Market Update

Bluebird Hill Berry Farm just updated their listing for the week with a new supply of grass fed beef. Check it out!

Sincerely

Kyle Holton
Program & Market Manager

Market Is Open

Good day to all of you. The market is open and ready for another weekly round of orders.

Late Friday afternoon, I took a group of kids (including mine) to the splash pad downtown for a bit of respite from the heat. However, the fun didn’t last long as a thunderstorm with high winds came upon us suddenly. We ran to a nearby shelter that overlooked the Arkansas river. The wind howled through trees and human-made sticks of metal, brick, and wood as it drove sheets of cold rain from the heavens through the air. The river seem to froth and clap into the air meeting the falling rain above the land. The air around us liquified into a torrent. It was breathtaking in its beauty and power. We’ve seen some dramatic displays of rain this season. The winds from Friday night took out the internet system at Christ Church and caused a bit of organizational mayhem during our pre-market period. No big deal. However, imagine if your livelihood was always exposed to those winds. Imagine what it would feel like when wind and rain threaten a greenhouse with months of preparation and future orders from restaurants and customers. Imagine a crop threatened by flood waters.

ALFN received a plea for help via our local restaurants for a shiitake farm in northwest Arkansas. The farm, Sweden Creek Farm, is a prominent producer of shiitake mushrooms. If you’ve had a mushroom burger from The Root, you’ve probably had a Sweden Creek shiitake. Sweden Creek was hit hard by recent flooding this month and are requesting help. Please take a moment and read a brief description from the grower:

We have had a rough few days here on Sweden Creek Farm. We had 7 inches of rain in about 3 hours on top of already-flooded and saturated soil on Monday night.

Each of our 4 farm families were separated by flood waters and unable to help each other and the 911 rescue team was unable to get anywhere near us since all of the bridges and roads were covered in raging waters – higher than it has ever flooded before. Miraculously we all had phone service and electric so we could keep in touch with each other all night.

The mobile home of one of our farm families was almost swept away in flood waters. A one hour break in the rain let the flood water go down about 2 1/2 – 3 feet and allowed our two workers to scramble their one year old, 6 year old and elderly mother safely to our shop at around 2:00 am Tuesday morning, about 1/4 mile away on our dirt driveway. All 3 of their vehicles were washed about 1/2 mile down the creek. We lost over 20,000 of our best logs in the floodwaters along with one of our trailers and an outhouse. Our spotlessly clean fields are now filled with boulders and rocks and most of our barbed wire fencing has been ripped out or down. One of our 5 ton air conditioners was in the water is no longer working. Our green houses were filled with mud and debris, causing green mold to begin growing on logs since they cannot be dried out. Our two foot-bridges were washed away, one landing in front of the mobile home, about a 1/4 mile away.

At this point we are all in shock but thankful that we are all safe and so thankful that our biggest tragedy is the loss of logs and not the loss of life. We are picking up the pieces – I was able to make this weeks delivery and we are making plans now on how to recover.

Local Little Rock restaurants are planning a fundraiser, but a GoFundMe site has already been established to help this family farm recover. Stay tuned for ways to help, but spread the word and share the link to their GoFundMe page.

Without the help of volunteers yesterday, the ALFN market would have been very chaotic. A local food economy is only robust as the community that supports it. Without the support of a larger community, it is too easy for the efforts of one to be washed down the river. Thank you for taking part in this emerging local food system in Little Rock and Arkansas.

“Do unto those downstream as you would have those upstream do unto you.” (Wendell Berry, Citizenship Papers)

Sincerely,

Kyle Holton
Program & Market Manager

Market Reminder

Market closes tomorrow at noon!

It is a hot one today. As you read this reminder, you may be preparing for the bike ride or car commute home. You will climb into a metal box with super-heated air. The sultry air will be heavy as you inhale, and each exhalation will only drive up the humidity. The very molecules of air, seat and steering wheel will seem to melt and languidly droop into the floor mat below you. Next, the turbid air will compress around your collar, cuffs and ankles. How will you survive the journey home? How will you endure the furnace of the world?

What if you had a fresh cantaloupe waiting in the fridge? Or frozen blueberries or blackberries? Need a peach or nectarine to percolate and drizzle out the heat? How about a chopped watermelon drunk in its ice cold liquid? What if you had Kombucha fizzing and cracking like a glacier or a glass of ice ginger green tea to help relinquish the flames? Can you feel the coolness as it relaxes your throat?

Kick off your shoes and order some respite.

