Tantalizing

Sorry it has taken me so long to write about this, but Growing Awareness, a documentary film by Jade Ajani about CSAs in the Pacific Northwest, is a lot like that Last Child in the Woods book. Not in subject matter. In the way it makes me react. Last Child in the Woods took me forever to read, simply because every two pages or so I had to put the book down and go outside, inspired by what I was reading.

Growing Awareness had the same effect. You see, my television is directly on the other side of the wall from my kitchen garden. So there, on the screen, was beautiful footage of peppers and beans and onions, all in the golden hue of sunrise, being cut and carried and placed in boxes for folks who paid up front for a weekly share of each farmers' harvest (several farms and CSAs were featured).

And so, I hit the pause button, and out I went. To rake and hoe and pick and prepare and eat.

Next day, same thing.

Next day, again.

I finally wrote to Tim, the man who sent me the DVD, and told him that I was having this particular problem getting through the movie. He wrote back and said, "So many people have the same "complaint," that they should be warned beforehand to have a huge basket of fresh fruit and veggies on hand, since the images are so tantalizing."

And speaking of tantalizing, this photo is of what I found in my CSA box this week, after I lifted out the huge bag of greens that was on top. Talk about tantalizing! Look at those peppers! The eggplant was huge, and there are apples and sweet potatoes and radishes and butternut squashes and more underneath. All for $25.

Interestingly, Slate.com had a little something this week about waste from CSA boxes. Someone wrote in to say that he or she ends up throwing away much of the contents in the box each week because of not being able to get through it fast enough, and was it therefore wrong to participate in the CSA? The answer was that this person was still helping a small farm and was keeping money in the local economy, and these things were good. Yet, as I got my box Wednesday, I told fellow CSA members, who had yet again lined up to make the Chain of Humanity to unload Charlotte's truck, that my box never makes it through the weekend, that I couldn't imagine having so much "waste" from it (granted, I've beeing doing this many years and I'm in the habit of chopping, cooking and freezing most of the contents right away). Also, why not just share? It is an incredible gift to have things to share, especially things this wonderful. (Speaking of "sharing," here is an old FoodShed Planet post that Mother Earth News is currently running!)

No matter how engaging the footage of the farms and the interviews with numerous small farmers are in this movie, the visuals I think I will remember for a very long time are the ones of the endless, endless, endless, rows of corporate organic farms. There is nothing Old MacDonald about these farms. There is absolutely no diversity. No interdependent ecosystem. No stacks of hay and black labradores bounding through the grass. I knew that, of course, but I hadn't seen it before as shockingly (and simply) presented as it is in this movie. I will think twice now before buying those containers of organic spinach from California, although, of course, every acre of land that doesn't have pesticides on it is a good thing for the land, for consumers and for farm workers. So it's not all bad. But it's not all good, either.

Small farms are all good, even though the latest U.S. Census Report eliminated the category of farmer as a job occupation. Now, with CSAs numbering about 1,500 nationwide, which represents an enormous growth, the need for small farmers is getting stronger. The need for increased food security by keeping it local is greater. And the need for healthy connections not just to our food but to each other has never been more urgent.

As for me, I have some sweet potatoes to roast. Maybe I'll make a sweet potato, onion, rosemary and pesto pizza tonight . . .

Tantalizing