Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Common sense is not so common


'Golden Crookneck' summer squash.

The proverbial has hit the fan. The horse#%@* that is.

Our industrialised, regulated food system is SO screwed up.

It is illegal for me to use second hand egg cartons and, despite a whole evening of googling, I could only find one reference to the possible danger of used egg cartons (on a website for paranoid parents, warning them of the dangers of using said cartons for their children’s craft activities). But while being subjected to regulations like these, we are legally sold food that has been bleached, irradiated, extruded and sprayed to keep us ‘safe’, and somebody finds Black Beauty in the frozen lasagne.

Call me strange, but I wouldn’t recoil at the thought of eating Black Beauty, providing she had been humanely raised and fed a healthy diet, any more than I recoil at the idea of eating an egg from a second hand carton. The problem for me is the homogenisation of food products from around the world to such a point that we can't recognise what we are buying. Surely horse doesn't taste like beef? But since things are minced, doused with chemical seasonings and standardised to all taste the same to our industrially dumbed down palates, nobody notices. 

The industrial system is not capable of protecting us from listeria, salmonella, E.coli and antibiotic resistant bacteria. What it is capable of is spreading these things far and wide. Just have a think back to the tragic E. coli outbreak in Germany in 2011. This wasn’t caused by an unpasteurised cheese, a second hand egg carton or nitrate free ham. In fact, as far as I can tell, due to the massive movement of food across the globe, the source still seems unclear with Spain, Germany and Egypt all thought to be sources of contamination at some point during the investigation. I found an article on an outbreak of Salmonella in the UK that was blamed on ready to eat, pre sliced watermelon shipped there from Brazil. Isn’t that the perfect caricature of our energy expensive, wasteful, ridiculous food system? Is it so hard to ship something in its own skin and use a knife yourself?

One of the reasons I am so determined to make our garden work is that I believe it is the antithesis of this. Land that would otherwise be used for recreational horses or lawn mowing, instead producing heaps of really good food. Little, labour intensive food production systems feeding as many local people as possible with minimum carbon and waste outputs, and maximum flavour, nutrition, diversity and joy.

Only a small scale market garden can feed their pigs and chickens on apples, blackberries, thistles and spent vegetables produced on site. Manure goes back into the garden and the animals perform tillage and pest control services. On a plot our size, many more than the twenty chickens and two to three pigs we keep could begin to compact the soil. The manure we produce, without our garden to use it in, would become a waste disposal problem, the weeds and bolted vegetables we end up with would be harder to compost and process without the animals. Our garden is becoming a balanced ecosystem that, as we build soil and our skills and experience grow, I hope to make as efficient and beautiful as possible. Spare plants from the nursery go to our kid's school garden, neighbours come by with their scraps for the animals and our kids are learning about flavour, nature and hard work.


Rillettes hard at work.

Our small garden also guarantees that when I pass your change across my market table you will see the soil that grew your vegetables stuck under my nails. You can challenge me about the brand of seeds I use, or about my excessive use of sticky tape. You can ask me how I treat my soil, or what the strange leaf is in your salad.

But, next year I probably won’t be able to sell you eggs. A new egg act that comes into place late this year I think will make it unviable for me. Our chickens are a truly important part of our garden ecosystem, selling the eggs helps to balance the cost of supplementary feed. From what I understand I’ll need to individually date stamp each egg, submit and pay for inspections as well as paying a registration fee of more than $300 a year. As small producers our time is, and should be, taken up digging, watering, growing and marketing our goods. There is no way I have time to read and understand the act, certainly no time for me to attempt to fight it, and, more than likely, no chance of success if I did find the time. Sure, my friends say I can go underground and sell the eggs privately, but why shouldn’t my loyal and beautiful market customers who have built up trust with me and my methods be able to choose to buy my food and instead, be forced to buy from a producer who has the economy of scale to manage the costs of the new system? This is just my example of red tape hampering productivity and the sharing of real food, there are many more small producers out there with similar fights on their hands. We are taking responsibility for our family and our land, hoping to create employment for ourselves, food for others and be part of Tasmania's spectacular food culture.


Tasmanian Tree Frog and French sorrel.

This, in a world where our food systems are such that waste is an integral part of them. Where packaging is more important than contents, and labelling that gives us the option to make informed choices is not law. Where bleach, irradiation and vacuum packaging take the place of freshness and hygiene, and the rights of multinational companies to trade across borders transcends our right to know what we are eating.

We need a food regulation system that can cater for all producers, not just the large ones, and enable small farms who priorotise soil health, animal welfare, carbon sequestration and flavour to thrive. The current one that seems to favour big, energy and waste intensive, industrial food. Small farms like ours are key to true food security. Small scale farms rely on personal interactions, trust and common sense to keep food safe, not reams of paper, registration fees and legislation. Value adding on small farms needs to be easier, to sell a few jars of jam or honey in the quiet months of the year would require us to build or hire a commercial kitchen, outweighing any much needed financial advantage we may gain.

It is an unnatural, nonsensical environment we have created, where a gardener can’t make jam in their own kitchen to sell at market, but beef/horse can turn up in your microwave from goodness knows where.  

We need legislators to fight our corner for us, as we are too busy digging, and we need to take ownership of the fact that what we buy shapes the world we live in.

I am writing from my heart, no references or sensible things like that here, but here are a few things, in the order in which I discovered them, that resounded with me and shaped my thinking on food.

Living the Good Life, Linda Cockburn

Real Food, Nina Plank

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. Barbara Kingsolver

Food Inc.

