Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food

Mindful Metropolis

FamilyFarmed.org’s annual expo promises to be the Midwest’s premier local food event

The local food movement has reached a critical mass, and sustainability guru Jim Slama knows it. His organization FamilyFarmed.org’s annual expo has ripened like a tomato on the vine and is now considered the Midwest’s premier local food event, if not the best local food trade show in the country.

The 2010 Family Farmed Expo will be held March 11-13 at the University of Illinois-Chicago (UIC) Forum. Family Farmed expects as many as 5,000 to attend the three-day festival, particularly on Saturday, March 13, for the consumer food festival, which features an all-star lineup of speakers and celebrity chefs, including Frontera Grill’s Rick Bayless. The menu Saturday will offer education seminars about topics such as consuming the entire animal, raising chickens in the back yard and growing your own garden—not to mention cooking demos, an interactive Kids Corner and more than 140 vendors ranging from family farmers to artisan food producers to local food advocates—all of whom can help you eat locally and healthy year-round.

The expo begins with the “Financing Farm to Fork” conference that connects local food producers with potential investors. Farms and businesses that have been selected will showcase their company models, amidst an entire day of discussions and an opening seminar by Woody Tasch, author of Inquiries into the Nature of Slow Money.

According to FamilyFarmed.org, “A primary objective of the conference is to educate regional farmers and food processors about various financing strategies and then link them with individuals who represent a variety of financing options that may help them grow their businesses. Business education and training will be essential to the success of the conference and breakout sessions will help inform food producers and financiers about the opportunities and needs in this sector.”

Friday offers the Midwest’s leading local food trade show, a “Meet the Buyers” reception, an innovative “Food Policy” summit and the yummy “Localicious” party that evening.

“I’m excited about this whole event,” says Slama. “The local food movement is exploding. We’re doing what we can to build capacity for the movement through pretty sophisticated and unique measures.”

Slama adds that the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is taking steps to encourage local food systems, partly to promote food safety but also farm-to-school initiatives. Chicago Public Schools, for example, has spent $1.8 million on fresh, local food: potatoes from Illinois, apples, peaches and plumbs from Michigan, and also products from central Wisconsin.

For Slama, the “gotcha” moment that the local food movement had become mainstream arrived in September when he and five other sustainable food leaders were given a tour of the White House kitchen and garden by President Obama’s chef Sam Kass, executive chef at the Jane Addams Hull House here in Chicago before his move to Pennsylvania Avenue last year. That same day, Obama and other world leaders were attending the G20 summit in Pittsburgh and, according to Kass, each world leader received a bottle of honey from the White House garden.

Bob Borchardt, who together with his wife Jenny owns Harvest Moon Farms in southwest Wisconsin, believes that the arrival of large buyers on the local food scene proves that the local food movement has reached a critical mass. “When you have national organizations shifting and proactively setting up purchasing plans, then you know that it’s happening,” explains Borchardt.

Located about four hours from Chicago in Viroqua, a part of Wisconsin dubbed “the driftless region,” Harvest Moon is entering its fourth year in business and will exhibit for the second time at the Family Farmed Expo. Harvest Moon primarily services the wholesale market, particularly restaurants and institutions, and also runs a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA).

“We feel like this event is one of a kind,” says Borchardt. “It’s the combination of the ability to market to people directly, to be part of the best industry initiative that’s out there, and to have it all happen under one roof.

“The biggest benefit for us is the face-to-face interaction—to have actual CSA members or customers come see us and talk about current and future products, in a setting where the whole meaning is around local food.”

At its table, Harvest Moon will feature storage crops, samples of its products including cheeses, flowers, chicken eggs and grass-fed beef, and marketing information about the CSA, which Jenny runs along with day-to-day farm operations.

The Borchardts don’t just sell produce. They call their operation a food business, which they integrate with chefs, wholesalers and market makers. Before they bought the land four years ago, Bob owned a company that serviced restaurants. Today, the marketing leg of their business is Cuisine Populaire, a video production company that narrates the stories of those who work with food, wine and spirits. Bob’s brother Bradley, who also plays a hand in Cuisine Populaire, is a consulting chef and will handle all recipe development. Bradley has spent the last 15 years studying culinary cultures in Europe, South America and Asia.

“This is a way for us to contribute to changing local food systems in a positive way,” says Bob.

And as evidenced by the thousands of people flocking to the Family Farmed Expo, “local food” is certainly in style.

For more information, visit familyfarmed.org.

Jacob Wheeler is an adjunct teacher at Columbia College and publishes the Glen Arbor Sun newspaper (GlenArborSun.com) in northwest-lower Michigan.