10 Reasons Why Farmers’ Markets are Better than Supermarkets

Summer and fall are a time when farmers’ markets are operating in most cities and towns. A good farmers’ market makes for better shopping experiences, and usually better eating for your family. Here are 10 reasons why that is so.

1. Always Fresh. Foods purchased at farmers’ markets are fresh, having been picked on the day you buy them or a couple of days before, at most. Supermarket foods, even when marketed as fresh, are usually picked and processed, stored, and then spend days or weeks getting to the supermarket where you buy them.
2. Local Variety. A farmers’ market is likely to have varieties of fruits and vegetables native to your area that you would never find in a supermarket. This is due to difficulties in storage and transportation for some varieties, and because some do not lend themselves to large scale production.
3. Flavor. Since the foods you find in farmers’ markets are fresh-picked and ripened in the field or garden, the flavors tend be much more intense and varied than those you find in supermarket foods.
4. Nutrition. Because foods sold in farmer’s markets are fresh and have ripened in their natural state, the nutritional values tend to be higher than those of processed or artificially ripened foods.
5. Local Economic Impact. When you buy your vegetables, fruits, poultry and meat at a farmer’s market, you know that the money you spend is going to a local farmer or gardener. This helps your local economy to remain healthy and strong.
6. Energy Independence. We often hear our politicians speak of weaning the nation from dependence on foreign energy sources. By buying your food at a farmers’ market, you are saving the energy that it takes to bring non-local foods from faraway locations.
7. Less Packaging. The fact that most of the food that you will buy at a farmers’ market is not processed and packaged, there will be less waste to end up in the local landfill. Referring back to number 6, there will also be less energy used in order to create packaging for the food you buy.
8. The Great Outdoors. Most farmers’ markets, though sheltered, are located outside. Shopping for your food outside helps you feel more connected to nature and to the environment in which your food is grown. It’s also a more pleasant experience to smell outdoor air and the produce around you than it is to breathe the cooled and conditioned air of a supermarket.
9. Socialization. There is something about a farmers’ market that encourages conversation. You tend to meet up with neighbors while shopping, and you probably know the producers from whom you are buying your food. A well attended farmers’ market helps to build a strong community.
10. No Bad Recorded Music! This may be the most important advantage of farmers’ markets over supermarkets. Who picks the endless loops of really bad music that play over and over in supermarkets everywhere? Is it a requirement that supermarket music be universally bland and awful so that all can be equally annoyed? The few times that I’ve been in a farmers’ market where music was playing, it was performed live by local artists, and was at least interesting to hear, even if it’s not of the highest quality.

So there we are; 10 reasons to take your family down to the local farmers’ market while the season is ripe. You’ll enjoy the experience, love the food, and will likely be eating more nutrient-rich food than you otherwise would.

(by Jessica Jackson, summer nanny jobs)

The Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food Compass

Are you a farmer, rancher or food business entrepreneur interested in local and regionally-produced food?

Are you a community leader wondering how local and regional food systems can help your local economy?

Are you a consumer interested in learning more about where your food comes from?

Now you can learn more about USDA’s support of local and regional food through the new Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food Compass. The Compass is an online multi-media narrative with stories, pictures and video about USDA’s support for local and regional food systems and an interactive map of USDA-supported local and regional food activities in all 50 states. With the Compass, you can navigate USDA resources for local and regional food ; meet farmers, ranchers, businesses and communities in your state that are participating in local food chains; and learn about local and regional food projects across the country.

Released today, the Compass showcases USDA’s Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food Initiative. The Initiative was launched in 2009 to coordinate the work of USDA’s 17 agencies and many staff offices that invest in local and regional food systems. Since then, USDA has supported nearly 4,500 seasonal high tunnels (or “hoop houses”) to help farmers extend their growing seasons. We’ve also seen the number of number of farm to school programs jump from 400 in 2004 to over 2,300 in 2011 and the number of operating farmers markets blossom from 4,685 in 2008 to over 7,100 in 2011.

