So what do you hate more about this NY Times piece on indie farmers?

NYT 6 months behind the rest of the New York media as usual.

My Empire of Dirt, New York, September 10, 2007

The opening of the third paragraph is the most hateful, I think.

Raised on the Upper East Side by a father who is a foundation executive and a mother who writes about criminal justice, Mr. Shute graduated from Amherst and worked for an antihunger charity.

*phew*

What a screwball that Trip Gabriel is! Had me worried for a minute.

Why do you hate it?

I wonder if they are working in the fields or have hired others to work in the fields. I think that makes a big difference.

man i really wanted to be a farmer but now that its the cool thing to do i guess ill just have to be a yuppie like everyone else

I found the writer far more hateful than any of the interviewees.

It's irrelevant to the story (which is actually pretty interesting).

Style section scoring system.

Alan Partridge on Farming

haha xpost I was going to say Ed to thread

^^response to youn

25 and 27 are the ideal ages for getting married?!?!!????!!

man i really wanted to be a farmer but now that its the cool thing to do i guess ill just have to be a yuppie like everyone else

-- max, Sunday, 16 March 2008 22:55 (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

^this

I have gotten my summer farm share from Hearty Roots the past 2 years.

my neighbor has chickens and wears a trucker hat but he is also like 80 years old.

If I had a summer farm share, I would grow Japanese sweet potatoes (satsumo imo) and beets in different colors. I'm fairly certain both are easy to grow.

yeah, there is always an abundance of beets and radishes every week.

If I buy my grandma's old house, I'm seriously thinking about keeping a few chickens. Still has my grandfather's old coop in the back, and fresh eggs would be sweet.

There's about a 10x10 planter out front that's mostly weeds now, wonder if I could plant corn?

That would be sweet. You probably could do corn. Corn is pretty up and down and likes to be close together or in a circle.

Just-picked corn is the best. :)

That's my sister in the lead photo and I too am a member of Hearty Roots
I wonder if they are working in the fields or have hired others to work in the fields. I think that makes a big difference.
^^ this is pretty insulting
the writer does come off like a total tool, but the worst is whoever says our rockstars are ricotta makers.

Sorry. I truly didn't mean it that way. I thought a farm could be big enough to have hired employees, but I should have realized that these farms probably don't get that big on purpose.

dang this makes me so mad!!!

i'd sooner clean the toilet stalls of the most reviled homosex club with my tongue than eat some fuckin williamsburg hipster farmer fagshit

I just seriously can't imagine how anybody'd give a shit. do people imagine that the guys bottling your milk at the big dairy are really your kinda people and they'd love you right back?

The Styles section always focuses on the stupidest shit. If you've ever been to a liberal arts college campus, there's about a million of these dorks.

Of course, the Styles section also declared the New Jersey suburbs "the next Williamsburg" a few years back.

But the growing market for organic and locally grown produce is making it possible for well-run small farms to thrive

The "it's not just for irony anymore" angle is what's really obnoxious about the article. But I can't really work up any rage about the subject itself. Privileged kids will be privileged kids, but trying to run a farm -- schmancy organic or no -- is an immensely challenging and life-consuming task, and anyone who can do it must have at least a bit of character.

I dunno, I was kinda bothered by precisely the cavalier attitude. I have a hard time believing that family farms across the country are struggling so badly or going under completely, but these people aren't. Something besides 'a really good market' is in play.

“We lost all of our soybeans last year to Japanese beetles,” Ms. Latzer said. She often wakes up at 5 a.m. and collapses into an exhausted sleep by 9 p.m. She earns enough to afford health insurance, but if the landlord doesn’t renew their five-year lease, the enterprise could become untenable.

A number of colleges have added organic farming classes because of demand from students. “A lot of them come out and realize they’re not cut out for it,” said John Biernbaum, a professor of horticulture in Michigan State’s new one-year certificate program. Last year, the first, there were 9 students. This year, 18.

"thrive" sounds like an overstatement

this makes me think of the scene on the commune in easy rider where the kid is haplessly arbitrarily tossing seeds around looking dour and you can tell he's thinking "IM AN 18TH CENTURY FARMER, I'M AN 18TH CENTURY FARMER"

my brother-in-law (future) does this. he started about ... 10 years ago? it is immensely difficult work and he doesn't break even.

