This part of the supporting #farmersmarkets during #COVID-19 article will tackle the myth that farmers’ markets are only for wealthy people. Do you remember my inner critic, Martin the martyr? When I hear that voice say “It must be nice to be able to buy organic, sustainably grown leafy greens while the rest of us are in grocery store lines being told by the cashier that we can’t buy more than one carton of eggs,” my self-doubt about my choices in food creep up.

1. Should I feel guilty for being able to buy an unlimited amount of kale, collards, and swiss chard? Perhaps I should purchase fruits and vegetables at grocery store like everybody else?
2. Are farmers’ markets only for those who have privilege and money? Should I feel bad that I can afford the food at a farmers’ market?

Fresh fruits and vegetables aren’t being rationed at this time

My local store, International Market -Su Tienda Hispaña, had no shortage of fruits and vegetables in the produce section when I visited yesterday, April 8, 2020. There was an abundance of tomatillos, apples, mangos, papayas, chayote squash and root vegetables including carrots, batatas, yucca, and malanga. Therefore, the ability to buy an unlimited amount of fresh fruits and vegetables is not a unique feature at farmers’ markets during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Note: The economic conditions and supply of food during this pandemic are evolving, so this observation only applies to this specific location and date.

The food in highest demand and lowest availability in grocery stores tends to be eggs, and processed foods including pancake mixes, instant cup of noodle soups and certain brands of tortillas.

The sight of empty shelves in the stores has helped me have a better understanding of my Grandparents' relationship with food.

My adopted dad’s white parents, with potential ancestry ties to England and Germany, lived in Colorado. When I went out to visit them, my Grandpa Bird taught me how to catch and gut rainbow trout. I remember being amazed and slightly horrified when he put my fish, next to the rows of aluminum wrapped fish he and his wife had caught over the past ten years. These frozen fish were kept on shelves inside a walk-in cold storage brick building they owned.

I couldn’t understand why my grandparents continued to catch and kill trout when they already had more than they could ever eat.

Grandma Bird wrote and self-published an autobiographical book. She gave this green bound book to her blood relatives to have a record of her life experiences.

On pages 8 and 9, Grandma Bird shares her experiences picking green worms off tomato plants for the Canon City Canning factory, and seeing her first head of lettuce when working in the ‘Iceberg Head Lettuce’ fields. On page 12, she shares that her first husband had a big garden. “We raised lots of vegetables and we canned them and we … bought fruit and canned and made jelly and jams and pickles. We had a good life on the ranch. We raised some cattle and hogs and had chickens.” Her husband and their two-year-old son and a newborn daughter’s access to food changed after the 1929 Wall Street Crash. She writes that

“there was NO money for anything so we sold what hogs we had and he [her first husband] went back to his old trade – making moonshine whisky." (Pg. 12, Georgia Bird)

My adopted Mom’s mother, Grandma Cira, also lived during the Great Depression. I loved spending time with her. She was a White Italian-U.S. American, who had a knack for making me feel safe and accepted in her presence. We spent afternoons together reading books and snacking on Pecan Sandy cookies. Over breakfast she would tell me about her childhood growing up in NY City and her life as a secretary before it became common for women to work outside the home.

Despite our closeness, she never shared, and I never asked her about her life during and after the Wall Street Crash of 1929. All I know is that she exhibited similar food saving patterns to those of my Grandparents in Colorado with their storage building full of rainbow trout.

I remember Grandma Cira’s basement and stairs lined with unpacked grocery bags containing rolls of paper towels and toilet paper. Oh, if I could go back in time and grab a roll or two. Once again she was ahead of her time.

In addition to the paper products and an abundance of unexpired edible food, she also kept rows of dented and bulging cans of soup and vegetables, boxes of old mixes that had become home to tiny white worms, and expired Jell-O boxes that contained gelatin inside capsules rather than paper packets. Now that I’m living during the COVID-19 pandemic, I finally understand why she felt like she never had enough food in the house.

Cooking at home with ingredients bought from farmers’ markets costs less than dining out

My marriage partner and I both grew up in small towns with a lot of affluent white people, and excellent public schools. Despite this similarity, what we eat is very different. I enjoy eating home-cooked meals, while he buys lunch at a fast-food restaurant on a daily basis and enjoys going to a sit-down chain restaurant at least twice a week.

When I was growing up, my family and I ate most of our meals at home. Our meals were simple compared to those shown on the cooking channel. We ate stuffed bell peppers, chili, pasta dishes, pork chops, grilled steak, and pita bread stuffed with slices of hotdog, potatoes and peppers. Going out to a restaurant was an event saved for special occasions.

My mom’s ability to stretch our food budget came in handy when my dad began creating a second family. I was about ten-years old, when money started getting tight for us in the first family.

Every day I went to school bringing my own lunch, which usually was a peanut butter-honey sandwich on whole wheat bread, and a piece of fruit. I didn’t have the money to buy meals from the school cafeteria. When I was a teenager, my mom was balancing a job and college classes. My brother and I were responsible for helping cook our dinners and buying the ingredients with our own money for at least one meal per week. To pay for the groceries, I was a babysitter, a golf caddy at a golf course, and a salesperson for a local Italian bakery.

As an adult, I enjoy the creativity and ability to be completely in the moment when I’m cooking food at home. I buy most of my ingredients at farmers’ markets, which at first was intimidating to me. I was afraid the farmers at the market would think I was stupid for not knowing how to cook the meat and vegetables they sold. I grew up in the north-east part of the United States of America and was a complete novice when it came to collards, kale, and meat from pasture-raised animals. I also was not sure if I was allowed to window-shop and ask questions if I didn’t ultimately decide to buy from them.

Excerpt from the “Getting Ready for the Farmers Market” article published on the CFSA Sweet Potato Blog.

“... I learned I’m not the only shopper who keeps their eyes glued on the fruit and vegetables until they know they are ready to make a purchase. The farmers reassured me that they enjoy the opportunity to share details about their work regardless of the customer’s ability to buy something from them on that particular day.” Ciranna Bird

For me, one of the many benefits of buying ingredients at a farmers’ market rather than at grocery stores is that my food choices and cooking skills have expanded. I have learned how to make a marinade for fish, freeze butternut squash, and can heirloom tomatoes.

SNAP recipients can triple their spending power at certain farmers’ markets

The next argument commonly posed is that ingredients bought at a farmers’ market costs more than ingredients bought at a grocery store. It seems like there are too many variables to know if that is true. There’s a wide-range of grocery stores. Is it a Wegman’s or a more reasonably priced grocery chain? Are we shopping at a corner store, a dollar store, or a roadside stand? Is the quality or availability of certain fruits and vegetables comparable?

For example, the carrots sold at International Market, Su Tienda Hispaña, were bright orange and jumbo size. Each one seemed to have a diameter close to three inches. The skinny carrots I bought at Chapel Hill Farmers' Market were easily identified as coming from a plant. Each carrot had the entire root intact, and green tops still attached.

Although, it’s not easy to compare prices between a grocery store and a farmers’ market, it is clear that farmers’ markets benefit people with little or no income. The federal government offers two programs to help low income individuals and households: SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) and WIC a special supplemental nutrition program for (Women, Infants, and Children). SNAP recipients are provided an electronic debit card with a certain amount of money that can be used to buy ingredients at grocery stores and farmers’ markets.

Traditionally, farmers' markets double SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) benefits up to $10.00 per recipient per market day through a cash match program. This means that if a low-income person or family swipe their SNAP debit card at a farmers’ market for $40.00, they are given an additional $10.00, which means they have $50.00 to spend at that market.

However, fresh, local food has become even more accessible to low-income shoppers at six NC farmers’ markets in the Triangle area of NC. Through a partnership with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina and the Rural Advancement Foundation International-USA (RAFI), these six markets that are now able to match SNAP purchase dollar for dollar with no maximum matching.

• Chapel Hill Farmers’ Market
• Carrboro Farmers' Market
• Durham Farmers’ Market
• East Durham Farmers’ Market
• Eno River Farmers’ Market
• South Durham Farmers’ Market

Therefore, if a shopper wants to spend $40.00 of their SNAP benefits at the market, they now have $80.00 to use at the market because of this unlimited matching offer.

This amazing matching offer is even better at the Chapel Hill Farmers’ Market. Kate Underhill, the market manager of Chapel Hill Farmers’ Market has confirmed in person what I read on their website and in their newsletter.

“Due to the current C-19 crisis, we are expanding our SNAP/EBT and WIC programs at the Farmers' Market to help even more families in need.”

“We will now be tripling your spending power for market products. We also want to extend our Cash Match program to reach those recently unemployed due to recent shutdowns.”

This means that if a shopper wants to spend $40.00 of their SNAP benefits at the Chapel Hill Farmers' Market, they now have a total of $120.00 to use at the market! For more information on this program, stop by the information tent at the Chapel Hill Farmers’ Market.

Summary of "Should I feel guilty for supporting farmers' markets during the Covid-19 Pandemic?" - Part 2

In summary, this is how to answer my inner critic and others who may ask the following questions.

Q: Should I feel guilty for being able to buy an unlimited amount of kale, collards, and swiss chard? Perhaps I should purchase fruits and vegetables at grocery stores like everybody else?

A: No, as of April 8th, fresh fruits and vegetables aren’t being rationed in either location; both grocery stores and farmers' markets have an abundance of fresh produce.

Q: Are farmers’ markets only for those who have privilege and money? Should I feel bad that I can afford the food at a farmers’ market?

A: No, many people shop at farmers’ markets to save money and expand their abilities to cook at home. In addition, people receiving food assistance benefits and those who have lost their jobs due to COVID-19 can double and even triple their spending power at farmers’ markets.

The next part of this essay will cover the perception of farmers' markets when it comes to high-minded ideals about organic food, and happy animals. The last part will address the issues about underrepresentation of communities of color at some farmers' markets.

References

Georgia A. Hall Meadows Bird. The Story of my Life. Typed, formatted and printed by Sharon Eaton Pearson. Bound by Roswell Bookbinding, Phoenix Arizona. May 1998.

Ciranna Bird. Getting Ready for the Farmers’ Market: Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food. Carolina Farm Stewardship Association Blog. April 2016.

Chapel Hill Farmers Market. Now TRIPLING your SNAP/EBT with Fresh Bucks! https://www.thechapelhillfarmersmarket.com/ Site accessed April 8, 2020.

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Due to the COVID-19 (Corona Virus Disease that started in 2019) pandemic, I have been under a stay at home order declared by my local governments, Wake County where I live and Orange County where I shop. In addition, Governor Cooper announced a stay-at-home order for the entire state of North Carolina which began Monday, March 30th.

I’m fortunate that due to the efforts of the Chapel Hills Farmers Market leadership, the local farmers and the advocacy efforts of Carolina Farm Stewardship Association (CFSA), I was able to attend my farmers market. Here’s a picture of the jar of honey, baby collards, pea shoots, collard flowers, sourdough bread, carrots, swiss chard, frozen shrimp, frozen soft-shell crabs, and south Indian spices I purchased at Saturday’s farmers market. As I share my abundance with you, I fear you may think of me as just another privileged white Latina flaunting her middle-class status.

Some people think that farmers markets are for those with a lot of money, or for trendy people who want to look good buying organic produce and meat from ‘happy’ animals, or for those who do not have ancestors that have been forced to work in the fields harvesting food with little or no compensation. For me these doubts come to as a committee of inner critics.

1. First there’s one that sounds like a snarky voice, I call Martin the martyr. He says with dripping sarcasm “It must be nice to be able to buy organic, sustainably grown leafy greens while the rest of us are in grocery store lines being told by the cashier that we can’t buy more than one carton of eggs.”
2. The second inner critic sounds like a defensive in-law who is afraid that I’m judging her. She says “You eat so healthy and have such high-minded ideals when it comes to food.” The unspoken subtext is that she thinks, that I look down on her for eating at fast food restaurants, and buying affordable food that may be have been grown and raised using practices that hurt the environment, animals, farm workers and people in food processing facilities.
3. My third and last inner critic is Orphan Moses, who knows that I used to live in Colombia, South America. I was ‘rescued’ from an orphanage when I was around three-years old, and lost my birth family, language, and culture. Because, I was raised and treated as a white non-Latina in the U.S., I have survivor’s guilt and struggle with my identity and purpose in life.

My fictional version of Moses chides me by saying “Why aren’t you doing more to help farmers and eaters with less white advantage than you. Orphan Moses continues in a scolding voice, “I was adopted as an infant by rich Egyptian slave masters. As an adult, I used lots of frogs and locusts as well as my status and inside knowledge of the oppressors to free my birth parents and their community from the Pharaoh. What have you done lately?

Ugh, before I get paralyzed with guilt and shame, let me get back to the gist of my article.

Farmers markets are essential businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic

Roland McReynolds, the executive director of Carolina Farm Stewardship Association (CFSA), and his team have been working hard to make sure that farmers markets are treated as essential businesses by Governor Cooper and the NC state government. Their efforts included a #farmersmarketsaregrocerystores campaign and empowering farmers market managers to urge county governments to understand the value of farmers markets during this crisis. In an article written by CFSA’s Policy Director, Nick Woods, shares the following statement.

“Farmers markets are an essential part of our food system infrastructure, and critical to the viability of thousands of small farms in the Carolinas”.

The efforts of CFSA staff and their membership has resulted in the NC Department of Health and Human Services announcing that farmers markets are essential businesses and can stay open during the stay-at-home orders. In turn, the markets are required to “follow the same government rules as grocery stores in terms of social distancing and other practices to avoid the spread of COVID-19 in retail sales locations.”

Market shopping can be safer than shopping at stores and places with drive-through windows

1. The market is outdoors so the shoppers aren’t sharing the same re-circulated air, and there’s space to move out of people’s way.
2. At the farmers market there are lot less hands touching your food. The vegetables and fruit come directly from the farmer rather than being shipped to a food processor, shipped to a fast food restaurant, cooked, assembled and wrapped by a line of employees, and lastly given to the cashier who hands you your food at the drive-through window.
3. Speaking of hands, there are hand washing stations at the market.
4. Farmers markets can be flexible and nimble, according to Wes King of NSAC , “so, now they can become emergency food access points.”

CFSA farm services staff is providing webinars to farmers market managers on the latest practices for implementing social distancing and sanitation. CFSA has more than nine years of expertise in food safety and good agricultural practices (GAP) training. In an interview, Liz Powers, the Chapel Hill Farmers Market manager assistant shares with me the following words.

“The market has always been attentive to food safety, and [now] we’ve responded to the current COVID-19 situation with heightened protocols.”

Supporting farmers at markets builds economic resilience

Farmers markets foster economic resilience in our local communities. The farmers that I buy from, live and spend their limited income in my neighborhoods. Purchasing from vendors at my local farmers market helps keep small businesses and my neighbors financially afloat during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Since 2005, Sally Jo Slusher has been the farmer and sole owner of an eight-acre plot called Plow Girl Farm. Prior to Plow Girl, she was farming in Wilmington in the early 1990s. She has a warm round face, with bright blue eyes, and soft grey hair, pulled back from her face. When I buy leafy greens from her, she helps answer my questions on the best way to cook them and how they taste. I grew up in the North, so cooking and enjoying collards is all thanks to her.

Despite being shy she quietly admits to me, “I’ve been calling myself a food warrior; food is an essential thing. I’m willing to take the risk to come to this market. [Taking the recommended precautions to prevent the spread of COVID-19] is taking my GAP to another level.”

Farmer Sally Jo believes that farming “is a passion. You become a small farmer because it’s a passion; you don’t make any money. I had to work many years of my life to earn enough to throw it away farming.”

Sally acknowledges that her comment is a bit facetious. She earns a very modest living wage and had to work many years to have the opportunity to invest in a farm.

Ali Iyoob says, “Our only saving grace is that the Chapel Hill Farmers Market is open, and that honey is an ingredient in creating Elderberry syrup which is in high demand right now. This is the only market we sell at and the stores that stock our [ King Cobra Apiary] honey are operating under reduced hours."

In regards to the farmers market being open during the pandemic, fishmonger Brooks of Locals Seafood shared these words with me.

A lot of our income comes from farmers markets and wholesale markets. The closure of restaurants has hit us hard.

Brooks adds, “it’s nice to have a sense of normalcy [here at the farmers market]. We appreciate our regular customers, who have been so supportive. It’s a symbiotic relationship; we appreciate them and feel appreciated by them.”

Mimi, the farmer of Wild Dog Farm, who I buy sprouted sunflower shoots and hardneck garlic from told me with her fun and quirky sense of humor “We grow garlic because it’s fun. Garlic is so versatile and super.” Mimi and Julia grow a variety of sprouts, fruits and vegetables, and have recently branched out into garlic butter and jams too. Before the pandemic changed the policy on samples, I used to love stopping by their tent on Saturdays for a free sample of garlic butter and sprouts on fresh baked bread from Loaf bakery.

The motto of Momma T’s Southern Indian Spices is “From the South made in the South.” Momma T (aka Vandana Turaga) was born and raised in the southern part of India. The spice blends she sells at market come from recipes passed down through the generations of her mother's family. She grows the curry in her home garden located in Chapel Hill and adds a variety of spices and crushed lentils, a low-calorie source of plant-based protein that is popular in southern India.

Summary

Before I return to the committee of inner critics and answer the question about guilt, let’s just review the evidence we’ve collected.

