 Thank you for coming This is Todd Clark. He's a first-generation farmer near Lexington, Kentucky First-generation farmers kind of like being a first-generation Jew or Catholic There's a lot to learn that everybody else knows but he He's worked on farms all his life. So he is Gonna represent for me. He's gonna represent Kentucky farmers. He's one of 84,000 farmers We have that many farmers in Kentucky because of the work of this man the guy on your left. That's Mary's grandfather John Berry Sr. He his work with the Burley tobacco program ensured that Farmers on small and medium-sized farms could earn a living growing a little bit so he Because of his work farmers stayed on the farm and their kids grew up with the language and culture of tobacco Sort of glued them together in community That program no longer exists the thing that helped farmers earn a living could send their kids to college That's gone. Some farmers still grow tobacco in Kentucky Todd Clark grows tobacco, but They're really looking for something else to give them a dependable income or else they're selling their farms If they have a big farm, you can grow corn or soy beans You don't make as much per bushel, but you have a lot of bushels So you can you can make a lot of money in the farms in Western Kentucky do that But the trouble with corn is that the price goes way up or way down right now It's way up but it can go up and down and so doing the same thing you can hit the lottery one year and go broke the next year and so Central Kentucky farmers and Eastern Kentucky farmers will will rent property to grow Corn so that they can make money when the money's good, but they also want a Another source of income so that they can kind of even out those bust years most people grow beef Todd grows beef and he grows Chicken and layers chicken for meat and layers also and he started growing lamb last year and he rents out a couple of houses also so There are people in Kentucky who think that Todd's success and other farmers success is Crucial to the prosperity of Kentucky Weddleberry is one of those people Mary's dad and he got together with a bunch of influential friends and Public servants a few years ago to figure out if Louisville Which has 1 million people in a 3 billion dollar food account economy if Louisville could help give farmers Another living a different kind of living and we we talked about food now agriculture is a lot of things. It's corn. It's resources it's bourbon, but food is food is one of the things that's Considered agriculture. So what they decided they needed was somebody to introduce the market and the farmer and Make that connection. So as a food journalist for 30 years I had written a lot about people who grew food and a lot about restaurants who who served the food I was a dietetics major in college. So I knew that to live well We needed to eat well and if we were going to eat well the food had to taste good so local food seemed to me a real natural fit between being good and and Tasting good so as a reputation having a reputation for Supporting local agriculture. They hired me to make this connection between the farmers and the market now I'm not the only food activist in Louisville far from it. Actually Louisville is lousy with people who care about food so you can picture this big room of Highly intelligent active enthusiastic people and it's like a big cocktail party. So you go over here and you meet this guy and he He wants people to earn a better living if they're working in the food system and this woman over here. She wants to Grow food in neighborhoods that are underserved. She wants gardens There are people who worry about obesity. There are people who worry about corner stores There are people who worry about carbon footprint and water quality. They're all working on pieces of the broken food system I would contend that if you help this guy You can you can fix the part of the food system that matters most no matter which part that is So if you help Todd you can help farm worker salaries If you help Todd you get antibiotics out of animal agriculture if you help Todd Well, none of his chickens are going to be processed into nuggets So you're probably going to help people's health too So I guess my vision my vision of the food system is a little different from people who are working in a city In that I feel like a food system is changing the local food system is about changing where food grows how consumers get the food and Where that food is served so that changing the local food system is really about creating a way for people to make a living farming cooking distributing Processing local food that a great food system is one that sticks around even after the time after Michael pollen and Wendell Berry quit writing about it I feel like a great robust food system is one that's going to lift all boats a Few years ago. I was doing some research and I well it wasn't years. It was last year doing some research on a Trying to find people more like me because I thought there were answers out there and they're not but there I thought there were answers out there and I ran across this Urban planning document. It was pretty sophisticated done for the Chicago area and they had done a lot of research there were a lot of stakeholders and There was a food there was a local food system chapter to it I was thrilled and I went right to it and They said that Illinois is a 48 billion dollar food market that 46 billion dollars leaves the state They said that if more people bought local food that it would help the economy Well, there's no surprise there, but Here is the graphic of the local food system that they Illustrated their chapter with what interests me about this graphic is