An interesting article about the local foods movement (long)

[Guest guest]

Locally grown food is the latest student cause. Can this movement save

family farmers?

By MARGOT ROOSEVELT / PORTLAND, OR

 

They shut down the Pepsi machines in the University of Portland

cafeteria the other day. The plastic bottles of Hunt's Ketchup

disappeared. Sugar was replaced with honey from a neighborhood

beekeeper. And everything else on the lunch menu, from soup (lentil)

to nuts (hazel), was locally grown, baked, milked and mixed. The

shrimp was harvested in nearby Netarts Bay, not in Thailand; the herbs

were gathered in adjacent Clackamas County, not in California; the

chicken was pastured on fields outside Eugene, not imported from the

Midwest's vast factory farms. " It's awesome, " said Alex Samuels, 19, a

freshman from Puyallup, Wash., swigging a drink made from Oregon

berries. " We're helping smaller farmers instead of big corporations. "

 

It may seem to lack the ideological passion of antiapartheid or

antiwar protests, but the new activist slogan on campuses is " Eat

local. " Students are rediscovering the political adage that you are

what you eat. And colleges are voting with their palates--and their

multimillion-dollar food budgets--against an ever more global

agricultural industry in which produce travels, on average, 1,500

miles from farm to plate. Posters around the University of Portland

campus proclaimed that BUYING LOCAL FOOD IS ONE WAY YOU CAN HELP STOP

GLOBAL WARMING ... AIR AND WATER POLLUTION. A racier

consciousness-raising stunt was staged at Brown University, where

activists published Ripe, a 2005 calendar featuring naked students

posing with strategically positioned Rhode Island fruits and

vegetables (for August, cantaloupes rest on the buttocks of the

women's soccer team).

 

Will politically correct gastronomy save the family farm? That may be

wishful thinking. At the University of Portland, the all-local lunch

was merely symbolic--Pepsi was back for dinner. What's meatier is that

the university, which serves 22,000 meals weekly, has hiked spending

on local and regional products to 40% of its food dollars--up from

less than 2% five years ago. " Even the burgers are from Oregon

steers, " boasts dining manager Kirk Mustain.

 

Some 200 universities have jumped onto the eat-local haywagon--half of

them since 2001, according to the Community Food Security Coalition,

an advocacy group based in Venice, Calif. For many of these academic

foodies, buying local is only part of an educational mission. Scholars

like Oberlin environmental-studies professor David Orr advocate

" ecological literacy, " tying agriculture to the study of fiction,

history, science, economics and politics. In a form of

dirty-fingernail " experiential learning, " some 45 universities and

colleges, from Maine's Bowdoin to Minnesota's St. Olaf, have started

campus farms. And courses like Sustainable Food Systems at the

University of California at Santa Cruz deconstruct relationships

between producers and consumers, with such readings as The Maturing of

Capitalist Agriculture: Farmer as Proletarian.

 

The eco-food movement may appeal to antimultinational globophobes:

packaged, refrigerated goods transported from afar use tons of fossil

fuels that pollute and release ozone-depleting gases. Locally grown

produce typically needs fewer pesticides than big farms use--and fewer

synthetic additives for a long shelf life. But as students seek to

upend the food-supply chain, they get a gritty lesson in practical

economics. Cafeterias are often serviced by billion-dollar behemoths

such as Sodexho Inc. and Aramark Corp., which make money partly by

purchasing cheap foreign produce and centralizing distribution. Even

when colleges operate their own dining halls, the staff is used to

making a single phone call to order thousands of meals from

distributors like the $30 billion Sysco Corp. Roast beef arrives

cooked and sliced, powdered soup requires only added water, broccoli

comes in precut florets. When the University of Montana decided to eat

local two years ago, four graduate students spent months finding 34

nearby suppliers and organizing logistics. " We couldn't have 10

different farmers driving pickup trucks to drop off tomatoes, " said

dining director Mark LoParco. They nudged growers into co-ops for

delivery and processing. Now the romaine comes washed and chopped--and

the farmer gets a higher price. In January the university's new

contract with Sysco will stipulate that the company supply bacon from

Daily's Inc., a Missoula processor.

 

If caterers are starting to pay heed, it may be none too soon.

University of California students on 10 campuses launched a statewide

campaign last month to pressure U.C. regents to spend at least 10% of

their $20 million annual food budget on local and organic products.

Sodexho, which was ousted from the University of California at Santa

Cruz after a student campaign, recently began to draw its supplies

from local sources near eight Midwestern campuses. Aramark works with

the University of Rochester and Vassar to buy from nearby farmers. And

California-based Bon Appetit, which operates dining halls at 67

colleges, has hiked spending on local food to 20% of its budget.

 

In some cases, cooking from scratch with local ingredients is more

expensive. Williams College will pay $85,000 more this year to double

local products to 14% of its $2.7 million food budget. But at the

University of Montana, even though the price of local beef and

safflower oil was higher, the dining bill actually shrank slightly

because of reduced spoilage. Liability can also be an issue, as

University of Vermont students discovered when Sodexho forced a nearby

orchard to buy $4 million worth of insurance. But activists persist.

" Students go through purchasing reports to see where we are buying

pears, " says Robert Volpi, Williams' dining director.

 

Pure idealism? Not necessarily. Local food is usually tastier. When

Alice Waters, the celebrity chef, helped her daughter's Yale cafeteria

switch to a seasonal, regional menu (even the chips are made from

organic potatoes grown in Connecticut), students from other dining

halls began forging IDs to crash the feast. When Brown introduced

Rhode Island Macouns and Winesaps--replacing the Red Delicious and

Granny Smiths grown for long-distance trucking--apple consumption

doubled. To be sure, some colleges find it easier and cheaper to

install fast-food counters. And some students would just as soon dine

on Kraft cheese and Cocoa Puffs ( " This stuff is weird, " grumbled

University of Portland physics major David Baldwin, 18, sniffing at

the salmon-fennel latkes). Even a few Yalies grouse that the all-local

dining hall doesn't serve tomatoes in winter. " My generation knows how

to put food in a microwave and eat in front of a computer screen, "

says Louella Hill, 24, a food activist at Brown. But she adds, " When

someone bites into an heirloom plum, I see a profound awakening. "

 

That awakening is enhanced by growing contact between students and

farmers. At the University of Portland's local-foods lunch, fish

broker Amy Dickson set up a display with shells, nets and a sign

reading SIGNATURE SALMON: 100% LINE-CAUGHT IN OREGON WATERS. " My

slogan is 'Roe vs. Wave: Salmon is a choice,' " she joked. Aaron

Silverman of Greener Pastures Poultry gave out brochures describing

how his chickens " wobble around as they please. " And wheat farmer Karl

Kupers touted the environmental benefits of no-till planting.

" Students come up and shake your hand and call you a hero, " said

Kupers, whose co-op sells to seven area colleges. Spokane senior Emily

Magnuson, 21, echoed the sentiment. " It's a homey feeling to know

who's growing your food, " she said as the scent of fresh-baked bread

made from Kupers' wheat wafted out of the kitchen.