Good Food is Everybody's Business
We’ve just finished 31 days of commercials, ads, and events – and pink everything – as part of October’s Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and we’re all aware of the threat of cancer – all types of cancer – regardless of our age or gender. So now we’re being told that even the meat on our plates is going to cause cancer. What’s the real truth?
Many women in farming have had to develop their own production techniques, their own farming methods, and even their own animal breeds and bloodlines. And in the US, we’ve seen women become experts, teaching other young women to farm, and leading the food movement in small livestock production equal to or even beyond the contribution of academics with little or no field experience. We highlight four women farmers raising small livestock (one of whom has retired after 44 years of sheep farming) to recognize the commitments they have made to what is essentially “women’s work” – that is, small ruminant husbandry.
Erick and Wendy Haakenson, and their son David and his wife Kristin, are farming in a floodplain skirted by the Snoqualmie River. An active farm nearly for 25 years, Jubilee Biodynamic Farm is home to one of the largest and oldest Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) programs in the state. Jubilee is an intensively managed, diversified farm comprised of 14 acres of fruits, vegetables, and grains and around 35 acres devoted to beef cattle, pigs, sheep, chickens, and ducks.
It’s very strange to hear the FDA and food safety people talking about outlawing manure on organic farms. I grew up on an organic farm where I rolled around with my dog on the manure pile (well composted, of course) and, you know, my brother and I were the healthiest kids in school. It may turn out that all this manure may actually be worth a lot of money!
We have a real problem now in Washington state; especially close to cities where bankers and real estate hacks are turning protected farm easements into horse ranches for the wealthy. There is nothing strong to protect valuable farm soils in critical service areas, to insure that the resource will be used to grow good food for local markets.
Our Good Food on a Budget correspondent, Kate Hilmer, recently finished reading Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer. “One thing is for certain, and this book made it painfully clear to me: meat matters,” says Kate. “To what extent does it matter? It’s a complex and personal question that each of us must decide for ourselves.” Anne Schwartz, a Washington farmer, responds to those like Kate who are trying to decide whether or not to eat meat.
