The Journal of the Lane County Farmers Market

Field Notes

June 2014

EUGENE AVANT GARDENERS, KEEP UP THE

GOOD WORK! · LOCAL FOOD SECURITY · LCFM

SITE EXPANSION HINGES ON BUTTERFLY LOT

DEBATE · RECIPE: BERRY CRUMBLE

Taylor Johnston

Breaking

The Growth and Expansion of the LCFM

through the Chrysalis

SITE EXPANSIONSTORM IMPACTS STORY 1 PAGERECIPE

con·trib·u·tions

Farmer’s Noteis cocreated by and for the the Lane County Farmers

Market community. It is an expression, through words

and art, of a healthy and adaptive food system.

After the seemingly infinite gestation of our winter season, it’s finally safe to say that summer has been birthed. It was a harsh winter here in the Valley—and a harsh winter all over the West Coast, really. The impact of California’s drought hasn’t been felt quite yet, while the snowfall and cold snaps here toppled greenhouses and killed off many winter and spring crops. Inclement climactic events like these and reoccurring patterns of extreme weather can tend to arouse thoughts of what a truly secure food system might look like. In the face of an increasingly scarce supply of petroleum and these sorts of unexpected weather patterns, bringing things closer to home and acquainting ourselves with local farmers, learning the seasonality of food in our bioregion, and perhaps even, dare I say, growing our own food, is of the utmost importance. Doom and gloom, while ever apparent, aren’t going to solve any of these grandiose issues, which is why here at Field Notes we choose to give voice to those who can lay all these issues to rest: farmers. Most namely the local farmer you know by name, profess your undying love to and trust; because, after all how often can you look the person who grew the food you are about to ingest in the eyes and see their sweat, their honesty, their passion? There’s a certain type of trust in that relationship not calculated in FDA risk assessments, you can’t insure it, you can’t regulate it, and you definitely can’t put a USDA label on it. We want folks in Lane County to know that while you may not be able to trust your government, you can trust your farmers. They have your best interest and health in mind, not their pocketbooks.

—Field Notes

Taylor Johnston cover art & illustrations

Andrew Hitz all articles on pages 3-5, editing

Noah DeWitt article on page 6, design & layout

Ariel Wills recipe

Contents

Field Notes

3 Bulletin Board

5 Local Food Security

6 Farmers Market Site

expansion8

Recipe

ISSUE #1, JUNE 2014

submit your FIELD NOTES

ART ‘ ESSAYS ‘ POETRY ‘ RECIPES ‘ NEWS

fieldnoteslcfm@gmail.com

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GMO-WATCH

There’s been much talk lately over the genetically modified organism debate in Oregon. Two counties, Jackson and Josephine, passed measures effectively banning the cultivation of GMO crops in those counties, while there is an ongoing statewide campaign to label all genetically engineered raw and packaged food. The Oregon Right To Know campaign has been gathering signatures since May 15th and must have the required 87,213 signatures by July 3rd to place the measure on the November ballot. Communications Director, Sandeep Kaushik, doesn’t think gathering those signatures will be a problem.

“Our signature gathering effort to place a statewide measure to require labeling of genetically engineered foods is going very well,” Kaushik said. “We’ve had an enthusiastic response from hundreds of grassroots volunteers across Oregon who agree that Oregon families have a right to know whether the food they eat has been engineered in a lab, and Oregon Right to Know coalition is growing by the day. We expect to submit more than enough signatures to qualify our measure for the ballot.”

Bulletin Board

EUGENE AVANT-GARDENERS

In an age when revolutions are birthed through the medium of the web, when our creative commons and open source transparency are attained digitally, when whistleblowing is most effective and efficient through an online document archive, then it should be appropriate for homegrown revolution to take place in the same way. Enter the Eugene Avant-Gardeners: a group of urban homesteaders, food activists, guerrilla gardeners, plant lovers and farmers who convene over one of the more familiar online social platforms, Facebook.

“The Avant-Gardeners initial birth was in a tent at the “Sleeps Protest” on the federal building last winter,” Avant-Gardener and local hip-hop artist Jason “Plaedo” Wellman said. “From there the idea was communicated to a network of friends and by early spring The Avant-Gardeners were hosting informative workshops on topics such as pruning fruit trees, and spring seeding.”

The Avant-Gardeners participated in the Lane County Propagation Fair, created a guerrilla garden at 1st and Lincoln St. (with the consent of the property owner), have collaborated with organizations such as Food For Lane County, CALC, The Cascadia Forest Defenders and the Global Climate Convergence and have provided free gardening and farming assistance to many, many folks across Lane County.