But we at the USDA know that local food is about so much more. It’s about places like Idaho’s Bounty Food Coop in Ketchum, Idaho which received a USDA Rural Business Enterprise Grant to expand delivery of local food from warehouse to retail. It’s about Ohio State University in Cleveland Ohio which used a Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program grant to expand BEAN’s (Beginning Entrepreneurs in Agricultural Networks) ability to train new farmers and to develop 3,300 city acres into food enterprises. It’s about the Diamond B Farm in New Durham , New Hampshire where farmer Meghan Bickford secured funding from the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) to create a rotational grazing plan for her herd of Belted Galloway and Angus cattle, build a ground gutter and grassed waterway to treat barnyard runoff, and implement a forest stand improvement plan. You can read these and other stories here.

The Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food Compass is a valuable resource documenting the innovation, entrepreneurship and impact of local food systems across the country. It is driving job growth, keeping farmers and on the land, and keeping wealth in rural communities. We invite you to dive deep into this new tool, and be inspired by the stories it tells and the ideas it can spur for you and your community.

You can also join us for a “virtual conversation” on Twitter about local and regional food on Monday, March 5 from 2:30-4:00 pm. Follow hashtag #KYF2 and tune in at 2:30pm ET.

The Lowdown on High Tunnels

If you want locally grown produce in February, you usually don’t have many choices in Missouri other than root vegetables. However, on a chilly February morning at the Columbia Farmers Market, the Thomas family of Share Life Farms is selling not just root veggies but also lettuce, mustard greens and assorted varieties of kale.

Columbia’s farmers' market moves indoors for the winter. Share Life Farms and several other vendors at the market have moved part of their operations indoors too, using high tunnels to lengthen their growing season.

Jim Thomas Sr. (left) and son
Jim Thomas Jr. of Share Life Farms
sell produce grown in a high tunnel.

A high tunnel, also known as a hoop house, is a simple, unheated structure similar to a greenhouse, though crops are grown in the ground, not in pots on benches. A shell of translucent plastic admits sunlight, traps warm air and shields crops from the elements, letting producers plant earlier in the spring and continue harvesting into winter.

“High tunnels can boost production as much as three times by increasing the growing season for fruits and vegetables,” said Jim Quinn, University of Missouri Extension horticulture specialist.

“It can allow a person to make a decent income on small acreage,” said Jim Thomas Jr. of Share Life Farms, Marshall, Mo.

Share Life Farms’ 30-by-96-foot hoop house—which Thomas says is the minimum size to make high tunnel production profitable—will let his family plant and harvest tomatoes, peppers, eggplant and cucumbers about a month earlier than outdoor conditions would permit.

High tunnels can reduce soil erosion and nutrient runoff, and shield plants from excessive rainfall, drought and other extreme weather. They can also help protect crops from insect pests and diseases.

Share Life Farms is one of hundreds of Missouri farms that have taken advantage of a federal cost-sharing program promoting high tunnels. Through the Environmental Quality Incentive Program, the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) reimburses eligible producers for a large portion of their construction costs.

A typical 30-by-96-foot high tunnel might cost $6,000-$8,000, Quinn said. Producers accepted into the NRCS program are reimbursed for about two-thirds to three-fourths of the construction costs after the high tunnel has been built.

While high tunnels aren’t terribly expensive compared to greenhouses, the upfront costs can still discourage the many small operations that are striving to meet the growing demand for locally grown produce.

To make the program more accessible to these operations, the Missouri Agricultural and Small Business Development Authority is providing short-term loans to producers approved for the federal program.

“The high tunnel loan program steps in to provide funding for those who don’t want to use their own money for purchases and then wait to be reimbursed by NRCS,” Quinn said. “This may be especially helpful to farmers with lower cash flow or individuals on a tight budget.”

Borrowers pay only monthly interest, at an annualized rate of 7.5 percent, for up to one year.

