Rent grassland, save the cowboys.
That’s the aim of a new Colorado program creatively circumventing the staggeringly high price of real estate to stave off development and keep a traditional lifestyle alive — and creating a foodie favorite so in demand that Whole Foods can’t keep the shelves stocked.
The solution started, as solutions often do, with a problem. Tai Jacober saw his family’s land divided and sold after his grandfather died. And he and his brothers couldn’t afford to buy a ranch.
“You can’t buy ag land in Colorado,” Jacober, a third-generation rancher, told Kelly Bastone of 5280. The cost of maintaining undeveloped pasturelands has become too high for many ranching families in Colorado. What used to be open acreage now holds second homes and resorts.
Since he couldn’t buy, Jacober decided to rent.
Crystal River Meats of Carbondale, Colo., leases pasture land on a large scale. It’s a win-win — Jacober and ranchers like him get to keep their livelihood, while landowners get to support traditional ranching culture and snag agricultural tax credits without having to run cattle themselves.
Farmers and ranchers have leased land before, but Crystal River Meats does it wholesale, renting 250,000 acres dotted throughout various communities. And their local, humanely-produced beef flies off the Whole Foods shelves.
Jacober has big dreams for his rental business, dreams that stretch far beyond Carbondale’s cows. He wants Crystal River Meats to serve as a blueprint for other communities across the state to preserve that Western ideal of open land and cattlemen, especially near the state’s popular ski towns.
“There’s a cultural benefit to having a viable ag operation that preserves the rural look — and the cowboys that come with that,” Jacober says.
Thanks to projects like Jacober’s, the open vistas of the West might just have a chance.
MORE: How 40 Pounds of Leftover Broccoli Sparked a Farm-Friendly Innovation
Tag: Local Food
One Baker’s Legislative Crusade Helped Create 12,000 Home Businesses
California’s new Homemade Food Act has opened a door for anyone who wants to make a living off of selling their home-cooked goods—and it’s all thanks to a renegade baker named Mark Stambler.
Prior to the act, it was illegal for anyone to sell homemade food in California. The prohibition was meant to protect people from consuming unsafe foods, but it was bad for local entrepreneurs who wanted to sell food made from home. Stambler had been baking in his Los Angeles home for decades, but in 2011, he was forced to stop for 18 months after the Health Department caught wind of a Los Angeles Times profile of Stambler’s homemade French bread that he sold in stores.
MORE: This Farmer Delivers Local Food — From A Sailboat!
For the next year and a half, the baker crusaded against the homemade food restriction. With the help of Assemblyman Mike Gatto and local support, Stambler was able to draft the California Homemade Food Act that would allow anyone to sell food if they first passed a food safety course and used proper labeling.
California Gov. Jerry Brown gave his stamp of approval last month and said the act would “make it easier for people to do business in California.” Indeed, Forbes reports that Stambler’s efforts have allowed more than 12,000 California businesses to sell their homemade food legally. So far, county health departments have yet to hear a single complaint. Now that’s a win for California’s local food movement.
Kelp: The Sea Weed That Could Save Mankind
Bren Smith blends into the New England seascape, a waterman decked out in waders tooling around on his boat in the Long Island Sound. On this hazy July morning, he’s motored out aboard the Mookie III from a Stony Creek, Conn., dock to check on his oyster beds scattered between the Thimble Islands. Another boat putters by, and Smith raises his arm to point, his hands cloaked in rubber gloves to protect against the barnacles. “That guy,” Smith says, “is only catching about five pounds of lobsters a day. He doesn’t even pay for half his fuel with that.” And with this observation, Smith shatters the illusion that he’s just another fisherman chasing his catch.
Smith, in fact, is a genuine revolutionary, a man who sees powerful currents of change in the choppy waters off the Atlantic seaboard. And his neighbor, chugging past with his nearly empty hold, is proof that the end of a way of life is looming—and the beginning of a new one is at hand.
Climate change has affected the fishing beds. Ocean acidification, a product of rising atmospheric CO2 levels, kills off coral reefs, causes toxic algae blooms and dissolves the shells of oysters and other mollusks, researchers say.
And then there’s what Smith calls the “rape and pillage” of the world’s oceans—the overfishing that has dried up once-fertile sources of food, and sent unemployment in once-thriving seaside communities through the roof. Smith assigns himself a share of the blame. He fished for McDonald’s in the Bering Sea some years back, and pushed the cod stocks to the brink. But grousing about it, and hoping government regulation will solve the problem, won’t do the trick. What fishermen catch needs to be rethought. What fishermen should be doing, in Smith’s view, is harvesting kelp.