• Farmers markets are essential businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic
• Market shopping can be safer than shopping at stores and places with drive-through windows
• Supporting farmers at farmers markets builds economic resilience

In, my next article, "Should I feel guilty for supporting farmers markets during the COVID-19 pandemic? Part 2", I will challenge my inner critics and the false belief that farmers markets are only for those with a lot of money, for trendy ‘do-gooders’ and for those who do not have ancestors that have been forced to work in the fields harvesting food with little or no compensation.

References:

Nick Wood. There’s Traction in Keeping Farmers Markets Open, but the Fight Continues. Posted on CFSA Sweet Potato Blog March 24, 2020.

Twilight Greenaway. The Fight to Keep Farmers’ Markets Open During Coronavirus. Posted on civileats.com March 19, 2020.

Carolina Farm Stewardship Association. Food Safety Videos. https://www.carolinafarmstewards.org/food-safety-videos/ Site accessed March 31, 2020.

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Flour power - Baking with local grains locks in freshness, nutrition, and flavor. Welcome to the Triangle's Golden Age of Bread. Visit https://indyweek.com/food-and-drink/features/dish-triangle-golden-age-of-bread-local-grains/ for the full article.

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Hurricanes and rains have had a devastating impact on farmers in North Carolina. In the Fall 2018 Stewardship News, Roland McReynolds, the Executive Director of Carolina Farm Stewardship Association, said that “The weather in the Carolinas in 2018 was, in most places, consistently dismal for agriculture. Too much rain delayed spring crop plantings and depressed summer crop harvests. The twin catastrophes of Hurricane Florence and Michael not only washed away farms and crops, but drenched soils. Frequent rain continued right up to the first frosts, making soil too wet to work, and ripe fields of row crops too wet to harvest.”

The state Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP) works with North Carolina farmers located in the watersheds of Cape Fear, Chowan, Lumber, Neuse, Pasquotank, Roanoke, Tar-Pamilico, White Oak and Yadkin-PeeDee to reduce flooding and soil erosion of cropland and pastureland. Farmers on eligible land can receive an annual soil rental fee, a one-time payment and technical assistance in engineering, soils, conservation planning, and nutrient and animal waste management. In exchange, these farmers agree to put sections of their farm land into conservation easements.

The NC CREP operates within the NC Department of Agricultural and Consumer Services’ Soil and Water Conservation Division. This state program improves and protects water quality, soil health, and soil carbon sequestration by converting crop land that frequently floods into grassland strips and riparian buffers. Technical assistance and cost-share reimbursement include planting of trees, hardwood plants, and creation of pollinator habitats.

Farmers with livestock who graze in ponds and streams can receive technical assistance and cost-share reimbursement for fence building, drilling of wells, and installing water lines and waterers.These interventions not only help reduce the impacts of droughts, flooding, and other natural disasters, but may also help farmers meet organic certification for their livestock.

Specific benefits for eligible farmers include the following:

• An annual soil rental fee for the first 15 years to help offset the loss of farming on that particular piece of land
• Cost-share funding for installation of best management practices: 90% is reimbursed for the 30-year conservation easement option; 100% is reimbursed for the permanent option
• Ability to receive a tax-deductible charitable donation, which may lower estate taxes
• Continued access to the land for hunting and recreational purposes

Please contact a CREP specialist to find out your eligibility for the voluntary program to minimize flooding and soil erosion on your farm.

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The eligibility criteria for U.S. citizenship was and continues to be determined by white men in power. The pale-skinned founders of the United States of America saw the economic benefits of de-humanizing people who had been taken against their will from African nations. The assumed superiority of the pale-skinned settlers helped justify the capture of lands previously occupied by Mexicans and indigenous tribes and led to the exclusion of Chinese immigrants from 1882 through 1943.

***June 25, 2018 Update:
On Thursday June 21, 2018, representatives in the house failed to pass the Goodlatte immigration bill, known as the Securing America's Future Act! Although this is good news, there is still a harmful immigration bill H.R.6136 - Border Security and Immigration Reform Act that is expected to be voted on this week. ***

If this bill is passed it will continue to perpetuate the history of excluding people of color from obtaining U.S. citizenship as a birthright.

African-American babies were denied U.S. citizenship status until 1868.

According to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, birthright citizenship is granted to babies born outside of the U.S. who have biological parents that are U.S. citizens, babies born in the U.S. territories of Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and babies born on U.S. soil [1].

However, the U.S. Constitution and the U.S. Bill of Rights were written by men in 1787 and 1791 who financially benefitted from the Transatlantic slave trade. At that time the Dutch Republic, Spain, Portugal, France, and Britain were taking human beings from Sierra Leone, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal and other countries on the African continent and bringing them against their will to the Americas and the Caribbean Islands to provide cheap labor on sugar, tobacco, cotton and rice plantations. As a reflection of the founding fathers’ desire to maintain their white privilege, the U.S. Constitution has ten clauses that classify slaves as property and protect the power of slave masters [2].

At this appalling time in U.S. history, a slave was counted as three-fifths of a person, and it was acceptable to break families apart. It was only after the 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868, that African Americans born in the United States were granted U.S. citizenship [3].

Native-American babies were denied U.S. citizenship status until 1940.

When the European settlers came to the North American continent, the land was populated by 10 million indigenous people [4]. These indigenous people were descendants of people who had lived on the continent since 1000 B.C [5]. However, for the early pale-skinned founders of the United States, the indigenous people were obstacles that needed to be eliminated. George Washington was the first of many Presidents who made efforts to force the indigenous people, to become ‘civilized’ and assimilate. Through physical and biological warfare (blankets laced with Smallpox), as well as through treaties the U.S. government was able to grab their land.

In 1830, President Andrew Jackson “pushed a new piece of legislation called the ‘Indian Removal Act’ through both houses of Congress [6].” It allowed President Jackson to make Indian Tribes including the Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw and Seminole nations living east of the Mississippi give up their lands. In 1838, the U.S. government sent 7,000 troops to force the Cherokees to leave their homes and possessions and march west. “This Trail of Tears march resulted in 4,000 Cherokee people dying of cold, hunger, and disease on the journey [6].”

U.S. citizenship for Native Americans was limited to individuals with less than half Indian blood, or those belonging to ‘friendly’ tribes. In addition, U.S. citizenship was gifted to Native Americans who voluntarily served in the military or in naval establishments during World War I [7 and 8]. The Indian Citizenship Act in 1924 was intended to give Native Americans U.S. Citizenship as a birthright, however the Act wasn’t honored by all the states [7]. According to the Congressional Research Service Report RL33079, it was only after the Nationality Act of 1940 that all Native Americans born in the United States were granted full citizenship [3].

Chinese-American babies were denied U.S. citizenship status until 1898.

In the 1850’s laborers from China came to the United States to work in the gold mines, agriculture, and the building of railroads. In the 1860’s Senator Cowan of Pennsylvania “raised the specter of unfettered Chinese immigration” which would lead to the “takeover of California by the Chinese empire [3].” Racial discrimination, as well as economic and cultural tensions resulted in the passing of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 [9]. This Act, which wasn’t repealed until 1943, “severely limited future immigration of Chinese workers and barred Chinese residents from obtaining U.S. citizenship [10].” The racist propaganda at that time depicted men and women from China as source of cheap labor that were incapable of assimilating into American society partly due to their sexually voracious appetites [11]. Horace Greeley, an editor for the New-York Tribune newspaper and future U.S. presidential candidate labeled the Chinese as unclean, filthy, and uncivilized and that “every female is a prostitute of the basest order [12].”

In 1898, Chinese-American babies were granted U.S. citizenship as a birthright. The Supreme Court decision of the United States v. Wong Kim Ark determined that babies of Chinese residents could gain U.S. citizenship as a birthright even when their parents were denied the right to become naturalized U.S. citizens [3].

U.S. citizenship as a birthright for Mexican-American babies continues to be questioned.

Before the U.S.-Mexico war the land that is now known as California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, parts of Colorado, and parts of Texas used to be part of Mexico. In 1836, the northern part of Coahuila y Tejas in Mexico seceded to become the Republic of Texas, which was half the size of current day Texas [13]. In 1845, The United States of America annexed the Republic of Texas, which was a vast slave-holding region. A year later, the U.S. instigated a war with Mexico over a border dispute about land west of Texas. The U.S.-Mexican war ended in 1848 and a Treaty was formed between the two nations.

The U.S. gained 500,000 square miles of land, and in return granted the Mexicans living on that land a choice to keep their Mexican citizenship or by default become a U.S. citizen with full rights [14]. These Mexican-Americans were promised liberty and ability to retain their property by the U.S. government.

Unfortunately, dispute over U.S. citizenship as a birthright for Mexican-Americans continues today. The offensive term ‘anchor baby’ is used as a way to devalue the legitimacy of U.S. citizenship as a birthright to children of ‘undesirable’ Asian and Latino immigrants. Pale-skinned politicians use the term to imply that “adult non-citizens are having US-born children in order to manipulate the immigration system [15].” Senator Lindsey Graham, Representative Steve King, and U.S. Presidential candidates, Donald J. Trump and Jeb Bush would like to return to the year 1868 when it was allowed to withhold U.S. citizenship as a birthright to children to immigrants [16-19].

The Goodlatte ‘anti’-Immigration Bill and Agricultural Guestworker Act

Today, our history of racial discrimination and inequality is threating to become our future. Within the next few days, representatives in the house will be voting on an immigration bill, sponsored by Rep. Bob Goodlatte of Virginia known as the ‘Securing America's Future Act’ (H.R. 4760). This anti-immigrant bill proposes to increase restrictions on asylum seekers, penalize sanctuary cities, changes the family reunification visa process and eliminates the diversity visa lottery [20].”

The changes to the family reunification visa process and ending the diversity visa lottery, which is a legal pathway to citizenship for people from countries with historically low immigration rates will have an impact similar to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, on Asian and African immigrants. Half of the diversity visas issued in 2016 were to immigrants from the continent of Africa [21, 22]. In the article, “Activists, Lawmakers of Color Denounce Hardline GOP Immigration Bill”, the author cites the Department of State, Fiscal Year 2016 Immigrant Visas statistical table as evidence “that the vast majority of immigrants from the Asian continent come to the U.S. through the family-based immigration system [21, 22].”

Hidden within the Goodlatte immigration bill is also a proposal to change the existing agricultural work visa program, called the Agricultural Guestworker Act (H.R. 4092). This bill seems to favor large-scale agribusinesses in the U.S. that are reliant on Latino agricultural guest workers to plant, harvest, and pack fresh fruits and vegetables.

While the rest of the Goodlatte immigration bill is working to decrease the number of people of color from entering the United States, the Agricultural Guestworker Act actually plans to triple the number of guestworker visas and expand the criteria for non-migrants to come to the United States to work. In addition to working in the fields, guestworkers would be eligible to work in year-long jobs in forestry, dairy, fish and shellfish processing, and the slaughter and breaking down of carcasses of cattle, hogs, turkeys and chickens. The Agricultural Guestworker Act proposes to limit the number of Latino children granted U.S. birthright citizenship by prohibiting the spouses and children of guestworkers from obtaining permission to come to the U.S.

The proposed changes to the guestworker’s salary, housing, and transportation costs include:

• Employers would be able to choose to provide or not provide housing; currently employees must provide housing at no cost to H-2A workers, who are not reasonably able to return to their residence within the same day [20 and 23].
• There is no mention that employers must reimburse workers for travel expenses to and from the United States [23].
• The act would lower the hourly wage rate while also withholding 10% of their wages to be kept in a trust fund that would be dispersed by the Secretary of Homeland Security [20].

The proposed changes to visas issued for family members of guestworkers, and their legal rights are as follows:

• Currently an agriculture guestworker’s spouse and unmarried children under 21 years of age may seek admission to the U.S. as a H-4 nonimmigrant, but this new program would prohibit the admission of a spouse or child into the United States, unless they were also an agricultural worker [24 and 20].
• Agricultural guest workers may as a condition of employment with an employer, be subject to mandatory binding arbitration and mediation of any grievance relating to the employment relationship [20].
• The workers and attorneys on behalf of these nonimmigrants may NOT bring civil actions for damages (including unpaid wages, workplace injuries, and sexual assault claims) against their employers [20].

The efforts to reduce agricultural guest workers’ wages, remove access to their spouses and children, increase their levels of debt, and take away their legal rights brings to mind the concept of sharecropping in the 1870’s.

I ask you call your house of representative today to oppose the Goodlatte immigration bill (H.R. 4760) and the Agricultural Guestworker Act (H.R. 4092). Join me, in saying that we don’t choose to continue to gain from the misfortunes of people of color.

***June 25, 2018 Update:
Please call your representative to thank them for voting down HR 4760 (if they voted Nay and to encourage them to vote down HR6136 the Border Security and Immigration Reform Act which is expected to have detrimental changes to the Agricultural guestworkers program.***

References:

[1] U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Chapter 2 – Becoming a U.S. Citizen. Vol. 12 Part A. Current as of May 23, 2018. https://www.uscis.gov/policymanual/HTML/PolicyManual-Volume12-PartA-Chapter2.html

[2] David Waldstreicher. How the Constitution Was Indeed Pro-Slavery. The Atlantic. Sept. 19, 2015. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/09/how-the-constitution-was-indeed-pro-slavery/406288/

[3] Margaret Mikyung Lee. Birthright Citizenship Under the 14th Amendment of Persons Born in the United States to Alien Parents. Congressional Research Service 7-5700. RL33079 – Page 10. January 10, 2012. https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL33079.pdf

[4] History.com. Native American Cultures. https://www.history.com/topics/native-american-history/native-american-cultures Accessed June 16, 2019.

[5] Scholastics.com. An Overview of Native American History. https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/articles/teaching-content/history-native-americans/ Accessed June 16, 2019.

[6] PBS.org. Indian Removal 1814-1858. Teachers Guide. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2959.html Accessed June 16, 2019.

[7] History.com. 1924 The Indian Citizenship Act. This Day in History, June 2nd. https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-indian-citizenship-act Accessed June 10, 2018.

[8] Native American Roots.net. American Indian Citizenship. Posted on February 28, 2010 by Ojibwa. http://nativeamericannetroots.net/diary/379

[9] U.S. Department of State. Chinese Immigration and the Chinese Exclusion Acts. Office of the Historian, Bureau of Public Affairs. https://history.state.gov/milestones/1866-1898/chinese-immigration Accessed June 10, 2018.

[10] Jie Zong and Jeanne Batlova. Chinese Immigrants in the United States. Sept. 29, 2017. Migration Policy Institute. https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/chinese-immigrants-united-states

[11] Harmon Leon. The first Mexican border wall was actually to keep out Chinese people: The Exclusion Act was the beginning of blocking by ethnicity. Timeline.com. https://timeline.com/mexican-border-chinese-wall-62bda038c29a Accessed June 19, 2018.

[12] Tim Yang. The Malleable Yet Undying Nature of the Yellow Peril. http://www.dartmouth.edu/~hist32/History/S22%20-The%20Malleable%20Yet%20Undying%20Nature%20of%20the%20Yellow%20Peril.htm Accessed June 19, 2018.

[13] Bullock Texas State History Museum. Texas History Timeline: From many chapters comes one sprawling Story of Texas. https://www.thestoryoftexas.com/discover/texas-history-timeline Accessed June 16, 2019.

[14] Pamela Oliver. What the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo Actually Says. July 12, 2017. Race, Politics, Justice. https://www.ssc.wisc.edu/soc/racepoliticsjustice/2017/07/12/what-the-treaty-of-guadalupe-actually-says/

[15] Matthew Yglesias and Dara Lind. Birthright Citizenship and “anchor babies,” explained. August 21, 2015. B Vox.com. https://www.vox.com/2015/8/21/9187547/birthright-citizenship-anchor-babies

[16] Julia Preston. Citizenship From Birth is Challenged on the Right. The New York Times. Aug. 6, 2010. https://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/07/us/politics/07fourteenth.html

[17] Congress.Gov. H.R. 140-Birthright Citizenship Act of 2015. House-Judiciary Committee. https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/140 Accessed May 28, 2018.

[18] Jeremy Diamond. Donald Trump: Birthright babies not citizens. CNN. Aug. 19, 2015. https://www.cnn.com/2015/08/19/politics/donald-trump-birthright-american-citizenship/index.html

[19] Benjamin Fang. Roundup: Some of the Best Thoughts on Jeb Bush’s Asian ‘Anchor Babies’ Remark. Code Switch: Race and Identity, Remixed. NPR.org. https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2015/08/28/435495221/here-s-what-people-are-saying-about-jeb-bush-tying-anchor-babies-to-asians

[20] Congress.gov. H.R.4760 - Securing America's Future Act of 2018.

• Sec. 218A. Admission of Temporary H-2C Workers: (b) definition (k) minimum wages, benefits and working conditions (r) trust fund to assure worker return.
• Sec. 281B. At-Will Employment of Temporary H-2C Workers: (c) Prohibition on family members.
• Sec. 2104. Mediation.

[21] Travel.State.gov. Immigrant Visas Issued (by Foreign State of Chargeability or Place of Birth): Fiscal Year 2016. U.S. Department of State – Bureau of Consular Affairs. https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/Statistics/AnnualReports/FY2016AnnualReport/FY16AnnualReport-TableIII.pdf

[22] Kimberly Yam. Activists, Lawmakers of Color Denounce Hardline GOP Immigration Bill. June 14, 20818. Huffington Post. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/goodlatte-immigration-bill-rally_us_5b2136a8e4b0adfb827034e8

[23] U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet #26: Section H-2A of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). February 2010. Wage and Hour Division. https://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs26.htm

[24] U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. H-2A Temporary Agricultural Workers. Working in the United States – Temporary Workers. Last Reviewed/Updated: 03/08/2018. https://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs26.htm

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I have written an article about the cost involved in removing the rights of a million people living and working in the U.S. In addition, I have an article that discusses the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Before I post these articles on my blog, I wanted to highlight why farmers in the United States of America including North Carolina are directly affected by U.S. immigration policies.

