Where does your food come from?
USDA grant provides research on sustainability of local food market
By Mike Barajas
July 14, 2008
Though he mindfully prepared his meals with fruits, vegetables and herbs from either his garden or other local farmers, Brandon Jaeger said he still felt like something was missing in terms of local agriculture. He would open up a bag of pasta, rice or beans and wonder how far it was shipped and what the actual costs were. And then, he asked himself, does it really have to travel that far?
Jaeger and his partner, Michelle Ajamian, are attempting to address that problem. With a recent grant from the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) project of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), they will test how certain varieties of grains, seeds and beans grow in southeast Ohio. With their research, Jaeger and Ajamian hope to demonstrate the possibility of growing healthy staple food crops that make up most of a healthy diet. “Can we grow our staple food and do it locally?” Jaeger asked rhetorically.
The focus of the SARE grant, which provides $5,700 over two years, was to research regional sustainability and look at how these staple crops grow in a particular environment. Jaeger and Ajamian have decided to plant buckwheat, millet, amaranth and quinoa as their four main test plots, but also have begun cultivating crops of meal corn and adzuki beans, both of which are highly nutritious food staples, according to Jaeger.
In an attempt to educate and raise awareness of the project, Jaeger and Ajamian have set up test plots at Green Edge Gardens Organic Farm near Amesville, Currents Community in Ames Township, Willow Farm in Meigs County, and another in the Mt. Nebo area. This past Sunday and Monday, they held “hand-harvest” days at Green Edge Gardens with Ohio University professor Art Trese’s sustainable agriculture class. This was an attempt to give a hands-on experience with how grains are harvested.
The plants being tested were carefully picked for their nutritious value and yield possibilities. For example, amaranth has more protein than milk and good seed varieties, Jaeger explained. Buckwheat, which covers a great portion of Jaeger and Ajamian’s home garden plot, “is an amazing crop; it can grow anywhere,” Jaeger said.
Quinoa, a leafy plant cultivated by the ancient Incas, is in the same family as spinach and beets, and was chosen because it’s easy to grow and highly nutritious, according to Jaeger.
“It’s one of many tools that’s old, ancient, but we’re just not familiar with it,” he explained. “Nobody’s growing this stuff.”
Though people can get most of the fruits, vegetables, meat and dairy they need from local farmers, staple foods like beans and grains have been missing from the equation. If this project is successful, that could all be changed, Ajamian said. Currently, she and Jaeger are testing these crops to see how well they’ll thrive in the region. However, she said they’re already looking at the options this type of agriculture can offer in the local economy.
Sustainable agriculture has received more and more attention as people start paying more for food, Jaeger said. Though the SARE grant focuses specifically on how these crops grow in the region, Jaeger noted that local food security is another issue that’s being addressed.
By locally producing the bulk of what people eat, the area can become self-sustaining and more food secure, he said. According to Jaeger, it’s possible for a local food economy to be prosperous, and with residents able to buy locally produced staple foods, more money is being re-invested and recycled back into the local economy than being shot out of it, he said.
With high fuel prices, it simply doesn’t make sense to keep relying on food that has to be shipped thousands of miles when it can be produced locally, Jaeger insisted. Although producing enough food locally will require modern agricultural tools such as combines that use fuel, he maintained that it’s better and cheaper to use fuel for local production and consumption than for large-scale shipping.
“As things get tighter, issues get more obvious and pronounced,” Jaeger said, adding that people will continue to question how people use resources. Fuel consumption, he said, can and should be reduced by locally growing and consuming these foods that make up the bulk of a healthy diet. It’s efficient for fuel, secure for food production, and satisfying, Jaeger said.
Given what she’s already seen, Ajamian noted that growing more staple foods is ecologically friendly, better nutritiously, and most of all, economically feasible. With all of the test plots already thriving, she said, “We know it grows. But the next step is to be able to process it and get it to folks locally.”
Ajamian said she hopes to see the project expand to other small local farmers, and establish a community support system, where a small combine, thresher and seed cleaner could be shared to help increase their harvest.
Among other possibilities, Ajamian said she’d like to see some conventional farmers added to the mix as well. If large farmers could be persuaded into using a small portion of their land for staple grains and beans, they could easily help provide the quantity needed to sustain the local community, she said.
Part of what Ajamian hopes to see in the future is increased means of local production. In addition to growing grains and beans, she said the community should invest in equipment to process their own harvest. “Every community should have their own mill,” she said.
According to Ajamian, the project sparked by the SARE grant has quickly evolved from the infant stages. “We’re ready to go that next step,” she said.
SOME LOCAL BAKERS ARE already jumping at the opportunity to have local beans and grains on their menus. Jaeger said that Bob O’Neil, owner of Village Bakery and Della Zona Pizza in Athens, was one of the first to ask when the crops would be ready to harvest, and when he could start buying them. Soon after Jaeger had even received the grant, O’Neil was putting together a list of what he could buy from the test plots.
With his business already dedicated to buying locally as much as possible, O’Neil said that Jaeger and Ajamian’s research will open up a new door of possibilities that wasn’t there before. “By adding that option that wasn’t available, you’re adding more money into the local economy,” he said.
What’s best for the local economy, he added, is to add more direct agricultural sales to the community. “There’s always room for more agriculture to be supplied locally,” he said.
O’Neil said that he plans to buy at least some of everything that Jaeger and Ajamian are growing, and that “once the harvest comes in and there are things we can use on our menu, we’ll develop menu items around them.”
Jaeger and Ajamian are now growing meal corn for O’Neil that will eventually be ground and made into tortillas. In addition, they’re aiming to supply the bakery with more than 500 pounds of buckwheat this year.
INVOLVING MORE LOCAL businesses and community members remains a major goal for Jaeger and Ajamian. Heaven’s Oven, which sells its baked goods to various local retailers, restaurants and coffee houses, has already expressed interest in what can be bought locally to add to their production, Ajamian said. She also stated that she is meeting with the Athens-basedAppalachian Center for Economic Networks (ACEnet) to see what connections can be made there.
Once the research is done on their staple food crops and more people and groups become involved in the project, Ajamian predicted that people will be able to grow and purchase more locally than previously. “It really makes sense to have good food locally grown as much as possible,” she said.
The goal of Jaeger and Ajamian’s project remains fairly simple. A white board in their house displays an illustration of what Ajamian calls their “mission triangle.” Food security, high nutrition and local economy make up the three sides.
The project, Jaeger hopes, will help trigger a healthy, shared community interest in local food.
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