Let Them Eat Grass

Farm-to-Fork is a loosely affiliated restaurant movement that champions close relationships with local farmers instead of nationwide distributors. Wherever you live, there are likely restaurants nearby that practice this philosophy. Farm-to-Fork is part of a groundswell of popular support away from processed food and towards wholesome eating. I interviewed Ben Parks, the chef/owner of a farm to fork restaurant in Columbia, MO. He talks about the movement, the struggles, and the future of good food.

Last week I said I wouldn't make a new episode if my daughter was born. I had no idea it would be so fast! Well, she was born on July 18, 2019 at 10:42pm in Barnett, Missouri. She, in my ever so humble opinion, is absolutely perfect. Kelli labored for 23 hours, pushing for about 1.5 hours of that. My wife is nothing short of a superstar, and I'm so proud of her. The birth was pretty hairy. Kelli was losing a lot of blood and Tesni had secondary apnia--couldn't breathe right.

This week has been pretty crazy for us. Kelli has been getting used to only sleeping for 1.5 hour stretches and still finding time to take care of herself somewhere in-between nursing. Her mom and dad have been living out of our house to help with our transition into full time parenting. They've been taking the night shifts whenever Tesni is asleep.

But, like I ask in this episode, please email me at [email protected] to tell me what you're passionate about when it comes to real food, broken ecosystems, and a better way to live. Please!

The radical ideology of wilderness abandonment is getting misapplied to our public and private land.

We are seeing the unfortunate consequences of the "hands off" ecological approach. Everything from beetlekill in Colorado to California burning wildly out of control. Still, we persist in our belief that we need to keep our hands off the land. Rather than use our opposable thumbs for good, we just need to stay off entirely.

We are losing farmland to wilderness at a frightening pace in our country. 3 acres every 60 seconds. At that rate, our farm would be gone in 2.5 hours.

Is there any alternative to this madness? Can we produce food in a way that heals the land rather than destroys it? Is land better off being abandoned?

Whenever farmers inject artificial fertilizer into their cropland where I live, almost all of it will end up in the Missouri River Watershed. It will be carried to the Mississippi River, and down to the Gulf of Mexico. All this fertilizer has created a dead zone the size of Delaware. And the worst part is that we don't even need artificial fertilizer. We only need it because we've decided cows like grains more than they like grass.

The average conventional farm sells their product on the commodity market. Corn, Beef, Soybean, etc. Some random trader in Chicago or New York sets the prices for the whole nation and farmers across the US feel the squeeze. They have to bet on intangibles like inflation and future events like the weather months in advance, which is really impossible to do. The loans they took out in the spring need to be repaid with the fall's harvest. Sometimes what they plant or slaughter isn't even worth the initial investment and time they've put into them.

For instance, during the 80's the US government bought the dairy cows from struggling farmers and dumped them on the beef market. That tanked the beef market for beef producers and put them out of business!

The solution to all this anxiety-producing bet on intangibles and future events is buying direct. Support a farmer who heals the land and sells directly to consumer. They get to keep the entire dollar rather than watch part of it go to a middle man.

Lucinda Cramsley is jumpstarting that revolution. She's something crazy like an 8th generation farmer, whose ancestors used to farm hemp. She's married, but she's not married to the past. Lucinda founded an internet company called "MOINK" ("Moo" and "Oink") that helps farmers sell direct to consumers. It accepts food that meets only the highest pasture-based standards and ensures farmers receive around 800% more than if they sold on the commodity market.