on something that looks to be really wrong. Her students at the University of California at Santa Cruz have completely changed from somewhat passive in the past to feeing total outrage now about the political environment. Dr. Guthman has written extensively about food and agriculture including in her books: "Agrarian Dreams", "Weighing Obesity, Food Justice and the Limits of Capitalism" and her soon to be published newest book, "The New Activism". "These times cause us to be horrified and hopeful... Pick your battle."

BPA or the absence of BPA is a new point of information on food and beverage container labels--confusing to some and welcomed by others. Mistrusting agencies, manufacturers, technology and chemistry has led to marketing and labeling strategies that have created label lists of what's not in foods. BPA is one of those things that many don't understand but feel pressured to take a position. This episode of Farm To Table Talk has a conversation with Steve Hentges the Executive Director of the Poly Carbonate/BPA Global Group at the American Chemistry Council. Yes, this is an Industry Association whose members manufacture BPA but they also manufacture the alternatives and have a good reputation for backing solid science. He explains what is BPA, how it is used, why it matters and the state of the science and regulations.

If you care about the food system you probably already know about Civil Eats and if you don't, you need to check it out after you listen to this podcast with Civil Eats founder and editor Naomi Starkman. Civil Eats has a fresh story daily that features work advancing improvements in the food system. Naomi was a lawyer, journalist and a farmer before launching Civil Eats. Along the way she's been inspired, mentored and be-friended by all of the pioneers of the Food Movement. She returns the favor by sharing and encouraging others to take risks and try new things--maybe farming. If there is a silver lining to the recent political clouds, it is that people are more motivated to make a difference. Naomi believes that each of us can make a difference and have a role to play by choosing what we want to eat, what kind of changes we want to see in the food system and doing something, even volunteering. And contrary to recent experience it can be done with a tone that is Civil. The Civil Eats article about changing the food system that Naomi references in the podcast is http://civileats.com/2014/05/13/want-to-change-the-food-system-heres-where-to-start/

Pork is the most consumed meat in the world, yet there are mixed perceptions on how pigs are grown--in animal "factories" or outdoors on small farms. Large scale pig farmer Malcolm DeKryger and Fair Oaks Pig Adventure are taking impressive steps in transparency to show just what happens in a modern large scale pig farming operation. Over 80,000 visitors this past year were able to observe through glass windows everything from pig birth. Less than an hour from downtown Chicago, a steady stream of visitors are coming to the farm daily. In this episode of Farm To Table Talk, Malcolm, the President of Belstra Milling and the pig production enterprises, talks about pig production transparency, antibiotics use changes and the reasons for his optimism about a promising future in Agriculture. In their own operation the children of employees have gone to College and returned to be a part of the faming operation and many other young people are asking how they can follow the same track and become pg farmers too. More information about the Fair Oaks Pig Adventure is available at ffofarms.com and belstrafarming.com

All over America and around the world people yearn to be “Outstanding in the Field”—connecting their food and the farmers that grow it. This is evident by Farm to Table dinners in every State, led by the pioneer of this trend “Outstanding in the Field”. Farm To Table Talk gets the story from founder Jim Denevan (www.outstandinginthefield.com); the featured chef for this event Brad Briske, Home Restaurant (www.homesoquel.com); and winemaker Jeff Emery, Santa Cruz Mountain Vineyard (www.santacruzmountainvineyard.com) "Connection is the thing that's most powerful about agriculture and food. People are hungry for fulfilling theseconnections. It makes them happy!"

The Washington Post headline laments “The labels said ‘organic.’ But these massive imports of corn and soybeans weren’t.” Conventional grain shipped to Turkey from the Ukraine, suspiciously became Certified Organic in transit to its final destination in the United States, through the port of Stockton. Another headline posts “Why your ‘organic’ milk may not be organic.” Consumers follow these stories because they care more than ever about how their food is produced and that there is honest identification of origin and methods. That’s a lot more information than they can count on from product labels, but fortunately there are still a few Newspapers left in the Country that allow talented reporters to do ‘deep dives’ with investigative reporting for long form stories. The Washington Post is clearly one of the leaders of this type of journalism and Peter Whoriskey is that sort of curious professional investigative journalist. Peter is the author of these and other food/health based articles in the Washington Post. He joins us for a Farm To Table conversation about past, present and future reports on false identification in the food system.

Reports like these start wheels turning. The Cornucopia Institute raised questions about large scale organic farming. The California Certified Organic Farmers (a certification agency) in a letter to the Editor points out that organic certification is rigorous with agencies deputized by the USDA to review detailed farm plans and inspect each operation at least once annually. Government policy is effected by the news too. A new federal Organic Livestock and Poultry Practices rule is pending. A Chinese farmer admits that he can’t meet US Organic standards because of extreme water and air pollution contamination in China. Congressional oversight committees schedule hearings on these issues. Meanwhile Peter Whoriskey and his Washington Post editor keep an eye out for more stories that the “clicks” show that their readers care about a great deal.