Coolly Yours,

Kyle Holton
Program & Market Manager

The Market is Open

Happy Father’s Day and happy new week! The market is open on this bright, sunny day.

This week, I have a brief request. There is a great deal of activity that occurs behind the scenes with ALFN. As a mediator between grower and consumer, ALFN serves to disperse information, maintain the market website, pay growers, and provide quality local food to growing local demand. ALFN has a board of directors who volunteer their time to guide the organization toward a sustainable local food system. Composed of growers and consumers, board members have many different responsibilities. One of the most important tasks is the work done by the treasurer. Our treasurer ultimately is the rain gauge for determining the germination rate and success of all the ideas planted and cultivated over the years. In the end, sustainability is accounted and confirmed by our treasurer.

The treasurer position rotates to able-minded individuals who are willing to help ALFN. Our current treasurer, Michelle Rhoden, has down a fantastic job and her period of service will be ending this fall. It is our desire to find a new treasurer with a background in accounting to come alongside Michelle and learn the system for a smooth transition. The board is currently looking for individuals who would be interested in this task. Could you help us in this search? If you or anyone you know would be interested, please email us and let us know! You can email us at littlerocklocalfood@gmail.com or arlocalfoodnetwork@gmail.com .

Please consider your social networks and help us find a new treasurer!

Thanks!

Kyle Holton
Program & Market Manager

Shopping Notes

Hey Friends,

I failed to remind everyone this afternoon that ANP is taking a brief break. Consequently, their produce is offline for this week. They will be back in production during the week of the 22nd.

Cheers

Kyle Holton
Program & Market Manager

Market Reminder

Here is a friendly reminder to make your orders before the market closes tomorrow at noon.

New products are popping up on the site every week. We have new listings for honey and berries. Blackberries and blueberries are starting to get into full harvest mode! Don’t procrastinate and miss the opportunity to bake a blueberry pie or to store for the winter!

Sincerely,

Kyle Holton
Program & Market Manager

The Market Is Open

The market is open for commerce!

For a few days last week, I had the opportunity to visit some friends of mine who help manage two working farms. On Thursday, my kids and I helped harvest local restaurant orders of sugar snap peas, kale, collards, spinach and salad mixes. We were harvesting the produce in an urban plot in the middle of a dense intersection of western civilization. The farm grew food in the midst of a cacophony of people from diverse ethnic origins, diverse business interests, and diverse dreams. We worked with a few other volunteers as the farm was an income generating project for a recovery house. We only worked for two hours. Veggies were weighed, bagged, packed onto bike trailers and sent off to high-end restaurants. After a solid mornings work with numerous volunteers, the total invoices amounted to only $149.

The intersection that bustled outside the urban farm serves as a useful symbol for a larger chaotic intersection that local growers must navigate every week. After the proverbial carrot seed is cultivated, tended, and weeded, time gathers the work into produce. The carrot is pulled from the ground, washed, and bundled. This whole process involves a very different kind of economy from the bustling intersection outside the cultivated fields. Our local growers not only have to compete with the lobbying agroindustrial system, but they also face the mechanized food systems embodied in cheap processed foods. Larger corporate and national powers help subsidize industrial food until our food culture is orphaned along the curbside. In the midst of such a cacophonous intersection, how do our local growers subsidize a different food culture? What happens to the proverbial local carrot when it enters an economy foreign to the farm and field? Some argue, the demand of the consumer will tip the scales back to local, organic food. Yes, yes, this is true. But, I don’t think we can simply fall back on the industrial economic system founded solely on supply and demand. Rather, local consumers must partner with local growers to cultivate an economy that protects and preserves local food AND living wages. Our economic system is skewed to reward other types of labor, yet every form of labor in our society is dependent on the cultivation of food. Whether our growers come to market by truck or bicycle, local consumers must find ways to revalue their labor and restore an economy based upon the gift of food.

As you order your food this week or crunch a forkful of salad, consider the combination of time, attention and labor that went into that mouthful. Let’s raise a hearty salutation to our growers, but let’s also raise a new local, balanced economy that is just.

I am still building my volunteer base for Saturday market. Saturday volunteers are divided into two shifts – early bird (from 8:00 to 10:30) and pick up (from 10:00 to 12:30). Volunteers help inventory and set-up before pick-up begins and then help members pick up their orders by collecting the products they ordered for them. Volunteer opportunities are also available at the check-out table. As a volunteer, you get $5.00 credit that you can use towards membership or your order payment each time you volunteer. If you are interested in volunteering, send me an email, and I will put you on our volunteer email list: littlerockfoodclub@gmail.com . We wouldn’t be able to have Food Club without volunteers, so THANK YOU!