Farms, especially large-scale farms and Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, rely on hired labor. An American Public Health Association (APHA) policy statement says that “more than 4 million workers in the United States are directly involved in tending crops and livestock, picking and packaging produce, and slaughtering and processing meat, poultry, and seafood [1].” The estimate of 4 million workers involved in these occupations was obtained by APHA from the U.S. Department of Labor, May 2016 occupational employment statistics [2]. In the farming community the term for this type of hired worker is ‘farmworker’.

North Carolina hires about 100,000 farmworkers every year to harvest and pack tobacco, sweet potatoes, cucumbers, tomatoes, Christmas trees, blueberries, and other crops [3]. In addition, North Carolina hires about 8,000 farmworkers to work as slaughterers and meat packers [4]. North Carolina has twenty-one processing facilities for dismembering chicken and turkey carcasses as well as the largest pork processing plant in the world. The pork plant is operated by Smithfield Foods, Inc. and employs nearly 5,000 workers [5].

Here are the top three differences between farmers and farmworkers.

• Farmers tend to be self-employed or under production contracts with large agribusinesses like Perdue and Smithfield, while farmworkers tend to be hired by farm labor contractors and are paid by the hour or by the piece.
• _
• Farmers can come from diverse educational backgrounds, ethnicity, and gender. Some family farms are owned by women with pale skin. Some farms are owned by Black, Latino, Native or Asian men and women. However, the majority of farmers are English-speaking middle-aged pale skinned men.
  In contrast, the majority of farmworkers tend to be immigrants and people of color. According to the National Agricultural Workers Survey conducted in 2013- 2014, sixty-eight percent (68%) of farmworkers were born in Mexico and four percent (4%) were born in Central America. Only twenty-seven percent (27%) of the farmworkers surveyed were born in the U.S. [6]. The North Carolina Council of Churches indicates that ninety-four percent of migrant farmworkers in North Carolina, are native Spanish speakers [7].
• _
• The majority of farmers are U.S. citizens. In contrast, farmworkers may be seasonal guest workers, legal permanent residents, U.S. citizens, or lack permission to work in the U.S. According to a 2010 report by the Southern Poverty Law Center, “at least six in 10 of our country’s farmworkers are undocumented immigrants [8].”

In conclusion, current immigration policies impact the survival of farms across the country. Policies that criminalize and deport people of color will increase the cost of tobacco, sweet potatoes, cucumbers, tomatoes, blueberries, Christmas trees, chicken, turkey, and pork products including bacon, hotdogs, bologna, pepperoni, salami, and ham.

References:

[1] APHA. Improving Working Conditions for U.S. Farmworkers and Food Production Workers. Policy Number: 20177. November 07, 2017. Retrieved from http://www.dressings-sauces.org/food-safety-facts-mayonnaise-and-dressings

[2] U.S. Department of Labor. Occupational employment statistics, May 2016. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Retrieved from https://www.bls.gov/oes/

[3] North Carolina Farmworkers Project Website. https://ncfwp.org/ Accessed May 3, 2018.

[4] Matthew Burns. Smithfield Foods to invest $100M in NC pork plant. WRAL.com. August 22, 2017. Retrieved from https://www.wral.com/smithfield-foods-to-invest-100m-in-nc-pork-plant/16897472/

[5] U.S. Department of Labor. Findings from the National Agricultural Workers Survey (NAWS) 2013-2014. A Demographic and Employment Profile of United States Farmworkers. Research Report No. 12. Retrieved from https://www.doleta.gov/agworker/pdf/NAWS_Research_Report_12_Final_508_Compliant.pdf

[6] Chris Liu-Beers. Facts About North Carolina Farmworkers. October 11, 2012. Retrieved from https://www.ncchurches.org/2012/10/facts-about-north-carolina-farmworkers-2/

[7] National Council of La Raza, Latinos in the Poultry Processing Industry 2012. Retrieved from http://publications.unidosus.org/bitstream/handle/123456789/642/PIRM2012.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

[8] Southern Poverty Law Center. Injustice on Our Plates: Immigrant Women in the U.S. Food Industry. 2010 Report. Retrieved from https://www.splcenter.org/sites/default/files/d6_legacy_files/downloads/publication/Injustice_on_Our_Plates.pdf

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The U.S. budget was passed on Friday, with no extension offered to protect the young adults in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. The rise of white supremacy, and the constant news coverage of people who believe a wall should be or shouldn’t be built, as well as the phrase “they are taking our jobs” is confusing and alarming. Is it even possible for individuals in our country with varying viewpoints to work together to come up with solutions that benefit our common good?

In a desire to provide a better understanding of why people on both sides of the debate feel the way they do, I interviewed myself a 42-year old woman living in North Carolina and a 76-year old man who lives in California. Patreese is a shortened version of Patricia, which was the name given to me before I was adopted. The words in [brackets] were added by me to help add clarity.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the interviewees and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any other agency, organization, employer or company.

Do you think the people in the DACA program should lose their right to work and right to live in the United States?

Man living in California: No. Something needs to be done about the DACA dudes. They were brought over by their parents; coming here wasn’t their choice. They didn’t know the risk. It would be unfair to send them back to Mexico, China, India, or Africa. They grew up here, in this country. They’ve assimilated, and may only know how to speak English. It would be like putting a Gringo like me in Mexico; there would be a problem.

Patreese: No. Nobody should be taken away from their family members, community, language and culture. I have strong opinions about this because I lost my family and wound up in an orphanage when I was a toddler. Eight months later, I was taken from the orphanage and brought here to the United States of America to live with two adults, a boy and a dog. Although I was fortunate to gain a family, a new country and new culture, I lost access to my birth country, and the opportunity to be surrounded by people who spoke my first-language, and who could teach me about my culture.

What are your thoughts about the DACA legislation being separated from the U.S. budget decision this Friday?

Man living in California: It’s a result of the squabbling that’s going on with Nancy Pelosi. The main street media is talking about how great DACA people are, while Fox News is talking about the immigrants who run people over. I believe the delay is because the Democrats are keeping it [the topic] alive for the 2018 election.

Patreese: I’m disappointed. The constant mention of DACA in the news, with no resolution is nerve-wracking. There are about 700,000 young adults in the DACA program that have had their future hanging in the balance since September 5, 2017. The six months of uncertainty is not fair to them, their families, their employers, and our communities.

When I say the phrase “they are taking our jobs?” what comes to mind?

Patreese: I think the sentence is used to create panic. The myth is that there’s not enough jobs for all of us, and that in order for “us” to survive we have to get rid of “them”. Often times “them” refers to anybody who is perceived as different, whether it’s because the color of their skin, their nationality, religion, or language that they speak.

Man living in California: Illegals. Illegals refers to the people who are here illegally. They overstayed their visa or whatever. It doesn’t matter what nationality or country they are, it’s just not right that they are getting jobs, Section 8 housing, and Medicare benefits from our great country.

What are your thoughts on the proposed wall to divide the United States of America and Mexico?

Man living in California: My son died from a drug overdose in California. One of the drugs in his system was Doridin, a synthetic version of heroin, which was most likely manufactured in Mexico or created with the assistance of my son’s best-friend’s Hispanic girlfriend. She had an Aunt who was dating a guy from prison.

The wall would stop the [drug] mules. You know the people crossing the border from Mexico aren’t carrying food and water, well maybe one water bottle, in their backpacks. They are pulling pot and other drugs.

Patreese: The concept of a wall is insulting to me as a Latina. It feels like people from Mexico, Central America and South America are being used as scapegoats. It’s also a waste of money because there is a constant flow of workers from Mexico to the U.S. and from the U.S. to Mexico. Since the first World War, the U.S. government has actively recruited Mexican citizens to work in our country as seasonal agricultural workers.

What interactions do you have with Mexicans, and/or Mexican-Americans?

Patreese:For the first 15 years of my life [in the United States of America], I had little exposure to any people who were born in Canada, Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean or South America. I was taught to believe people with my skin color came from poor dirty countries that were capable of leaving children to sell oranges on the sides of busy highways and abandoning them in grocery stores. I remember a time as a child walking with my family and encountering Colombians for the first time. After I excitedly told these street musicians that I was adopted from their country, my mom hurried me away. She said that if certain people found out I was adopted from Colombia, they may kidnap me and take me away from her.

I’m currently a mentor in an after-school program to a six-year old girl with Mexican ties. We meet once a week to read out loud from picture books and play board games. Through fun outings to parks, and museums I have been fortunate to get to know and love her and her sisters. I wish I could protect them from being sent to foster care if their parents are caught by Immigration and Customs Enforcement without the required paperwork of the day. To be honest, I'm afraid that bringing attention to my own international experience, and speaking up on the behalf of others at risk for deportation may cause my own U.S. citizenship to be revoked by the U.S. government. It doesn't feel safe to be a person of color regardless of what visa, temporary status program, or "legal documents" one owns. We can be taken away at anytime.

Man living in California: I was a history teacher in the ghettos of South Central. At one of my schools 94% [of the kids] were Hispanic, there were no white kids, although, there were some that were mixed. I think about 50% of my students were DACA. Some of my TA’s [teaching assistants], made money by smuggling babies so they [the infants] could be registered as anchor babies.

I currently have five god-daughters who are U.S. citizens with ties to Mexico. I’ve known them since they were 12 years old. I helped encourage them to graduate from high-school and hired them legally when they were 14 years old so they could earn extra money to help their families.

My oldest goddaughter’s father’s godson was arrested and put into prison for 10-years because he was a coyote and found to be responsible for the death of one of the people he was helping cross the border during a high-speed chase across the desert. The mother of my oldest goddaughter has 12 sisters and brothers. Their children brought in their pregnant sisters so they could all have anchor babies. One of my goddaughters has a Masters in engineering and her boyfriend graduated from Cal State with an engineering degree. The boyfriend is DACA and I tease him by saying “I guess, you don’t have to pack your bags yet.” The boyfriend doesn’t seem to find my words very funny.

How would you describe your race, nationality, ethnicity? Where did your ancestors emigrate from?

Patreese: According to the U.S. census, my race is registered as Caucasian and my ethnicity is Hispanic/Latino. In the eyes of my adopted family, I am a white “American” and have been repeatedly told I am not an immigrant or a person of color that I believe I am. Due to my pale skin and outward appearance I have had strangers tell me they thought I was Arab, South Asian Indian, and Chinese.

Regarding my nationality I consider myself a United States-ian with Colombian heritage. I don’t like to use the adjective ‘American’ to describe myself as a citizen of the United States of America. Instead I consider myself to be 100% American because I have lived in South America and North America all my life.

Man living in California: I’m a gringo. There is a big contention that our great grandfather might have been a full-blooded Cherokee who married a white woman. Nobody wanted to talk about the Indian side because the idea of being mixed blood was unacceptable. Those of us who believe one of our ancestors was a Cherokee, think that’s the source of our trouble with alcoholism. I’ve never gave a lot of thought to where my ancestors might have come from. My Mom mentioned something about being English, and one of her grandfather’s spoke German. I’ve never paid attention.

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Happy Thanksgiving! Please take time this holiday to say thanks to your local independent farmers who raised turkeys on pasture for your family meal today.

My article, North Carolina Lawmakers Rush Pasture-Raised Turkeys to Thanksgiving Table published by Civil Eats, highlights the great collaboration between NC choices, NCD&A, the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association and independent poultry farmers. Discover how they overcame the challenge of last month’s closure of Cool Hand Meats in Marion, North Carolina. at https://civileats.com/2017/11/22/north-carolina-lawmakers-rush-pasture-raised-turkeys-to-thanksgiving-tables/.

As a bonus for my readers, below are details of an upcoming training for independent poultry farmers in NC.

Training on Backyard Poultry Processing Techniques and Food Safety will be in Louisburg, NC on Thursday, December 7. This training is a collaboration by North Carolina State University, Clemson University Cooperative Extension and the Tar River Poultry Initiative.

Topics covered include pre-slaughter handling, slaughter, processing, chilling, cut-up and deboning, packaging and labeling. In addition, current NC regulations and exemption updates will be provided by a NC Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services representative.

To register, please call the Franklin County Cooperative Extension Center at 919-496-3344 before Tuesday, December 5.

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This year’s Carolina Meat Conference, was held in Winston-Salem on Monday and Tuesday. The event attracted men and women who raise livestock on pasture, process the animals into cuts of meat, regulate the labeling of meat, distribute, cook, and/or eat local non-conventionally raised meat. NC Choices, an initiative of the Center for Environmental Food Systems, hosts this type of event yearly to advance the local, niche, and pasture-based meat supply chain in North Carolina and other states.

This article will provide a summary of the panel session Meat Labels that Matter: What Qualifies as Grass Fed and More, which was held Monday morning on September 25, 2017 at the Carolina Meat Conference. The content about how to submit proposed meat labels to the federal regulation agency provides timely information to meat processors and meat label applicants. Farmers, and agriculture cooperative extension agents may be interested in the description of the two different Grass Fed certification programs. While the overview of U.S. food sales trends appeals to a wide audience including managers of local food hubs, and regional culinary guilds.

The panel speakers are listed in alphabetic order:

• Jeff Canavan, Deputy Director of the Labeling and Program Delivery Staff (LPDS); USDA Food Safety and Inspection Services (FSIS)
• Debbie Hamrick, Director of Specialty Crops; NC Farm Bureau Federation
• Emily Moose, Director of Communications and Outreach; A Greener World
• Steve Ross, Senior Agriculture Marketing Specialist in the Audit Services Branch of the USDA Agricultural Marketing Services(AMS)

U.S. Food Sale Trends

As the NC Farm Bureau Federation Director of Specialty Crops, Debbie Hamrick gave the audience an overview of food consumption trends.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that local food sales have doubled from 2008 to 2014 [1]. Although local food sales have risen to $11.7 billion, it still is less than 1 percent of the total agricultural market.

Sales of plant-based meat substitutes and plant-based dairy alternatives are competing with animal meats and dairy. In the future, insects might be used as an ingredient due to their high protein content, and alternative meat may be created in the laboratory via animal cell culturing.

Online grocery retail is a growing option for people to shop for their food, especially among individuals categorized to belong to the millennial generation.

Debbie Hamrick told the audience that “It’s up to your ability to be profitable for local food to stick around, and for viable farm land to be preserved.” She encouraged her listeners to find a way to capture the food dollar that doesn’t tear down ‘big agriculture’. “We need Big Ag for you to be special.”

How to submit a proposed meat label for review and approval by the federal regulating agency.

Labels are attached to meat packages at the processing plant. The approval for the meat product labels is either processed through a state agency or the federal agency depending on the inspection status of the processing plant.

Jeff Canavan, the Deputy Director of the Labeling and Program Delivery Staff (LPDS) at the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Services (FSIS), provided the audience guidelines on the federal process for obtaining approval of meat product labels that are in compliance with the Federal Meat Inspection Act (FMIA) 21 U.S.C. § 601, 607.

Animal raising claims are evaluated by FSIS Labeling and Program Delivery Staff to ensure they are in compliance with 9 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) 412.1. Examples of animal raising claims are 'Grass fed', 'Animal Welfare Approved by AGW', 'raised without antibiotics', and 'free-Range'.

To submit a meat label with a special statement or claim to the federal LPDS regulation agency provide them the following:

1. a completed FSIS Form 7234-1: Application for Approval of Labels, Marking or Device
2. a sketch or hand-printed version of the label and
3. documentation to support the claims

These components can be mailed or submitted by logging into the Label Submission and Approval System web-based software, using your USDA Level 2 e-Authentication account.

The generic labels final rule, which became effective in January 6, 2014, has streamlined the process for making subsequent changes to the preapproved label. If the proposed changes on the label do not affect the special statement or claim then the changes can be made without re-applying to LPDS. Examples include changing the cut of meat from tenderloin to flat iron, or making modifications to the safe handling instructions.

Jeff Canavan’s advice for the audience was to plan as much time as possible for the labeling claim application process. FSIS is trying to catch up and reduce their back log of applications, however please anticipate your needs in advance.

Provide the following documentation to support a Grass Fed claim for a federally approved meat label

According to the USDA FSIS LPDS, meat labeled with an animal raising claim 'Grass Fed' indicates that it came from an animal that had continuous access to pasture during the growing seasons and that it was only fed grass (forage) after it was weaned from their mother’s milk.

The 2016 Labeling Guideline on Documentation Needed to Substantiate Animal Raising Claims for Label Submissions indicates that USDA FSIS requires the following documentation to review and approve a Grass Fed claim [2]:

1. An affidavit describing the diet of the animals
2. A written description of the controls used for ensuring that the cattle, bison, or sheep were only fed grass (forage); AND that they had continuous access to pasture during the growing season until slaughter
3. An explanation of how non-conforming animals (animals that had been fed grain or grain byproducts) are identified and kept separate from the 100% grass fed animals
4. A written description of the product tracing and segregation mechanisms used during slaughter, processing, packaging, and distribution.

100% Grass Fed Program for SVS Producers offered by USDA AMS

Steve Ross, the USDA Senior Agriculture Marketing Specialist in the AMS Audit Services, discussed the certificate entitled “Small and Very Small Producers (SVP) enrolled in the USDA Grass (Forage) Fed Claim for ruminant livestock…” certificate. Livestock operations who market less than forty-nine cattle/bison per year, or market less than ninety-nine sheep per year, are categorized as small and very small producers.