Corn does well in a lot of places.

For example, This guy planted corn on the center divider at Broadway and 153rd up in Harlem in the early 90s. It got pretty tall, IIRC.

The headline and this paragraph are pretty stupid from a style point of view:

Just a few years ago the prevailing style statement in Williamsburg featured metrosexually groomed urbanites wearing trucker hats and pristine Carhartt jackets and quaffing Pabst beer.

Quaffing. Surely a gimme hat is useful for driving a tractor or even for ironic spackling/caulking in the Burg.

Generally, I am in favor of more people working and fewer sitting on charity boards.

Ed = bang on - it's the writer who can suck a bag of dicks here, good luck to the people trying to do something about the shit state the food industry is in at the moment. A visit to Stone barns yesterday pretty much sealed my idea of getting out of my crap food-service supporting job and trying to get into something that has a bit more integrity and, yes, soul.

OTM. Cutting out the middleman, fair trade and food with integrity are stories.

there is sort of a weird assumption here that young people getting into farming is some weird new-fangled thing, or that people are either farmers or nonfarmers by nature, like either your family's been doing it for 250 years or you're a hayseed.

some of the most successful farms in california were started in the 20s, 40s, 60s by people with little or no prior experience.

weird assumption = common or garden variety american classism, i guess

lmao the 20s is a longass time ago doggie

http://www.hearingdogs.org.uk/assets/images/remembering/humphry_and_ted.jpg

if you build it they will come...

http://www.rachelleb.com/images/2006_04_29/johnny_knoxville_lookalike.jpg

i don't see why it matters how long ago the 20s were?

is it harder to start a farm nowadays?

lololol scott how did u find that pic?? did u google hipster kickball~

hipster kickball episode of king of the hill was the best. did everyone see it?

hank: is everyone a dj?

peggy: yes.

Yeah, I think Hurting said that upthread.

Please step away from the "trucker" hat and show proof of eligibility to wear Carhatt. No funny business or the rescue puppy gets it.

I haven't thought of an angle to take in this thread. Can someone assign me one so I

a) don't have to read the posts above this one
b) don't have to read the article

Thanks (and I'm a Williamsburg resident)!

I think you've already found one.

i'm all for the farmsters by the way. just as long as they don't ALL give it up in a couple of years and write books about how they were a farmer and how hard it was. they are smart kids though. they could end up getting rich selling fancy greens.

Jon, Ned wants to know what you hate more:

a) "Leaving Behind the Trucker Hat"

or

b) "Their Carhartts are no longer ironic. Now they have real dirt on them."

a or b

I think I hate B more because most dudes I know who wore Carhartts got them dirty but with unhonest hipster scumbag dirt from biking and being a drunk unclean lout

I have a hard time believing that family farms across the country are struggling so badly or going under completely, but these people aren't. Something besides 'a really good market' is in play.

-- milo z, Sunday, March 16, 2008 9:41 PM (40 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

Sure, and it's very likely that some of these people are getting help and that many others will fold after a few years. But I do think one of the few actually noteworthy points that this article brings up is the way the premium paid for small-batch organic products changes the game a bit. Unlike almost everything else reported as a trend in this article, that wasn't always true.

hearty roots is pretty affordable and the pickup is 2 blocks away from where I live, the nearest vegetable stand is more like 5 blocks.

Billyburg, trucker cap, skinny jeans,The Strokes, PBR, Union Pool, Sparks, vegan, free-range tofu, "originally from Boston", Vassar, SVA, Pratt, Barnard, Oberlin, Sarah Lawrence, Greenpoint, Bushwick, and the "other" other hoods, X of the word "iron", "art loft", X = the ,urg, ther hoothStrts (non-Western), booth" otcap, skinny jeans,The Strokes, PBR, Union Pookes, = the new Williamsburg (aka Billyburg), offensol, Sparks, dively incorrect usePirBR, Union Poarks, diveat shoes Billybs, X = the nrucker vegtofu Greenpoint, Bushwick, w L train, trust funds, track bikest use, plaid shol, Sp, "origand ew Williamsburg (aka sively incorrec of the worad n", "art loft", X = tneinally from Boston", Vassar, SVA, Pratt, Barnarde "other" Billyburg), offenotcaerp, skinny jeans,The an, "irofree-rnge , Oberlin, Sarah Lawrencehe new L train, trust funds, track bikes, plaid shirts (non-Western), boat shoes

i still farm ironically - my life is an empty organic husk.

at least these farmers didn't use to be rock critics, the Times' mind would've been blown.