Yes, you read that right: the slimy brown sea vegetation that has grossed out generations of New England beachgoers. You might think of it as an annoyance of no particular significance to mankind. Smith sees it as a jobs program, an amazing source of nutrition, a strategic adaptation to the havoc being wrought by global warming—and, quite possibly, the next big thing in trendy New York City restaurants.
He calls it his “path of ecological redemption,” and he’s calling on fishermen, businessmen and consumers to follow it with him.
Continue reading “Kelp: The Sea Weed That Could Save Mankind”
How to Turn a Vending Machine into a Farmers’ Market
Ready for a healthy meal? Hit the vending machine. Luke Saunders put up the first Farmer’s Fridge at Garvey Food Court in the Chicago Loop, and the smart idea is already expanding. It’s a high-tech, low-cost spin on vending machines: The automated, refrigerated kiosk dispenses fresh, healthy salads for as little as $6.99. In addition to gourmet salads, Farmer’s Fridges serve healthy breakfasts and snacks, with local, nutrient-dense ingredients. The team makes everything fresh each weekday morning, seals the items in recyclable plastic jars, and delivers them daily by 10 a.m., keeping internal costs low enough to offer low prices to rushed workers and hurried shoppers. They cut no corners on health, sourcing and preparing each meal carefully, and partnering with New York-based SPE Certified for independent validation of their products’ nutritional values. Customers are flocking to their smart balances of whole grains, veggies and lean protein, and if any items are left at the end of the day, Farmer’s Fridge donates the food to local charities. Look out, Chicagoans, a new kiosk might be in your neighborhood soon.
Why One Man’s Trash Is Another Man’s Fertilizer
Hello Compost, a new initiative preparing to launch in (where else?) New York City, wants to give people fresh produce in exchange for their food scraps. Here’s how it works: Hello Compost will give participants freezable bags to collect their food scraps, which can then be exchanged for credits toward buying fresh produce from local farmers. The food scraps will then be used to create compost to grow more plants. The idea is to reduce the amount of waste going into landfills, while making healthy food less expensive for low-income communities, and increasing the supply of compost to improve the quality of future crops.
This Farmer Delivers Local Food — From A Sailboat!
Vermont rice farmer Erik Andrus has created the Vermont Sail Freight Project, an initiative to deliver local goods down the Hudson river via sailboat. His objective is to use this project as a symbol for buying local and minimizing the impact on the environment, while still being able to transport and sell goods. On their first journey, Andrus and his crew were able to sell $60,000 worth of food. If you were curious, the man built his ship from scratch too.
Community Groups Guarantee $5 Bags Filled With Local Fruits and Veggies
Healthy foods can be prohibitively expensive, but not every fresh produce provider is a moneymaker. In Weatherford, Texas, just west of Fort Worth, the Rotary Club and Weatherford Christian School (WCS) have developed programs to share low-cost fresh seasonal fruits and vegetables with the public. With 15 items in each bag, the $5 price tag means that the groups often lose money the deal, and they make up the cost “passing the hat” among members. The programs have become popular over the past few months, especially since the re-usable bags make the bargain even more attractive. For the WCS program, the environmentally friendly bags don’t just draw in more people, they also fuel a fundraising effort to serve nearby hungry populations. Parents can purchase unused bags and the proceeds go toward the school’s weekly Meals on Wheels route.
Philly Activist Backs Fruit Into the Corner (Store)
Philly-based healthy food champion Brianna Almaguer Sandoval is bringing fresh fruits and vegetables back to her city’s corner stores, one bodega and market at a time. She runs the Healthy Corner Store Initiative for the non-profit The Food Trust. This initiative works with small store owners to make gradual steps towards carrying healthy food. I love the group’s practical “carrot” approach that starts with store owners carrying just four new products. For that, they get $100. There are incentives for every step forward they make to offer their customers more fresh produce and perishable foods.
The Company That’s Keeping Junk Out of School Cafeterias
Word association. I say, “school lunch,” you say…. “Gross.” “Junk food.” “Mystery meat.” It doesn’t have to be that way, and a young Chicago couple is proving it. They didn’t like the choices available at their son’s preschool, so they started Gourmet Gorilla.* Four years later, the company delivers 10,000 better meals and snacks to 90 elementary and preschools each school day. They source about 70% of their ingredients locally and from organic suppliers. Now, I’m fully aware that money is the elephant in the room for school lunch choices, especially in cash-strapped urban public school systems. But there’s always a way to do a bit better. Our kids deserve it.
*I’m betting this is a play on the irresistible kid’s book Goodnight Gorilla.