House File 389 will make it more difficult for citizens who want their township, county or city to take action to protect the community from unanticipated, harmful development. The bill does this by weakening the power of local governments to enact interim ordinances. An interim ordinance allows local governments to quickly put a temporary freeze on major development.

This power is essential when the community is caught off-guard by unanticipated proposals, especially those from outside corporate interests and outside investors, such as big box stores like Wal-Mart, a large-scale factory farm or a garbage burner. An interim ordinance maintains the status quo and gives the community time to review or create the appropriate zoning ordinances.

Interim ordinances are a part of strong local democracy and corporate interests—with the help of their allies in Saint Paul—have attacked this power repeatedly. This year is no different, and the speed with which anti-local control forces are introducing this bill indicates how desperate they’ve become. The fact is rural citizens have made it clear time and time again that they value local control, so perhaps corporate interests hope they can strike early before anyone notices.

But people are going to notice because the power to enact an interim ordinance matters. For example, communities in southeast Minnesota have been bombarded by outside corporate interests wanting to mine for sand to be used in frac mining. These mining proposals are much different in scale and scope from the aggregate mining that takes place there now. In response to citizen concerns, Wabasha, Goodhue and Winona counties enacted interim ordinances that put a moratorium on frac sand mining while they study the issue to see if their current ordinances are sufficient to deal with this new type of excavation.

For an indication of what happens when local control goes away, take a drive through rural Wisconsin, where frac sand mining is tearing up the blufflands and trucks are booming down gravel roads.

Under House File 389, merely applying for a permit exempts a proposed development from any future interim ordinance. The problems is all too often neighbors don’t get any information about a project until after the permit has been applied for. When that happens, an interim ordinance may be needed to freeze the status quo and create time to assess the situation.

The proposed legislation requires a two-thirds vote (a super majority) to enact an interim ordinance. Currently, an interim ordinance can be enacted by a simple majority — that’s how democratic rights should work. There is no reason to make adopting an interim ordinance so difficult.

In addition, HF 389 slows the process for enacting an interim ordinance by mandating public notice before an interim ordinance can be enacted. In many cases, a local unit of government — particularly a township — does not get complete information on a proposed development until shortly before approval. In those cases, there can be legitimate concerns that the local government needs to address. When that happens, an interim ordinance must be enacted quickly to be effective.

The 2012 session of the Minnesota Legislature is supposed to be about creating  jobs, not about sacrificing our communities’ ability to control their own destinies. Jumping the gun doesn’t suddenly make a bad idea a good one. In fact, it may make it more dangerous than ever.

LSP applauds the City of Minneapolis for the strides it’s made in incorporating urban agriculture as a legal land use in the zoning code by passing the Urban Agriculture Policy Plan in April 2011. The integration of urban agriculture in Minneapolis will create jobs, spur small business generation, and create healthier neighborhoods with more access to fresh, local foods.

This is an important first step toward making urban agriculture a key part of our community. However, in order to make urban agriculture as economically viable as possible for small businesses, some key changes are essential:

1. Allow on-site sale days at all market gardens.
   LSP supports the decision to allow market gardens 25 on-site sale days throughout the year. We also encourage the city to allow on-site sales of produce that is raised as part of a home occupation (in your own backyard). This would cut down on transportation and packaging costs for the producer, as well as make fresh produce available in more neighborhoods.
2.  Less restrictive regulations for hoop houses and season extension.
   Under current zoning rules, hoop houses that are used as a means to extend the growing season are only allowed to remain standing for 180 days and to comprise only 15 percent of the entire plot. In order to make efficient use of season extension, LSP would like to see the amount of time that hoop houses can remain standing increased to 260 days a year. They should also be allowed to take up as much as 50 percent of the plot space.
3. Allowing chickens on urban farms.
   Farmers keep poultry for a variety of reasons, including using them as integrated pest management tools and a source of soil fertility, as well as to attract visitors and potential customers. In an urban setting, poultry are critical to small-scale farms that would benefit from these diversified uses. Not only would poultry serve an ecological purpose, but their eggs could also be sold to generate additional revenue. A good Urban Agriculture Policy Plan must allow poultry production on small-scale farms in the city.

What you can do: Make a comment on the urban ag draft text amendments by Monday, Jan. 23
Please take a moment to send a comment via email to Aly Pennucci, Planner for the City of Minneapolis, about these draft changes. A sample comment can be:

“I support moving the Urban Ag Text Amendments forward. This is a great first step toward making urban farming an economically viable occupation for residents of Minneapolis. However, I support changing language to allow produce raised in a market garden being done as a home occupation to be sold on-site. Also, I would like to see hoop houses remain standing for longer, and be able to take up as much as 50 percent of lot space. And I would like to see poultry allowed on urban farms.”

