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A quiet revolution has redefined
Iowa’s food culture, connecting farmers and consumers
like never before. Yet the local-food movement is just beginning
to flex its collective muscles to tackle the next set of challenges
to become a sustainable and consistent part of the food system.
“In the last 10 to 20 years, the focus of local foods
has been on consumers, and we need to celebrate these successes,”
said Kamyar Enshayan, coordinator of the University of Northern
Iowa’s (UNI) Local Food Project. Enshayan addressed
attendees at a regional foods workshop during the Leopold
Center for Sustainable Agriculture’s 20th anniversary
celebration recently in Ames, Iowa. “Now we need to
help farmers capitalize on their market power.”
The successes are many, agreed fellow panelist Neil Hamilton,
director of the Drake University Agricultural Law Center in
Des Moines. One of the most visible changes in Iowa agriculture
spearheaded by the Leopold Center includes the local-food
movement, which began to take hold in Iowa in the 1990s. “When
the Leopold Center celebrated its 10th anniversary, one of
the most memorable events was the meal of locally grown food,”
Hamilton said. “This was the first time the Scheman
Center at Iowa State University had been asked to serve local
food. The farmers who raised the food were introduced, and
the whole event was moving and powerful.”
CSAs and institutions lead the charge
In some ways, the local-food movement has become more successful
than its pioneers ever envisioned. Consider community supported
agriculture (CSA), which has been one of the key building
blocks. “It’s a huge challenge to meet the demand,”
said panelist Susan Jutz, who owns and operates ZJ Farm near
Solon, Iowa, and Local Harvest CSA, which includes nearly
200 members. “Even five years ago I’d never have
believed that consumers would be so interested in buying local
food.”
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"The concept of buying locally
just wasn’t out there. People would hear 'CSA' and
thought you worked for the CIA." |
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When Jutz began her CSA in 1997 with 18 families, few people
knew what CSAs were. Though she never advertised, Jutz would
speak about the CSA concept to anyone who would listen –
including church and civic groups – in order to educate
the public. “The concept of buying locally just wasn’t
out there. People would hear 'CSA' and thought you worked
for the CIA.”
A great deal of education was also required to encourage
institutions to buy food locally. When Iowa’s Local
Food Project began working 10 years ago with the University
of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls, Allen Memorial Hospital in
Waterloo, Iowa, and Rudy’s Tacos in Waterloo, the three
institutions purchased $100,000 worth of local food per year.
“This past year I worked with 27 institutional buyers,
including area grocery stores, who bought $881,000 of local
foods from farmers primarily in a four-county area,”
said Enshayan, noting that the 2003 launch of the “Buy
Fresh, Buy Local” campaign helped to make local food
and local farmers significantly more visible.
What’s missing
While the local-food movement has come a long way, it still
has a long way to go. Some of the biggest areas of concern
include:
Labor issues.
Many producers depend on their children and/or interns for
their farm labor. “We haven’t figured out how
to get experienced, affordable, consistent labor,”
Jutz said. Paying skilled, reliable workers also creates
financial challenges for the farm family. To compensate
employees adequately, Jutz has to sacrifice some of the
income her family needs to meet basic expenses like the
mortgage and everyday living costs.
Lack of producers to fill
the demand. Jutz believes the local-food
movement requires more young people who are able and willing
to start farming, as well as mid-sized farmers who are willing
to convert some of their acres to vegetable and fruit production.
The local-food movement also needs a full-scale program
that provides the technical expertise young farm families
need to survive, Enshayan added.
Inadequate health insurance.
While this is a challenge for any self-employed person,
it’s especially a problem in agriculture, where profit
margins can be slim. While it may appear that demand exceeding
supply would be a nice problem to have, solving the issue
isn’t as simple as raising the price of CSA shares,
said Jutz, who noted that food needs to be affordable. Many
CSA members are older adults on fixed incomes, and shares
that become too expensive may exclude many working families,
as well. “Even if I raise the price of my shares by
$50 or $75 to get them where they should be, this still
isn’t enough to buy insurance.”
No entity advocating policy
change. Despite all the local-food work
going on in Iowa, these low-budget operations are faced
with the huge task of re-establishing a local-food network
across the entire state. While some states, such as Nebraska,
have organizations like the Center for Rural Affairs, there
is no similar group in Iowa to serve as an advocate for
policy change. “We have the weight, and now we need
to throw our weight around,” Enshayan said.
Little evidence of the local-food
revolution in local grocery stores. While
the paradigms surrounding food have changed dramatically
in the past decade, there’s still little evidence
of the local-food revolution in the typical Iowa grocery
store.
Finding solutions
Although there are no easy answers, Leopold Center panelists
agreed that it’s time to get serious about finding solutions,
such as engaging local governments to invest public tax dollars
in the maintenance of local-food systems. Residents need to
see that services providing local food are as important as
water, sewer, police and fire protection services, said Enshayan,
who sits on the city council in Cedar Falls, Iowa.
“The local police chief doesn’t spend his time
raising money just to keep his department going. The local-foods
movement spends too much time searching for money to keep
low-budget operations afloat. Also, local governments spend
vast quantities of money on economic development. We ought
to encourage them to consider the importance of local foods
to the economy.”
| "If state policy required institutions
to buy a certain percentage of local products, it would
be a lot easier for these organizations to buy local." |
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Policies at the state level could also foster the growth
of the local-food movement, noted audience members. When Iowa
State University purchases local food, currently the buyers
must justify spending the extra money. “If state policy
required institutions to buy a certain percentage of local
products, it would be a lot easier for these organizations
to buy local,” said Sue De Blieck of Iowa State University.
Changes in public policy could also result in more sustainable
solutions for farm payments. “I’d also like to
see some of the direct farm payments redirected towards health
care and pension programs for farmers, especially those producing
local foods,” said Hamilton, who notes that it takes
time to educate public policy leaders about the importance
of local food and producers’ challenges.
There are also steps producers can take to improve their
futures. Sharing more cost-of-production information, along
with best practices, can benefit everyone, Jutz said. Although
it can be hard to find time to leave the farm, visiting other
operations can provide valuable insights, including exploring
new ways to trim some of the biggest production costs in order
to boost profitability. When Jutz visited Seed Savers Exchange
www.seedsavers.org
in Decorah, Iowa, for example, she learned a labor-saving
method of working with garlic. Tools like the Iowa Vegetable
Production Budgets developed by Iowa State University Extension
(available online at (www.extension.iastate.edu/agdm/crops/html/a1-17.html)
also help producers learn to allocate land, labor and capital
to the most appropriate use.
“The paradigm around local foods is radically changing,
and we’ve done a good job of making this change happen
for more than 10 years,” Enshayan said. “While
there’s more to do, it can be done.” 
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