To apply for this two-year certification, the livestock producer completes and submits the QAD 1020C -Application USDA Grass Fed Program for cattle and bison, or the QAD 1020S-Application USDA Grass Fed Program for sheep. Upon receipt of the forms, USDA AMS staff will contact the farm to conduct an interview by phone. A site visit may or may not occur.

Benefits of belonging to the Grass fed SVS producer program include:

• Being eligible to apply for the “Grass Fed” animal raising claim for their meat labels;
• Listed in the Official Listing for Grass Fed SVS Program operations;
• Permission to display an image of their certificate on websites and marketing material.

Currently there are fifty-three beef livestock operations and four sheep livestock operations in this program [3][4]. Note: The claim “USDA Grass Fed” can only be used if both the livestock operation and the processing facility are USDA grass fed certified.

Steve Ross encourages farmers to take advantage of the animal raising claims opportunities. He highlighted the USDA AMS National Monthly Grass Fed Beef report, which shows the financial value-added gains SVS producers in the Grass Fed program receive.

Certified Grass Fed by A Greener World

Emily Moose, the Director of Communications and Outreach for A Greener World (AGW), spoke about the Certified Grass Fed by AGW program. AGW supports independent family farmers by establishing and promoting farm certification programs. They are a third-party certifier with no ties to the farms or processors they audit. In addition, they themselves are accredited and certified by an independent agency, the International Organization for Standardization.

Independent family farms that own and raise cows, goats, cattle, lamb, and sheep for the production of meat and dairy are eligible for the Certified Grass Fed by AGW program, if they do the following:

• Feed their ruminant animals a 100% grass and forage diet after they have been weaned (grain or grain-by-products are prohibited);
• Provide their ruminant animals continuous outdoor access to pasture/range for their entire lives, not just during the growing season; and
• Raise and slaughter their livestock animals according to the species-specific Animal Welfare Approved standards.

Family farms can apply for this yearly certification program by completing and submitting the Farmer Application Form. To be part of this program, farms must agree to receive a yearly visit from AGW staff. During this visit, the auditors will have a chance to observe the animals in different phases of their life, as well as verify compliance with the standards throughout the seasons.

The 'Animal Welfare Approved by AGW' claim adds value and assures customers of high-welfare farming practices. This animal raising claim has been rated as 'highly meaningful' by the Food Safety and Sustainability Center at Consumer Reports [5].

Additional benefits of being certified as ‘Grass Fed by AGW’ are as follows:

• Permission to add the “Grass Fed by AGW” seal to your meat and dairy labels
• Receive label application assistance that is free of charge
• Potential customers can find your meat and dairy products using the AWA products online directory. Currently there are 317 family farms listed in this directory[6].

Emily Moose’s advice for the audience was to pool together “pasture-based” farms all under the same AWA certification.

The Meat Labels that Matter: What Qualifies as Grass Fed and More panel concluded with ample opportunity for the audience to ask questions. The presenters shared the following resources for men and women who raise their livestock on pasture. These guides and websites can also benefit meat eaters who use animal-raising claims to make informed purchasing decisions.

RESOURCES

A Greener World. Food Labels Exposed: A definitive guide to common food label terms and claims. https://agreenerworld.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/AGW-Food-Labels-Exposed-2017-EMAIL-SCREEN-8-31-2017.pdf Published August 31, 2017.

A Greener World and Duchy College, a rural business school. Farm Health Online Website. http://www.farmhealthonline.com/US/

USDA AMS. National Monthly Grass Fed Beef Report. Livestock, Poultry & Grain Market News website. http://www.ams.usda.gov/LPSMarketNewsPage

References

[1] Aubrey, Allison. Communities Get A Lift As Local Food Sales Surge To $11 Billion A Year. NPR The Salt – Food for Thought. June 30, 2015 http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/06/30/418835394/communities-get-a-lift-as-local-food-sales-surge-to-11-billion-a-year

[2] USDA FSIS. Labeling Guideline on Documentation Needed to Substantiate Animal Raising Claims for Label Submissions. https://www.fsis.usda.gov/wps/wcm/connect/6fe3cd56-6809-4239-b7a2-bccb82a30588/RaisingClaims.pdf?MOD=AJPERES Published September 2016.

[3] Official Listing of Operations Included on the USDA SVS Grass Fed Beef Program Operation Marketing Claim Products. https://www.ams.usda.gov/sites/default/files/media/LSOfficialListingBeefGrassFedProgram.pdf Last Revised August 21, 2017.

[4] Official Listing of Operations Included on the USDA SVS Grass Fed Sheep Program Operation Marketing Claim Products. https://www.ams.usda.gov/sites/default/files/media/LSOfficialListingGrassFedSheepProgram.pdf Last Revised March 9, 2017.

[5] Consumer Reports: Animal Welfare Approved-Highly Meaningful. CR Consumer Reports | Greener Choices. 2006-2017. http://greenerchoices.org/2016/11/16/awa-label-review Accessed October 24, 2017.

[6] Shop Your Way to A Greener World (AGW) Product Search. A Greener World. https://agreenerworld.org/product-search/ Accessed October 24, 2017.

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Some eggs have harmful bacteria, called Salmonella, living inside or outside their egg shells. If you eat raw or undercooked eggs, you may get sick from Salmonella.

People may have a mild case or severe case of Salmonella.

• People with a mild case of Salmonella infection may have a few days of diarrhea, fever, and stomach cramps.
• People with a severe case of Salmonella infection may have bloody diarrhea, fever, stomach cramps, and blood infections that may require them to be treated at a hospital to prevent death.

It is estimated that every year in the United States of America, 380 people die, 19,000 people are hospitalized and 1,000,000 people become ill from Salmonella (Scallan, 2011).

The groups of people with the highest chance of getting severe Salmonella infections, include adults older than 60 years of age, children who are 5 years old and younger, and people with weakened immune systems due to organ transplants, cancer, diabetes, and HIV/AIDS (Medscape, 2012).

This article will provide specific ways to reduce the chances of you being one of the million people who get sick with Salmonella this year. The section headings are questions from the How many raw eggs did you eat in the past month? Quiz.

Question 1 & 2: Do you eat raw home-made cake batter and raw home-made cookie dough?

This question focuses on the cake batter and cookie dough you make in your own home. When you add unpasteurized eggs to the batter and dough, you have introduced the chances of getting sick from Salmonella. In addition, according to the Food and Drug Administration’s guidance Raw Dough's a Raw Deal and Could Make You Sick, the uncooked flour in your cookie dough may contain harmful E. coli (FDA, 2016).

For these reasons, it is advised by food safety officials to cook raw home-made cakes, cookies, stuffing, French toast, and other baked goods before eating. Use a food thermometer to check that the center of the baked product reaches 160 degrees Fahrenheit to ensure that most of the Salmonella and harmful E. coli bacteria will be killed (USDA, 2015).

The safest option for reducing the chances of getting sick from Salmonella and reducing the chances of getting sick from harmful E. coli is to eat cooked cake and cooked cookies. For those who choose to continue to eating uncooked homemade batter and dough, here are a few options to reduce your chances of becoming ill with Salmonella. None of these options, reduce your chances of getting sick from harmful E. coli that may be in the raw flour.

1. The safest option for reducing the chances of getting sick from Salmonella is to eat homemade uncooked cake batter and homemade uncooked cookie dough made without eggs.
2. The second-safest option for reducing the chances of getting sick from Salmonella is to eat homemade uncooked cake batter and homemade uncooked cookie dough made with pasteurized eggs.
3. The un-safest option for reducing the chances of getting sick from Salmonella is to eat homemade uncooked cake batter and homemade uncooked cookie dough made with raw un-pasteurized eggs.

To learn more about pasteurized eggs visit the article What's the difference between pasture-raised eggs and pasteurized eggs?

It’s important to note that, according to the USDA Egg Products and Food Safety guidance, even pasteurized egg products should be cooked if they are being served to high-risk persons. High-risk persons include infants and young children, pregnant women and their unborn babies, older adults, and people with weakened immune systems such as those with HIV/AIDS, cancer, diabetes, kidney disease, and transplant patients (USDA, 2015).

Question 3: Do you eat runny, gooey egg yolks?

Salmonella can live in the egg yolks and egg whites. According to the US. Department of Health and Human Services Food Safety.gov website, it is important to eat eggs that have firm whites and solid yolks regardless if they have been fried, scrambled, boiled, or poached (US Dept. of Health & Human Services, 2017).

Note: Restaurants and fast-food places are legally allowed to serve you uncooked eggs such as runny scrambled eggs, sunny-side up fried eggs, and poached eggs with liquid-y yolks as long as they tell you ‘undercooked foods may make you ill’.

This disclaimer may be in small print on the menu, or as a sign posted on the wall. It is up to each customer to ask for fully cooked eggs.

1. The safest option for reducing the chances of getting sick from Salmonella is to order eggs where the egg whitess are white and firm, and the egg yolks are solid and dry.
2. The second-safest option for reducing the chances of getting sick from Salmonella is to order eggs where the egg white are white and firm, and the egg yolks are mostly solid.
3. The un-safest option for reducing the chances of getting sick from Salmonella is to order eggs where the egg whites are runny, and the egg yolks are runny.

Question 4: Do you drink home-made liquids that have raw eggs?

For a particularly unappetizing example of drinking raw eggs, watch the Youtube Movie CLIP- Breakfast of Champions from the movie, Rocky (Chartoff, 1976). In this clip the fictional boxer, Rocky Balboa, rolls out of bed, breaks open five eggs and puts the raw yolks and whites into a drinking glass. He drinks the raw eggs, leaves the unwashed drinking glass in the kitchen and begins the rest of his day.

A more common way to drink liquids with raw eggs in it, is via cocktails and the type of home-made eggnog made with raw egg yolks, confectionary sugar, cups of alcohol, quarts of heavy cream and egg whites (Rombauer, Cocktails and Party Drinks).

For tips on how to make home-made eggnog safely, visit the Food and Drug Administration Homemade Eggnog: Make it Safely webpage (Bufano, Nancy, 2010). To answer your questions on the inability of alcohol or acidic liquids such as lemons and citrus to kill enough of the Salmonella bacteria, read the “Would you like some eggs with your cocktail” blog article (Levine, 2014) and the NC State Article, “If Eggnog has eggs in it, why is it safe to drink?” (Shipman, 2014).

1. The safest option for reducing the chances of getting sick from Salmonella is to drink commercially prepared eggnog.
2. The second-safest option for reducing the chances of getting sick from Salmonella is to drink homemade eggnog that has been cooked or made with pasteurized eggs.
3. The un-safest option for reducing the chances of getting sick from Salmonella is to drink homemade eggnog made with raw unpasteurized eggs.

Question 5: Do you eat mayonnaise, Aïoli sauce, Caesar salad dressing, chocolate mousse, and tiramisù made from unpasteurized eggs?

The spreads and desserts listed above are just a few examples that contain uncooked eggs according to the Joy of Cooking cookbook (Rombauer, Desserts). Homemade and restaurant-made mayonnaise has raw egg yolks, lemon juice, and vegetable oil. Mayonnaise is the base ingredient to make Aïoli sauce, tartar sauce, and remoulade.

The ingredients for Caesar dressing include garlic, lemon juice, raw egg, and Worcestershire sauce. Chocolate mousse is made with chocolate, butter, vanilla, raw egg yolks, sugar, raw egg whites, cream of tartar, sugar, and heavy cream.

For those who choose to continue to eating uncooked mayonnaise, Caesar salad dressing, and chocolate mousse here are a few options to reduce your chances of becoming ill with Salmonella.

1. The safest option for reducing the chances of getting sick from Salmonella is to eat commercially prepared mayonnaise, mayonnaise-based sauces, Caesar dressing, and chocolate mousse.
2. The second-safest option for reducing the chances of getting sick from Salmonella is to eat mayonnaise, mayonnaise-based sauces, Caesar dressing, and chocolate mousse made with pasteurized eggs.
3. The un-safest option for reducing the chances of getting sick from Salmonella is to eat home-made mayonnaise, mayonnaise-based sauces, Caesar dressing, and chocolate mousse made with raw unpasteurized eggs.

Note: Although, Tiramisù contains raw egg yolks it does not belong in the same category as mayonnaise, aioli sauce, remoulade, Caesar dressing, and chocolate mousse. The reason for this is the mixture of eggs is heated until the temperature reaches 160 degrees Fahrenheit, which will kill most of the Salmonella bacteria (Rombauer, Desserts).

Summary

Some eggs have harmful bacteria, called Salmonella, living inside or outside their egg shells. Salmonella is destroyed when eggs are fully cooked. Use a food thermometer to check that the temperature of egg mixtures are 160 degrees Fahrenheit or higher. For eggs cooked by themselves, ensure that the egg whites become white and firm, and the egg yolks are solid, firm and dry.

There are options for those who choose to eat raw cookie dough, raw cake batter, undercooked eggs, mayonnaise, and other drinks, dressings and sauces made with raw eggs that can reduce their chances of getting sick from Salmonella. Pasteurized raw eggs are a safer option than unpasteurized raw eggs.

People may have a mild case or severe case of Salmonella.

• People with a mild case of Salmonella infection may have a few days of diarrhea, fever, and stomach cramps.
• People with a severe case of Salmonella infection may have bloody diarrhea, fever, stomach cramps, and blood infections that may require them to be treated at a hospital to prevent death.

It is recommended that people who have a higher chance of getting a severe case of Salmonella should always eat fully cooked eggs regardless if they are pasteurized or not. The groups of people at most risk of severe Salmonella infections, include adults older than 60 years of age, children who are 5 years old and younger, and people with weakened immune systems due to organ transplants, cancer, diabetes, and HIV/AIDS (Medscape, 2012).

References:

• The Association for Dressings and Sauces(ADS). (2017) Food Safety Facts: Mayonnaise and Dressings Retrieved from http://www.dressings-sauces.org/food-safety-facts-mayonnaise-and-dressings
• Bufano, Nancy. (December 21, 2010) Homemade Eggnog: Make it Safely. Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition. Food and Drug Administration. Retrieved at https://www.foodsafety.gov/blog/eggnog.html
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention(CDC). (2016, August 25). Salmonella. Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/salmonella/general/index.html
• Chartoff, Robert and Winkler, Irvin [producers]. Rocky [movie]. United Artists; 1976. Rocky (4/10) Movie Clip – Breakfast of Champions (1976) HD. Retrieved at https://www.youtube.com
• Food and Drug Administration. (2016, July 6). Raw Dough's a Raw Deal and Could Make You Sick. Retrieved from https://www.fda.gov/ForConsumers/ConsumerUpdates/ucm508450.htm
• Levine, Katrina. (December 12, 2014) Would you like some eggs with your cocktail. Barfblog: Safe food from farm to fork. Retrieved at http://www.barfblog.com/2014/12/would-you-like-some-eggs-with-your-cocktail/
• Medscape. (2012, Dec 17). Suspecting Foodborne Illnesses in Special Populations: Quick Facts for Providers. Retrieved from http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/775976?src=par_cdc_stm_mscpedt&faf=1
• Rombauer, Irma; Becker, Marion Rombauer; and Becker, Ethan. Joy of Cooking 75th Edition. Scribner, New York, NY. 2006; pages 86, 976-977, 980.
• Scallan, E., Hoekstra R.M., Angulo, F. et al. Foodborne Illness Acquired in the United States—Major Pathogens Emerging Infectious Diseases.www.cdc.gov/eid. Vol. 17, No. 1, January 2011. Retrieved from https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/17/1/pdfs/p1-1101.pdf
• Shipman, Matt. (December 15, 2014) If Eggnog has eggs in it, why is it safe to drink? NC State News. North Carolina State University. Retrieved at https://news.ncsu.edu/2014/12/eggnog-food-safety/
• United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). (August 10, 2015) Egg Products and Food Safety. Retrieved at https://www.fsis.usda.gov/wps/portal/fsis/topics/food-safety-education/get-answers/food-safety-fact-sheets/egg-products-preparation/egg-products-and-food-safety/ct_index
• U.S. Department of Health and Human Services – Food Safety. (August 20, 2017) Eggs and Egg Products. Retrieved from https://www.foodsafety.gov/keep/types/eggs/index.html

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Pasture-raised eggs describes the lifestyle of the hens that laid those eggs.

Many hens live their entire lives indoors, under artificial lights, with the amount of space their conventional battery cages, cage-free pens, or free-range housing allows them to have. In contrast, hens that lay pasture-raised eggs live most of their life outdoors, with daily access to sunlight, the ground, and ability to hunt for insects, grubs and other protein treats. The Animal Welfare Approved organization requires farmers to raise their hens on pasture in order to sell eggs with the Animal Welfare Approved label.

Tips for buying pasture-raised eggs include:

• Look for the words “pasture-raised” or the Animal Welfare Approved label on the outside of the egg carton.
• When in doubt, ask your local farmers what type of lifestyle their laying hens are provided.
• Note: The abundance of pasture-raised eggs will be affected by the seasons. Hens that have access to sunlight will lay more eggs in the summer when the days are long, than they will lay in the winter.

Pasteurized liquids (raw egg whites, raw egg yolks, milk, juice, etc.) have undergone pasteurization.

Food processing facilities in the United States, use the pasteurization step to destroy harmful bacteria, including Salmonella, that may be inside the liquid they are pasteurizing. This food processing step doesn’t “cook the eggs or affect their color, flavor, nutritional value, or use” (USDA, 2015). To see how one egg farm uses automated machines to pasteurize their liquid eggs, visit the Youtube A look at how liquid eggs are processed at Willamette Egg Farm clip (WilliametteEgg, 2011).