Attend Land Stewardship Project’s planning meeting on Sunday, Jan. 22, to discuss strategy regarding passage of the draft
The Land Stewardship Project will be hosting a planning meeting this Sunday, beginning at 7 p.m., at our office in the Powderhorn Park neighborhood. Hear more about the text amendments, and learn about how to make comments at the public meeting on Monday.

Come to the public hearing on Monday and speak in favor of the draft and suggested changes
Attend the public hearing on Monday, Jan. 23, and be prepared to comment on the draft text amendments. We need to pack the house in order to show our support for urban farming in the City of Minneapolis. It’s in Room 317 at City Hall.

For more information, call or e-mail LSP’s Anna Cioffi at 612-722-6377.

Harrington is a fan of David Brophy, a long-time business professor at the University of Michigan who uses the phrase “eating our own cooking” as a metaphor for putting our resources into local enterprises rather than national and global investment markets.

“What we need to do is figure how how to capture more of the dollars that would normally flow out of a community,” says Harrington. “It’s not that we can produce everything that we need—that’s not realistic. But I think there are more things that we can produce and finance locally if we’re alert to them and are willing to work at it.”

And there’s nothing more local than farming enterprises based on producing food that’s consumed within a few miles of the field or barn. That’s why Harrington is excited about the economic potential that could be had if more lenders recognized the potential of diverse, small- and mid-sized farms that are using innovative production and marketing techniques.

In fact, he sees such farms as a way of avoiding risk, something lenders are always (or at least should be) on the lookout for. That’s why it’s no accident that the LSP meeting I ran into Dean at recently was focused on how we can get more innovative beginning farmers on the land in communities like Plainview. Just by his presence, the banker was making it clear he sees more farmers, not fewer, as the key to long-term community health.

“We maybe have trouble valuing the characteristics of mid-size farms and smaller farms in a financial sense, and that’s what I’d like to see us work on is valuing those elements that really are stabilizer type elements,” Harrington, who is president of the First National Bank in Plainview, told me. “One of those is diversity — we should be able to value that as something that does reduce risk.”

He concedes that banks and other lending institutions tend to shy away from anything considered “new” or untested—and sustainable farming practices still fall into that category for many. In some ways, not much has changed since 2002, when LSP surveyed farmers and agricultural lenders on the subject of credit. Lenders polled in Minnesota and Wisconsin were overall skeptical of organic and other sustainable farming practices, and most had only vague ideas of what these practices were even about, let alone the profits and other benefits they can produce in a community.

To be fair, back then some of the lenders’ views were colored by pessimism about the future of  agriculture in general, not just the alternative kind. Such negative attitudes about conventional ag have switched a bit lately, given the profitability being generated by high commodity prices.

Harrington feels lenders are starting to warm up to alternative farming systems as well. He hearing from a growing number of farmers utilizing sustainable systems who have excellent relationships with bankers and other creditors. He’s not alone. Recently, I’ve run into a slew of situations where farmers involved in everything from pasture-based livestock production to organic vegetables talk about the positive role lenders are playing in their businesses.

And it’s not just banks and similar credit firms that are opening doors to sustainable ag—increasingly the USDA’s Farm Service Agency is getting a reputation for having an open mind on what kind of farming enterprises it will help out financially.

As we’ve mentioned in this blog before, one of the more exciting examples of lenders seeing the potential of farming that’s a bit out of the norm is in Wisconsin’s Jackson County. In that area, agricultural loan officer Loren Rausch has been won over by organic grass-based dairying because of its ability to reduce the cost of a major input—feed, in this case—and it’s ability to garner premium prices in the marketplace on a consistent basis.

“With organics you can build your cash flow and build a marketing plan,” Rausch told me. “Initially, people thought organics was going to be a fad, but there’s a real demand in the market sector. That’s what you look for.”

“These [organic dairy] loans cash flow very well—they are building equity,” says Paul Dettloff, a Wisconsin veterinarian who serves on the board of directors of the bank Rausch works for.

The lending community’s willingness to give sustainable ag a fair shake can be partially traced to recent research that is documenting the profitability of such systems. A study done by the University of Wisconsin’s Center for Dairy Profitability found that on average organic dairy farms retained 21 percent of their business earnings, once the bills were paid (extensive use of managed rotational grazing increased earnings even more). Conventional confinement dairy farms retained 14 percent of the farm’s total income, according to the study.

