Organic Pick of the Week: Your Local Farmer

Here at OrganicNation.tv, we're always testing new organic products to review for our Organic Pick of the Week series. So it's become easy to choose organic food, beauty and clothing brands that have fancy labeling and a marketing budget to send out samples.

But I'd like to take this opportunity to feature what I consider to be the best organic product on the market: the one grown by your local farmer. In every region of the United States farmers are working hard to cultivate healthy and delicious crops with the simple goal of feeding you. Organic farmers have taken an extra step towards sustainability and invested a large chunk of money and time to grow food without harmful pesticides. That kind of dedication deserves our support.

So this week I urge you to visit your local farmer's market, join a CSA or ask for local and organic produce at your neighborhood grocery store. If you're not sure where to get organic food in your region, check out localharvest.org to search by your state or zipcode.

In the growing sustainable food movement, consumers have the power, so let's use it!

-Dorothée

New Video: Mission Pie, San Francisco

Mission Pie is an organic bakery and neighborhood café in the Mission District of San Francisco. They make savory and sweet pies all year round using fresh, seasonal ingredients. By forming strategic partnerships with local farms like Pie Ranch, they can source large quantities of produce and even organic wheat!

Co-owners Karen Heisler and Krystin Rubin believe that "businesses should operate from a values position" and have made it their mission to bring sustainable food to a broader population. As Krystin mentions in the video,

"There is something humble about pie and very accessible. A lot of what we're talking about when we're talking about engaging in local agriculture and the food system and all of that are some rarefied concepts to a lot of people, but pie isn't. It's a very gentle way to open up those conversations."

Mission Pie also collaborates with local youth advocacy organizations to provide a positive work environment to disadvantaged teenagers in the San Francisco area. As a thriving, progressive, for-profit business, they are a great example of a company that reinvests productively and creatively not just in the quality of their ingredients and equipment, but in the lives of the people and communities around them.

Local Seafood Still Available in New Orleans

This is the line we waited in at 6pm yesterday to get into the Acme Oyster House in downtown New Orleans. For now, local seafood is still available in the area (thankfully). I've heard that crab is becoming scarce in places, and wholesale seafood prices are rising because of an offshore fishing ban around the oil spill, but local oysters, crawfish, and other seafood specialties are still on the menu.

For dinner last night, we feasted on fried oysters, seafood gumbo, jambalaya, and hush puppies. Certainly not the healthiest food, but impossible to pass up when you're in New Orleans.

-Mark

Family Farmed Expo Starts Today in Chicago

Local food is on the tip of everybody's tongue in Chicago today, because the fifth annual Family Farmed Expo starts today and runs through Saturday at the UIC Forum.

Billed as "the Midwest's premier local food event," the expo is open to the public and it will feature exhibitor booths from local food producers, chef demos, and organic and local food workshops.

We'll be heading over to UIC to get in on the action this week. To learn more about the Family Farmed Expo, check out this promo video of FamilyFarmed.org President Jim Slama:

What's in Store for 2010? More Local Food

NOTE: A version of this post first appeared on our local sister site, The Dirt on Green. 

2009 is in the books, but as we look forward to the tweens, one trend that will likely carry over from the '90s and the aughts is the increase in the buying and selling of local food. Back in October, USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack announced that the number of farmers markets in the US increased by 13 percent -- one of the biggest increases in recent history. The USDA table above shows the number of farmers markets in the country over the past 15 years. 

It's not just farmers markets that have increased in the past year; small, independent farms have cropped up too. Marion Nestle describes the phenomenon:

"The back-to-the land movement has loads of people buying local food, choosing foods produced under more sustainable conditions and growing their own food. The number of small farms in America increased last year for the first time in a century. Seed companies cannot keep up with the demand. It will be fun to follow what happens with this trend."

-Mark