Availability for July 8

Happy Independence Day to everyone out there! Today is the day we celebrate our independence from the tyranny of a king, but it’s also a great occasion to think about our independence from all sorts of things. Your support of Athens Locally Grown greatly helps the cause of food independence for our community, for starters. Did you know that, on average, American farmer receives only nine cents out of every dollar that gets spent on food? By the time you take out the cut of the processors, the distributors, the wholesalers, and so forth, only 9% is left for the farm. And of course, they’ve got to try to meet all of the expenses of running a farm with that money, and pretty much the only way to do that is by consolidating the farmland into huge “corporate” farms that can get by with the economies of scale. The farms might be independent family-owned enterprises on paper, but they’re beholden to all of those other interests that control the other 91% of the food dollar. Here at Athens Locally Grown, the growers keep 90% of every dollar, turning small, truly family owned and operated farms into viable businesses. That fosters variety for you, provides a sustainable use of the area’s green space, and helps in no small way Athens be a more self-reliant community.

For you, too, these growers and their products let you become independent from the corporate grover, who is told by the corporate office in Cincinnati or Bentonville or Greenville what they can and can’t stock and who they can source their produce from. You’re given the freedom to choose who grows and produces your food and how they grow and produce it. If you don’t like one grower’s products or methods, you have a hundred others, all located right here, to choose from.

And of course by sourcing your food so close to home, you don’t have to be reliant on an overtaxed and under-vigilant inspection system to make sure your food is safe. The Federal government is actively trying to reduce your ability to choose where your food comes from, so not everything is rosy. I’m a plaintiff in a Federal law suit against the FDA resulting from the raw milk incident last fall. You may recall that state gents seized milk from our Athens Locally Grown pickup point in October, and then a few days later the state came out to my home and, under the direction of an FDA agent who was present, ordered all of the milk to be destroyed. Last week, in a court filing, the FDA called my affidavit where I recounted the events of that day “bizzare allegations” and denied that the incident ever happened. That may come as a surprise to those of you who came out to my houe that day and witnessed it, but there we are. Our fight for independence is an ongoing one.

I could go on, but this has already gotten long. I’m typing all this on my phone while my wife drives us back from watching fireworks in Greenville, SC. Please excuse any typos; it’s easy to type, but not so easy to proofread.

Speaking of typing on my phone, we tried out an order checkout system on some old iPhones last week. We’ve only found two, but it worked well enough that we’re now looking for more. If you’ve got an old iPhone or iPod touch lying around you don’t need, would you consider donating it to us? With the two iPads we have at the pay table and if each of the six volunteers filling orders had an iPhone or iPod touch, we will save a ream of paper a week. That’s a lot of paper, and it adds up fast. Not only that, but doing everything live on the website has really helped us prevent the errors that we sometimes make filling orders, and at the very least make sure you get a proper refund when we do leave something out. It’s also greatly cut down on the behind-the-scenes work I do keeping all the books in order.

Our next Farmer for a Day event, on Sunday July 11, at Veribest Farm, has just about filled up. There are slots still available for our August, and September Farmer for a Day events, and you can find more details on all of them on the Market page of the website, under the Event Reservations category.

The Athens Farmers Market is held every Saturday morning at Bishop Park from 8am to noon and every Tuesday evening at Little Kings downtown. It’s a totally separate entity from Athens Locally Grown, but you’ll find many of the same growers at both. And of course, you can learn more about that market on their website.

Thank you for all of your support of Athens Locally Grown and our member growers. Without your patronage and demand for locally grown and naturally grown foods, the growers wouldn’t be here to meet that demand, and our entire community would be much worse off. Thank you! We’ll see you on Thursday from 4:30 to 8pm at Ben’s Bikes, at the corner of Pope and Broad!