"LocalFood" news and stories

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Social networking is helping local food growers and processors find ways to sell their wares to local food service businesses in the Pacific Northwest.

FoodHub, an interactive online tool launched in February by Portland-Ore.-based nonprofit Ecotrust, helps growers and food professionals find each other, The Oregonian reported.

With a revamped site set to launch in a few weeks, Ecotrust VP of food and farms Deborah Kane talked to the newspaper about FoodHub and how it works.

Cheese-making is getting closer to the city. Lisa Schwartz of Rainbeau Ridge Farm farms in areas surrounding New York City, such as Westchester County which borders Manhattan to the north. Recently, Alan Glustoff of 5 Spoke Creamery finalized an agreement to operate the last remaining farmland in the county -- Yorktown Heights, N.Y.

For Manhattanites, this development means it will be easier to get a hold of Glustoff's Port Chester, an exceptional raw cow's milk cheese. Glustoff already produces small batches for city restaurants, including Gramercy Tavern, Per Se and Dirt Candy and sells at select stores nationwide.

"This bold cheese packs an olfactory journey to the field," says Glustoff. Indeed, the earthy taste has a lot to do with the cows' rich diet. "The Holsteins are on pasture during the grass season, which is roughly from early March until the end of November," Glustoff explains. "Their varied diet of different grasses, flowers and herbs contributes to Port Chester's flavor and appearance."

Photo: andrea dunlap/flickr.

Yesterday in Washington, D.C., Tom Vilsack, the Agriculture Secretary and Kathleen Merrigan, the Deputy Secretary, announced a new USDA initiative, "Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food." Officials say the almost $65 million program will "begin a national conversation to help develop local and regional food systems and spur economic opportunity."

"An American people that is more engaged with their food supply will create new income opportunities for American agriculture," said Vilsack. He also posted a video on You Tube outlining the details of the program. On a consumer level, part of this initiative means knowing where your food comes from, beyond the grocery store produce aisle, as well as bringing locally farmed fruit and vegetables to schools.

The program will also help smaller farmers ship meat and poultry across state lines, in order to boost rural economies and small agriculture businesses. There will be changes to existing USDA programs that cut down logistical and bureaucratic road blocks that make sustainable local agriculture more costly and more difficult.

Over the past five years, the local food movement has helped spur the production of local artisanal cheeses in non-traditional dairy states, such as Nebraska, Illinois and Georgia. Although Vermont, California and Wisconsin remain cheesemaking hubs, other states are beginning to lead the way with farmstead cheeses like Little Bloom on the Prairie from Illinois, Georgia's Green Hill and Nebraska's Lancaster Duet.

Leslie Cooperband from Prairie Fruits Farm in Illinois and Charuth Loth from Farmstead First in Nebraska are both diversifying their farms and selling cheeses directly to customers at local markets.

"The perception of consumers is changing," Loth says. "People are starved for a connection with the farm." Loth and her fellow co-owner Krista Dittman laughed, saying that they feel they're engaging in "rural counseling" -- helping to reestablish a lost connection between food and the earth.