Thank a farmer!

Picture my dinner plate. . .  corn on the cob, green beans, baked chicken breast with lemon and dill, and slices of tomato topped with basil.  Biting into each one, I experience a curious sensation – flavor.  Flavor that wakes me up and says, “Pay attention.  Do you realize that you didn’t add any salt, pepper, sugar, butter, olive oil, or anything else that shakes out a jar or pours out of a bottle?”  I even feel healthier as each bite enters my body.  No pesticides. No synthetic fertilizers. No preservatives.  No cooped-up chickens.

If I have a question about anything I’m eating, I can email or call the farmer directly. All products are grown or raised within 150 miles of my house.  And I don’t even have to leave the comfort of my couch to shop.

What’s my secret?  For folks around Conway, a town about 12 miles from our house in Greenbrier, it’s proudly shared public knowledge.  Conway Locally Grown!  Just drive by the local Episcopal church between 4:00 and 6:00 on Friday afternoons, and you’ll see people entering with empty bags and exiting with bulging ones.  That’s the pick-up point where customers, like me, get our orders filled for fruits, vegetables, eggs, meat and dairy products, all grown on small, family-owned farms. 

The process begins on Sunday evenings when the online farmer’s market opens, and I quietly sip my cup of tea while scrolling through the pictures and descriptions of the weekly listings.  Let’s see.. . .  what do I need this week?

1 dozen Peaches and Cream Sweet corn

2 pounds Arkansas Traveler Heirloom tomatoes

1 pound Kentucky Wonder pole beans

1 seedless red meat watermelon

1 dozen pastured brown eggs, organically fed

2 chicken breasts, organically fed and pastured raised

1 bunch sweet basil

1 pound purple hull peas

Stop!  That’s quite enough.  But what about that arugala, those zephyr summer squash, the blueberries, cantaloupe, new potatoes? 

I feel empowered with each click that adds an item to my cart, empowered that I am making a choice to support a farmer in my “neighborhood,” a farmer who respects the land using sustainable farming techniques to protect the environment and the health of the people who eat her foods.  And I feel grateful for these principled, hard-working individuals, couples and families who get up early and sweat through hot Arkansas days, battling weeds, bugs, rabbits, deer, and uncooperative weather conditions as they honestly and humanely care for their crops and animals.

One of my favorite writers is also a  farmer, Wendell Berry.  In one of his poems, The Man Born to Farming, I gain a glimmer of his insight into the farmer’s passion. 

“The Grower of Trees, the gardener, the man born to farming,

whose hands reach into the ground and sprout,

to him the soil is a divine drug. He enters into death

yearly, and comes back rejoicing. He has seen the light lie down

in the dung heap, and rise again in the corn.”

As the farmers fill my tote bags with their products, the “thank you” I offer is not only for the food but for the courageous lifestyle they have chosen, which fills me with hope for a healthier earth filled with healthier people.  

If you haven’t already found a farmer’s market or local produce stand near your house, I encourage you to do so! 

Please share any of your experiences buying locally in the comments section.  If you want to recognize a farmer, add his/her name for us all to celebrate.  I’ll start with two in my family who taught me all I know about sustainable farming and started me on my journey towards support of local farmers . . . daughter Elizabeth Alexander and son-in-law, Ben Goodwin.