Another recent trend is the state of Vermont.

I think Vermont's always been a trend among NYC hipstery types. Read Sorrentino's "Imaigne Qualities of Actual Thigns" written in the late 60s and a satire on 50s NYC creative scene ... all the analogs to 2008 hipsters end up in Vermont at the end of the novel. It's sad how much of it is still so true.

"thrive" sounds like an overstatement

How do New York hipsters feel about New Hampshire?

Another recent trend is sarcasm.

i lived in vermont before new york - how does this effect my hipster rating?

waht I also enjoyed about the novel are the many jokes that hipsters = from Ohio. and this was written in the 50s through the 60s! Thigns never change.

Another recent trend is rich urbanites owning country estates.

i am not from ohio what can i do? is it true their river was on fire? thx

the nerve of those people, being from ohio

whatever happened to canadian indie bands moving to brooklyn?

they have been detained at le border.

Of course, the Styles section also declared the New Jersey suburbs "the next Williamsburg" a few years back.

whaaaaa?!?

What is the definition of "farming"? When I was a kid, we made do with a couple of chickens and a big garden. My momz traded p0t for lots of things, we traded eggs for milk with the neighbors. It wasn't cute or ironic - it was getting by. Lately money is scarce for us and I'm thinking some chickens would help. Scott gets free eggs from a lady at work and I'm really thankful. If I had enough fruitful ground, farming would be the thing --- in this economy. I guess it's only ironic if you could really afford to live quite differently?

It's funny someone mentioned Stone Barns above because iirc it was originally a Rockefeller estate created so Peggy's kids could still have raw milk after it was banned.

I think I hate B more because most dudes I know who wore Carhartts got them dirty but with unhonest hipster scumbag dirt from biking and being a drunk unclean lout

-- Catsupppppppppppppp dude 茄蕃, Monday, 17 March 2008 02:24 (53 minutes ago) Link

i just bought a new pair of jeans!

man i really wanted to be a farmer but now that its the cool thing to do i guess ill just have to be a yuppie like everyone else

-- max, Sunday, 16 March 2008 22:55 (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

^this

-- Dom Passantino, Sunday, March 16, 2008 4:10 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

^this

(but i still love the idea of moving to the middle of nowhere and raising goats)

I would just like a yard where I could have some goats and chickens. I'd be a pretty lousy farmer, though.

it is really odd, or rather: really distinctive, the way NYC talks about itself so much - on endless websites, in endless publications, and then in endless further websites and threads talking about the talk. it must be fun to be a part of it. I imagine.

I guess it grated because I could see myself doing this at some point in the future, just swap their lumberjack shirts for tattershall and that could be me.

farmings has been crying out for new blood and new ideas for years, so this can only be a good thing.

So in short hipster farmers>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Lazy Hacks

http://www.northrup.org/Photos/goat/low/baby-goats-in-bucket%20(5).jpg

I suspect a lot of the small farms that have been struggling or going under are prob in the middle of the country where they can't easily get their products to customers who prioritize buying organic/local/etc. It's a pretty big advantage to be able to truck your goods into the city 3-4 days a week on one modest tank of diesel fuel, wouldn't work that way in a lot of places.

Small farmers have been going under for most of the last century. It's not just fuel prices, it's the difficulty of competing with agribusiness, the lure of selling farmland for development, the difficulty of convincing your kids to stay and eke out a meager living when they have other options. And I understand that our government has generally encouraged this with its agricultural policy, notwithstanding the small-farmer estate tax canard Republicans like to use.

Er. I'm not meaning fuel prices specifically, I'm just meaning proximity to a customer base that puts a lot of stock in their foods being locally grown/produced. That customer base isn't really very present in say the middle of Iowa.

It isn't? (I'm not trying to be flippant -- what's the assumption driving that?)

