Farmers hope for increased education
Members of a local community supported agriculture, or CSA, group converged at LEAP Farm, owned by Lee and April Mink, Oct. 23 to revel in a bounty of food from the summer growing season.
They also gathered to discover more about an opportunity to be a part of the global Slow Food movement.
“Slow Food strives to be everything fast food is not,” said Carol Lynn Jackson, owner of Manna Cabanna, a local organic food market and CSA in Saluda.  “We believe that food is a common language for the world and that access to affordable, healthy and sustainable food choices is a universal right. Slow Food members envision a world in which all people can eat food that is good for them, good for the people who grow it and good for the planet.”
Jackson has initiated the creation of a local Slow Food chapter for Polk County and the Upstate that will be known as Slow Food Foothills. With more than 100,000 members worldwide, the aim of the movement, according to slowfood.com, is to counteract the “rise of fast food and fast life, the disappearance of local food traditions and people’s dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from, how it tastes and how our food choices affect the rest of the world.”
It has been Jackson’s goal to establish a Slow Food chapter here since she began Manna Cabana with a beach umbrella and coolers five years ago. She soon transformed that roadside stand into a business and a CSA program to connect families with the farmers trying to sell their products. The first year 12 members signed on and that number has more than doubled since then. Now they are initiating a winter CSA season.
Jackson said about 120 people showed up to last weekend’s event, including interested parties from as far away as Charlotte. She said about 50 of those attendees signed up and asked, “When can we get started?” The group will begin as a subchapter of Slow Food Asheville.
“They see the proactiveness of the citizens here and want to be involved,” Jackson said. “The president of Slow Food Asheville said she was just floored by the number of people that showed up. And the donations were great to get Slow Food Foothills going.”
Jackson had attended a Slow Food Asheville event back in May with Lee and April Mink that truly kicked planning into gear. She said it struck a chord with her to do something in an organized fashion and using technology that allows people here to share their love for and knowledge of locally focused agriculture.
Farmer Lee Mink said it’s crucial to educate local consumers to the fact that Polk County is a diverse place for farming.
“Polk County is strong in supporting local food but people just have to start buying more,” Mink said. “We grow and make everything in the county that you could need. People are making bread; we grow beef, pork and lettuce. Polk County is one of the few places in the country where we could actually feed ourselves well with a good variety.”
Food doesn’t stop, Mink said. Just because many farmer’s markets are currently closing for the winter doesn’t mean farmers aren’t still producing. He said right now crops occupy almost as much acreage in his fields as they did this summer.
“I’m trying to grow a lot of food on very small parcels of land. Instead of 4-5 lettuce mixes you can find in the grocery stores, I grow about 40. So we talked a lot about how diversity allows you to almost always have crops regardless of the weather,” Mink said. “It’s been the way we’ve grown food for the last 5,000 years until the last 50.”
Educating the community to this fact is a huge part of what Mink sees as his mission and the mission of the new Slow Food chapter.
Slow Food Foothills’ mission will be to promote and preserve the food culture of the region through relationships between farmers, the table, families and the community.
“Slow Food sort of does what I’ve been doing for years – dealing with farmers’ issues and food issues.” Mink said. “The more things we have that focus on sustainable farming, the better. It’s like another tool in the shed.”
Jackson said programs from the group could include everything from cooking classes to sustainable growing practices to educating students about sustainable food systems. She said there also would be plenty of room in the group’s calendar for community picnics.
Anyone interested in joining Slow Food Foothills can contact Jackson via e-mail at caroljackson@tds.net.