Golden Beets Oranges Avacados

What’s Growing This Week:    Carrots Butternut Baby Spinach Leeks Apples # MeloGold Grapefruit Pistachios Golden Beets (M, L) Escarole (M, L) Mandarins (M, L) Potatoes (L) Broccoli (L)

$10 A MONTH?

A recent study publicized by the USDA came to the shocking conclusion that women in the WIC program (Women with Infants and Children) who received coupons good for buying fresh produce at farmers’ markets actually fed their families more vegetables.  Until the advent of the coupons, the WIC program restricted purchases to dairy and processed food products — many of them high in sugar and fat.  (Food stamps are accepted at some farmers’ markets, but it is difficult for farmers to redeem them.)

Fruits and vegetables are expensive on a calorie-by-calorie basis, while fast– and processed foods are cheap and filling.  Of course there are access issues as well, with many low income communities lacking retail outlets with good quality produce.  But ten dollars a month of veggies is not going to make much of a health difference for the families getting the coupons, and it’s unlikely to provide a big enough bump in demand to encourage establishing new farmers’ markets in neighborhoods where they are needed.

THE END OF CHEAP FOOD?

According to our government, inflation in 2007 stayed low.  But only if you exclude the costs of food and energy.  Huh?  It’s true that the average American spends a smaller percentage of their income on food than anyone else in the world.  But for most people, if the cost of their food goes up by 5% in one year, it’s going to affect their budget.  Put another way, that $10 coupon that WIC participants are getting is now worth just $9.50.

  Two factors are causing an inflation in food prices.  The first is the increased income of folks in China, India and other developing countries, who are eating more now than they used to — and in particular, eating more meat.  This has driven up the cost of global food commodities including grains and sugar.  The second is, uh, the price of fuel.  Gas and diesel are critical to growing and shipping crops.  But the high price of fuel has also made biofuels like ethanol and biodiesel competitive with fossil fuels, and farmers — especially in the U.S. — have reduced acreage of other crops to focus on growing corn for ethanol.  As the price of corn has risen, it has pushed up the price of other crops and reduced the ability of processors and buyers to negotiate with farmers on price.  In fact, processors of certain crops are currently paying farmers a premium to guarantee that they don’t shift their acreage into corn.  Milk and meat prices have also been affected by this trend, as livestock growers rely heavily on corn to feed their animals.

SUSTAINABLE FARMING MORE SUSTAINABLE?

In a world of more expensive food, organic and other sustainable farming might be vulnerable to household budget cuts as families seek ways to save money.  But it’s also possible that some of the sustainable practices we use may help us keep our costs down, vis a vis conventionally grown food.  Synthetic fertilizer, for example, is made with natural gas and has risen dramatically in price in the last three years.  Organic farmers rely on composted manure and cover crops for fertility.  In a world of cheap oil, these are more expensive, but the cost differential is now shrinking.  Likewise pastured livestock, which conventional growers try to portray as an inefficient luxury that cannot provide cheap meat for the whole world.  Factory farming livestock, which of course has an enormous environmental cost not reflected in the price of meat — is going be less and less competitive with grass feeding as the cost of corn keeps rising. 

Whatever the production methods used, in a world of rising fuel prices, locally grown food will have a clear advantage over that which is shipped thousands of miles via ship, plane, and truck.   It is absolutely astonishing to me that agricultural economists and free trade advocates seem to have a time horizon of just a decade or so.  They continue to push the idea that the U.S. and other developed countries should give up on agriculture and let other countries with lower production costs grow all their food.  This outlook imagines that our current fossil fuel system is going to last forever or be replaced by an even cheaper fuel technology.  In reality, fossil fuels are going to keep getting more expensive as demand rises and supply falls.  The renewable technologies that replace oil will almost certainly be more expensive and restrictive, and our world will revert to a pre-21st century paradigm where travel is an expensive luxury.  Nations that have abandoned their local agriculture will be at a severe disadvantage.

In the meantime, we will continue to try to provide a source of sustainably grown fruits and vegetables to customers in our “foodshed”.  We hope you keep Terra Firma high on the list of your household budget priorities and consider us a good investment in your family’s health and happiness.