I wouldn't assume that. I don't know much about Iowa, but I'd guess there are tons of farmers' markets and farmstands all over the state that sell local produce. They just probably don't have as many $10 indie-rocker cheeses.

It was just my suspicion, really. But what group besides urban yuppies is willing to pay ridic prices for heirloom tomato varieties that can't be shipped? Or organically raised mesclun, or yeah, homemade ricotta, or whatever. That's greenmarket fare, in my mind.

xp oh sure, farmstands!! But farmstand produce is frequently sold at gratifyingly LOW prices, I thought? I would be extremely surprised if you could sell enough on the side of the road to keep a business afloat.

I thought the caption under the 2nd pic said SEWARDS of the land.

I see what you're getting at, I just think you have to distinguish the premium/organic local goods that yuppies like from just "local produce" which is by no means an exclusively yuppie thing

Well no but re local produce: people on the bottom of the production chain (ie the farmers and farming communities) want it, and people far away in cities want it, but a HUGE swathe of people in the middle who might technically have access to a farmers' market but would have to a) make a special trip with three kids in tow after they've already done their other shopping and b) drive an extra 30 miles or so to get there, are getting their groceries at Meijers or Walmart or their local chain grocery store. I mean, duh?

I'm guessing Laurel is right here, but my ridiculously-priced heirloom tomatoes are grown on an upper east side rooftop, and I could buy a week's worth from a farmer in Union Square for a dollar or two.

i like tomatoes

I mean Laurel is right in general, but heirloom tomatoe prices are not a good example.

Xp - jhoshea otm. I like Vermont too.

yah i like vermont too

tomatoes are totally classic

i lived in vt

Tomatoes are classic except when they've been referigerated. People, don't refrigerate your tomatoes. It marks you as an ingrate.

Well no but re local produce: people on the bottom of the production chain (ie the farmers and farming communities) want it, and people far away in cities want it, but a HUGE swathe of people in the middle who might technically have access to a farmers' market but would have to a) make a special trip with three kids in tow after they've already done their other shopping and b) drive an extra 30 miles or so to get there, are getting their groceries at Meijers or Walmart or their local chain grocery store. I mean, duh?

-- Laurel, Monday, March 17, 2008 11:33 AM (21 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

Yeah, I know what you mean. Iowa was probably not the best example. Maybe more like Central NJ or something -- which is funny since that used to be some of the best farmland in the country!

the smell of a tomato just plucked from the vine O M G

Yeah, I know what you mean. Iowa was probably not the best example. Maybe more like Central NJ or something -- which is funny since that used to be some of the best farmland in the country!

^^^
Ya laurel is totally rite w/r/t central NJ--when my mom does the shopping she almost never buys veggies from the half dozen stands w/in 15 miles of the house. my dad buys em from the amish market that sets up on the weekends usually.

also i live in LA, city of farmers markets, and i only buy 40-50% of my vegetables from the markets, sometimes less if i forget to go to the local one on friday

Was just thinking abt Iowa cos my dad goes there on business a lot, but really it prob applies to almost everywhere not within the cultural reach of concerned urban residents/buyers. As I think I've said x 100, I grew up in the country with farms around and even OUR farmers' market access was spotty (ie seasonal-only and out of the way).

the farmers market near my house kinda suxs

why dont you start your own farm then hipster

id probably get distracted and just sit around smelling tomatoes all day :(

Why hel-LO, my little rooftop garden.

the buddhist meditation center i used to live at in vermont had an amazing organic garden

im usually too hung over/tired to wake up in time for a farmers market

I do wonder if the higher food prices we're facing are going to hurt high-end farmers -- i.e. people who were previously *trading up* might drop back down.

never go back hurting

haha actually I buy dirtbag produce from my local korean grocer

Cockfarmer!

NY Times piece was bad; it is true there has been a trend since 2000 for slow food, grow your own and farming. There is undoubtedly an intelligent article to write about why a certain cohort is 'going back to the land' but it's not all wealthy kids or Good Life types. THIS WAS NOT THAT ARTICLE.