And the results of a long-running Iowa State study released just a few weeks ago show that on average, organic cropping systems return roughly $200 per acre more than their conventional counterparts. Started in 1998, this particular study is one of the longest running replicated comparisons between organic and conventional cropping systems in the country.

Agricultural lenders pay attention to such research, and don’t underestimate the power of a farm town banker when it comes to influencing what kind of production systems are adopted and continued. A U of M Extension educator in the Red River Valley once told me that bankers were the ones who started encouraging farmers to approach experts like him about alternative cropping systems such as organics. These lenders were frustrated with financing unprofitable conventional operations perennially wracked by disease and volatile markets.

But a lot of this thaw in relations between lenders and sustainable farmers has to do with good old-fashioned one-to-one relationships. Rausch says he loaned money to one young organic farmer because he had a good business and marketing plan, but also because the banker sensed this guy “had what it took” to be a successful farmer and good member of the community.

In the end, that’s what really counts. If ag lenders only cared about numbers, then they’d all pack up and move to Brazil, where they could loan millions to operations that measure their soybean rows by the linear mile. No doubt some have taken their cues from Wall Street and have such a myopic view of the relationship between agriculture and credit—and look where that has gotten us.

But the ones like Dean Harrington who live in the rural community they do business in have a vested interest in making sure the money they loan out supports the long-term health of their hometown. And increasingly diverse, innovative farms with smart business plans and a growing demand for their product look like the kind of operations that can not only offer a good home-cooked meal, but make sure as many local folks as possible enjoy its results.

That Todd County farmer’s story is not the only anecdotal report of increased erosion I’ve heard in recent weeks. It’s no surprise, considering that the mild, dry fall we had provided plenty of opportunities for tillage in September, October and November—maybe even December.

And that tillage may be getting more intense — water quality expert Norm Senjem told me recently that implement dealers in places like southeast Minnesota are reporting that sales of moldboard plows are up. With high commodity prices these days, the slight — if temporary — yield boost one gets from deep tillage is even more attractive.

Intense tillage is up in other parts of the Corn Belt as well—the Illinois Department of Agriculture’s latest statistics show that since 2009 the use of no-till crop production systems in that state has fallen five percentage points to just over 24 percent of fields.

The return of intense tillage in some areas is just one of the troubling pieces of information Senjem shared during our conversation. As we reported in this blog a few months ago, in September he stepped down as the MPCA’s Mississippi River Basin coordinator. In that position, he oversaw research into the source of water quality problems in the watershed, and sought input from farmers, scientists and others on possible solutions.

Much of that research has already been published, and more results are coming in 2012. In general, the data is showing without a doubt that agriculture is playing a significant role in changing the hydrology and water quality of the Minnesota River, and thus the Mississippi downstream. The result has been accelerated sedimentation, which in turn is threatening to end prematurely Lake Pepin’s tenure as an open body of water.

In recent years, Senjem, a former agricultural journalist who has a master’s degree in agricultural economics, has been forthright about the negative role intensive row cropping plays in the Minnesota watershed’s hydrology.

In announcing his resignation from the MPCA, he sent out a letter expressing frustration with how little had been accomplished in cleaning up the basin, and how the leaders within some agricultural commodity groups were unwilling to accept the conclusions of even basic science. As we’ve written here before, the leadership of the Minnesota Soybean Growers Association in particular has a reputation for obstructionism when it comes to dealing with our water quality problems.

In fact, even when compared to its sister organization in Iowa, the MSGA stands out in its unwillingness to acknowledge that ag plays a role in polluted waterways, and thus needs to be a key player in cleaning them up. That’s too bad, since commodity groups could do a lot to promote basic conservation. The 2011 Iowa Farm and Rural Life Poll shows a striking number of farmers are unaware of government programs that reward farmers for utilizing conservation practices on working lands.

Couple that with the fact that the USDA is implementing program sign-ups within sometimes ridiculously tight timelines, and no wonder initiatives like the Conservation Stewardship Program are not living up to their potential.

In fact, the USDA just announced that Jan. 13 is the first CSP ranking sign-up deadline of 2012. This is sending NRCS offices and sustainable ag groups like LSP scrambling to get the word out over the holiday season. What if groups like MSGA put some serious energy into alerting its members of this opportunity to get paid for utilizing water- and soil-friendly practices?