Another obstacle for some producers is that most of the federal funding for high tunnel construction has been available only to organic farms or farms that are transitioning to organic production, Quinn said.

In response to requests from conventional producers, the NRCS in Missouri directed some high tunnel funding to conventional producers as well. Last year, about a third of high tunnel contracts in Missouri went to conventional farms, according to Paul Duffner, resource conservationist with the Missouri NRCS office.

Other states are now funding high tunnels on conventional farms, including Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska, Quinn said.

The NRCS program is a pilot project, now in its third and final year. Whether the program continues will depend on evaluations of the program outcomes, government funding priorities and other factors.

“Either way, high tunnels are here to stay,” Quinn said. “They have already proved their profitability to many growers, but this program has really given their usage across the state a real boost.”

Since 2003, MU Extension has helped conduct educational programs on high tunnels, including classes and on-farm construction workshops that have drawn capacity crowds.

For more information about the state high tunnel loan program, go to their website.

For information about the federal cost-share program in Missouri, go to their website .

The application deadline for the last 2012 EQIP ranking period is June1. Contact your local USDA/NRCS field office for EQIP High Tunnel application information.

Information about high tunnel research is available from a joint effort of MU Extension, Kansas State Research and Extension, and University of Nebraska Cooperative Extension.

Kansas State University maintains a high tunnel email list. You can Subscribe or browse archives.

(by Curt Wohleber, Senior Information Specialist, University of Missouri Cooperative Media Group)

Plant Propagation and Production Planning Workshop

The Plant Propogation and Production Planning Workshop will be held at Masters Community Church, 2548 South 42nd Street, Kansas City, KS 66106 on Monday, March 5th from 4 pm to 7:00 pm.

So you want to be a grower. But what to grow? How much? Where? When? When can you harvest? What will the yields be? What is the best way to get all those crops started? Most importantly, how do you keep track of all this? This workshop will give you the tools to answer these questions.

4:00-4:45 Seed Starting and Transplant Production

Cary Rivard, State Vegetable Specialist, K-State Research and Extension, will help us understand the factors effecting germination and plant growth, options for transplant production and potential problems to watch out for in seedlings.

5:00-6:00 Production Planning and Field Mapping

Daniel Dermitzel and Alicia Ellingsworth, Cultivate KC, will explain their production planning process, field maps, succession plantings and the record keeping that helps them stay on top of 2 acres of diversified vegetable production.

6:00-7:00 Farm Tour, Gibbs Road Farm and Greenhouse
A 2 acre, certified organic farm with multiple high tunnels that models urban farming appropriate practices. A large community greenhouse provides growing space to several area growers.

This workshop is being brought to you by Cultivate Kansas City, a partner of the Growing Growers program. Cost to attend this workshop is $15. To register, contact Katherine Kelly at (913) 831-2444.

Giant Miscanthus Grass - good or bad?

With all the talk of biomass production, I thought this might be of interest to farmers.

Miscanthus (Miscanthus x giganteus) hybrid grass is being promoted by several universities and other organizations as a solution to some of our energy needs. Reading articles and watching videos on miscanthus would lead people think it is the best new idea around with no problems. Miscanthus has been evaluated and widely planted in Europe during the past 5-10 years as a bioenergy crop. In spite of perceived positive attributes, there may be negative considerations to planting this crop. More Missouri research is needed to answer these questions.

Some promoted advantages are:

Miscanthus

- Miscanthus is a large perennial grass with a great potential for use in alternative energy production for fuel and cellulosic alcohol production.

- Giant miscanthus is widely grown in Europe as a bioenergy crop.

- Fields planted to non-invasive miscanthus can be easily reclaimed for corn/soy bean.

- Miscanthus grass is being promoted as a high yielding, low/no input crop. Mineral nutrients translocate into the plant’s crown in the fall and will continue even after frost.

- Excellent for carbon sequestration and soil building.

- NRCS cost share is available through the Biomass Crop Assistance Program (BCAP) for field establishments.