I work on a farmer's market vegetable stall in the summer, which is great for me as it gets me out of the house and being productive on Saturday mornings. Also LOL really bright, posh old people, who make lovely customers. Not only do I get fresh produce from my boss each week for nicht, I also get trader discount with most stallholders there. It's generous and amazing to think I get paid on top of that.

Price rises: my farmer boss used to supply to supermarkets but now makes his living from FM's in London and Ely. He makes a good living.

suzy def otm

(there was a great article somewhere about how for the past twenty years, the entrance-level ability of culinary school applicants has declined in all areas of skill, except among populations who regularly attended farmers markets)

There is undoubtedly an intelligent article to write about why a certain cohort is 'going back to the land' but it's not all wealthy kids or Good Life types.

Exactly, and the Times tends to miss things like that by falling back on all kinds of lazy assumptions about teh kids these days.

Is the interest in local/slow/farm-fresh/what-have-you really that much greater in the last few years, or was it just named and talked about more? Or is there growth, but only among a certain demographic - a sheen of trendiness making it more acceptable for certain sorts of younger people and the media that target them to discuss?

It might be the economy, stupid, but that's obviously not all.

media exposure = increased awareness = greater interest ? i think so

Yeah, I think so. You didn't have restaurants like Home and Blue Hill twenty years ago.

michael pollan's books + fast food nation = more young (usually umc college-educated) ppl interested in their food & where it comes from

Well, there's always the chance that people have always sort of wanted to do the farm thing but without public awareness/demand for their product it just didn't make a lick of sense?

And I could be wrong, but I think it's a pretty new thing that you can impress your snobby friends with cheese from NYState or Vermont and not just France.

fwiw the farmers markets i have been to are generally pretty democratic: lots of moms and kids, lots of young people, lots of bargain-hunting seniors ... and from a broad racial/ethnic range favoring only the neighborhood in which the market is held

also latent hippie tendencies in "hipsters"

xp to remy-ish: right.

(that said, i don't think there are farmers markets in poor / dangerous areas, so there is some favoritism of middle-class and < consumers. but i am almost positive that if there were markets in these areas they would do well)

Really the larger trend is globalization, which is the force that has managed to make "local produce" sound exotic, ironically.

A summary of the progression by which NY farmers' markets have been made able to accept the food stamp credits!

NYT Style is just as argh, if not more so, than UK supplement features and give or take an Alex James figure we'll probably be reading similar in OFM soon. Again.

I kind of hit send before I mentioned that I'll check price rises but lack of an infrastructure to support (except for me) means I don't think we'll go through the £4/kilo ceiling. Our posh tomatoes last year cost £3.80/kilo and £3.70 the year before. Bonus: my farmer boss is an insane Doctor Who fan. He also does potted herbs and I can't wait to set up the parsley/sage/rosemary/thyme/lavender planters on my balcony.

There are so many reasons back-to-the-land is happening but I think the biggie is urban burnout. I have from time to time wondered if it was also the 'acceptable' face of white flight.

back to the land type sentiments also tend to become more popular in downturns and recessions. cf 70s and early 90s

In my experience of middle America, Laurel is wrong; I live way out in the middle of the country (basically rural KS) and farmers markets are big here; every little town has one, and often more than one, a week. And they're crowded, and not just with hippies or hipsters (b/c there aren't many hippies or hipsters out here). Not much of what we buy there is organic, but that's only because the regulations to get your farm to qualify as organic require turning over your soil completely (evidently); otherwise the techniques these folks now use is organic.

And I said on another thread, we get our meat from local producers who sell to Niman Ranch, organic meat etc, with the added benefit that we can hang out with our cows and pigs ahead of time. I can also get goat and lamb this way, as well as bison (which are ranched in the plains just outside of town). There are also dairy farmers who sell ridiculously good local milk; it's pricey, but fantastic, and they deliver to your door daily, or you can get it at the local fruit market.

I think suburban Americans are harder to get on board with eating locally produced food; there's not much as much suburban living here in the Great Plains as there is in the East for instance.

Back to the land sentiments eternally popular among Depeche Mode fans.

Suburbs, especially in the US often lack the kind of community public spaces, with passing traffic where farmers markets can thrive.