Tips for buying pasteurized eggs include:

• Pasteurized eggs often have been separated from their shells, and are not packaged in typical egg cartons. Instead, you will find these liquid eggs inside a pourable container, like those used for selling heavy cream.
• The outside of the container will be labeled with the words whole liquid eggs, liquid egg whites, liquid egg yolks, or liquid egg products.
• The term egg products indicates that non-egg ingredients have been added.

It is recommended by the USDA Egg Products and Food Safety guidance, that people who have a high chance of getting a severe case of Salmonella should always eat fully cooked eggs regardless if they are pasteurized or not. The groups of people with a high chance of getting severe Salmonella infections, include adults older than 60 years of age, children who are 5 years old and younger, and people with weakened immune systems due to organ transplants, cancer, diabetes, and HIV/AIDS (Medscape, 2012).

References:

• Medscape. (2012, Dec 17). Suspecting Foodborne Illnesses in Special Populations: Quick Facts for Providers. Retrieved from http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/775976?src=par_cdc_stm_mscpedt&faf=1
• United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).(August 10, 2015) Egg Products and Food Safety. Retrieved at https://www.fsis.usda.gov/wps/portal/fsis/topics/food-safety-education/get-answers/food-safety-fact-sheets/egg-products-preparation/egg-products-and-food-safety/ct_index
• Willamette Valley Farm. (February 14, 2011) A look at how liquid eggs are processed at Willamette Egg Farm [Youtube movie] Retrieved at https://www.youtube.com/user/WillametteEgg

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Take this Raw Egg Quiz!

1. In the past month, have you licked raw cake batter off of egg beaters, mixing bowls or other objects?
   Yes No
2. In the past month, have you eaten raw home-made cookie dough?
   Yes No
3. In the past month, have you eaten one or more eggs that have had runny, gooey egg yolks? These undercooked eggs may have been fried, scrambled, boiled, or poached.
   Yes No
4. In the past month, have you sipped liquid containing raw eggs? (cocktails, unpasteurized eggnog, etc.)
   Yes No I don't know.
5. In the past month, have you eaten mayonnaise, Aioli sauce, Caesar salad dressing, chocolate mousse, or tiramisu that was made with unpasteurized raw eggs?
   Yes No I don't know.
6. Have all the people handling your food in the past month washed their hands, utensils, and kitchen surfaces before handling raw eggs?
   Yes No I don't know.
7. Have all the people preparing your food in the past month kept raw eggs separated from the raw vegetables and fruit they have served you?
   Yes No I don't know.
8. Have all the people serving your food in the past month washed their hands after handling raw eggs?
   Yes No I don't know.

How well did you do? Find out with this self-scoring answer key.

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Abstract:
In March 2017, more than 171,000 chickens in the United States had avian influenza. The current epidemics of avian influenza virus in China demonstrate that it is possible for humans with direct contact with infected poultry, or been in areas where infected poultry have been slaughtered can become sick and die from avian influenza. U.S. poultry processing factory workers are in contact with bird feces, blood, and tissues. It is time for us to ensure that these men and women are provided paid sick time, hand-washing facilities, and adequate personal protective equipment.

Visit http://infectioncontrol.tips/2017/04/24/poultry-influenza-pandemic/ for the full article.

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Many CFSA [Carolina Farm Stewardship Association] member poultry farms raise their flocks outdoors, or at least with significant access to pasture through the bulk of their lives. Most pastured poultry kept for commercial purposes are raised in portable pens or other structures that are used to keep the birds moving on a regular basis. Most would be given fresh, clean pasture at least daily, and sometimes even two or three times each day, along with clean water and traditional mixed-grain feeds fortified with essential minerals.

Pastured poultry producers are keenly interested in promoting bird health and disease prevention as an intrinsic part of their business model. Their birds are being raised in a deliberate and organized way outdoors with the express purpose of maintaining the health of the animals, the land, and even consumers. Simply put, animal husbandry is seen as the key to good health on these farms. In our view, the advantages of raising poultry in this manner, with respect to bird health, are a result of the following factors:

1. Constant availability of sunlight and fresh air
2. Regular exposure to fresh and varied forages
3. Decreased animal stress in general
4. Increased farmer observation and management on a per-bird basis

[The Carolina Farm Stewardship Association] CFSA, our farmers, and our community of engaged consumers fully understand that we are part of a complex and interdependent food system. We know that our birds and our farms are not immune to the effects of HPAI [highly pathogenic avian influenza], and that we are, like everyone else, at the front end of a learning curve on this issue. We will do our part to promote common sense biosecurity measures on farms, in processing facilities and in locations where poultry products are delivered to market.

The original post is on the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association Information for Pastured-Poultry Owners on Biosecurity Measures Against HPAI.

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When I listen to the radio and watch the news, I’m told that people in the United States of America are full of fear, anger and resentment toward people unlike themselves. I am informed that in addition to the existing divisions among race, religion, and gender there is additional splintering between liberals and conservatives, the college educated vs. the non-college educated, the working class vs. the non-working class. I have seen maps that show our country is politically divided between people who live in cities versus people who live in rural areas.

Personally, it is exhausting to have so many geographically, political, racial, religious, and economic class divisions to keep track of. In order to prevent becoming a target of hatred, I’m tempted to try to blend into my surroundings and minimize my perceived differences within the North Carolina agricultural communities I work with. My magical thinking tells me that if I don’t call any attention to myself or mention my gender, race, location-specific experiences, opinions on immigration, politics and religion then I will be safe. While in reality, what ultimately makes me feel less afraid and resentful of people who appear different then me is to identify the prejudices and stereotypes I have of ‘them’.

Before I moved to North Carolina from Massachusetts in the fall of 2013, I was worried about the following aspects of Southern culture; racism, the abundance of gun owners, the importance of tobacco, and the ways religion is used to control women’s rights. As a person of color, I was afraid to live in an area where slavery, lynching, and Ku Klux Klan activity occurred. I incorrectly assumed that the racism that existed in the Southeast was worse than the racism that existed in the Northeastern part of our country.

I had spent almost all of my life in New Jersey, and Massachusetts, which are two states with smart gun laws. According to the CDC National Center for Health Statistics in 2015, Massachusetts had a death rate of 3.0, New Jersey had a death rate of 5.4, and North Carolina had a death rate of 12.5. The data indicates that in 2015, Massachusetts had the lowest rate of gun death per capita among our country’s 50 states while 26 states had lower rates of gun death per capita than the state of North Carolina.

Fortunately for me, I had the courage, willingness, and opportunity to see beyond the stereotypes that I had of people in the South. In my “An Unexpected Purchase” article , I describe my visit to a farm in Wake County called the Collard Patch. Instead of finding Halloween pumpkins, I had the opportunity to ride into cabbage fields on a golf cart and learn about fresh vegetables from Hal Gurland, a former tobacco farmer who was born and raised in North Carolina. This positive first contact with a kind, local farmer allayed some of my distrust and fear of the ‘other.’

Shortly after my conversation with farmer Hal, I went on a bus tour organized by the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association (CFSA) to visit three farms in Chatham County; Edible Earthscape Farm, Piedmont Biofarm, and the Screech Owl Greenhouse. As a new resident, I savored the safety of being on the CFSA bus that knew where it was going, as well as marveled at the knowledge and passion that farmers Jason Oatis, Doug Jones, and Ralph “Screech” Sweger had.

In the past three years, I have visited over twenty farms thanks to the strong presence of agritourism in North Carolina. During these visits, I have met farm hands, food vendors, and farm owners with diverse educational and racial backgrounds. Agritourism which is a combination of the words, agriculture and tourism, is defined as “farming-related activities offered on a working farm or other agricultural setting for entertainment or educational purposes”.

In regards to entertainment farming-related activities on working farms, I’ve watched a baby goat try to nibble on my husband’s nose at the Prodigal Farm in Durham County, rode a minibus through the pastures of Rare Earth Farms to see grass-finished cattle in Louisburg County. I enjoyed feeding bread slices to pasture-raised pigs on Bob Syke’s Turtle Mist Farm in Franklin County, and watching a drive-in movie on Tammy Peterson’s Hubb’s Farm in Sampson County for Valentine’s Day.

The educational farming-related activities I’ve enjoyed in North Carolina include touring the Reedy Fork Organic Farm in Alamance County as well as digging for dung beetles and seeing the effects of no-tilled soil on buried underwear at the CEFS Pasture-Based Dairy Unit in Wayne County. I’ve also harvested tomatoes, snap peas, eggplants, cucumbers, carrots and potatoes at the Interfaith Food Shuttle Teaching Farm in Raleigh, NC and attended the Navigating the USDA Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) Audit Food Safety Program, which was held at Summerfields Farms in Guilford County.

Both the educational and entertaining farming-related activities have provided me the opportunity to drive on country roads and shop at local stores and gas stations with old-fashioned pumps. When I’m invited onto a neighbor’s farm, I connect with the farmer over our common interests about land, food, and the well-being of farm animals. Most often, our views on racial equity, gun rights, tobacco consumption, and women’s rights don’t come up during our interactions. Having the opportunity to focus on what unites us rather than divides us helps me feel connected to my rural neighbors during a time of racial, political, and cultural tension.

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The current food system in North Carolina was discussed at the September 2016, Carolina Food Summit: Plates, Policy, and Place. This two-day event was organized by the following organizations: EdNC.org, the Jamie Kirk Hahn Foundation, TerraVita, and the UNC-Chapel Hill Food For All: Local and Global Perspectives.

The second day of the Carolina Food Summit, started off with results from the State of the Plate: A North Carolina Foodways Survey. This presentation was followed by a panel with 5 speakers moderated by Andrea Weigl from the News & Observer newspaper. Below are details of this Conversation Sparks: Hunger, Change, Flavor, Policy, and Sustainability panel.

Hunger: Reverend Richard Joyner spoke on the topic of hunger because of his experience working with his community to combat poverty, malnutrition and premature death due to diabetes and hypertension. In his belief that “access to food shouldn’t be about shaming or blaming” he created the youth-led Conetoe Family Life Center.During his presentation, he shared that 60 children are managing twenty garden plots, and 175 bee hives to provide food, healthy relationships, character, dignity, and integrity to their community.

Change: Wyatt Dickson, the whole-hog pitmaster and owner of the restaurant Picnic, spoke about the decrease in flavor and quality of pork that occurred when hog-raising methods changed to an industrial model. In pursuit of better tasting barbeque, he stopped buying indoor-raised commercial breed hogs, and started sourcing his meat from a farm that raises heritage breed hogs outdoors on open-pasture.

By using only pasture-raised pork purchased from Green Button Farm, Wyatt provides his customers good quality food. He acknowledges “it [barbequing heritage pig breeds raised on pasture] is not new, it is going back to the old way of how things were done” before farmers were forced to raise their pigs in an industrial model.

Flavor: Chef Ricky Moore, owner and chef of the Saltbox Seafood Joint, spoke to the audience about flavor. He grew up in New Bern county where cooking occurred in one pot. The food was simmered for a long time and cooked in large batches in order to feed a lot of people.

He keeps the menu limited at his restaurant in order to dial in the flavor of each sea creature. He “respect the people who grew them, raised them and caught them.” He introduces diners to fish and shellfish they have not experienced before and invites them to experience new flavors and textures.

Policy: Scott Marlow, the executive director of the Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI), spoke on policy. He said that “we have the food system we chose 40-50 years ago” when we strived for uniformity, conformation, industrialization, and efficiency. It is now time to prioritize new characteristics such as resilience, redundancy and surplus. He encouraged the audience to pay attention to the following aspects of the US Farm bill:

1. Who owns the land?
2. Who controls the water?
3. Who owns the seeds? (companies)
4. How do we ensure the right of people to feed each other while navigating food safety concerns?

Sustainability: Chef Scott Crawford, owner of Crawford & Son Restaurant in Raleigh, NC, spoke about the sustainability of the employees in the food preparation industry. He spoke about the low wages, excessive hours and stress that line cooks and sous chefs are expected to bear. After working 30 days non-stop as a sous chef, he walked into the emergency room with diabetic ketoacidosis. His insulin levels were so high the emergency doctor had only seen those levels in dead people. It’s not just the sustainability of the food, land and soil to be concerned with. It’s time to pay attention to all the people involved with food production: farm laborers, the sorters, people working at meat processing facilities, the packers, the transporters and the food preparers.

The Conversation Sparks: Hunger, Change, Flavor, Policy, Sustainability panel was followed by three additional panels, a film, delicious food and two interactive brainstorming sessions. The keynote speaker at the 2016 Carolina Food Summit was author, educator, and activist Toni Tipton-Martin. In her Undoing Culinary Segregation talk, Ms. Tipton-Martin shared the stories of resourceful cooks, self-published authors, and entrepreneurs whose voices she discovered in African American cookbooks published over the past two centuries. The true stories and accomplishments of African American cooks during slavery and post-slavery times, dispel the “Aunt Jemima” stereotypes and myths that most of us in the United States have subconsciously developed. Uncovering the truth also helps create an inclusive food narrative that whites and people of color can use to improve today’s food system.

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There are only 10 days left for owners of NC small-scale farms to send in their grant applications. More details on eligibility and the application forms for the Leonard-Mobley Small Farm grant are available at https://www.dinnerinthemeadow.org/grant-application-2/. The deadline is July 15, 2016.

Last year, the grant panel reviewed 67 applications. In the 2015 grant cycle three farms were awarded funding to help them undertake sustainability improvement projects.

• Bee Branch Farm located in Big Sandy Mush, NC received $5,000.
• JB Farms in Granite Falls, NC and In Good Heart Farms in Clayton, NC both received the Leonard-Mobley Small Farm of Distinction award of $2,000.

Through phone and e-mail conversations in June 2016, I had a chance to follow up with last year’s winners. Here are the questions and answers with Terri Wells of Bee Branch Farm, Paula Boles of JB Farms, and Ben Shields of the In Good Heart Farms.

How did you hear about the 2015 Leonard-Mobley Small Farm Grant?

Bee Branch Farm, Terri Wells, heard about the 2015 grant via the Monday Marketing message that is sent to all farms in the North Carolina Agritourism Networking Association.
JB Farms, Paula Boles’ county extension agent told her about the grant.
Ben Shields of In Good Heart Farms, heard about the grant from a fellow vendor at the Western Wake Forest Farmer’s Market.

How have you used the 2015 grant award to increase your small-scale farm’s sustainability?

Bee Branch Farm built a shed with an extended roof covering and an attached solar greenhouse. Thanks to the grant, Terri Wells and her husband Glenn Ratcliff now have a space to grow vegetable, herb and flower transplants in their solar green house, an area to store tools, and a roof-covered area for packing and selling their produce on farm stop days.

JB Farms, Paula Boles used the grant money to buy a plastic roof to cover a section of their 500 feet long building that previously was used to raise chickens for the Tyson company. Their plan is to convert their tin-covered chicken houses into aquaponic green houses. This grant allowed them to prove that the conversions would provide enough light and air circulation for vegetables to grow in the soil. They are currently in the process of building fish tanks and a biofiltration system that will allow them to grow fish and plants in a controlled environment to maximize the use of the energy and nutrients in the aquaponics system. They estimate the total expense of the conversion will cost $30,000. For more of their story read the following Farm Aid article, written by Jennie Msall, a Farm Aid’s Farm Advocate.

In Good Heart Farms used to be located in Clayton, NC on six acres of rented land. As of June 2016, they are moving their home and farming equipment to their newly purchased 22-acres of land in Pittsboro, NC. This new land is special to them as well as it is to the surrounding community because it was formerly owned by the organic farming pioneer, Bill Dow.
Once Ben Shields and Patricia Parker complete the move they will build a covered wash station with the Leonard-Mobley small farm grant money that they were awarded in 2015. This station will be a place to wash and pack freshly harvested produce in a method that will meet Good Agricultural Practices and FDA Food Modernization Safety Act (FSMA) requirements for food safety.

What advice do you have for farms applying for the 2016 grant funds?

Terri Wells from Bee Branch Farm said

“One of the wonderful aspects of this grant is that it allows the small farmer flexibility in assessing what is most needed for the farming operation … and not be limited by restrictive parameters as many grants are. Therefore, I suggest that farmers think about what is truly going to help them for the long term - what will provide them future flexibility - and then write the grant with that focus.”

Paula Boles from JB Farms said

“The grant application process is important as it forces you to think about your project/business and to assess your short term and long term goals. It is very helpful to think through this process and to get it on paper.”

Any last minute comments?

Terri Wells said

“being awarded the Leonard-Mobley Small Farm grant in 2015 not only allowed me to build much needed farm infrastructure, but also gave me a vote of confidence that my work and advocacy as a small family farm is valued.” “I encourage farmers to get involved with advocacy and policy work; farmers must ensure that our voice is heard and that we have input on important policy decisions that affect farmers and our food systems.”

Paula Boles said

“It was such a pleasure to attend the Dinner in the Meadow and was one of the nicest events we had ever been to. We felt so honored and humbled to be a part of the program and moved to tears when Martha shared the grant story. Having received this award gave me the courage and knowledge to apply for other grants and to continue to network with other farmers and organizations. I am very thankful to have been a part of the process and to receive the award from such a great family!!”

The Dinner in the Meadow is an annual fundraiser hosted by Martha Mobley to raise the money awarded to the Leonard-Mobley Small Farm grant winners. As the Franklin County agricultural extension service agent for the past 25 years and farm owner, she believes in increasing the sustainability of small-scale farms. She began the grant as a way to honor the agricultural contributions of her late husband, Stephen Mobley, and her deceased mother, Marjorie Louise Gardner Leonard.