“At this point the Eugene Avant Gardeners have done over a dozen workshops and a hundred work parties,” Wellman said. “Currently the Avant Gardeners are tending to gardens around Eugene and occasionally in Portland.”

To get involved with the Avant Gardeners check out their calendar of events at: https://sites.google.com/site/eugeneavantgardeners2/

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Bulletin Board

By Andrew Hitz

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Inside this year’s Willamette Farm and Food Coalition’s “Locally Grown Guide” some brow-raising statistics were includ-

ed regarding our local food system in Lane County. An infographic entitled “Buying Local Food Makes Dollars and Sense” in-cluded statistics from an analysis (“Lane County Local Food Market Analysis”) published in 2010 by the University of Ore-gon, Economic Development Center. These numbers were informative, suggestive and even hopeful.

The first statistic illustrated the overall an-nual food expenditures by Lane County

residents, which tallied in at $1.2 billion. The second then showed that of these ex-penditures less than five percent were spent on food produced in Lane County. The third showed that if residents in Lane County were to increase their consumption of locally produced food by merely one per-cent that $11.7 million in revenue would be generated.

A further look into the analysis reveals four “supply chain gaps” in the local food supply chain that were identified, those being: Gap I. “Lack of Linkage Between Growers & Lo-cal Markets”, Gap II. “Limited Processing

FRIEND’S OF FARMER’S MARKET COOKING DEMOS

The newly founded Lane County Friend’s of the Farmer’s Market group will be hosting a series of cooking demos this Summer season. The first demo, which took place on May 24th at the food court, was simple in nature (preparing a salad recipe), but also promising for what’s to emerge in the coming months.

One goal of the Friends group is to make these demonstrations a con-sistent part of the LCFM atmosphere,” Vincent Jordan, market site manager, said “expanding from once or twice a month, to a regular Saturday event.”

Plans to improve the demos by enlisting the help of local chefs and food artisans are currently in the works.“They’d like to have propane or elec-trical burners available,” Jordan said, “so local chefs could educate the public on the tips and tricks of making meals out of the wide variety of seasonal produce, at the time such items are available. The hope is that by showing customers more ways to prepare food, the massive array of local vegetables, meats, and cheeses won’t seem so daunting to choose from, and folks just might end up trying some product they never previously considered.”

Taking a Look at Local Food Security

If residents in Lane County were to increase their consumption of locally produced food by merely one percent, $11.7 million in revenue would be generated.

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& Storage Capacity”, Gap III. “Perceptions of Risk”, Gap IV. “Institutional and Grocery Store Requirements”.

“Gaps” I and III stand out as ones of partic-ular relevance to farmers.

Gap I — “Lack of Linkage Between Grow-ers & Local Markets”

There is a massive disconnect between farmers and buyers. Distributors like Hum-mingbird Wholesale have emerged giving farmers of storage crops an outlet, but many smaller farmers are left without a distribu-tor. While not necessitating a distributor’s role in the food system, this “gap” certainly beckons a farm-to-table liaison of sorts.

Gap III — “Perceptions of Risk”

“Agriculture and food production carry inherent risks. Farmers often bear all of the risk on the production end,” say the authors of the analysis. This is true and has been a factor dissuading people from choosing farming vocationally, however, our federal and state governments, unlike most Eu-ropean countries, choose to not subsidize small farmers and instead, continue to sub-sidize and provide crop insurance for Big Ag.

Field Notes followed up with the City of Eugene Sustainability Commission as to progress of the “Proposed Implementation Strategies” outlined in the analysis. Thus far, nothing specific to the document that has

been accomplished, however, other prog-ress has been made.

“There was a food subcommittee before I came on,” said Commissioner Joanne Gross (also a member of the Commission’s “Local Food Policy” Sub Committee), “and they had done a really great job spending a year going out to the community and talking to stakeholders and gathering information to make list of recommendations to City Council of where we should go in develop-ing our local food system and how the city could help out with that in the form of this really long memo with lots of appendices and all sorts of information. It just sort of sat there for over a year and wasn’t touched by the City Council.”

After some coaxing, Gross was able to per-suade City Council to reconsider the memo.

“Right now [Council members] Greg Evans and Alan Zelenka are working on putting together a food task force to implement a lot of those things that were recommended in that food memo,” said Gross.

Commissioner Kathi Jaworski comment-ed further saying, “We wanted a food task force in the same way as the homeless task force to pay attention and increase collabo-ration. We also recommended that there be a larger site for the downtown farmers mar-ket, I wish we could say will cause an effect now that they are looking at it.”