- Yield estimates are from 10 to 15 tons per acre.

- There is potential for income generation through carbon credits.

- Miscanthus begins growing at lower spring temperatures and stops growing later in the season than other warm season grasses.

Some of the not so commonly mentioned disadvantages or questions are:

- Miscanthus is a large, tall, dense growing perennial grass with few wildlife friendly uses.

- As a hybrid, the seed is not viable but the plant may be invasive through rhizome spread.

- There are concerns that miscanthus may produce an extremely small percent of viable seeds but due to the high density plantings, a few viable seeds may be enough to cause invasive spread.

- More Missouri research is needed on yields, fertilizer needs and ideal soil fertility levels.

- More Missouri research is needed on applying for carbon credits, carbon sequestration and soil improvement.

Pressed Miscanthus core



- Many Missouri fields are poor choices for miscanthus plantings because of erosion potential. Cost share is available from BCAP if the fields do not exceed soil loss requirements. Unfortunately, seed beds should be of loose, tilled soil 4 to 6 inches deep making them highly prone to erosion.

- Miscanthus yields are strongly influenced by water availability of at least 30 inches of rainfall a year.

- MU Agricultural Economists have not completed economic evaluations.

- MU Agronomists have not completed assessments on how miscanthus fits in to Missouri management and agronomic practices.

- There are few alternative uses such as for forage.

- Miscanthus is an exotic plant grown in a monoculture.

- Expensive to plant. Rhizomes are used for establishment plantings. The recommended planting depth is 4 inches.

- Miscanthus has been shown to serve as a host for corn rootworm and other insect pests of commercial crops. What effect this has on pest dynamics in near-by crops is unknown.

- Typical forage harvesting equipment on farms may not be compatible or efficient for miscanthus bioenergy harvesting.

Miscanthus rhizomes

There are a number of giant miscanthus grass plantings planned this spring in central Missouri. More will be learned about miscanthus, bioenergy crop establishment and production through these and other plantings.

Dr. Emily A. Heaton, Assistant Professor of Agronomy at Iowa State University, has stated that the ideal dedicated biomass crop is a perennial that efficiently uses available resources, stores carbon in the soil, is an efficient user of water, has low fertilizer requirements and is not invasive. Giant miscanthus (Miscanthus x giganteus) possesses many, if not all, of these characteristics.

By Jim Jarman, MU Extension Agronomy Specialist. Information came from the University of Missouri and other land grant universities, USDA, NRCS’s Technical Note No. 4, “Planting and Managing Giant Miscanthus as a Bioenergy Crop”, and videos from the US and Europe.

What are your trees worth?

Establishing a timber tax basis can save you money, says MU economist.

This time of year Larry Godsey gets a lot of calls from woodland owners asking for advice about taxes on timber they have sold.

Godsey, an economist with the Center for Agroforestry at the University of Missouri, usually starts by asking, “What is your basis?”

A lot of woodland owners don’t know, and that means they could be selling their timber for too little, and paying too much in taxes.

Put simply, the basis, also known as the tax basis, is what you invested in an asset. “Basically, it’s what you paid for it or its fair market value on the day it was acquired,” Godsey said.

While many woodland owners probably have the basis for their entire property—which might include cropland and buildings as well as forest—they may not have established what portion of the original purchase price went to acquiring the timber.

Timber is usually taxed as a long-term capital gain, so you can subtract the cost basis when figuring your tax liability. But if you don’t have the basis, you have to pay tax on the full amount of the sale.

Flooding and tornadoes took out a lot of trees in 2011, and you can declare those trees as a casualty loss—but again, only if you have a basis.

It’s possible to establish a cost basis retroactively by hiring a forester to cruise the timber and “ungrow” the trees, but that can be expensive.

“When you acquire the property, hire a consulting forester to estimate the volume and value of your timber,” Godsey said. You can adjust your basis to reflect additional investments—including the forester’s fee.

