Connecting with Food at the Catalan Family Farm

Our lives are connected to our food.

Everyone knows how important food is to our survival. And lest we forget, our stomach is there to remind us, just like an alarm clock, every few hours (smiles). But there is a deeper physical and emotional connection that goes far beyond satisfying our old friend Hunger. Our lives are connected to our food in ways that are complex, and in ways that we often do not completely understand.

The home garden I spoke of a few days ago helps us make this connection in our own back yard, right down to the roots. Literally. All of our food however may not come from the home garden, but we can still connect with it in this way. And for this reason, yesterday, my neighbor Elizabeth and I travelled to Hollister to visit the farm from where our CSA vegetables come. (Photo on the right shows rows of delicious organic squash ripening in the California sun.)

If you do not know, I work with a group of neighbors and agricultural producers through the Carmel Valley Co-op. We founded the organization specifically to cooperate amongst ourselves and help bring a greater diversity of locally grown foods to our community. We deal exclusively with producers in a fifty mile radius. As part of this, I distribute vegetables in Carmel Valley through a CSA (community supported agriculture) in cooperation with farmer Maria at the Catalan Family Farms. You can read more about the Co-op at http://www.carmelvalleycoop.org/

Our trip had a couple of purposes. One, most definitely, is to keep the connection to the food that not only to I eat, but that I help to bring to our community. The relationship must be personal, and it must be in person. But just as important, we had some business to discuss with Maria as well regarding evolution of the co-op, and it is important our relationships with our partners be as personal as with our food.

When I arrived, I feel that I am truly on a family farm. As you pull into the drive, the house where Maria lives is right up front. Directly next to the staging barn where all of the vegetables are prepared for shipment to CSAs and to the farmer's market. Maria has just introduced eighty hens to the farm. So running around everywhere are chickens foraging through piles of harvest trash earning their livelihood by processing the leftover organic matter that has not market value. The hens will provide eggs. One hen had a dozen or so chicks following her around. Goats and horses too all make living use of the abundance of organic matter. In the fields, there are rows of peppers, right next to tomatoes, squash, strawberries. A diversity of foods, grown together that make up the wonderful boxes we receive every week. I felt that Maria's life was tied inseparably with the farm, as her niece followed us out in to the fields, occasionally snacking on a tomato or strawberry fresh from the field.

Of course, we discussed our business in between our friendly tour and conversation. While the meeting covered a range of topics, the important subject of the day was direct markets. (Photo: Elizabeth and Maria talk business in the field as fresh cherry tomatoes are harvested and stacked by a truck for transport). Everyone wants to get their food locally from farmers who personally care about their farms and their customers. True agriculture is more than profits, but farmers also need to pay their bills and provide for their families. Basically, they need to get their crops to the people who need them. This sounds simple. But in reality it is not. It is amazing how much food is actually wasted as it tries to find it's way to people. Our discussions focused on how to build deeper relationships directly with our customers.

It is my hope that the fruit of these discussions will be that even more of us can have a personal connection with the food that is so important to our existence here on this Earth. And of course, those that grow it and bring it to us.

On the way back to Carmel Valley, Elizabeth and I stopped at another neighbor's to pick apples from her tree. Mmmmm delicious. We picked enough to offer them to Carmel Valley Co-op CSA subscribers. Graven steins I think. You can subscribe at at the Co-op website here.