Cheers,

Kyle Holton
Market & Program Manager

Market Reminder & Volunteers Needed

Just a friendly reminder to finish your shopping in the market before tomorrow at noon.

Allow me to take this opportunity to encourage you to consider volunteering on Saturdays. When you volunteer, you receive a $5.00 credit that can be applied to your grocery bill or your membership fee. Think about it! If you volunteered once a month, you could pay for your annual membership fee!

I’ve noticed our volunteer base has been a bit thin, and it would be great to have a few more bodies and brains (you can be both) helping us out. Our volunteers really enjoy the work. If you are interested, please let me know, and I will add you to our volunteer email list. Volunteer hours are broken into two shifts on Saturdays. You don’t have to be here the whole morning! What’s not to lose here? Volunteering will get you a $5 credit and a chance to meet other ALFN members. Plus, our coordinators make a mean cup of Joe. Coffee, credit, and local faces. What’s not to love! Furthermore, you’ll walk away with a million dollar smile.

Email me at littlerockfoodclub@gmail.com if you are interested.

Thanks!

Kyle Holton
Market & Program Manager

The Market Is Open

Thermophilic People & Systems

Good Morning! The market is open and ready for another week.

It’s official. Summer has arrived with her ninety-degree weather. On Friday and Saturday we reached 90 degrees, the air was sultry, and the sky smiled a bright, wide cloud-toothed grin. The rising heat brings promises of melons and other goodness refined by fire. Are you a thermophilic creature? For those who love (philic ) the heat (thermo), summer offers countless forays into the sun-washed landscape. However, I am reminded of a different thermophilic creature that is resident under our toes.

Thanks to the billions of microbes in our sentient soil, the earth processes surface-dwellers’ waste and converts it into fertile soil. Thermophilic bacteria are those responsible for heating up piles of compost as trash is refined by microbial fire. Without these microbes, the earth would continue to pile up with refuse. Unfortunately, our modern waste systems with its towers of trash disconnect the ecological loop between trash to microbe to soil. American society throws away too much food.

But guess what? A new business in Little Rock wants to help reconnect this loop. The Urban Food Loop, founded by Read Admire, launched new services to Little Rock residents last week. The news release explains how residents can sign up for weekly pick-up of food waste. Here is an excerpt from their news release :

The Urban Food Loop’s i-Compost! Service will recover local food waste by offering Little Rock residents a home composting bin in exchange for a monthly fee. Residents toss food scraps and leftovers into their i-Compost! bin weekly. The Urban Food Loop team will exchange full bins with clean ones and compost the food waste.

According to the Natural Resources Defense Council, Americans are throwing away the equivalent of $168 billion each year by wasting 40% of food produced for human consumption. That translates to 34 million tons or 680 billion pounds of food wasted annually in the U.S. Every pound of food waste results in 3.8 pounds of greenhouse gas emissions, and less than 3% of national food waste is recovered or composted.

In response these issues, the United Nations General Assembly recently declared 2015 the International Year of Soils. The IYS aims to be a platform for raising awareness of the importance of soils for food security and essential eco-system functions. Chris Hiryak, founder of the Southern Center for Agroecology and director of Little Rock Urban Farming believes that, “Access to high quality mature compost (stable humus) is key to the successful development of our food system.” Food waste is a valuable natural resource perfect for making stable humus.

By participating in The Urban Food Loop’s i-Comoost! Service, customers earn compost, which can be requested for drop off at their home gardens or donated, to community partners like Little Rock Urban Farming or The Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance Gleaning Garden. Last year the Gleaning Garden grew and harvested over 8,000 lbs. of fresh local produce at Western Hills Park, all of which was donated to local food pantries in efforts to fight local food insecurity.

For $31 a month, The Urban Food Loop will pick up your food waste every week, compost it, and you can either donate it to local food producers, or you can receive the compost for your own soil-based projects!! You can directly sign-up for their services online. Check it out here: http://www.theurbanfoodloop.com/compost-services/

May your week be filled with thermophilic productivity.

Kyle Holton
Program & Market Manager

Market Reminder

You have less than 24 hours to finish your shopping in the market . Summer crops are starting to appear on market Saturdays such as squash, cucumbers, green beans, and zucchinis. Enjoy the bounty!

Kyle Holton
Program & Market Manager