But then, that would mean admitting that production agriculture is partially at fault for these problems in the first place, and, as this excerpt of an interview I recently did with Senjem shows, that’s not likely to happen anytime soon (to read the entire conversation, see the most recent issue of the Land Stewardship Letter).:

LSP: One study funded by the Minnesota Soybean Research and Promotion Council and the Minnesota Corn Research and Promotion Council concluded that higher rainfall amounts, natural erosion and dredging, not farming practices, are the major causes of Lake Pepin’s increased sedimentation.
Senjem: Increased rainfall could not account for all that extra sedimentation we are seeing. Geological scientists seem to think it’s a changed hydrology that caused this change and that it was caused by human changes to the landscape, primarily drainage of wetlands and substitution of row crops for perennial vegetation such as prairie, pasture and hay crops. Back in 1945 there were large portions of the Minnesota River that were isolated from the tributaries, and water was allowed to evaporate or soak in.

But after the war, ditch draining and the mechanization of agriculture ramped up. All of those things combined caused a change in the hydrology of the land, and now nearly 100 percent of the land drains into a receiving ditch or tributary today. You have more runoff through the ditch system and the tile system and we’ve doubled the flow at the monitoring station in Jordan [Minn.].

As a result, we’re seeing a lot of stress on the stream system, the river system. All of a sudden you pour more water through the system and there will be impacts, such as more sedimentation.

LSP: Commodity groups such as the Minnesota Soybean Growers Association argue that tile drainage actually reduces soil erosion by sending water underneath the fields rather than over the surface where it can do damage.
Senjem: There’s some truth to the argument that tiling reduces erosion in the fields themselves, since more water will be going down through the soil profile, instead of overland. But then on the other side you have more volume of water going into the river where the tile line empties its load.

In addition, oftentimes when you get high flows coming out of tile lines you get increased erosion through steep ravines. As I mentioned before, this has become a major source of sedimentation. We also have to consider that even if field erosion is dropping in some places, nitrogen concentration in the Mississippi is one thing that tends to be going up and up and up, which is a major water quality problem.

LSP: What response was there from commodity groups when these studies came out?
Senjem: The Minnesota Soybean Association especially, as well as the Minnesota Corn Growers Association, are very reluctant to admit that agriculture has a major role in diminished water quality. The science has made it clear that agriculture actually is the main source.

They’re trying to find cracks in the science and challenge us on things, which is good. But when you’re in the position like I am of solving the problem, and people won’t even acknowledge the basic science behind the issue, then it starts to look like stalling tactics.

It wasn’t like experts in the field were disagreeing. It was leaders in agriculture who were funding their own studies and then saying the science wasn’t settled. We studied this more than any lake or river has been studied in Minnesota. There’s a limit to how much the state can afford to study something. Not all of the papers have been published yet, but it’s pretty clear that agriculture has modified the hydrology and is the main source of this increased sedimentation.

LSP: This sounds similar to the debate over global climate change, where industry claims more research is needed, thus delaying any implementation of solutions.
Senjem: I think there are similarities. Who are you, Joe Citizen, to deny what 97 percent of the scientists says is fact? I’ll admit it does sound like an imposing challenge to reduce sediment by 50 percent, for example. But the state has put a priority on this, and we have money through the Clean Water Fund to put in place some solutions.

But we never got that far because every time we’d have a meeting, the leaders of the commodity groups would say, “The science isn’t settled, we need more research.”

I’d like to make a differentiation between the leaders of these commodity groups, and the rank-and-file-farmers they say they are representing. When I took this position, I felt we could energize 10 to 20 percent of the farmers to adopt innovations and bring about some real improvements in water quality. I learned from agricultural journalism that there’s a very strong component of farmers out there who are interested in innovation.

When I worked for farm magazines like Farm Industry News and The Farmer, I interviewed a lot of farmers out there who were adjusting their tillage equipment, doing innovative things to keep more residue on the ground, tinkering in their shops. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.

I grew up on a Dodge County [Minn.] farm and back in the 60s we were adjusting our tillage equipment to help us farm with more residue in the crop fields. We also had a tiling operation, and I recognize that without tiling a good portion of the state wouldn’t be suitable for farming. But like anything, it’s a question of balance. What if we allowed meanders in some of these tributaries to help slow down water and runoff? What if we increased the diversity of our crop rotations? But [commodity group leaders] are too busy arguing against the science.

When people don’t budge an inch and you’ve been working as hard as you can to come up with solutions, and these leaders are the ones the politicians listen to, it gets very frustrating.