IN YOUR BOXES

Spinach is back this week, having enjoyed the warm days last week enough to grow big enough to harvest.  It is one of several vegetables we grow that changes dramatically in the winter:  the leaves get curly and thick, and the flavor becomes incredibly sweet.  Try a leaf or two before you dress your salad or begin cooking it.  And don’t forget to rinse it well, especially given the pounding rain we had two weeks ago, which splashed lots of soil on the leaves.

Most of our citrus orchards seem to have roared back with a vengeance after last year’s hard freeze, putting out a bumper crop this year.  Not just the Mandarins and Meyer Lemons, but also the Navel oranges and many of our Grapefruit varieties — the first of which, MeloGold, appear today in your boxes.  You may notice the large size of the fruit this year:  some of the Melogolds are as big as watermelon and weigh up to 3 lbs.  If you’ve never eaten one of these fruits and still think of “yellow grapefruit” as bitter and tart, you’ll need to reboot your perceptions.  Melogold (and our other yellow grapefruit variety, Oroblanco) are a cross between regular yellow grapefruit and Pummelos, which are among the sweetest, lowest acid types of citrus.  While the pith (white skin and peel) of Melogold is just as bitter as any grapefruit, if you peel it or use a grapefruit spoon, you will taste nothing but sweet mildness.

  Continuing in the yellow vein, Gold Beets are featured in today’s boxes.  Beet lovers will love the yellow version as much as the red; but Gold beets are also more appealing to folks who think they don’t like beets.  The “earthy” taste that people sometimes object to is much reduced in gold beets, as is, of course, the red color that stains hands, pots, and other vegetables with which it comes into contact.  By the way, beets and grapefruit are wonderful together in salads, the flavors and textures complementing each other beautifully.

    Pablito
 

Please make sure to include your account name, the one on the sign off sheet ? on the box, in every correspondance to Valerie

Recipes............................

Beet and Grapefruit Salad with Winter Greens  — There are several different ways of cooking Beets; you can use any of them in this recipe but I chose baking.

Heat the oven to 425.  Trim and scrub 2-3 beets, place in a baking dish with a little water, and cover with foil.  Bake until fully tender, then allow the beets to cool.  Peel the skins, then cut into half rounds.

Meanwhile, peel 1 medium Melogold grapefruit and then peel the individual sections, removing all the pith.  (Alternatively, cut the fruit in half and scoop out the sections with a grapefruit spoon).  Cut the sections into bite-sized pieces and place in a bowl.

Cut the blanched center section out of 1 head of escarole, reserving the outer leaves for cooking.  Separate the leaves and rinse them well.  Soak 2 C. spinach leaves.  Drain the greens and spin dry.

Make a dressing with 3 T. balsamic vinegar, 2 T. olive oil, and a dash of soy sauce.

Toast 1/2 C. walnuts in a frying pan, then chop roughly.

Toss all the salad ingredients together, including whatever grapefruit juice has collected in the bowl.  You can also add crumbled cheese such as feta or gorgonzola

CSA membership fees ~payment due day is first of month.~~ Quarterly discounts are given for any 3 month period only if paid in advance.
They are given as an extra credit when the payment is applied, you won't see your monthly rate change.

For mid-month changes,  Up/downgrades are $5 per week per increment.  Small to large is $10.

Vacations ? Billing Inquiries
We need seven days notice before a vacation hold or other change of service.
Contact Valerie through voicemail at (530) 756-2800, or e-mail Goldenbell@aol.com.  Include your account name in full (what's on the sign off sheet).

Account Balance Inquiries The account sheet is hiding under the sign off sheet each week with your account balance on it.  Mid month I've been e-mailing statments, so if you're not getting it send me an e-mail requesting to be added to the list. To be able to read the statements you need to be logged in as an administrator on a PC, and virus programs may corrupt the file. Some Mac operating systems do allow the file to be viewed.  We can't resend them, and it wouldn't work any better the second time anyway.

MAILING ADDRESS:
Terra Firma Farms, Inc
P.O. Box 836
Winters, CA 95694
(530) 756-2800
www.terrafirmafarm.com
Goldenbell@aol.com

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