Dan Barber, a renowned chef and author of the book, The Third Plate: Field Notes on the Future of Food, is kicking up dust around the farm-to-table movement.
Barber recently wrote in the Sunday New York Times that despite the claims of four-fifths of Americans that sustainability is a priority when they shop for food, “For all its successes, farm-to-table has not, in any fundamental way, reworked the economic and political forces that dictate how our food is grown and raised.”
Essentially, he writes, we have embraced local food without really embracing (or even understanding) what it takes to produce it, including “humbler” crops that farmers plant in rotation to keep their soil rich and productive. Helping those little-known crops pass consumers’ taste tests, he says, will likely require middlemen between the farm and the table: producers such as mills, canneries and even creative chefs like himself.
We’re fortunate here in New Hampshire that farm-to-table strategies are already focused on building infrastructure and on expanding consumers’ palates. Read More.
John Hamilton is the Community Loan Fund’s Vice President of Economic Opportunity and Vested for Growth’s Managing Director. Courtesy of Community Loan Fund: http://www.communityloanfund.org/blog/sustainable-food