LSP: So there are some solutions out there?
Senjem: We don’t have good crop rotations anymore in places like western Minnesota. Some modest diversification of the landscape would help balance the hydrology. Farming practices that build up more organic matter could help increase the water storage capacity of the land and recycle nutrients, thus helping with the nitrogen and phosphorus runoff problem. But the soil science professionals have focused on looking at applying inputs, and not the soil as a living system.

And there are solutions to this problem of tile line outlets causing major ravine erosion. Engineered solutions to this problem can be designed.

LSP: So how do we bring about change?
Senjem: To make it a movement, or an overall trend, you need a bit of a stick. You can see how the 1985 Farm Bill’s conservation cross-compliance provisions were a real driver in changes toward conservation tillage systems. The Farm Bill required farming highly eroded lands according to a conservation plan, and it so happened that often conservation tillage was the most practical way to achieve the erosion targets in the plan.

All of a sudden there was a real spurt of innovation because of these rules that pushed farmers to utilize conservation tillage systems in order to qualify for commodity payments.

And industry got involved as well. I was working for the Case IH implement company’s magazine at the time, and I was asked to do a special section on conservation tillage. Other farm equipment manufacturers like John Deere were doing the same thing. It probably wouldn’t have happened without the stick of cross-compliance.

After all, if Van Der Pol’s family wasn’t raising a diverse mix of crops on their western Minnesota farm, the author wouldn’t find himself on a small tractor mowing hay, working over in his mind his relationship to a family of foxes, the land and the community:

“There is a sense in which the field is a commons for me and my family and livestock and the fox and her cubs, as well as the birds and insects that fly up from the cutter bar and everything else that calls the field home. To think of it as such, whether or not it is or could be, seems to me to be a way of encouraging kindly use of it by all of us. And kindly use is a result good enough that I tend to think that applying the philosophy of the commons is a good idea.”

But farming that generates deep introspection only doesn’t pay the bills, and that’s what makes Van Der Pol’s book entertaining and grounding. He and his wife LeeAnn moved back to the home place in western Minnesota’s Chippewa County in 1977 after Jim attended the University of Minnesota. Over the years, the Van Der Pols have become leaders in the development of pasture-based livestock production. Just as importantly, they’ve figured out how to get paid for it. Pastures A’ Plenty Farm is a sophisticated direct-to-consumer meat business that supports Jim and Lee Ann, along with their son Josh’s family — a true rarity in today’s agriculture.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should say that over the past two decades I’ve interacted with the Van Der Pols numerous times through interviews and informal conversations. In addition, Jim has served on the Land Stewardship Project’s board of directors. During that time, I’ve become quite familiar with his essays, some of which have appeared in local newspapers and the Land Stewardship Letter. More recently, Van Der Pol has written regularly for Graze magazine, among other publications.

Van Der Pol’s writing is characterized by an acerbic sense of humor, a little cynicism and vivid descriptions — all fueled by the sharp-eyed observation skills of someone who’s spent almost his entire life on the land. But can years of writing “columns” produce a book that hangs together as a cohesive piece — or will it read like just a “best of” collection of essays, with little in common with each other than the author? In this case, Conversations with the Land works as a book, thanks to the fact that a common thread runs throughout: love of the land and love of the people who make a living on the land, as well as a sense that something isn’t quite right and we all have a role—farmer and non-farmer alike, in correcting that.

The front part of the book is full of character sketches of the “people” end of the equation, and makes for perhaps the most entertaining reading, as when Van Der Pol describes all the old, sometimes quite colorful, farmers he learned the trade from, or the various people who served key supporting roles in the ag community, such as truckers. In reference to the latter, a description of a boyhood trip he took to the South Saint Paul stockyards with a livestock hauler named Joe is a gem of an essay that puts the reader right in the truck as it “roared down toward Concord Street and the yards, the load of cattle pushing us toward the river.”

That piece at once shows off Van Der Pol’s ability to set up a scene, and then with an economy of words transform a fairly routine haulage of animals to the Twin Cities into a glimpse at a time when South Saint Paul was an important destination for small- and medium-sized family farmers who were raising livestock.

In a nice example of coming full circle, a later essay describes spending time in the late 1990s with a family of Hmong butchers who had started a business in South Saint Paul. At that time, Van Der Pol was “ground down” by farming and not sure where the future lay. But after hearing of the hardships this family from Laos had gone through, it helped put Van Der Pol’s life in perspective: “It was this experience as much as any careful thought or financial analysis that started the process of turning this farm around.”