No, there were restaurants like Home and Blue Hill 20 years ago, there just were fewer of them, and at least after their initial appearance, they just weren't as talked about/celebrated, at least after their initial appearance, as they are today (and this was true even 5-10 years ago). Restaurants are just a piece of what we're talking about here, but I think the same is true of farmer's market culture generally.

Maybe it's a demographic factor - the accession to cultural influence of young people who caught the first wave and the graduation of their kids after classic-boomer-family dominance.

Ed - Bollocks. 30 years ago there was an organic food co-op two blocks from my none-more-suburban house. We also had...wait for it...vegetable gardens.

also transportation and storage technologies (espesh @ local level) have grown far more sophisticated and handy for exposing a wide demo to 'new' sustainable produce. more choices, more good looking stuff, more consumption.

i have been visiting coops and farmers' markets since infanthood, and i can't begin to tell you how much better and brighter they have come to look in the last five or so years

but yeah, as suzy sez... vegetable gardens

I wd be happy to be wrong, bison burgers for everyone!!!

Also: yes, my parents used to live somewhere more suburban and even there my mother grew her own vegetables as much as possible in that climate. We were also kind of poor, though.

70s St Louis Park !=contemporary McMansion Subdivision.

eh bison is too lean

Not to go all Caitlin Flanagan on you all, but I almost wonder if the decline of suburban gardens and markets has anything to do with the changing priorities of parenting and families and child-raisers. Ie we are so much more focused on children and parenting than we used to be, and much LESS focused on the concept of a unified household that is maintained to a certain standard.

if there's anything the suburbs lack, it's not space

church parking lots galore

That's kind of not even true, though, Que!! All those bedroom communities in NJ are chock-a-block with 2- or 3-BR houses built on 1/4-acre plots...and the local homeowners' council frowns strongly on plots of corn grown in front yards.

i was talking about public space, parking lots like remy mentioned.

Plenty of space, too much of it even. To supporta farmer's market you need to have

a) space, that the owner is amenable to having a market on
b) that space needs to be somewhere people go or you will rely on people making special journeys
c) needs to have enough people close enough to the space to make participating in the farmers market worthwhile.

Broadway market, in London, is a good case in point. there is a lot of empty space there and not because traders aren't queuing up to sell there. they restrict the number of traders of each type of product to ensure that the traders that do sell can turn a profit on the day.

It's all well and good to say every suburban school yard could/should have a farmer's market but not every suburb could support one even if popular with the residents. This is one of the problenms with low desity suburbs.

My parents were "indie farmers" of a sort in the 80s I guess. They raised pigs, some of their friends donated money and/or time and/or feed, and everyone got a share. Same with cows and corn and apples and maple sugar. It was very small scale, and a lot of people pitched in. We just had the land.

Plus, my mom has always had gardens. When we lived in the country she had at least an acre plot going, and even after we moved into town she kept a pretty good one. The other main difference was that we didn't live anywhere near a big city where we could have sold stuff.
I think there's no one factor that can be pinned down why this kind of thing appears to be getting popular again, except for maybe city trendiness bringing it back to mass media consciousness. As has already been pointed out, it's not exactly a new thing.

McMansions were called something else back then, but we totally had them *and* a food co-op. The point is, US suburbs, and not just the affluent ones, have loads of farmers markets and co-ops.

The joke is that low-density suburbs (exurbs) are always built on ex-farmland.

In my experience of middle America, Laurel is wrong; I live way out in the middle of the country (basically rural KS) and farmers markets are big here; every little town has one, and often more than one, a week.

Too bad it's not like that around here. Tupelo has a farmer's market, but it's pitiful. Amory tried one two years ago -- it lasted two weeks. Basically, everybody who wants fresh produce grows their own or has a neighbor who grows their own; everybody else is a dumb sheep happy to go to Wal-Mart.

Is the interest in local/slow/farm-fresh/what-have-you really that much greater in the last few years, or was it just named and talked about more? Or is there growth, but only among a certain demographic - a sheen of trendiness making it more acceptable for certain sorts of younger people and the media that target them to discuss?