Eating Animals, Johnathon Safran Foer

Also pretty much everything on the blog roll on the right of your screen, there are many inspiring and incredible people fighting the good fight!

Nick's wonderful discussion of how he sources his milk.

And finally, this lovely rant shared on Facebook this week by Elaine and Colette.

You may also have noticed we're at Farm Gate Market in Hobart with our produce and ever growing range of edible plants every single Sunday! The chef has left the kitchen and has become a full time food gardener, so expect to see our stall brimming with wonderful food over the coming months.


Underground bulbs of walking onions and winter savoury.
Both hardy and easy to grow, both utterly delicious.

18 comments:

  1. Great piece Paulette. Logical, brimming with common sense, balancing the economic and environmental challenges, as well as being authentic and heart felt. As a producer, please keep up the fight; and as a consumer I'll keep supporting you! Kind regards Lisbeth (Silent Range Estate)

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    1. Thanks so much Lisbeth. Such kind words, it is because so many people think the same way that keeps us working the way we do. Thanks for your support!
      Paulette xx

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  2. i LOVE you when you wear your ranty pants.
    Thank goodness for people like you Paulette.

    xxxx

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    1. Thanks Ruth! Wearing my ranty pants on here is theraputic, it is so wonderful to have support and hear from like-minded folk. Thank goodness for you too. xxoo

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  3. I agree!!!!! I have been thinking about the absurdity that organic growers have to go through to prove they are organic when everyone else can just put whatever chemicals they like on a vegetable - sell it - and never have to tell the customer that they have just poisoned your food! the world is all upside down and side ways.

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    1. It is absurd, another scary aspect is that Coles and Woolies have now got their own brand of organic foods, so even organic food at the supermarket is homogenised and industrial. Studying horticulture you do a section on chemical safety which pretty much converts every thinking person to organics! Upside down and sideways indeed.

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  4. thats a good read ,and right on so many levels of rational thinking thankyou

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  5. Secondhand egg cartons are only illegal if you pass your eggs off as someone else's by leaving the brand or what ever on. It's a consumer/fair trade/copyright issue not food safety. Others at the market have done and do now stick their own labels on old cartons. You could olso just remove any brand or company identifiers. If you have been told it's food safety have you also been told which law?

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    1. The Hobart City Council health inspectors told me I have to use new packaging, I raised the issue of labelling but was told that it is a hygiene issue and I shouldn't even store eggs in used cartons for personal use since old cartons are so dangerous.... I really think they are bonkers!

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  6. Yerrrssss the egg thing. There's all sorts of irksome things about it. The one that gets me is the nutritional information label. Now I, you, me as egg producers have to put the eggs nutritional information on the label. If you ask how to get that sorted they direct you to a website that has the info already, you just print it out and stick it on your egg carton. The rub is that all eggs have the same nutritional value. Oh well if thats the case I may as well put a few thousand chooks in a shed. Hey the eggs are the same! What a load of absolute nonsense. And don't get me started on paying the egg board.. for what I'm not exactly sure. Are they going to use those funds for R & D into small scale poultry integration into vegetable systems and the proper nutritional value that those fresh, sun powered, free range, high nutrient diet eggs provide the customers who know a good thing when they taste it? I think not. They'll use those funds to figure out how to squeeze more eggs out of a battery hen and I for one refuse to give them my hard earned for that purpose. Civil disobedience Paulette. I know your customers and mine have the right to good fresh food and to openly purchase that food without fear of the farmer they know and trust getting penalised for providing them with such. But in the meantime it's black market, under the counter eggs. No sir, only sell 15 dozen a week. X. F. O.M.R

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    1. You feel the pain! It is crazy, I have a customer at the market who waits by my stall early to grab my eggs for her husband. He is unwell and she says he loves them. I'm sure that the fact the birds have loads of greens and sunlight make them more nutritious for him and it is those interactions and relationships that make working like we do worthwhile! I do only sell 4 -5 dozen a week. I'm working on establishing purslane for my girls to increase their omega 3s http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20564433 Let's stage a revolt!

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  7. Oh Paulette, its an upsidedown crazy world we live in. you write very beautifully, from the heart and so articulate given the passionate gusto! You are an inspiration, always reminding me whats what, perfect timing thank you! xx

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  8. Yes to it all being madness, Paulette. Within this system created by idiots we have to join with those prepared to step out of it. Sharing, swapping and other innovative systems provide me with raw milk, home-killed meat and even eggs in old cartons! One day, though, the madness will more or less self-destruct .... I just hope I am here to see it!

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  9. I am so excited to have found your blog, having just moved to Neika and being an avid food gardener and herb enthusiast as well. I will have to look out for you at the markets sometime and say hello : )

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  10. You write with such common sense! It must have something to do with getting your hands in the soil. As a ex cafe owner and current caterer, I bought the neighbourhood eggs and then some from a little farther. None of which were stamped nor in new cartons. A revolt has to start at the "grass roots" level (pardon the pun). So very glad to have come across you. :)

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  11. Have just encountered your page and I guess you should be complimented for this piece. More power to you!

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  12. The food system is so ridiculous, I hadn't heard about this new egg law but it's such a shame. I grow the market garden at Tafe and I have so much available food that I always offer other horticulture students but they're just not interested in eating anything from the garden, and they're horticulture students!! People have a warped understanding of what food really is, but every few weeks I manage to send someone home with a bunch of kale or silverbeet to try :) Keep doing your amazing work, we all have to work towards building nourishing, strong communities with good, healthy food and local support.

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