Van Der Pol crafts his essays in a way that make us not only care about people who used to live in his community, but see why it’s so important to create such communities yet again, and in fact go one better and try to make them sustainable this time. As he writes in his introduction, “From my awakening anger it was but a short step to the determination to do something about it.” That anger is simmering beneath the surface in almost all of these essays.

In the last couple of sections of the book — “Enabling scoundrels,” “How we might farm” and “How we might live”— the anger finally boils over, as Van Der Pol rails against Wall Street, politicians, people who confuse “knowledge” with “wisdom” while viewing the land as simply “parks and recreation,” and finally, corporations that foist the “cost” of doing business (pollution, health problems, a trashed economy) onto the public.

This could read like just another diatribe from an angry agrarian. But it isn’t, because Van Der Pol has taken that key step from being mad to “doing something about it.” One of the thing’s he’s done is to get involved with the local foods movement, an opportunity, in his opinion, for farmers and non-farmers alike to take control of their lives.

And Van Der Pol is also aware that change will not occur overnight — it’s a game of inches. That’s why it’s fitting that he ends the book with an essay called “Archer,” in which he describes how just a small puff of air in the direction of someone shooting an arrow can produce significant changes before that arrow hits its mark a thousand feet away.

This idea of the “one degree deflection” can take many forms in real life: buying beef directly from a farmer, choosing to use the services of a local business, hosting a few beginning farmers for a few hours, climbing off the tractor to fly a kite with a grandchild.

Or sitting down to read a book formed by the land and its people.

In November, the USDA’s Economic Research Service released some surprising numbers on the economic punch of local foods. It found that marketing of local foods grossed $4.8 billion in 2008. That figure includes two categories: “direct-to-consumer” sales, which involves farmers’ markets, roadside stands, on-farm stores and Community Supported Agriculture arrangements; and “intermediated marketing channels” such as regional distributors and grocery stores, restaurants or other retailers.

This latter category is an important recent addition to research related to local food sales, and it adds much to the economic clout of this sector — that $4.8 billion is around four times higher than previous USDA estimates based solely on direct-to-consumer sales.

Overall, intermediated marketing accounts for 50 to 66 percent of all local food sales. This study validates what many have suspected: face-to-face contact between the farmer and the eater is important, but it’s not how the majority of local food sales are executed.

Vegetable, fruit and nut farms—the kinds of enterprises that dominate the local food economy—have on average an annual per-acre direct-to-consumer sales volume ranging from $640 to $1,310, according to the ERS study. But for produce and nut farms that use intermediated outlets to get their product to consumers, gross per-acre sales jumped to over $3,100 annually.

Between 1992 and 2007, the number of farms marketing their products via direct-to-consumer sales increased by 58 percent to 136,000. Now that the government is tracking intermediated food sales, it will be interested to follow the growth of this sector in coming years.

Overall, local food sales is a trend that shows no sign of cooling. The USDA estimates that it will generate $7 billion in sales this year, according to the Associated Press.

In Minnesota alone, farmers’ markets generate some $64 million in revenue annually, while CSAs produce $10.5 million, according to a recent study by the St. Paul-based think tank Minnesota 2020. (By the way, the study’s author, Lee Egerstrom, says local food marketing offers significant opportunities for new immigrant farmers in particular.)

Granted, local food sales are still a drop in the bucket compared to the overall ag economy. The ERS estimates that this sector represents just 1.9 percent of total gross farm sales nationally. In Minnesota, the local food market represents only around  0.3 percent of the total farm commodity market, according to analyst Ken Meter.

But local foods is a growing presence, and it’s increasingly allowing farmers to make a good living. For small and medium-sized farms that market food locally, more operators identified their primary occupation as farming and devoted more time to their farm operation than operations of similarly sized farms that don’t sell locally, according to the ERS.

The USDA’s local food marketing map shows, not surprisingly, that regions around places like the Twin Cities and Madison, Wis., are hot spots for this kind of activity. Nationally, the West and East coast is where the most local foods economic activity is taking place, with metropolitan areas specifically generating the most action.

But this economic engine is revving up in some surprising places as well. When I was in southwest Missouri recently interviewing Farm Beginnings graduates Greg and Nancy Rasmussen (click here for the profile of the Rasmussens, and here for the podcast), they talked about how surprised they were that direct-marketing of pasture-raised beef, lamb and chicken has become the mainstay of their farming enterprise. In fact, the Rasmussens are looking to rent more pasture ground just to keep up with demand. It turns out a fair number of eaters on the Ozark Plateau care about where their food comes from as well.