-- gabbneb, Monday, March 17, 2008 9:37 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Link

I would agree with laxalt that interest in going back to the land hostorically correlates with economic downturn. Although it was speculated that Gen X or Gen Y (which ?) were more socially responsible than the yuppie generation (which I think is true), I do think this is a more specific trend. Perhaps it started in around 2000 with No Logo, Fast Food Nation, living wage, green design, sustainable architecture, inconvenient truths.

The difference perhaps is in establishing a new mainstream urban cool rather than a counterculture dropout, as in the 70s?

can someone post pictures of american apparel models in gold lamé pants morphing into delcious organic pretzels?

This thread is hostory.

haha, for a second I thought I had accidentally opened the Spitzer thread

When will Madonna go into farming?

The cultural events felicity listed are sort of brands upon pre-existing practices/movements (that, I concede, and as others said, may have helped catalyze them, at least for certain demographics). I think that what led to such branding was partly generational, as I said above, and may have just been a, wait for it, tipping point, but it also may have a lot to do with late 90s prosperity and urban revival ane the rise of wired media culture (plus youth demographic bubble) - there are just a lot more people getting paid to write about trends all the time, and lots more young people willing to move to big cities, so anything even vaguely countercultural and/or popular with the kids has been talked into a phenomenon.

Aside, maybe I shouldn't make too much of parents who are far from stereotypically countercultural in the rock 'n roll or back to the land senses, but were there at the beginning on the environment/'organic'/wired fronts. But I think there really is a cohort of such people - and they're not accurately generalized as yuppies, if the word means anything other than middle to upper middle class anymore, as many are neither young nor professional - who played a significant role in sustaining farmers market culture in the mid-80s to late 90s.

i have been visiting coops and farmers' markets since infanthood, and i can't begin to tell you how much better and brighter they have come to look in the last five or so years

where? (how many of those five years did you spend in CA vs how many of the preceding years?)

and in what sense? i'm guessing at least part of it is diversity of offerings (i.e. 5 years ago you didn't see tat soi everywhere)? which i understand to be demand-driven and reflective of increased prosperity and interest (and diversity) in food culture generally.

guys did you not see the part where JW invented the term "unhonest hipster scumbag dirt" for that stuff that is on my carhartts

"unhonest hipster scumbag dirt" could also be the subtitle to all of nick denton's operations

My baseline for farmers markets is the one held on the University of Rhode Island campus. At least for the purpose of discounting the regional bias afforded by CA climate and growing options.

Gabs, you are absolutely right that the diversity of offerings has improved, though not just with regards to the more exotic fruit/vegetables now available.

What I have observed, mostly, is the increased presence of vendors selling prepared items: breads, cheeses, soaps, breakfast cereals, fish, sausages, candles, floral arrangements ... at prices very near to those offered at any market.

I am not sure that this change is necessarily representative of a nuevo sophistication on behalf of the consumer, but more a frustration with the limited, chemical-addled, generic options of Kroger/Safeway/Delhaize Group market outlets.

any self-respecting hipster would rather wear dickies

you can even flip it into "unhipster honest scumbag dirt" for what is under a migrant landscaper's fingernails

I prefer the uncorrectness of unhonest.

discorrectness

Dickies are for fatasses.

fatasses are dishonest

http://www.agonyboothmedia.com/images/articles/Zoom__Academy_for_Superheroes_2006/Zoom__Academy_for_Superheroes_2006_017.jpg

What I have observed, mostly, is the increased presence of vendors selling prepared items: breads, cheeses, soaps, breakfast cereals, fish, sausages, candles, floral arrangements ... at prices very near to those offered at any market.

yeah, the rockist in me (being raised to look down on the non-farm 'highstalls' of the pike place market) sorta objects to all of that - you don't farm those things, they're for the market tourists who are looking for a souvenir as they pass through.

i kind of don't see the problem with this trend

i mean yeah lol hipsters but if you ask me this country could use more farmers

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/3/24/121559/017?source=daily

The reporter wanted the story to have a strong hipster slant, but none of us fit very well into that mold (I don't know any young farmers who really do). He asked me plenty of pointedly hipster-related questions ("Do you have tattoos? Piercings?"), and seemed less interested in the emphasis I put on my community gardening. When he tried to dig up appropriately hip free-time activities, I kept explaining that I spent most of my free time at my community garden, but that didn't work for him, so he kept asking for other things. I finally mentioned that I played darts very occasionally -- and that's what made it into the article.

haw

i ran into a former coworker today who just had a baby. she and her husband just moved to a farmhouse in new jersey and she is taking a job to only work two days a week. and plans to have sheep and make cheese. i think that sounds fucking amazing.

that article sucks though.

what about that dude's hat?

