basis. It ensures that the farmer has funds up front to plant and harvest the food and for members to get fresh, healthy food every week.
To Katrin the relationship between grower and consumer goes deeper.“ I think farmers markets create a better world. They help to reweave and strengthen basic patterns in our relationships and in our communities. Food, specifically healthy food, can be a vehicle to reestablish a healthy community and create healthy traditions that I think we’ ve lost in our society. Because we’ re all involved with highspeed multitasking and managing very complex lives, buying food locally, and preparing food consciously can return us to a place of simplicity.’’
New relationships are also springing from the upswing in small production farms and consumer demand for fresh local produce. The farm-to-table movement is one of the biggest restaurant trends across the nation, and it keeps expanding with new creative opportunities, including some wineries in the Verde Valley region that are adding organically grown local foods to complement and enhance their visitor experience.
“ The number one reason customers go to a farmers market is to buy healthy food,” observes Katrin.“ Food is also a way for travelers to connect to the community they are visiting. They are looking for an authentic experience and food is a way to enjoy what is grown locally and meet the people who grow it. People are relational; they want to connect with each other and food is a wonderful way to do that. I also think it’ s empowering because we are eating food that hasn’ t come from 1,000 miles away.”
There is a resurgence of small
Good farmers, who take seriously their duties as stewards of Creation and of their land’ s inheritors, contribute to the welfare of society in more ways than society usually acknowledges, or even knows. These farmers produce valuable goods, of course; but they also conserve soil, they conserve water, they conserve wildlife, they conserve open space, they conserve scenery.
- Wendell Berry, Bringing it to the Table: On Farming and Food
farms across the country and the next generation may be stepping up to take the reins as growers.“ We’ re seeing more young growers trying to make a go of it, especially in the microgreen category. Microgreens are considered to be a superfood because of their concentrated nutrition. They are very popular at the farmers market and with local restaurants. They’ re fairly easy to grow, mainly because they are grown in a controlled climate,” Katrin remarks.
Always the tenacious champion for the establishment of a vibrant and growing Sedona Farmers Market, Katrin was instrumental in helping to change health regulations by classifying microgreens not as sprouts but as greens grown in soil.“ The FDA considers sprouts to be a highly hazardous food so we worked with local agencies, like the University of Arizona Cooperative Extension of Yavapai County in collaboration with the USDA( Department of Agriculture, Arizona) to convince the FDA that microgreens are not sprouts, but are like small vegetables grown in the ground, therefore produced differently. The local growers befitted ultimately from these efforts.”
Fortunately, as older seasoned growers hit retirement age in the Verde Valley, there is more interest on the part of young growers to make farming a lifestyle. Because land prices are quite high in the region, established growers often help younger growers by allowing them to use their farms to get started. This is a hopeful sign that farming— not big agriculture, but smaller farms and micro-farms— is being taken up by the next generation.
“ Our American culture is a very young culture and people want to feel empowered around their food choices these days. They want to create healthy rituals and traditions. One of the main values is health, and that brings people together,” says Katrin.
There are also ethical and philosophical choices being made around food sourcing. Younger people are very conscious of that, according to Katrin.“ When they buy food its either supporting the planet or not. If you buy local from a grower, 75 cents stays in the community and local economy, versus 45 cents that is circulated when food is purchased from a big box store.”
What about the future of farmers markets, how they create community by re-connecting us, Katrin was asked.“ I think it’ s the original way we bought food hundreds of years ago. These days some towns have a farmers market every day. Having a weekly one here is a good start. I have seen beautiful collaborations among growers. Many conversations around food and a lot of education has occurred. We are all just a few generations away from our ancestors, many of whom who were farmers. It feels like its going in the right direction to me.”
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