southeastern regional food systems meeting

Agricultural output in the counties around Wilmington is based on failing and outdated theories on commodities and land management. We are still basing growing decisions on the plantation monoculture mentality, a model that has borne a cycle of indebtedness, rural poverty and inequality for a hundred years. The old model was monocrop tobacco. The current models are monocrop soybeans, corn and occasionally sweet potatoes. Diversification is the key to breaking out of this old cycle and distributing proceeds based on the labor, imagination and effort of individual farmers, not based on the pure volume model of global commodities.

I have thought many times that Southeastern North Carolina needs to address issues of sustainability during the tobacco transition. To say it again, the key is really diversification in order to beat flooded markets and falling prices. I’m hoping some of these issues are addressed with a new initiative to define and develop regional food systems.

On Monday I went to Whiteville, NC with Jessica, April and Deb from the co-op. The purpose of the trip was to attend a meeting about getting grant funding for regional food systems development. The basic premise is to establish links between farmers and markets and create marketing materials. Growing a product is one thing, selling it is another. Farmers could grow all of the organic fennel they wanted, but without access to markets it would be a pointless exercise.

Markets are plentiful if you know where to look and how to ask – farmers markets, small grocery stores, restaurants, wholesale distributors. The key is setting things up so that there is minimal legwork and marketing for individual farmers. An ideal situation would have a central distribution point run by folks who do not have to be on the farm harvesting all day. These folks can spend their energy on getting the produce into the appropriate market. The grant addresses some of this need but does not go far enough.

What we really need is a centralized cooler facility, with access to graders, boxes and other packaging materials. Each county (there are six counties addressed in the grant) would have access to refrigerated trucks for either delivering to the market heavy counties such Brunswick and New Hanover or picking up from the producer heavy counties of Pender, Columbus, Robeson and Bladen. Large markets such as chain supermarkets could be persuaded to buy local produce if the problems of steady supply and volume were addressed, which would be addressed if enough producers used the centralized storage facility and were invested in the success of the project.

A good example of this type of facility in action is Eastern Carolina Organics in Pittsboro, NC. Without getting into too much detail, ECO acts as the marketing and distribution arm for its member farms. The farmers can focus on growing and ECO can focus on selling. This setup allows this farmer owned operation to sell into larger markets with competitive pricing.

If we were to apply the ECO model in the coastal plain, strong and growing farmer participation would be crucial from the very beginning. This isn’t something that could be started with a few farms with the idea of working on up. A critical mass is required in order to show the markets that the local produce supply is healthy in order for those same markets to abandon their wasteful California and South American food fetishes. And it all comes back to diversity as well. Can we offer the items a supermarket or school needs or can we simply offer animal feed, processed food fillers and sweet potatoes?

Easier said though; easier said. The food systems grant is a start. And simply meeting to discuss regional food systems is an even better start.