Ha, Ned - I didn't see that you had included the quote about rock star ricotta makers in your original post and was just coming here to say that was the piece of the article I found most offensive.

x-post It does. I want to make babies and cheese now too.

Do not confuse the processes to do so.

i ran into a former coworker today who just had a baby. she and her husband just moved to a farmhouse in new jersey and she is taking a job to only work two days a week. and plans to have sheep and make cheese. i think that sounds fucking amazing.

I wish I could do something like that but I would need a lot more money.

lol the only kind of real estate doing well in this entire country right now is farmland

I blame this guy for everything

http://www.ck-blog.com/cks_blog/images/2007/07/07/dirtyjobs.jpg

my parents still own the farmhouse in NJ that i spent the first 7 yrs of my life in... there used to be acres and acres of fields and orchards surrounding their modest property. in the 15 years since we moved out, all of it--literally, all of it--has been developed. ;_;

schadenfreude haw at developers!!!

I wonder how long before all this horrible misguided exurban build-up from the last decade gets turned back into farmland. probably whenever milk hits $8 a gallon and regular unleaded hits $5, so, 2009?

i'm allergic to milk

what about sheep cheese

what about babies

all men are allergic to babies max

unleaded is better in coffee anyways.

cheese can be okay sometimes, yeah.

babies? i don't know seems like if you're going to eat a human you'd want to eat something big and not something bite size

Babies taste of chicken.

wish I could do something like that but I would need a lot more money.

-- Nicole, Tuesday, March 25, 2008 7:29 PM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

yeah i think her husband has that :D

suckling baby

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/06/us/06farmers.html?hp

Another one? So soon?

Indie farming is racist. Poor Mexican and black food processing workers lose their jobs when white indie people urge everyone to grow their own food.

FWIW, I know a few people who have done this sort of thing in the last ten years, and are not particularly corny indie fuxor about it either. One devoted about five years to farm work (he even intensively studied plant science and such) until he decided he could never make even a meager stable living. One manages a gentleman-farmer's farm so he does fine (rich guy doesn't care if the farm is profitable). One couple I know have day jobs but also raise chickens and grow small quantities of vegetables in rural CO -- don't know if they count.

In order to compete with the agribusiness guys you have to produce something that's perceived as far superior in quality, so in a sense you're a luxury good producer. Sustainable local organic ethical is hard to scale. But if people find the lifestyle better for their souls, why not?

My sister is a community-farm, local foods person who's larder is probably 80% local or at least free-range or organic. She is most definitely not a hipster... I think it was always her childhood dream to live on a farm, but part of her whole drive is certainly a dislike of the agribusiness industry.

But she's all about community volunteer farming where a neighborhood produces a good portion of its own food cheaply, which I feel is a different vibe completely from people starting their own commercial farms where they grow fancy shit for rich foodies. I think there's room in this big world tho for both types of small farms, and there's a lot of interaction and trading that goes on between pretty much all local growers in an area, whether they are running the free community garden plots or running a free-range chicken ranch or producing the guys making the 30-40 dollar cheese. Those cheese guys need eggs, the egg lady trades her eggs for fancy cheese, the cheese guys get the best eggs in the county and the egg lady gets really nice cheeses. People specialize -- someone has a giant herb garden or they have like maybe have a dozen fruit trees. This kind of local food production is totally sustainable at a certain level and no, it isn't going to feed the world, but the people who participate in these subcultures pay almost nothing for amazing food because of they're own work and bartering.

New terms, new variants:

Folk school: The phrase calls to mind cloggers, birch bark hats, and strains of “If I Had a Hammer.” But these craft schools of yore are experiencing a resurgence of late, drawing young do-it-yourself homesteaders and restless baby boomers to the woods to learn about everything from organic farming to electric cars.

BECAUSE YOU GO TO THE FUCKING WOODS TO LEARN ABOUT ELECTRIC CARS.