Kingston Citizen

Article: Rural America Surprisingly Prosperous, Study Finds by Casey Francis, LifeScience.com.

What is prosperity anyway? The study looked at unemployment rates, poverty rates, high school drop-out rates, and housing conditions to identify prospering communities. Published in the July issue of the journal International Regional Science Review, the study looked at data from the year 2000, so it doesn’t take into consideration the current economic situation.

However, the criteria used were not the traditional measures for determining prosperity, typically population growth, but reflected a more practical approach focusing on outcomes. According to Andrew Isserman, an economist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and author of the paper, “This finding supports our view that growth and prosperity are different dimensions, and much can be learned from studying rural prosperity.” Take a look at the article.

Article: South Dakota Raw Milk Producers vs Big Government by Richard Boyden, Black Hills Today.

This article jumped out at me as I was trolling through my news reader. It’s a lengthy piece, but worthwhile to read as a good primer on the kinds of issues that all small farmers face, not just dairy farmers. Now, I have no particular feelings about the use of raw milk versus pasteurized, except to note that the human race seemed able to carry on just fine on raw milk up until about 150 years ago or so when Louis Pasteur introduced the process. Certainly pasteurized milk has become the standard, but so has the notion of washing your hands before surgery, or before handling food that others will eat. The last two have probably been the biggest improvements to public health in the history of mankind and probably more important, overall, than any drug or medical technique that’s been invented.

My feeling is that consumers can educate themselves and make their own decisions. If you want to drink raw milk and are comfortable with the procedures used by the farm where you buy it, then why not? If you like the implied guarantee of pasteurized milk, then go with that. But don’t legislate the choice away with inane rules in the name of public health.

It’s good to have some rules, of course, but the purpose of some rules, such as the tests for TB and brucellosis, strike me as a deliberate attempt to use the rule as a weapon, not a guideline to improve public safety. And certainly the requirement to give the government a list of customers is the hallmark of a dictatorship, not a free society.

Article: And the Pursuit of Happiness by Maira Kalman, New York Times.

I think this sums it up nicely.

Article: Kingston’s Village Green seeks park district status by Tad Sooter, North Kitsap Herald.

Are you ready to help move the community forward with an independent community center? Your friends and neighbors will start coming around next week to ask you. Volunteers on the Village Green project are ready to petition the county to form a park district in Kingston.

Here’s the thing: There is money available through grants and other mechanisms to build a new 25,000-sq.ft. community center. But … most of those agencies want to know how the center can afford to operate and be maintained. The park district will guarantee that kind of funding and will also safeguard the funding from the valleys and peaks of the county budget.

In case you are wondering how big 25,000 square feet might be, just remember the current community center is a little less than 8,000 square feet total if you count both floors. In the new facility, the library alone would be roughly that big. There will also be a recreation area (think of a gym with multi-purpose functionality built in for staging events), a commercial-grade kitchen (for senior meals and other events), and separate meeting spaces and areas for senior activities. In other words, a true “community center” with a little something for everyone.

In fact, Kitsap Regional Library has already made tentative commitments for their portion of the building costs. The rest of the building funds come from state and federal money, both of which require some proof that ongoing operation and maintenance will be paid for: hence the formation of a park district. How much will it cost you? By my calculation, if you own a $300,000 house, your cost will be around $45 per year via property tax.

If you’re like me, you don’t like paying taxes, but here’s a tax which you will be able to see at work in your community every single day. That’s bang for the buck. That’s a bargain in anybody’s book. I donate more per year to listen to Prairie Home Companion on NPR. I’d pay that much just to have a more usable library. All the extra amenities are gravy.

So when these folks come around with the petition papers, get your pen out and support this effort. It will be the best tax dollars you’ll ever pay.

Article: Small farms fear food safety bill will further industrialize food by Joseph Drew, San Francisco Chronicle

If you want to talk about the outrageous differences between monitoring food safety at a small farm and at a giant Tyson turkey factory, just read Joel Saladin’s book, Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal or talk to our local farmers market manager, Clint Dudley.