This year’s Dinner in the Meadow will be September 11, 2016 and will begin with a wine and cheese reception, an elegant dinner with video footage of the 2016 grant winner. In addition, there will be a silent auction of locally donated gift baskets. Below is a list of some of Martha Mobley’s family, friends, and community contacts that work hard to put together this beautiful farm to table fundraiser.

• The North Carolina Executive Mansion Chef, David Gaydeski, will oversee the menu of beef, lamb, goat, pork, and vegetarian dishes prepared by local chefs including Chris Prieto, Jason Smith, Ron Hobbs, Joe Lumbrazo, Jon Oliver and Elizabeth Layman.
• Ranell Bridges, of Two Bridges Farm will be conducting administrative tasks including being the e-mail point person, and creating the video of the 2016 grant winner.
• The CFO and executive director of Feeding Franklin, Kathy Harrelson, is donating her writing and marketing experience to advertise the event in local magazines. She is also creating profiles of the chefs and organizing the donation baskets for the silent auction.

• Barbara Batts will be organizing the tents with Ellen Stainback, delivering the local food to the chefs before the event, and coordinating the donation baskets with Kathy Harrelson for the silent auction.
• Allison Belan, designed the website Dinner in the Meadow, while Pat owner of Slick Communications serves as the webmaster and designer of the advertising postcards and banners.
• The McCracken family, Helen, Jessica, Carl, and Janice are coordinating the powder room tent and sourcing the wine for the evening.
• Sarah Loftin will be staffing the registration table with Tammy Manning of the North Carolina DENR who will also be coordinating the inventory of rental items (dishes, forks, etc.).
• Frank Stasio, the host of The State of Things on WUNC radio and friend of Martha Mobley’s late husband will be the host for the evening.

If you are a small-scale North Carolina farm, send in your grant application by July 15, 2016. If you want to support small-scale farms while enjoying a delicious meal of locally grown and raised food, buy your ticket to this year’s Dinner in the Meadow at https://dinnerinthemeadow.org/dinner/.

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Home-canning heirloom tomatoes Part 1 is for people like me who grew up eating store-brand canned tomatoes. In this article you will learn about the difference in taste and quality of commercially-canned tomatoes grown in California from home-canned heirloom tomatoes.
Note: The beautiful tomato pictures in the article posted on the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association Sweet Potato Blog were taken by Lee Newman, a co-host of the Raleigh Tomatopalooza event.

Home-canning heirloom tomatoes Part 2 includes a step by step guide. The take home messages from this article are:

1. Experienced and inexperienced home-canners can greatly benefit from an in-person “Safely Preserving at Home” course offered by their local Cooperative Extension Service county centers.
2. New scientific research, new models of canners, and a better understanding of the ways to reduce foodborne illness make it important to use the most up-to-date canning instructions from trusted resources.
3. The most trusted resource is the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). Download their guidance material at the National Center for Home Food Preservation website at http://nchfp.uga.edu/.
4. Follow the canning recipe exactly as it is written. If you substitute ingredients, attempt to double or halve the recipe, or fail to reach the target temperature for the exact time your jars may not seal properly which could lead to food spoilage, paralysis and death.

Note: I made the beef tajine using the Tajine of Lamb and Tomatoes recipe from Brian Yarvin’s The too many tomatoes cookbook: Classic & Exotic Recipes from around the World. Ingredients included stew meat, garlic, onion, salt, turmeric, whole peeled tomatoes, zucchini, fresh pumpkin, and raisins.

For this article, I had a chance to interview a home-canner who was born and raised in Durham, North Carolina. Here is a little of Teresa Bland’s story. By the age of seven years old, she spent her summer days harvesting fruits and vegetables with her siblings from their 2-acre garden every morning and evening. In the afternoons, Teresa was home-canning multiple batches of food (tomatoes, blackberry jam, green beans etc.) with her Mom. They canned about 100 quarts of food every year which meant that her family of seven only shopped at the grocery for items they couldn’t make themselves such as toilet paper and laundry detergent.

Come join me at the Chapel Hills Farmers Market Tomato Festival on July 16th. I will be providing Carolina Farm Stewardship Association bumper stickers, brochures and organic cherry tomato seeds which was donated to them by Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, copies of my home-canning heirloom tomato articles, and hands on demonstrations of canning equipment. In addition, Craig LeHoullier, the author of The Epic Tomato, will be there to answer all your tomato-related questions. I'm looking forward to meeting him in person!

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Spring is here and it’s time to get fresh fruit, vegetables, meat, eggs, and dairy products from your local farmers’ market! Some of these products get sold out quickly in the day, so arrive early and bring a cooler to keep your items cold while you do the rest of your shopping.

Visit the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association's blog, The Sweet Potato at http://www.carolinafarmstewards.org/getting-ready-for-the-farmers-market-know-your-farmer-know-your-food/ to learn:

• How to identify the percentage of growers vs resellers at your farmers’ market
• Questions to ask your growers, more commonly known as your farmers
• Tips for buying eggs, dairy products, and meat at the farmer’s market
• How to support the farmers who follow the practices you value

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Farmers, consumers and food aggregators from the Piedmont region of North Carolina came together on March 10, 2016 for the Piedmont Grown Annual Conference. The event was hosted by Piedmont Grown, and sponsored by the CEFS initiative NC Growing Together: Connecting Local Foods to Mainstream Markets, the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, USDA, and Organic Valley.

Keynote speaker, Ben Hartman of Clay Bottom Farm, shared the following pieces of wisdom:

1. To be efficient, farmers should store their farm tools in the locations where they are being used rather than storing them within one central shed.
2. It is vital to provide customers what they want, when they want it, and in the quantity they want it.
3. In order to provide this level of service, farmers should go beyond just talking to their customers at the farmers market and community supported agriculture (CSA) pickup locations. For example, Ben Hartman visits his customers’ in their homes so he can watch exactly how they unpack, store and cook his produce.

Three different types of intermediate food buyers were on the Unique Supply Chain Partners Part 1 panel.

First Hands Food, buys cattle and hogs that have been raised outdoors, on pasture without antibiotics or growth hormones in North Carolina. Thirty-five North Carolina cattle farms and eighteen North Carolina Natural Hog Growers Association member farms sell their whole animals to First Hands Food who handle the details of promotional pricing, liability insurance, contracts, and food safety audits. Grocery stores and chefs enjoy working with First Hands Foods because they are guaranteed a steady supply of quality traceable meat that is accompanied with each farmer's story.

Farmer FoodShare provides a match-making service between individual NC small-scale produce farmers and institutional customers that serve people at risk for hunger. Small farmers such as those that belong to the Southern Organic Female Farmers Association in Vance County, learn from Farmer FoodShare how to pack their produce by the case for the ability to sell to food pantries, Durham public schools, and childcare facilities. In return, these institutions have the opportunity to buy Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) certified, local, healthy food and receive training by Farmer FoodShare on how to prepare these fresh vegetables and fruits.

The Sandhills Farm to Table Cooperative connects Sandhill farmers to their neighbors within Moore, Chatham, Cumberland, Harnett, Hoke, Montgomery, Lee, Randolph, Richmond, and Scotland County. Farmers within this cooperative gain a long-term, secure market for their crops, while members of the community gain access to affordable high quality local food. Members of the cooperative receive Sandhills farm news, recipes and storage tips for each fruit/vegetable that comes in their box as well as receive access to cooking demonstrations, canning classes, and community events like co-op You Pick Days, community potlucks, and farm tours.

Patricia Tripp of Artisan Food Solutions was the facilitator for the Good Agricultural Practices (GAPs): Lessons Learned from the Field workshop and also presented information about the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) during the closing session. Sarah Blacklin of NC Choices was on the Packaging and Labeling for Consumer Impact and Compliance panel with Dr. Kathryn Boys of NC State University, and Chris Harris of the North Carolina Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services.

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When Meredith Leigh presented at the 2015 Sustainable Agriculture Conference, I knew I found a kindred fan of bacteria. She said “If you see me standing before you as one individual, one organism you are wrong.” She told the audience about the good bacteria that lives in our human intestines, our mouths, the surface of our eyes, and skin. Without bacteria, our bodies wouldn’t be able to digest and extract minerals and vitamins from our food.

The information below is what I gathered from Meredith Leigh’s presentation, a follow-up one-on-one call with her, and the contents of her book. Her book is the Ethical Meat Handbook: complete home butchery, charcuterie and cooking for the conscious omnivore. The first component of ethical meat is that it comes from an animal that enjoyed a good life.

As part of providing animals a good life, she encourages farmers to allow the animal to act out its natural tendencies. Cattle, pigs, lambs and chickens are best suited to eat food that their bodies were designed to eat, rather than providing them with a high starch grain diet. The second aspect is allowing them enough space for rotational grazing which interrupts the life cycle of parasites that could harm the health of the flock. Better health reduces the need to provide antibiotics indiscriminately to all the animals. She says “Just as you depend on your gut flora to survive, cattle depend on communities of bacteria in their rumens to digest cellulose and other complex compounds in grass.” She says that “consuming so much grain, exposure to harmful bacteria and then being treated with antibiotics- changes the animal’s gut chemistry”. An imbalanced gut chemistry reduces the well-being of the animal as well as the humans that consume the animal.

Another aspect of ethical meat is that the humanely slaughtered animal meat should be properly butchered to maximize the use of the entire animal. Meredith Leigh provides presentations and written guidance for butchers and intrepid home cooks on how to handle large sections of beef, pork, lamb and chicken safely and efficiently. Her book has step by step cutting instructions and black and white pictures which reduces the blood and gore aspect of seeing animal muscles being separated into steaks, strips, ribs and loin chops.

Without the safe cooking and preserving of the well butchered meat that came from animals who had a good life and were humanely slaughtered, the meat would still fall short of being ethical. As meat eaters, we have the opportunity to learn how to cook and prepare meat in new ways that will improve our diets, save money, and provide ourselves with delicious food. This is where charcuterie, which is the science of converting raw meat into preserved meat that has an increased shelf life, enters the conversation.

Although the word charcuterie is unfamiliar term to me, I am well acquainted with the final results. Before, I started choosing to eat meat that was humanely raised, I use to love buying bacon, salami, bologna, liverwurst, and pepperoni from the deli counter at my nearby grocery store. In chapter 4 of the Ethical Meat Handbook, Meredith provides step by step instructions on how I can make my favorite deli meats at home.

As a prior microbiologist who grew Salmonella, Shigella and E.coli 0157 in petri dishes to identify the source of foodborne outbreaks, my favorite chapter is Chapter 4: Charcuterie. In this chapter Meredith Leigh reminds readers that animal meat has bacteria. And for the most part the bacteria is non-harmful just like the types of bacteria that live in our digestive system, mouths, surface of our eyes, and skin. However to protect yourself and those you prepare food for, it is important to reduce the exposure to bacteria that cause foodborne diseases. She reminds shoppers to keep raw meat from touching the vegetables they buy at the farmers market. Raw chicken and turkey meat carry more bacteria than pork, while meat and lamb carry the least amount of bacteria. Therefore, butcher shops and restaurants put eggs and chicken meat on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator to prevent them from dripping on anything else. Pork meat is stored on the second shelf, while beef and lamb get stored on the third highest shelf in the refrigerator.

There are six tools to promote the growth of helpful bacteria such as Lactobacillus, Pediococcus, and Kocuria which are vital for the fermentation and curing of meat, while decreasing the growth of harmful bacteria like Campylobacter, Listeria, and Clostridium botulinum. The toxin of Clostridium botulinum is familiar to me, because while I worked for the Massachusetts Department of Health isolating E.coli 0157 from people who ate improperly cooked hamburgers, my co-workers were isolating C. botulinum from baby food and honey. This bacteria's toxin causes botulism which may lead to paralysis and death. Sorry, I got carried away with bacteria. Here are the six tools:

1. Salt reduces the water activity in the meat and it effects the growth and metabolism of bacteria.
2. Temperature can slow the growth or eliminate harmful microorganisms while promoting the growth of beneficial bacteria.
3. Humidity, which is the moisture in the air, is critical to proper drying of fermented meats.
4. Smoke contains compounds that will slow or stop the ability of bacteria to grow and prevents rot.
5. pH, which is the acidity of a product, affects the bacteria responsible for fermenting, curing, and flavoring the meat.
6. Nitrites and nitrates slow the process of meat becoming rancid and prevent the growth of Clostridium botulinum spores

To prevent these tools from becoming too abstract, let me relay a conversation Meredith Leigh had during one of her previous presentations. A child in the audience said his birthday was coming up. She jokingly suggested he ask his mom for an entire pig carcass. Why? Because he could take the ham leg, bury it in a box with kosher salt for a certain amount of time, and then hang it in his bedroom closet for six to 12 months to create prosciutto. The salt reduces the water activity, and the hanging in a dark cool space with high humidity causes the ham to lose 40% of its weight and therefore becomes safe to eat at room temperature. No cooking involved. Crazy cool, I know.

But why would you want to make your own cold cuts, bacon, or prosciutto? Albeit for me, it sounds like a fun science experiment. The reason is that creating your own deli meats helps small-scale farmers earn a living. In her book, Meredith indicates that transforming ethically raised animal carcasses into chops, and sausages is very expensive for small-scale livestock farmers. This process called the “cut and wrap” happens either at the slaughterhouse, butcher shop, or grocery store. Charcuterie enables the customer to buy and store larger sections of an animal in their own home which helps the small-scale livestock farmer and reduces the customer’s grocery bill.

In conclusion, bacteria play a vital role in helping the bodies of animals and humans digest food. The good bacteria also have vital role in the fermentation and curing to transform raw meat into delicious deli meats. There are important precautions to take to avoid harmful bacteria from causing foodborne illnesses and spoiling the precious meat that has been ethically raised, butchered and prepared.

Note: Meredith Leigh speaks throughout the United States about food, farming, butchery, and cooking. Her audiences include food citizens, chefs, culinary students, farmers, food distributors, and educators. Visit her website to find out how to enroll in her hands-on butchery classes, and meat ethics workshops.

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On Friday night January 8th, the Durham Farm and Food Network (DFFN) had its kick-off event. More than 120 community members interested in improving the local food system in Durham came together at the Duke Memorial Chapel. There was a lot of energy and optimism in the room as we listened to Jared Cates, a Community Mobilizer from the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association and Abbey Piner, a program coordinator of community food strategies from the Center for Environmental Farming Systems.

They explained that the values, structure, and mission of the Durham Farm and Food Network was developed by a community task force that has met monthly since 2014. The goal of the DFF Network is to promote healthy communities, environmental stewardship and economic development in Durham County via the creation of partnerships, development of policy, education and advocacy. After the brief presentation and description of the three levels of involvement, the attendees self-selected themselves into four breakout groups. These action circle groups were “Justice/Food Security/Hunger”, “Farming and Natural Resources”, “Health” and “Economy”.

Due to my experience in epidemiology and public health, I went to the breakout group on “Health” even though I was tempted to be at the “Justice/FoodSecurity/Hunger” and “Farming and Natural Resources” groups at the same time. I wasn’t the only one who had difficulty choosing just one aspect of food to focus on for the night. Fortunately, we were reassured by the facilitators that we could switch breakout groups or belong to multiple Action Circles for subsequent meetings.

To reduce the need to shout across the circle to each other, our “Health” action circle split itself into half. After quick introductions, the facilitator asked us “What changes would you like the action circle to make related to the health and food in Durham?” There were a lot of blank looks for the first few minutes.

Although many of us were interested in health, there were a few of us that felt qualified to identify the major health and food issues in Durham. In the circle, there was an employee of the Durham County Department of Public Health, a North Carolina Central University employee, an Orange County Health Department employee, a medical writer, two dieticians, one social worker, one psychotherapist, a farm church leader, a science writer from Duke University, and an educator for gifted students.

Some of the questions participants in our group asked were, “What is currently being done and by whom?” Were there existing assessments of health status that we could use as starting points? How do we as a fledgling action circle get more diversity among income levels, race and ethnicity to ensure that solutions we propose are beneficial to our whole community?

We ended the action circle discussion with an introduction to Michelle, one of the volunteers who will help set up and organize future “Health” action circle meetings. We then joined the rest of the attendees for a tasty snack of vegetables, mini-sandwiches and desserts donated by the Durham Co-op Market. Many of us left the event with optimism and curiosity for the outcome of future meetings of the Durham Farm and Food Network.

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This review was submitted to Barnes and Noble in 2015, and edited in 2017.

Book’s Background

The Mobile Poultry Slaughterhouse: Building a Humane Chicken Processing Unit to Strengthen Your Local Food System" is a mouthful of a title. It begins with the author Ali Berlow, identifying herself as a housewife who cooks and eats meat. She states upfront that she is not a farmer, a butcher, or a professional meat processor. In each of the eight chapters she provides step by step instructions on how the reader can make “the cycle of life, death and dinner” more humane for the humans and animals involved in local food systems.

How I came about the book

I bought this book at the 2015 Carolina Meat Conference after meeting the author Ali Berlow. As a consumer of chicken raised by local farmers, I wanted to learn how to support the humane treatment of animals raised for meat.

However, I was frightened by the word slaughterhouse in the title. I was not sure if the inside of the book would be too visually disturbing for me. I imagined photographs of blood, dying birds, and scary people wielding giant cleavers. To my relief, when I opened the book, I only saw black and white line drawings. Most of the sketches were of double-sided sinks on wheels, tables, coolers, and drain racks.