the access point the access point for all of Chicago land is a farm stand The access point according to this Document is the people the point at which people purchase their food at places like farm stands markets and Restaurants Todd Clark can't make a living in a farm stand Todd Clark raised 75 beef on Grass last year. He wrote he raised 7500 chickens. He had 750 layers and he could have sold more But he didn't have a market for it Two months ago Jefferson County Public Schools, which served 60,000 kids lunch every day Contracted to buy chicken and Todd is now going to increase his flock by 11,000 birds still he could grow more he Could probably double that and he's hoping that more schools will buy next year But even so 11,000 chickens were 11 plus 7500 chickens will be about a fifth of his salary of his income so He it can't make a living selling 11,000 chickens at farm stands He can't make a living selling 22,000 chickens to restaurants He needs and other farmers need Institutional buyers they need distributors they need aggregators. They need processors But let's go back to the cocktail party The man who's worried about food about wages for farm workers the people who process Todd Chicken make twice as much as the people in a Purdue factory make Access more than 80% of the kids who eat lunch at Jefferson County Get them free or at reduced price Environment environment of Todd Raises his chicken on pasture so they make the ground more fertile his cows have better forage to eat He doesn't use chemical fertilizer, so there's no contribution to the dead zone There's no ammonia haze hanging over his community and He's raising these chicken. He's making the land productive that could not otherwise be plowed There's a lot of land in Kentucky in Kentucky that should not be in row crops Health health if you've ever bought a pasture raised chicken You know how lean it is but in addition his chicken are raised without antibiotics and without arsenic The other advantage is that Todd's chicken will never be emulsified attitude preserved Paddied breaded fried and frozen So that children eating Todd's chicken will be will be learning to eat chicken and not learning to eat junk food all because We want him to make a living. I believe That to change the food system we need to To think about wholesale This is a few of the companies in the fortune 500 They're the top food companies. There are about 20 of them. You can see there on the right what their Annual revenues are This is without Walmart and without probably a million other Companies This is the annual revenue of farm markets. I think we have to engage The wholesale market To give people farmers a living We have to engage the wholesale market to raise all of these boats I Think if we agree that all if all of our Resources are limited if we have only so much time and only so much money Why would we dedicate that time and and money to asking a farmer to take four heads of broccoli to the corner store? When if we nurture one institution, we can help the economy. We can help Environment we can help health we can help access some food is More expensive Excuse me One more point about institutions and individuals. I think I think what we need to do is engage more Instead of going to the corner store. We need to go more to institutional buying the last three November's I have organized Farmers meetings with the Jefferson County Public School system. This is Mary Courtney She has come to the these three meetings Her husband is a conventional farmer. He grows corn and tobacco They had two children the time in the first meeting and she Ran a CSA to give to diversify their income and and give them more income Since then she's had her third child. She's left the CSA world behind she's concentrating more on wholesale food sales and And sells to Jefferson County mostly by the bid process which happens once a year They bid once a year and get the bid and and and go on But the other day she called and she said that the mini bell peppers that she grew Did not have a buyer and she had thought about calling the Gleaners to come get them But she called me instead because she thought her kids love these bell these little bell peppers so much that maybe Jefferson County or some of the other schools would want them the their kids size They're super sweet. They're bright red yellow and orange and so So she thought that would be a good fit now Jefferson County has a fresh fruit and vegetable program Which means that they serve fresh produce to elementary school students in 40 schools and underserved neighborhoods Um So Jefferson County Jumped on the chance to buy her peppers. They bought 1,400 pounds Um Mary knows a fast food distributor. I mean a fresh food distributor who Sorry who can um Who could backhaul her peppers into these 40 schools and so So the deal was sealed. So I'm thinking well if you're if you're a proponent of food access Is there anything better than a 1,400 pounds of mini bell peppers going into 40 schools and underserved neighborhoods? If we're a proponent of health, is there anything better than 1,400 pounds of mini bell peppers going to To elementary school children who they're you know, these bright colors. They're very nutritious And if you're if you're uh Environmentalists, is there anything better than having one truck go from the country into the city and putting all these schools on its route? It just seems to to work for everyone Mary can't make a living off those 1,400 pounds of bell peppers even when you count the 800 watermelon and 60 boxes of squash She's already selling Jefferson County this year In fact, I'm gonna guess that she made about $5,000 on that transaction and she still has to pay her people