If you have inherited the woodland, and therefore didn’t pay anything at all to acquire your timber, you can still establish a cost basis using the appraised market value of the timber, he said.

Call before you cut

“Never sell timber without assistance from a consulting or professional forester,” Godsey said. “A lot of landowners may not know what their timber is worth. Don’t sell to the guy who knocks on your door and says, ‘I’ll give you $3,000 for your timber.’

“Call someone who knows about forest taxes and say, ‘I’m ready to do a timber sale. What do I need to know?’ That way, if you have to go back and establish a basis, you can do that before the trees are cut and gone instead of looking at stumps and trying to estimate if they’re oak or walnut or what.”

For more information about timber and taxes, Godsey recommends Internal Revenue Service publication 225, Farmer’s Tax Guide.

Woodland owners might be interested in these MU Extension publications, which are available for free.

• G5051, Selling Timber: What the Landowner Needs to Know

• G5055, Determining Timber Cost Basis

• G5056, Managing Your Timber Sale Tax

• AF1014, Understanding Casualty Loss of Timber

• AF1004, Tax Considerations for the Establishment of Agroforestry Practices

• AF1013, Succession Planning for Woodland Owners

(by Curt Wohleber, Senior Information Specialist, University of Missouri Cooperative Media Group)

Farmstead Arrangement

If you are thinking about adding a structure to a current farmstead or planning a new farmstead, there are several things to consider and certain factors to place in an arrangement.

Considerations

Farmstead Map

1. Review present situation for existing problems

2. Assess near-term needs

3. Provide for long-term goals and future expansion

4. Give thought to personal objectives:  

    - Improved performance or production

    - Greater capacity

    - Expansion of facilities

    - Better use of time



There are also a few rules of thumb to follow when planning a farmstead. Those include but are not limited to:

- Don’t build in a hole—drainage off the site is critical
- Don’t create bottle-necks
 - A structure in the wrong place is a 20, 30 or more year problem
 - Mistakes can be corrected on paper much easier than on the ground after concrete is poured.
 - Is a new structure financially feasible
 - Don’t let “we’ve always done it this way” rule your thinking
 - There’s always more than one way to develop a farmstead

Planning factors

Remember vehicle turning radius can affect spacing between buildings and the amount of space allowed in the middle of the farmstead. A semi with a cattle pot or grain trailer generally has a 55’ to 65’ turning radius. A twin-screw with a sleeper cab might be more than that. A one ton dually can have a radius of as much as 52’. Add a fifth wheel trailer and it could be more.

Wind direction can direct noise, odor, dust and snowdrifts toward the house, so pay attention to prevailing winds. In southwest Missouri, summer winds are mostly from the south. Some are from the southwest and southeast. Winter winds are primarily from the direct north and slightly northeast. If you consider all wind for 365 days for the five-year period of 2006 to 2010, the combined average is roughly 15° southeast of south (data from the University of Missouri Commercial Ag weather station located at Lamar).

Where will you store chemicals and locate secondary containment of pesticides, fertilizers and fuel?
Is the view from the house acceptable to other members of the family?

Is the view from the road acceptable to family members as viewed by passersby? In other words can people driving by see into your machine shed? Can they tell whether or not you’re home or away?  Can vandals see into buildings without pulling into your farmstead?

What about security? Can vandals get in and out of the farmstead without having to drive past the house?

When planning a farmstead, there are four zones recommended. The first zone is within the first 100’ of the house. That’s the area for family activities. The next 100’ is zone two and would be considered an area for machinery storage and probably a shop. Zone three is the next 100’ and would be for grain storage and small livestock structures such as a flock of laying hens, maybe a pen of goats, pigs or calves. The fourth zone would be for large livestock facilities such as confined poultry or hogs.

For a sizeable operation, you’re probably looking at utilizing four or five acres of land for a farmstead. If you have multiple enterprises, or farm several thousand acres, the land area necessary for the farmstead could be much larger.