Ali Berlow also provided the following definitions on page 37 and 72, to help rein in my imagination: “Slaughter is killing an animal for food”; Processing transform the dead animal into raw food; "butchery is the act that breaks down the raw meat into parts such as thighs, drumsticks and breasts."

Author’s idea and writing craft

This book conveys the author’s sense of humor, and passion for making a difference in her community. Her writing style is approachable and the topics and chapters are broken up in bite size segments that flow well together.

Each chapter is written in the first person with active verbs to keep the reader engaged in the story and caring about the perspectives among the Massachusetts Department of Public Health regulators, chicken workers, farmers and eaters.

What I like about this book is that the author, met me, the reader where I was, and slowly introduced me to new concepts. For example, Ali Berlow talks about her neighbor who buys chicken parts in grocery stores and doesn’t want to be reminded that the meat comes from a living creature with bones and blood. I can relate to the neighbor.

Final Verdict

This is a great book for anyone who eats chicken. The tools and information will help the reader understand the challenges local farmers have in providing safe quality meat to the public.

The Mobile Poultry Slaughterhouse: Building a Humane Chicken Processing Unit to Strengthen Your Local Food System provides local farmers and community members with checklists, tips on how to get permits, and strategies on how to build and use mobile poultry processing trailers in other parts of the country.

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In October, I signed up for a two-day Meat Conference hosted by The Center for Environmental Farming Systems (CEFS) North Carolina Choices. I wasn’t sure what to expect and was worried that I had to pass a meat-eating test to gain entry. Would I be turned away if I admitted I was a picky meat eater? Although, I love the taste and smell of meat, I need to know a lot of information before I feel comfortable indulging. Listed below are three key aspects that are important to me.

1. The meat comes from an animal that was bred to live outdoors, grew at natural rates, had plenty of space and opportunity to act out on its natural behaviors, was fed food that their bodies were equipped to handle, and was only given antibiotics when they were sick.
2. The meat was processed, and stored according to proper food safety guidelines to prevent the spread of verotoxigenic E. coli, Salmonella, parasites and viruses.
3. The meat is enjoyable to eat and is familiar to my taste buds.

Fortunately, the eating of meat wasn’t a big focus at the event. Instead the focus was on bringing together all the stakeholders of small-scale meat production. Farmers raising animals on a small-scale, owners of small-scale meat processing facilities, state food inspectors, butchers, and chefs gave presentations, networked and exchanged information.

During the What’s the Buzz? Examining the Controversy over Production Practices presentation, panelists spoke about the options cattle farmers have for feeding their animals: grass, a combination of grass and grains, concentrated feed, genetically modified grains. The decisions about animal feed, and whether to use hormones and antibiotics are driven by consumer demand as well as agricultural policies and regulations.

The panelists of the Inspected and Exempt Poultry: Options and Obstacles included a turkey farmer, a manager of a small-scale meat processing facility, the director of the state Meat and Poultry Inspection Division, and an activist who helped her community build a mobile poultry slaughterhouse. Each person discussed the advantages and disadvantages for each of the options that small-scale farmers have for slaughtering and processing their poultry for commercial consumption.

During the Heritage Breeds and Pasture-Based Pork Carcass Quality: Research and Field Update a chef presented the results of a research study he conducted evaluating the meat yields from eight different heritage breeds that had been raised on pasture. This information was followed by a panel discussion that discussed efforts to identify and quantify the value of high-performing breeds of hogs.

The workshops Personal Story-Conserving Land through Pasture Networks with the founder of a farmers cooperative in West Virginia, and Meeting Demand-Scaling Up over 15 Years by a farmer who raises grassfed pasture-based pork while buying and selling pasture-based beef from select farmers highlighted success stories and challenges of small-scale farmers.

The content provided during the workshops, literature at the information tables, and the one-on-one conversations, I had with people I met at the Meat Conference have provided me a rare glimpse into the production of meat. I look forward to sharing specific ways you and I can support the animals, people and groups involved with the production of small-scale quality meat in 2016.

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Check out my video "Do you know who owns your favorite meat brands?"

If your browser doesn't support this video element, you can watch this video on YouTube.

Hi, my name is Ciranna Bird.

I’m here to talk about the pork products that may be served at your upcoming holiday parties, family gatherings and New Year’s Eve celebrations.

Do you know who owns the following meat brands: Smithfield®, Farmland®, Gwaltney®, John Morrell®, Eckrich®, Nathan’s Famous®, Armour®, Carando®, Margherita®, Healthy Ones®, Kretschmar®, and Cook’s®?

The answer is Smithfield Foods.

• Smithfield Foods sells bacon under many different brand names including Smithfield®, Farmland®, Gwaltney® and John Morrell®. Their tag lines include “Good Food. Responsibly®” and “Passion for Pork since 1959®”.
• Smithfield Foods sells hot dogs under the brand Nathan’s Famous® and breakfast sausages by Eckrich®, Farmland®, and John Morrell®.
• Smithfield Foods’ dry sausage, which includes salami, pepperoni, and bologna, are sold under the brand name’s Armour®, Carando®, and Margherita®

Smithfield Foods sells its pork products under many different brand names.

• Smithfield Foods sells deli meat under the brand names Carando® Classic Italian™, Eckrich® since 1894, Healthy Ones®, Kretschmar® and Margherita® for true Italian taste.
• Smithfield Food sells spiral hams, bone-in and boneless hams under the brand names Smithfield®, Cook’s® Cook’s ham. Always good to the bone®, Farmland® passion for pork since 1959®, and John Morrell®.

Therefore, if you eat bacon, pigs in a blanket, or slices of bologna, pepperoni, genoa salami, hard salami, capicola, prosciutto, mortadella, pancetta or ham at your holiday party you may be eating a product of Smithfield Foods.

But do you know who owns Smithfield Foods?

Smithfield Foods is owned by WH group, which was formally known as the Shuanghui International. After the buyout of Smithfield foods in 2013, Shuanghui International changed its name to WH Group, according to their http://www.wh-group.com/en/about/profile.php website “to reflect its emerging global reach and aspirations as a world-leading brand”. WH Group is also the majority owner of the Shuanghui Group, which is China’s largest meat processing enterprise.

Therefore, the profits from the meat brands, you have grown to know and trust, are no longer staying in the United States. Perhaps it’s time to buy your pork delicacies from local small-scale farmers.

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On Saturday December 5th, I ate and danced at the Annual Farmers Ball in Greenville, NC. The theme of the ball was Local Farmers: "Helping People Control their Health". The event brought together farmers, eaters and community leaders to celebrate the role access to local food has in improving personal health, communities and the economy.

Presenters spoke of the challenges of being a farmer which included headwinds, recession, competition from foreign companies, weather, and cost of fertilizer and equipment. Burt James, President of NC Crop and Soil, said there are bumps in the road but rallied the listeners by saying “we are farmers”. Maxine White, the Executive Director of the Coalition for Healthier Eating, said “small scale farmers don’t have the luxury of selling their products dirt cheap, because it costs so much to produce.” While the recipient of the 2015 Farmer of the Year award, Mr. Robert D. Glover, said he became an organic farmer because “farming has been good to me... most days” and not because there is a lot of money to earn.

Mini-pork sandwiches were provided as an appetizer. The pork was raised by Maxine White. The dinner included vegetables (fresh green beans, kale, and sweet potatoes) grown by the Conetoe Family Center and Farm and the Robert & Wade Glover Organic Farm, chicken and grass-fed beef. The waiters and waitresses were students from the North Pitt High School.

Rosa Joyner Steele, Renee Hopkins, and Minnie Deloatch (Bunch), a farmer who has farmed her entire life, high school senior Tobias, fifth grader Ireonna, and sixth grader Tationa kept our table conversation lively. As part of the presentations, Tationa and Tobias who are active participants of the Conetoe Family Life Center and Farm went up to the podium and spoke about their experience at the Family Life Center and their desire to keep their families healthy by growing fresh local food.

At the end of the evening, every attendee received a bag of farm fresh groceries. The items in the bag included a half dozen eggs, a package of Carolina grits, pork sausage, ground beef, fresh broccoli and an entire frozen chicken. This generous gift was supported by local farmers, the USDA Rural Development, AgriMarketingNC, and the Coalition for Healthier Eating.

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Published in the AMWA Journal Volume 30 Number 3 / Fall 2015

Evelyn Ishmael and I discussed the American Medical Writers Association (AMWA) tools that have helped advance our medical writing freelance careers.
Evvie noted the following tools:

• Guidelines for Document Designers, with a foreword by Ginny Redish
• Toolkit for New Medical Writers
• Volunteering for AMWA committees helps her connect with likeminded peers

• AMWA journal with the freelance forum section where people share their experience
• Webinars on how to use Twitter and Google+
• Volunteering for my local AMWA chapter to help increase my confidence leading LinkedIn groups and working with WordPress content management systems

Listen to the audio at http://amwa.podbean.com/e/amwa-voices-9 to hear about my time at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health digging through other peoples' fecal samples to find bacteria that cause foodborne diseases. I also share the aspects of medical writing that I love, as well as my interest in North Carolina farms, and animals involved in food production.

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Most likely you know about the flu that affects you and me. The human flu, gives us runny noses, coughs, sore throats and fevers. At this time of year, our doctors and local pharmacies offer us flu shots to protect us from the human influenza virus.

But did you know there is a flu that only affects birds? This type of flu virus spreads easily from bird to bird and causes sickness in many different birds including chickens and turkeys.

I'm not a bird, why should I care about the bird flu?

Thanks to the bird flu, eggs costs twice as much as they used to. According to the New York Times, cookie dough, cake mixes, and ice cream with eggs could also become more expensive. We might also have a hard time finding a turkey this Thanksgiving.

33 million birds being raised for human food died because of the bird flu. These deaths were in the mid-western part of the United States with Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota being the hardest hit states.

Chicken, turkey, and duck farmers in North Carolina have been told that the deadly bird flu may come to the eastern part of the United States this fall.

Is the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) a type of bird flu?

Yes, but it sure is a mouthful of confusing words. Let's break this down a bit.
According to the dictionary, items that are relating to birds are called "avian". Therefore, avian influenza is the 'bird flu'. Bird flu, avian influenza, is easily spread from bird to bird.

Listed below are the two types of bird flu.

1. Bird flu with a low ability to cause disease among birds. This type is called low pathogenic (LP)
2. Bird flu that is highly able to cause disease and death among birds. This type is called highly pathogenic (HP)

Highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) is the type of bird flu that kills the chickens and turkeys, many of us depend on for meat and eggs.

How do you say out loud the bird flu abbreviations?

AI, the abbreviation for avian influenza, sounds like ‘aye-eye’.

At the the North Carolina regional meetings for backyard poultry farmers, I’ve heard HPAI spoken out loud as H-pee-eye, H-pee-aye-eye and high path aye-eye.

How have you heard these abbreviations pronounced?

When people say the word Avian out loud it sounds like 'aye-vee-n'. The word pathogenic sounds like 'path-oh-jen-ick'.

What does H5N1 or H5N2 or H5N3 or H5N6 or H5N8 mean?

Scientists use this combination of letters and numbers to identify the influenza virus subtype. This level of detail is not needed for the everyday person.

The letter ‘H’ stands for the virus protein, hemagglutinin. There are 18 different versions of this protein. H1, H2, H3…H18

The letter ‘N’ stands for the virus protein, Neuraminidase. There are eleven versions of this protein. N1, N2, N3…N11

Summary

Bird flu is a disease that affects birds. Bird flu is also called avian influenza (AI). This year, there was an outbreak of the type of bird flu that was highly capable of causing disease and death. The deaths of chickens, turkeys, and ducks in the Western part of the United States will impact the cost of meat and eggs for most of us.

Listed below are some of the agencies involved with the North Carolina response to the bird flu, highly pathogenic avian influenza(HPAI).

• The Carolina Farm Stewardship Association member poultry farms
• The North Carolina Department of Agricultural and Consumer services
• The North Carolina State University (NCSU) College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Agricultural and Extension Education and the Prestage Department of Poultry Science
• The NCSU College of Veterinary Medicine

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Last week, I was disappointed to hear that the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association (CFSA) cancelled their annual North Carolina Eastern Triangle Farm Tour. However, when I learned the reason why the tour was cancelled my disappointment transformed into respect for the selflessness of the CFSA staff, and participating farmers. They chose to lose the annual tour momentum and opportunity to showcase their farms because it was more important to them to protect their neighbor’s chicken, ducks, and turkeys from the bird flu. Wow.

I would like to share with you three gifts, I gained from attending the 2014 self-guided 9th Annual Eastern Triangle Farm Tour.

1. Seeing the variety of farms near my home in North Carolina
2. Understanding my choices as a customer who eats animals
3. Building relationships with farmers who care for the well-being of the animals they raise

1. Seeing the variety of farms near my home in North Carolina

I bought my button ticket at Whole Foods in August, and received a map with descriptions of twenty-seven participating farms in the Eastern Triangle area of North Carolina. The brochure had the names of farmers, contact information, and highlights for each farm, which helped me narrow down my choices. When I was traveling between farms, I drove through parts of North Carolina I wouldn’t have seen if not for the self-guided tour. I passed local election signs for sheriff, tobacco farms, and busy sections of highway lined with fast food restaurants and tattoo shops.

There was great variety among the four farms I saw that weekend. My first stop was Vollmer Farm, in Bunn, North Carolina. This place was built to be a destination for families with young children with a market, ice cream store, and permanent springy orange trampoline. Highlights of my visit included walking through the pumpkin patch, and riding in a canopy covered wagon pulled by a shiny tractor.

Next, I went to the Rare Earth Farm, where I joined a tour group being conducted via a minibus that drove into the expansive fields where the cows grazed. Farmer Karl Hudson was excellent at answering questions, especially from a woman on the tour who was interested in knowing if the animals were fed organic, non-genetically modified crops.

He brought the tour group to an enclosure containing an Ossabaw pig with her piglets. The grass was so tall I could barely see the little ones. In another section we saw a Mulefoot pig and her piglets in a wooden enclosure. The mother pig was curious and was sticking her snout out through the wood slats. I was tempted to touch her, but I resisted the urge.

Upon pulling into the long driveway of Meadow Lane Farm, in Louisburg, NC, I saw a bright yellow sign with black lettering indicating that there was a “Working Livestock Guardian Dog” on the premises. I didn’t know what to expect. Would I encounter a large territorial dog mistaking me for being a coyote coming to harm their sheep and goats? The answer was no. These gentle Australian Sheepdogs, were shy and rolled on their back to expose their bellies when approached by human visitors.

I received a walking tour from Donna, the god-daughter of the owner of the farm, Martha Mobley. I was amazed by the amount of space, and numerous wooden buildings. On the side of one barn I could see pale blue lettering with the letters “GUN----K-” where Gunsmoke, the bull, used to live. There were old fashioned bathtubs in the fields which served as watering troughs for the animals.

I saw farm equipment up close including a New Holland 355 tractor with a red silo device, and a yellow-colored, flat device with wheels. I took a picture of my foot on the flat device to use as a size reference, and help me remember the name, so I could decipher what the equipment was used for. After an internet search, I learned that I was looking at a super-sized lawn mower.

The last farm I visited as part of the Eastern Triangle Farm tour, was the Homestead Harvest Farm, in Wake Forest, NC. I was given disposable blue booties to wear over my sneakers for biosecurity precautions. These shoe coverings lowered the chances that I would track harmful bacteria and viruses into this farm, owned by Jan Campbell.

I took tons of pictures when we came to a 16-foot square pen containing a mother and her piglets. The piglets were adorable. In addition to the 16-foot area, the sow was able to go into the larger paddock to reach the mud puddles that would help her cool off. At the end of tour, I threw away the shoe coverings in a designated trash barrel, therefore reducing the chances that I would carry harmful bacteria and viruses home to my husband and dog.

2. Understanding my choices as a customer who eats animals

At the Eastern Triangle Farm (ETF) stops, I collected handouts. An article by Doris Lin, helped me understand the distinction between feedlot beef, organic beef, and grass-finished beef. I read about the health benefits of grass finished beef and have price lists for beef and lamb that are hormone, steroid, and antibiotic free.

During the Rare Earth Farms tour, I learned that being ‘Animal Welfare Approved’ entails an inspection every 11 months. I like knowing that the farmers participating in the Animal Welfare Approved program are willing and ready for veterinarians to inspect the farm at every stage of production.

At the Homestead Harvest Farm, I saw adult pigs with their curly tails intact. Before going on the ETF tour, I had read that factory farms cut off piglet's tails to prevent them from being eaten by other pigs. None of the pigs at Homestead Harvest Farm had tails that were nibbled on by their neighbors, nor did they have painful rings or staples in their sensitive snouts, which some farmers use to discourage the pigs from digging in the dirt.

In addition, to healthy pigs, farmer Jan Campbell, explained the difference between her Freedom Ranger chickens, and the Cornish Rock hybrids chickens raised in factory farms. Freedom Ranger chickens take longer to mature which allows their skeletal system to have the time to become strong enough to support the chicken's body weight. A natural growing rate enables the chickens at Homestead Harvest Farm to be able to stand, walk, mate and live for years, unlike their factory-farmed counterparts.

3. Building relationships with farmers who care for the well-being of the animals they raise

At every stop on the self-guided ETF tour, I met the farm owners. I saw first-hand how big their property was, how vast their responsibilities were, and how much they cared for the well-being of the animals they raised.

This past Thanksgiving, I returned to Homestead Harvest Farm to buy my first pasture-raised heritage turkey. The cost was well worth the delicious taste and the knowledge that the turkey had lived the type of life that matched my ethical beliefs.