“Down in this area the demand is so high for naturally raised meat that we could probably easily double what we’re producing and still sell it,” Greg told me. Anyone that’s met Greg Rasmussen knows he’s the last person in the world to make an empty boast.

If there’s such a high demand, then why isn’t every farmer in the country giving up raising crops for the commodity market and jumping on the local foods express? Well, as we’ve pointed out in this blog before, it’s a lot of hard work, and it’s made even harder by the fact that our current processing, transportation and aggregation infrastructure is simply not set up to get food from the local field to the local fork. Frankly,  many of the farmers who pioneered direct-to-consumer sales are getting a little burnt out trying to juggle producing, marketing and transporting what they raise.

A 2010 USDA study on food supply chains (including one here in the Twin Cities) found that farmers who direct market retain nearly 100 percent of the retail price. But there’s an important caveat: costs incurred to bring the product to market can swallow up between 13 percent and 62 percent of the net profit those direct-marketing farmers were hoping to take home.

That’s why it’s exciting to see the recognition of the role intermediated marketing channels could play in sustaining and growing the local food economy. LSP is working on developing and strengthening such supply chains in southeast and western Minnesota. Two of our farmer-members, Gary Brever and Jack Hedin, traveled to Washington, D.C.,  last month as part of a National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition fly-in to talk to policy makers about the just-introduced Local Farms, Food and Jobs Act. This bill could, among other things, help farmers and ranchers engaged in local and regional agriculture by addressing production, aggregation, processing, marketing and distribution needs.

This is not to say that direct-to-consumer, face-to-face marketing like what we get via the CSA model or at farmers’ markets isn’t still a key component of the local food system.  Such relationships make this type of food and farm system something that Wal-Mart just can’t replicate, no matter how many clever marketing gimics it makes up.

And there is a reason farmers have bypassed the middleman in their attempt to garner a greater share of the food dollar—it doesn’t take long for all those links in a stretched out supply chain to swallow up all the profits that should go to the producer. But if intermediated marketing channels can be developed that are accountable to everyone taking part—the producer, consumer and yes, the middleman— then  a few extra links in the chain can help forge the kinds of relationships one might see at the local farmers’ market.

And the word “relationships” is key here. That 2010 USDA study on supply chains concludes that building relationships with mainstream middlemen doesn’t mean farmers have to sacrifice profitability. Yes, processors, distributors and retail outlets are going to want their share of the pie, but “product differentiation”—pasture-based livestock, organic, etc.—can help farmers charge enough to make up for that. Ken Meter has studied extensively the role such relationships are already playing right here in Minnesota’s food economy.

Direct-to-consumer sales remind eaters why knowing the source of your food produces multiple benefits. Intermediated marketing can make those benefits accessible to more people.

As we’ve reported in this blog previously, in 2009 the City of Minneapolis decided through recommendations put forth by Homegrown Minneapolis to pursue the development of “a city-wide topical plan on community gardens and urban agriculture.” This plan, which became known as the Urban Agriculture Policy Plan (UAPP), was passed by Minneapolis City Council in April 2011. It provided a number of recommendations for Minneapolis to amend current zoning ordinances, which would effectively lift current restrictions on urban farming, provide concrete definitions of agricultural terms, and create operational standards for new and existing urban farming operations in the city.

These zoning code text amendments give us a chance to craft the landscape of the City of Minneapolis by allowing the public to provide input in defining a set of regulations that could create new small businesses, spur entrepreneurship, devote empty lots to urban agriculture, and re-shape local food systems to include small urban farms or market gardens in each neighborhood.

There will be a community open house hosted by the City of Minneapolis Tuesday, Nov. 29, to gather feedback on the draft zoning code text amendments, released earlier this month. The open house will run from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.at Bryant Square Park and Recreation Center. This will be a great chance to hear more about the document, as well as to provide feedback about the amendments.

The Land Stewardship Project will also be holding a special briefing for those interested in learning more about the text amendments on Monday, Nov. 28, from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m., at our office in the Powderhorn Park neighborhood. All are welcome to join as we provide an in-depth look at the draft text amendments and talk through potential adjustments. For directions, click here.

If you are interested in attending LSP’s Urban Ag Policy Plan briefing, or have any questions, contact me at 612-722-6377 or annac@landstewardshipproject.org.

Anna Cioffi is an LSP organizer who works on urban food and farming issues.