Listening to Butterflies

If you haven’t gotten wind yet, the Eugene City Council and the Lane County Board of Commissioners are considering a land swap that would allow the Farmers Market to expand onto the “butterfly lot”—that two-tiered parking lot on 8th Avenue between Park Street and Oak Street around which the farmers arrange their booths every Saturday.

The Lane County Farmers Market (LCFM) has long sought a larger and better-equipped space for its farmers and patrons to commune, and it’s been over a decade since LCFM first proposed the butterfly lot as a potential location. Until recently, the county, who owns the land, has been unwilling to part with it (it was slated as a potential site for a new court-house).

Now it looks like the winds are changing. In April, Councilors and Commissioners collaborated in proposing the land swap idea, and at a June 3 public hearing, com-munity members came out to voice their support.

If the County Commissioners agree to the bargain, they would hand ownership of the butterfly lot over to the city; in exchange, they would get a half-block of city property one block to the east, where the new court-house would go. The “butterfly lot” would be razed, and its south half would become what it once was—the Northwest Park Block. This, the Lane County Farmers Market would call home.

The history of the butterfly lot dates back to 1853, when the Skinners and Mulligans,

By Noah DeWitt

The Farmers Market is ready to spread its wings and fly, while the City and County discuss trading parcels.

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but·ter·fly ef·fect:the phenomenon whereby a minute

localized change in a complex system can have large effects elsewhere.

two prominent settler families, donated 40 acres each to the newly formed “County of Lane” for the creation of “Eugene City.” At that time the butterfly lot, the two park blocks, and the Wayne Morse Free Speech Plaza were not separated by streets—they were one contiguous 4-acre park. “The north two acres were Skinner’s and the south two were Mulligan’s, and together they were designated the Public Square,” recounts Dan Armstrong, a local farmer and author who has spent much of the past year and a half researching the history of the Skinner and Mulligan deeds.

Some folks are concerned that the city-county land swap and Farmers Market site expansion would go against the vision of our city’s founding donors. The Register Guard recently reflected this concern, reporting that the “land swap gets support” at the public hearing, but that “a require-ment in the deed by Eugene’s founders could throw a wrench in the plan” and that the outcome “may depend on the advice of lawyers.” But the truth is that the deeds of Skinner and Mulligan have already been breached multiple times, and no one has paid it much mind until now.

“History has shown that the county com-missioners have done whatever they want-ed regardless of what the documents said,” Dan Armstrong told me. In 1869, Eighth Avenue and Oak Street were made into through streets, breaking the Public Square up into four park blocks and displacing the original courthouse which was at the cen-ter. Ninety years later the Northwest Park

Block became the “butterfly” parking lot.

Although our downtown Farmers Market has made best use of its allotted land, we as a community of local food enthusiasts operate far below our potential.

“This could be a world-class market, not that it isn’t already,” says Linda Perrine of Honor Earth Farm, who sells her organic hazelnuts at market and serves on the LCFM board. “But it could be twice the size. It could be bringing in even more di-versity right here out of Lane County. And the current lack of space is preventing the newer farmers from even being down here. It’s such a struggle to get in.”

With the help of landscape architect Brad Stangeland, the LCFM has come up with a potential design for the Northwest Park Block that features better access to water and electricity, lots of plant life, and a permanent building where farmers can sell their produce year-round.

If our public officials can act reasonably and responsibly enough to give the but-terfly lot back to the people, it would set in motion a cascade of effects that would revitalize our Farmer’s Market, our local food economy, our downtown center, and our collective vision of our past and our future. And if the butterflies could vote in our so-called democracy (and evidence all around us suggests maybe they should have a vote!), I’m sure they would elect officials who would do everything in their power to unpave parking lots and put in paradises.

“THIS COULD BE A WORLD-CLASS MARKET, NOT THAT IT ISN’T ALREADY. BUT IT COULD

BE TWICE THE SIZE. IT COULD BE BRINGING IN EVEN MORE DIVERSITY RIGHT HERE OUT OF LANE COUNTY. AND THE CURRENT LACK OF SPACE IS PREVENTING THE NEWER FARMERS FROM EVEN BEING DOWN HERE. IT’S SUCH A

STRUGGLE TO GET IN.” —Linda Perrine, Honor Earth Farm

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“I turned away... to stare out the bus window at the receding geometry of the Willamette Valley farmland—rectangle walnut groves, parallelograms of beanfields, green trapezoid pastures dotted with red cattle; the abstract splash of autumn—and tried to assure myself, You have just come back to quaint old Oregon is all. That’s all, quaint, beautiful, blooming

Oregon.”

—Ken Kesey, Sometimes a Great Notion