While I’m waiting for my turn at the Rare Earth Farm's booth at the NC State Farmer’s market, I rave to other customers about my experience at their farm. When my husband and I have out-of-town visitors with young children, I recommend a trip to Vollmer farms. For pictures of beautiful historic barns, I pull out the ones I took at Meadow Lane Farm.

I am grateful to the volunteers at the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association (CSFA), and farmers for the wonderful gifts I gained in attending the 2014 CFSA Eastern Triangle Farm tour. My heart goes out to the farmers, Carolina Farm Stewardship staff, volunteers and sponsors that had prepared for this year's exciting event only to be thwarted by bird flu concerns.

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Check out my video to learn how the agricultural-gag will affect you!

If your browser doesn't support this video element, you can watch this video on YouTube.

Do you eat pork chops, ribs, bacon, salami, bologna, or hot dogs? Most likely your pork comes from North Carolina, which is a top producer of pigs in the United States. A Property Protection Act, known by its opponents as the Agriculture-Gag (Ag-Gag) law will be effective January 2016. This law will allow companies to stifle the exposure of illegal animal abuse, and food safety issues at their hog raising facilities within North Carolina.

Who benefits from the Property Protection Act? Owners or operators of premises within North Carolina benefit at the expense of the well-being of their employees and customers.

How does the General Assembly of North Carolina House Bill 405 Property Protection Act work? The act states that court system[s] may allow [business owners who sue their employees] to collect damages up to $5,000 per day from [their] employees who enter nonpublic areas of the premises and do one of the actions listed below:

1. Capture/remove employer's data, records, or any other documents, without authorization, and uses the information to breach the person's duty of loyalty to the employer.
2. Record images or sound, without authorization, and uses the recording to breach the person’s duty of loyalty to the employer.
3. Knowingly or intentionally places an unattended camera or electronic surveillance device within the nonpublic areas of an employer’s premise.

At first glance, this law seems a reasonable way to prevent businesses from getting trade secrets on their competitors. But that’s not what this law was intended for. It’s to deter whistleblowers like the two examples listed below, from providing evidence of illegal or inhumane actions occurring in their employers’ facilities.

1. A Pacific Gas and Electric ex-employee provided a company memo to Erin Brokovich. This document proved the company had been aware of the toxic Chromium 6 leaking into the ground water of Hinkley, California. This key evidence forced the company to pay "the largest toxic tort injury settlement in US history to more than 600 Hinkley residents.”
2. The 2010 undercover video at Smithfield Foods, by the US Humane Society, educates consumers about the inhumane conditions of gestation crates. The Undercover video at Smithfield Foods was a turning point for consumers and has led toward movement to phase out the use of gestation crates.

Protect the quality of your pork and demand your right to know what goes on in the production of your meat! There is hope; a similar ag-gag bill in Idaho was just deemed a violation of the first amendment and the Equal Protection Clause.

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It’s time to walk among the rows of strawberry plants at the Collard Patch to pick as many glossy, dark red strawberries as you wish. This patch is full of cultivar Fragaria x ananassa ‘Chandler’ strawberries, which are large, firm berries with an exceptional flavor profile. These strawberries are best eaten or frozen within a few days of being picked.

As soon as you see this article, get into your car and drive to 7012 Pulley Town Rd. - Wake Forest, N.C. because the strawberry season which usually lasts 6-7 weeks in North Carolina, started a little later this year due to the cold weather. Once the temperature hits 92 degrees Fahrenheit, the plants will start shutting down and you will have missed out on tasty strawberries for the year.

Why go to the Collard Patch for your strawberries?

This is your chance to meet Hal Gurley, a true local of North Carolina in the Triangle area. There are a lot of people who have moved from the north and the south to Wake Forest, but Hal is not one of them. He was born within eyesight of where he lives today.

Hal has noticed that the knowledge and interest in picking food tends to be with the elder generation. During one conversation, he tells me that he has customers picking the Purple Hull Pinkeye Cowpeas that are in their 80’s. Unfortunately, one just got a pace maker and can no longer pick. It’s a shame their kids aren’t picking the produce. He says, “They like to eat, don’t they? They pull themselves up to the table, don’t they?”

Hal speaks from experience. At the age of six, Hal drove an International Harvester Farmall tractor through the fields of his family’s tobacco farm. By the age of 12 years old he was priming/breaking off the lower leaves of the tobacco plants according to their ripeness. Hal was raised to pull his own weight and enjoys seeing children helping their parents.

Perhaps this strawberry season will be a time to see young children (who are at the best height for these 8 inch tall strawberry plants) picking fruit side by side with their parents.

As, Wendy Perry wrote in the March 2015 issue of Our State © Down Home in North Carolina magazine “If you’re the kind of person who wants to go a step further than a farmers market… to eat something fresh from the good soil it grew in, you want to find Hal Gurley and his collard patch in Wake Forest.”

Five Fun facts about Hal:

1. His favorite band is Blackberry Smoke.
2. At the age of 44 years old, he married Betty-Ann.
3. He adopted an outdoor cat named Moonbeam that had been abandoned by his neighbors.
4. When referring to farming he says “This is my hunting, fishing, and golfing all rolled into one. This is what I likes to do.”
5. He loves roasted garlic and says “The difference between roasted garlic and raw garlic is like the difference between chocolate cake and pickles.”

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Before I stepped off the bus at the entrance of the 2013 North Carolina State Fair, I knew I wanted to visit the milking booth. I had seen the activity listed on the North Carolina State Fair website, and thought it would be the perfect way to embrace the farm-based culture of my new home state.

Here are five tips I wish I had known before I milked my first cow.

1. Borrow a child to legitimize the reason why you, as an adult, are waiting in line to milk a cow.
2. Expect the cows to be bony.
3. Avoid asking the eye-rolling question, “Why are the dairy cows pregnant?”
4. Do not be alarmed; cow teats do not respond when you squeeze them.
5. Ignorance was bliss; learning about the quality of dairy cows’ lives is unsettling.

1. Borrow a child.

I noticed something strange when I entered the Exhibition Hall.

To my surprise the line for cow milking was filled with children. Could I be the only adult unaccompanied by a child who wanted to milk a dairy cow? Perhaps not everyone at the fair had as little exposure to dairy cows as I did. I had grown up in a small suburb in New Jersey known for its woods, man-made lakes and easy commute to New York City. My ten years of living in a Boston, Massachusetts neighborhood, where I relied on the subway systems and buses to travel to graduate school and work, did not provide many cow sightings either.

Putting aside any twinges of self-consciousness, I began to observe the scenery. In front of me was a stall filled with six black-and-white marked dairy cows and North Carolina State University students, wearing jeans and red T-shirts. The student volunteers were scurrying around with pitchforks hastily picking up recently dropped cow patties, while the children in front of me giggled at each bodily function they observed.

2. Dairy cows are bony.

The cows were facing the wall and I was able to notice how bony their hindquarters were. Their backbones were higher than the rest of their back, and the top of their hips almost looked square. It appeared that each cow was hanging from their backbone like it was a curtain rod. I wondered, are they being given enough food?

I was reassured that these cows were well-fed. Holstein and Jersey dairy cows tend to be thin when they are lactating (secreting milk). These breeds are able to produce large volumes of milk, unlike Angus beef cattle which have been bred to store energy reserves in their fat and muscles.

The name of each cow, their due date and daily amount of milk was hand-written on small signs. Bobbi Jo secretes fifty-five pounds of milk a day, while Amelia secretes sixty pounds of milk. This information didn’t mean much to me because as a consumer, I buy my milk by the volume (pints and gallons).

When I got home, I conducted an internet search and found the USDA Agricultural Handbook Weights Measures, and Conversion Factors for Agricultural Commodities and their Products. I used the handbook's milk conversion factor to calculate that sixty pounds of unprocessed milk is equivalent to seven gallons of unprocessed milk.

3. Why are the dairy cows pregnant?

The information on the hand-written signs indicated that two cows had an "open" due date, while the remaining four cows in the milking exhibit had a definitive due date. What an interesting coincidence that the majority of cows in the exhibit were pregnant, I thought to myself.

When it was my turn to enter the pen, I asked the exhibit volunteer, “Why are so many of the cows pregnant?” The college volunteer, said that “cows only produce milk after they have produced a calf”. My ears burned a little, and I was thankful she hadn’t rolled her eyes at me. I couldn’t believe that I had forgotten that female cows produced milk to feed their calves, not to provide the milk for my smoked mozzarella cheese, and chocolate Lactaid ice cream.

Dairy cows are impregnated when they are 14 months old and typically have their first calf by the age of two. Pregnancy lasts 285 days which is a few weeks longer than the nine month pregnancy term women have. After they have calved their first cow they begin lactating large volumes of milk. The authors of the Dairy Moos August 2013 blog article, says that U.S. cow produces an average of 8 gallons of milk a day, while a baby calf only needs two gallons of milk a day.

To ensure dairy cows lactate a continual supply of milk, they are impregnated two months after they give birth. These months in between pregnancy are referred to as "open months" and allow the cow a dry period to rejuvenate her mammary glands. If I was pregnant every year of my life while secreting 400% of the milk needed for a newborn, I would be bony too.

4. Do not be alarmed; cow teats do not respond when squeezed.

After squirting a dollop of antimicrobial gel into my hands, the volunteer led me to the left side of a cow. The right side of ‘my’ cow was already being milked by another fair participant. The teats, which are equivalent to nipples in humans, were cylindrically shaped. The volunteer said “Gently grasp the teats with your thumbs and forefingers. Use an even pressure while sliding your fingers down the length of the teat.” I followed her instructions and successfully added milk to the designated bucket.

As a woman, I couldn’t help but draw parallels between the cow’s teats and my own nipples. Although both are velvety-soft, the cow’s teats didn’t have areolas. The teats on 'my' cow did not stiffen or change in color when I grasped them. Weird.

As my scientific observations waned, I realized squeezing cow teats felt too personal. I hadn’t even seen this particular cow’s face and here I was grasping on a body part which was intended for bonding between her and her babies. I stopped milking, and used the rest of my allotted time to pet ‘my’ cow.

As I walked out of the pen, I felt elated. I had petted a cow, I mean milked a cow. With another squirt of hand sanitizer, I walked to the bleachers to sit down for the Southwest Farmers Mobile Dairy Classroom presentation.

The twenty-minute Dairy Classroom involved a human presenter, a Jersey cow named Marybeth, and an unnamed helper who applied Betadine before attaching the milking pump to Marybeth’s four teats.

The demonstration was enjoyable until the following question was asked “What happens to a female dairy cow once she stops producing the expected volume of milk a day?” The presenter said, “She begins to work at McDonalds.” I was horrified and at the same time wondered to myself if a dairy cow tastes different than a non-dairy cow.

5. Ignorance over the welfare of dairy cows was bliss.

At the age of four or five, dairy cows are sold to market. According to the Illini Dairy Net Market Cows: A Potential Profit Center article, over 1 billion pounds of meat taken from culled dairy cows became ground beef, tenderloins, rib eyes, and strip loins in 1998.

The USDA Dairy 2007 Reference Guide, says that the top four reasons why dairy cows are sold to markets, stockyards, and slaughter plants are because they:

• Are not producing enough milk [to offset the cost of their feed and care]
• Have [chronic] udder or clinical mastitis
• Are lame [suffer severe foot or leg problems]
• Have fertility problems

Mastitis is an inflammation of the udder or uterus which can be caused by bacterial infections. The DairyCo Organization says that clinical symptoms may include a “swollen, hot, hard, red, and painful” udder as well as secretion of watery milk that “may have flakes, clots or pus. Because the inflammation is treated with an infusion of antibiotics, the bacterial-laden milk flushed from the cow is kept out of the human food supply. According to the Lactation Biology website, this milk containing antibiotics is either discarded or fed to calves.

Female calves, heifers, are fed a liquid diet via a bucket or bottle because they have been separated from their mothers within the first 24 hours of their life. In fact, fifty-six percent of 2,519 dairy operations surveyed “removed newborn heifer calves immediately after calving”. These heifers, raised as replacement dairy cows, were fed colostrum, and a combination of waste milk (35%), whole saleable milk (14%), milk replacer (19%), and milk replacer containing antibiotics (49%).

The future for male calves, does not include becoming pregnant for ten out of twelve months each year while simultaneously lactating 69 pounds of milk every day. Instead, if they aren’t needed to become a bull stud and veal prices are too low then they receive the fate described in the 2003 Guardian newspaper article entitled Dairy Monsters written by Ann Karpf. She wrote that "…most are killed within a couple of weeks for baby food or pies, to make rennet, or sent to rendering plants to be turned into tallow or grease, or in other countries, animal feed.”

Unsettled by reality

It has taken me a year to accept that the peaceful life of dairy cows I had envisioned, was just an illusion.

For the first few months after the milking event, I was in denial. I thought, surely, if the situation was so dire for dairy cows, someone would have told me. Then I got angry. How could I have lived so many years consuming products that are derived from an unsustainable system?

• I blamed the USDA’s food pyramid for encouraging me to eat yogurt, cheese, chocolate, and ice cream. If they hadn’t told me in school that dairy was one of the five essential food groups, I wouldn’t equate dairy with wholesome nutrition.
• I blamed the dairy brands for using images of cartoon cows, and picturesque farms. The pictures gave me the wrong impression.
• I blamed myself for not being interested in the well-being of cows until now. How could I have been so apathetic?

After I burned off some of my anger, I considered becoming a vegan. If I abstained from eating yogurt, ice cream, chocolate, eggnog, and smoked mozzarella, then perhaps I wouldn’t have to feel responsible for dairy cows’ poor quality of life. However, I quickly recognized my "all or nothing" thinking had some faulty logic. How would depriving myself of delicious food help the thousands of cows currently living in dairy operations?

Moving beyond acceptance

I caught a glimpse of hard-working dairy farmers in Emily Chaplin’s Cows of Iredell County photo essay, published in the June 2014 Our State® North Carolina magazine. Unlike my limited exposure to cows, these families have spent generations caring for their cows. Perhaps I will interview a local dairy farmer to gain their insight on how to promote a sustainable dairy industry, while reducing the relentless pressure on dairy cows to lactate pounds and pounds of milk.

As I struggle, to find constructive ways to improve the quality of life for dairy cows, I am planning my trip to this year's North Carolina State Fair, which begins on October 16, 2014.

What activities do I want to see? How can I arrive more prepared than I was last year?

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Today is my seventh day in North Carolina. Everything is new, the roads are unfamiliar, and my sense of adventure is high. I’ve obtained addresses to local farms from the Visit Raleigh website in hopes of picking out the perfect pumpkins.

My GPS guides me along back roads until it says my destination, the “Collard Patch”, is on the left. However, I’m not so convinced that I have arrived, because all I see is a house with an unpaved driveway that leads to an independent garage made out of cinder block. I cautiously pull into the driveway hoping that I'm not trespassing on someone's land. There is no one in sight. As I begin to turn my car around one, of the garage doors begins to open. When I pause my car, a man slowly approaches the passenger side of my car. He appears to be in his mid-forties to mid-fifties and is wearing pants, a ball cap, and a long tan T-shirt that looks soft from years of washing. He has a small trim mustache, hair that reaches his collarbone, and square-shaped eyeglasses. He introduces himself as Hal, assures me that this is the Collard Patch and that his farm stand is open.

I ask if he has any pumpkins for sale. His southern accent and long reply reminds me that I am no longer in Massachusetts. He says, “They [pumpkins] are everywhere, and by the time Halloween arrives everyone has their pumpkins, and people don’t cook pumpkins around here, so then he is stuck with a bunch of pumpkins.” Instead of orange squash, he grows collard greens, cabbage, and sweet potatoes.

I decide that the least I can do is make a small purchase, because Hal has taken the time out of his day to provide instructions to a farm down the road that may sell pumpkins. I turn the engine off, get out of my car, and walk toward his garage with a half-hearted interest in a cabbage or a few sweet potatoes. To my surprise, there are no cabbages on his tables. Instead, he offers to bring me into the field and directs me to the passenger side of a golf cart. After I climb in, we take off into the farmland.

As an untrusting person, who has watched too many Criminal Mind shows including the two-part pig farm episode, I begin to question my street smarts. Why have I left my car? And how far are we going? And would anyone even know I’ve disappeared since I’m new to Raleigh?

Putting aside my self-doubts, I begin enjoying the trip. I'm a passenger on a golf cart riding through rows of collard greens (the leaves are massive). This is fun! Along the way, Hal provides a steady stream of information on how to prepare and cook collard greens, his experience eating roasted garlic for the first time in his life, and about the broccoli, onion and strawberry crops that will be ready soon. His enthusiasm for growing, cooking, and eating fresh food is infectious.

We get out of the golf cart, when we arrive at the rows of cabbage. In response to his question about which plant I want, I point to a very small one. He assures me that I would like a larger cabbage because I could cook half of it and use the rest for coleslaw.

He uses a Swiss army knife to slice the cabbage off its stalk and hands me the plant. It’s heavy and the green leaves are beautiful. I feel like I’ve won a prize and picture myself wearing a sash like a beauty pageant winner.

On the return trip through the fields, I ask him how long he has been a farmer. He tells me he used to work in electronics, while growing collards part-time. When his job and his co-workers' jobs went overseas, he decided to become a full-time farmer. He credits his success to the encouragement of his wife, and his mama (Maw-muh), who is his number-one supporter.

After paying a minimal amount of money, I pull out of Hal's unpaved driveway and leave the Collard Patch feeling content and that the world is a great place to be.