As we’ve reported in this blog before, GIPSA reform showed great promise last year when the USDA released a proposed rule to bolster  the ability of the federal government  to protect farmers against abuses by corporate meat packers. This is nothing new: it was basically an attempt to enforce a law that’s been on the books since 1921. After the proposed rule was released, thousands of farmers and ranchers from across the country called Washington to express support for strong rules that would rein in the giant meat packers and integrators. In one week alone this past June, over 5,000 farmers and ranchers, many LSP members from Minnesota, called the White House in support of a strong GIPSA.

Providing better enforcement criteria through the existing Packers and Stockyards Act has long been sought after by LSP and allied farm groups who advocated for the inclusion of a rule-making directive in the 2008 Farm Bill. That’s why we were so encouraged last year to see a proposed rule being released for comments to the public.

The timing couldn’t be better: consolidation and vertical integration within the livestock industry has created a playing field where meat packers and integrators manipulate markets, stifle competition and limit the options of a broad range of both independent and contract livestock producers. As Tom Laskawy points out in Grist, today 90 percent of all beef processing is controlled by four companies. For pork, four firms control 70 percent of processing. Such control makes it virtually impossible for independent livestock producers to get a fair price—they take what the packers are paying and the consumer pays what the processors are charging.

When USDA head Tom Vilsack pulled in reform-minded attorney Dudley Butler to head the Department’s division in charge of livestock markets, it looked like the Packers and Stockyards Act was finally going to get its due and President Obama was going to make good on his campaign pledge to, “Prevent anti-competitive behavior against family farms, and issue regulations for what constitutes undue price discrimination.”

While not a cure-all for the ills of anti-competitive behavior and undue corporate influence in livestock markets, the original proposed rule could have addressed some of the more extreme meat packer practices that farmers face.

And that scared some powerful players. As we reported here exactly a year ago, the American Meat Institute (AMI) — the lobbying consortium for the nation’s biggest meat packers — and packer-producer groups like the National Pork Producers Council and National Cattlemen’s Beef Association from the beginning came out blasting the rule. AMI members such as Cargill, Tyson and JBS  like things exactly the way they are.

Perhaps it was clear the fix was in as early as this past spring, when at a Congressional hearing on the issue representatives from Cargill and the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association were allowed to dominate the discussion. In fact, no family farmers or USDA experts were given a chance to provide a rebuttal or give an alternative perspective. Well, it looks like all that high-priced lobbying paid off this week.

While portions of the rule moved forward this week do address some of the most egregious conditions that certain contract poultry and hog producers face, overall Obama’s USDA abandoned essentially all measures that would have helped independent cattle and hog producers. This week’s announcement also indicated that a new or extended comment period would proceed on select pieces of the proposed rule. But considering the already extreme delays in the rule-making process  and backtracking as demonstrated with this announcement, groups like LSP have little confidence this President will see them through to finalization.

Ultimately, Obama crumpled under pressure from corporate meat packers and packer-producer groups who had made killing the GIPSA rule a top priority. As Laskawy reports, there is a recent precedent for this—Vilsack’s attempt to restrict the release of genetically engineered alfalfa earlier this year was crushed by a White House working hard to placate Corporate America. So much for campaign pledges.

LSP is pushing for the Obama Administration to revisit the GIPSA rule and deliver on its promise. A healthy functioning marketplace provides the foundation for good jobs and opportunities in agriculture. That does not exist in the livestock industry today. Farmers, big or small, should be given a fair shot at getting the best price they can for the fruits of their labor. Livestock producers and consumers and our communities expect and deserve better in a country that supposedly considers the “free market” a cornerstone of its economy.

Meanwhile, continued consolidation of power in the meat industry is having huge impacts on the farm, and on the Main Streets where the owners of those farms do business. As southwest Minnesota hog farmer Darwyn Bach said recently, “I’m trying to decide if I’m going to remain in hog farming. I need to be confident that I have market access for my hogs and I’m competing on a level playing field with other producers.”

Give to the Max Countdown: 8 days to go!

We Minnesotans sure love to fish: Dropping a line in our favorite lake, river or stream is part of our way of life.

But a whopping 40% of our state’s lakes and rivers are seriously polluted – contaminating the fish, making them harmful to our health.

So let’s do something about it.

Your donation to MEP on Give to the Max Day (Nov. 16) will help us and our members clean up Minnesota’s water.

Let’s make mercury-free fish a reality!

Go to GiveMN.org/MEPartnership to learn more. Together, we’re stronger!