[microfarmer] Re: Ideas, please

From: lynn grossutti <secheltlynn@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <microfarmer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sun, 25 Nov 2007 23:36:44 -0800
Hi Everyone,Lynn Grossutti here, the Food Guru wants to talk with you. 
 
I will certainly be in the market to buy local produce that is available from 
farms of all sizes. D'Arcy and I are moving forward with a business plan to 
process small scale quality gourmet food products - our focus is local and 
organic, bottled for retail sale, that when consumed provides an out of body 
experiece. We want to collaborate with farmers to add value to their business 
and create awareness of the value of choosing local when purchasing food. There 
is a community portal where these types of postings could be listed 
www.deeprooted.ca It is currently in beta testing.  Why reinvent the wheel?  
Surf locally. Save globally. What if the hokey pokey really is what it's all 
about? Ciao for now,
The Food Guru
 



Date: Sun, 25 Nov 2007 18:07:22 -0800From: parkidavid@xxxxxxxxxxx: 
microfarmer@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx: [microfarmer] Re: Ideas, pleaseHi Robin & 
Tajh & others:Speaking for the Upper Sunshine Coast. I would like to find a way 
to get more of us up here looped into what you folks are doing down there -- 
makes sense, since many of the concerns are identical one, only aggravated here 
by the increased physical isolation. One thing that has been occupying my 
attention for some time is exactly what you are looking into: INCREASING 
CAPACITY. As you know, we've been fighting land development partly driven by 
our city government, which aims to remove ALR land and convert it to housing or 
industry or something that won't put food on the table in the years to come. 
Many people in the community are pushing back against the loss of farmland, but 
the terrible reality right now is that farming continues to decline, farmers 
are under fire from every direction, and younger folks who might be interested 
in getting into farming are crushed by the high cost of land, complexity of 
regulations, amount of knowledge required, and so on. But somehow we need to 
find ways to increase food production and processing. I can't help thinking 
that the solutions will come from small-scale projects scaling up naturally: 
like backyard garden to SPIN-type model to value-added to common processing 
facility & co-op, and so on. All I can think of doing is encouraging people to 
stretch what they're currently doing, in hopes that 1 out of 100 of them will 
go on to something like commercial-scale farming or processing. But I'd like to 
brainstorm with other people concerned about this stuff. Mind you, I'm not a 
farmer, nor much of a producer on any scale, but my role in the community is 
supposed to be as catalyst for increased production. Somewhere out there, there 
must be other people trying to figure out how to help themselves or other 
people overcome all the barriers to producing enough food to be self-sufficient 
and then some. I haven't even thought about what all those barriers are, and 
how we (as communities without huge cash resources) can help people get past 
them. But others probably have... Anyway, I think I'm repeating what you're 
already thinking about. So count me in.

On Nov 25, 2007 3:25 PM, Tajh Leitso <tajh@xxxxxxxx > wrote:
I don't know if this was covered by the food security work, but itmight help to 
have a realistic idea of what produce people on thecoast are eating and buying 
(and from where).  This might be enable usto see what sort of potential market 
we have.  If we have some sort of index for what the organic (or not) produce 
prices are we can easilycalculate the return we will get for our sweat.  I 
don't mind puttinga few (hundred ;) hours of labour in the garden, but if it 
justresults in a truckload of rotten tomatoes... or netting $0.25/hour, I would 
be sorely disappointed.I would be a new person attending a microfarmer forum, 
and what stopsme from even contemplating growing commercially, is that I don't 
evenknow (I am learning) how to grow everything we eat.  My goal is self 
sufficiency, and it would be amazing to grow enough to share, but weate 
everything that came out of our garden that the deer didn't poach- so next year 
it has to be even bigger.You could probably sell out several forums if you 
titled it 'Growing bananas and coffee beans on the Sunshine Coast.'  If we 
could grow ourown coffee and cocoa what would we need the ferries for ;) 
?Somewhat off-topic:I would also like to see some farmers and/or their vendors 
posting what they have on hand to avoid any disappointments.  I know 
thatfarmers are busy - but they could probably make an extra $50 a monthout of 
our family if they posted info about random 'sales.'  Even something simple 
posted on onestraw like, 'Got too many Blue MoonBananas over here at Lunar 
farm, so we are letting them go at $1 akilo... let us know how many you want'  
Ideally there would be a fewRSS feeds that produce consumers could subscribe to 
that show whatsort of inventory is available.


On Nov 24, 2007, at 11:27, Robin Wheeler wrote:> Hello, all -> I am planning 
the next Microfarm Forum for late February. This might> be something that only 
new people will want to come to, or something> the last gang might still 
benefit from. I would like to call this > Forum -> 'Increasing Capacity'. If we 
are growing nothing now, how can we> begin? If we are growing 'some', how can 
we grow more?> I am inviting speakers from the Non Forest Timber Product 
division > of Royal Roads University to speak to us about the fringe markets> 
for items like this, and they will be talking about Value Added> components and 
marketing.> I would like to set aside time to talk about food plant aspects of 
> increasing capacity. We have hundreds of acres of grass and> partially used 
veggie garden on the coast. What are the mental and> physical walls that are 
keeping us from turning this land into> highly productive food growing area?  
What, as any of you stepped > out into your gardens to begin growing 
commercially on even a tiny> scale, occurred to you as problems or barriers to 
getting going?> If we could think-tank that a little bit here, it would help me 
> design something useful for this Forum.> Thanks for tossing and turning on 
that problem -> Robin-- David 
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[microfarmer] Re: Ideas, please

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