Happy Friday Guys! So thankful to be on my land this morning doing what I love most....farming! I am writing this morning on a topic very near and dear to my heart. The important of buying Local Agriculture and backing up our local farmers! I know for many of you that you have made the intentional choice already to befriend Mt. View Orchards and it always makes my heart smile when you come most weeks of the summer to get fresh tree-ripened fruit from our bounty. I care deeply about growing clean fruit for my region but it only works if I have a loyal customer base that rally's to buy my harvests. I don't really want to preach to the choir, because a lot of you have already joined are All Fruit CSA 2016 because you know how vital it is to partner with me to ensure the success of my small family farm. (A thousand thank yous!) Click the highlighted link to find out more about Community Supported Agriculture and joining our CSA, friends.
Here are the Top 10 Reasons you should join a local CSA and buy Farm Direct!
1. Small family farms are on the sharp decline and becoming financially successful as a new farmer is nearly impossible so it requires the WHOLE village to believe and financially back farms to ensure fresh and local food will always be available for our community to enjoy.
2. Buying Farm direct from your local farmer means you can have a relationship with your farmer and know EXACTLY what has been put on on your food and how we are protecting the environment. You cannot do that in the big box stores or from food shipped across the world. This includes things labeled as "natural or organic." There are different standards around the world and buying Local fruit where you know the farmer is SAFEST!
3. Buying Farm Direct means the fruit will have fantastic FLAVOR. We pick the fruit when it has the perfect amount of sweetness and smack! We farm in a "one of a kind," micro climate here at the base of Mt. Hood with Parkdale Loam soil that is primarily former Volcanic Ash. Our nutrient dense soil, perfect temperatures, ample mountain run off create a perfect synergy to grow delicious fruit for our region. You cannot grow apples, pears, peaches or plums in every city with any microclimate Our region was made to be an Agricultural Mecca and we need to honor our land and keep small family farms thriving here because this is a rare GIFT.
4. Buying Farm Direct gives your farmer a 50% raise on her harvests and you get your fruit for a DEAL as well. We are farm known for being a very generous and affordable. We try to keep our costs at a place were anyone can enjoy Local fruit and harvests. We also give away free fruit to our local Food Bank and Non-profits often. We lose money though when people do not buy directly from our farm and chose to get their fruit at the big box stores. Listen, we can cut out the middle man/shipping costs and environmental impacts when the consumer and the farmer can get a better deal if we can get TOGETHER!
5. Coming and learning where your food is grown is good for your soul and important for raising and nurturing our kids. Wendell Berry believed that "a significant part of the PLEASURE of eating is one's accurate consciousness of the lives and the world in which our food comes from. " You should know who and where your perfect peach was nurtured! We open up our farm each year like a big living room each year for many schools, international farmers and Ag students from our state who want to learn how we farm and how we grow fruit for our region. There is a certain satisfaction picking an apple straight off one of our 100 year old trees and enjoying it in the orchard. We encourage sampling on our farm and want you to come out and enjoy u-picking each and every year.
6. Buying farm direct means you can enjoy a locally grown pear and meet the FDA requirement of eating more fruits and veggies all at the same time. "How many local fruits and veggies can you eat in one day" game is a game I play at my house. As I write this morning, I am currently enjoying a pear that grew right here on my land. 1 down, many to go.
7. We can't lose our farmers! "Eating is an agricultural act. It is also an ecogical act, and a political act too"-Wendell Berry Take the time to decide if we want all our food being produced by huge corporations and foreign countries, or if having smaller operations that help rural economies may have more benefits then we realize. (Cue Joni Mitchell, "don't is always seem to go, we don't know what we got till its gone....)
8. What I can say is that more then ever we need to support American small family farms. Ask your grocer where the produce originates from the USA. Ask your favorite restaurant if they use regionally sourced food. Please compliment them when they say, "From a farmer, right here in town." We must all work together if we insist on seeing farms dot our landscape in future decades. Lets foster a community PHILOSOPHY that commits to supporting small family farm with our words and our actions.
9. Small family farms and farmers lives matter!
10. Lastly, buying farm direct from my farm, means you are also supporting a farming minority. WOMEN! Farming tends to be an all white male operation but the times they are a changing and more women are carrying on their families farming traditions and taking over multi generation small family farms. When I go to horticulture meetings there are like 4 women in the room with me. Lets change that! I love being a farmer and I want to thank everyone who has rallied behind my efforts to help and save my families small family farm. Please consider joining my All Fruit CSA this year. Head over to www.mtvieworchards.com/csa/ for more information about it. xoxo your grateful farmer, Trina