What what mary needs is for her produce distributor to sell Three or four times as much produce on his routes Can you predict why he's not doing that? Do you know why he can't sell more produce? Any pardon me people don't buy it because The price People say it's too expensive price is way too high. I think oh, we love we support local food We love local food, but the price is just too high. We can't afford it Uh That's a that's a reason that goes right up your brain stem It just it hits you you're stopped in your tracks. No no more discussion What they really are saying is we have a contract with tyson and we get um kickbacks for honoring that So we don't really want to buy local food or they're saying $3 a pound is way too much to pay for tomatoes. We're never going to do it and I I will say yes Uh local food is sometimes more expensive, but sometimes it's not But sometimes let's go the distance. Let's say it is more expensive What does that look like logical extreme? Sodexo is a multinational corporation that in kentucky serves makes Does dining services for six colleges and university Berea college is trying to make a deal with this guy to buy mozzarella cheese. Kenny. Kenny mattingly um Has 200 acres with dairy catalana. He grows feed. He doesn't give his cows hormones His cheese is twice as expensive as Cisco cheese and Cisco cheese is the second highest food cost in dining services at berea college So I asked kate The sodexo rep. How are you going to make that work? And she said we're going to serve less cheese um Meatless mondays at berea are cheesy mondays at berea So the first thing they're going to do is cut down the amount of cheese that they're serving on meatless mondays and serve more vegetables and whole grains So with one business decision we have 1600 kids at berea eating More helpful diet. We've got a Farmer making a better living. We've got a community that's benefiting from the taxes from that farmer and we and his employees ranks grow Oh and Cisco isn't losing money. So That's more expensive food. Okay, so let's contrast that with the economic model set by the chicken processing plant in in western kentucky that allows That that processes boneless skinless chicken breast that sells at walmart for two dollars and fifty cents a pound They're advertising right now for a worker who will make nine dollars and 36 cents an hour Hefting totes of 35 to 75 pounds for eight to 12 hour shifts and 40 degrees He'll make 19 thousand dollars a year, which puts him well under the federal poverty line for a family of four If he has a family of four he will qualify for food stamps, Medicaid free lunch free breakfast head start summer meals Uh supplemental feeding for pregnant women and children energy assistance And weatherization So my tax dollars are subsidizing your ability to buy boneless skinless chicken breast at walmart meanwhile our I've only got two minutes left and of course I've got 20 minutes more to say so But I will just say, you know, they tell me to the I'm supposed to leave you with one thought And I and I do have that thought but really the subliminal thought is never eat boneless skinless chicken breast again So so meanwhile we are entrenching the uh the horrible lifestyle that we are uh We're colluding to keep these people in indentured servitude these food service workers and we are um You know with environmental degradation still goes on and on so um l plus we've got a Community that has to spend its resources to support the living of the of the workers rather than having the taxes that the workers earn contribute to the um to the robust economy of the of the community so Uh So I have lots of stories and no time to tell them and I'm sorry um, but I want to say that Uh at the University of Louisville Sodexo we've spent two years trying to get them to buy beef local beef and local product when I first went in there The the food service director said we can't buy local beef because the only beef we can buy that's local is it's a whole beef And we can't we can't do that of course not and so Um, so we've been working for two years. They buy a little lettuce for orientation We have a special meal that celebrates the harvest. We're we're pushing that local food and um in april He realized that the only way he could afford to buy local beef was to buy a whole beef So he's buying a whole beef. He's bought a whole beef every single week since april He can leave his chef can leave and that whole beef is coming through the door every week so To me that's a change in the food system I'd like to say that I understand that food Local food can be expensive There's some local food that will never be cheap boneless skinless chicken breast that's antibiotic free and local is never going to be 250 a pound but jefferson county public schools can serve dark meat chicken and um, it's not as cheap as chicken nuggets So our chicken nuggets a better choice so, um I just want to suggest that I think that that High price is a The high price of of local food is a straw man That's meant to stop us in our tracks to go right up our brain stem To make us say it's not worth working on it's not worth fixing the the food system I'd like to say that when someone says The cost of local food is too high that that's a call to action We hear it as a call to action that the high price of local food is the starting point Where we program shift That the minute we hear I can't afford Local food We see it not as a conversation stopper, but as the point to move forward if we can When we hear The cost of local food is too high if we can engage our frontal cortex and say Not okay. I understand, but the cost of food is too high. How can we make this work? Thank you for your time