Here’s the point: Food processing factories need regulation because of the number of opportunities they have in their systems for introducing bacteria, pathogens, etc., into the food supply. They won’t let you or me come in to watch them at work and satisfy ourselves that the process is sanitary and safe. Most small farms don’t have those same issues at all. Let’s put it this way, if small farms were doing the DNA for CSI they’d never lose the chain of evidence as happens so often in real life. With factory processors doing the DNA, the district attorney would never be able to use DNA evidence at all.

But … and this is a huge but … with the passage of this bill, small farmers will become more administrative assistant than farmer because the paperwork requirements will eat up all the hours in their week. They won’t be able to sell anything more that basic vegetables right out of the ground. Processing factories can afford to hire people to walk around all day documenting their every move. Small farmers can’t. It’s that simple.

Contact Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray to let them know how you feel about S.B. 510.

Article: Micro-Loans Available For Small Farmers In Northern Michigan by Peter Payette, Interlochen Public Radio.

Here’s an interesting idea. Could something like this be formed locally?

If I keep writing this blog, you’ll see me harp on the idea of small farms and local food because it is the heart of what I believe sustainable economic development could be in our community. Agriculture supports small business which in turn supports rural communities. By support, I mean having a community with enough jobs at high enough pay for everyone to have a decent living and for children to have an option to stay near their family when they get out of high school or college.

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to attract people to Kingston either, but long-term, a commuter community develops economic pressures that forces out local businesses, steals time from growing families, and drains independence from a community.

Finding a way to encourage the growth of small farms, even micro-farms as in this article, is a benefit to all in our community whether we ever buy their product personally or not. I hope we can see some way to develop a program such as this in North Kitsap because it would help us rebuild our local economy.

Article: He’s helping N.C. county rebuild its farming roots by Bruce Henderson, Charlotte Observer.
Here’s another article in the same vein as the Sacramento co-op, but completely across the country. To me, the article hit the crux of the matter: “Foothills hopes to show the county’s young people, many of whom leave for jobs elsewhere, that they might again make a living from farming.”
Not everyone wants to make a living from farming, of course. And it shouldn’t become the career de jour for those who just can’t find a job in these rough economic times. But the comeback of small farms is an essential part of our economic health for the future, not just in Kitsap but throughout the country.
“The land was ours before we were the land’s,” Robert Frost said at Kennedy’s inauguration. Hoeing those rows of vegetables certainly joins your spirit to the land, and gives you a sense of purpose that PlayStation just can’t match.

Article: Local farmers awarded government grant to create a vegetable and fruit hub in Sacramento by Anne Hart, Sacramento Nutrition Examiner .
This is an interesting idea being developed by the small farmers near Sacramento. The CSA and farmers market approaches we have in Kitsap are getting better and better, but this concept suggests what the next step might be for small farmers. Generating enough revenue to keep going is one of the most difficult challenges for a small farmer, even if that revenue need is modest. Having a third avenue for marketing would help increase the local boost to the economy that small farmers are bringing. It’s an idea to keep in our pocket for now.

Article: Forget Conventional 401(k)s; Think Goat Cheese and Fennel by Stephanie Simon, The Wall Street Journal.

A little earlier, and more thorough, piece on the slow money concept of Woody Tasch. I particularly liked the attention paid to the concern of goat farmers who are trying out the concept via borrowing. Will they be “swamped” by investors who want to tour the farm? Will they get a never-ending stream of questions from investors about goats and how to manage them? Will investors demand a say in management decisions?

All good questions, I believe. The article goes on to talk about the formation of regional funds “to broker interaction between investors and farmers” such as the Carrot Project in New England. Such funds have also formed for communities to invest in affordable housing and “mom-and-pop entrepreneurs.”

Some my next questions are: How do these funds differ, in fiduciary responsibility, from local banks? What constitutes “regional”? Are there any such funds in Kitsap? In Washington? And most important, what guarantees that the profit the fund makes stays local?

Article: Paydirt: Money where your mouth is by KARA McGUIRE, Minneapolis Star Tribune.

Apparently “slow money” is the newest phrase for investing locally, and a venture capitalist named Woody Tasch has developed an organization based on the what he terms the “slow money principles.”

There’s a short video at the Slow Money Alliance website which explains the concept in brief. There’s a little more information from an NPR story that ran earlier this year.

The principles are sound enough, but only time will tell if this organization will live up to those principles. Meanwhile, we’ll keep an eye on the movement and report back.