Live Earth Farm Nwsltr 2007

Greetings from Farmer Tom
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A promise needs to be kept, especially if it's one to my 13 year old son. For David who is entering the tender and uncertain years of teen-hood, words don't mean much, so last week, I followed through on my long held promise of showing him New York. In what was a spur of the moment decision, we hopped on a red-eye flight on Wednesday and the two of us spent 3 days in the Big Apple. For David, not knowing what to expect, the physical scale of things combined with the richly diverse and many overwhelming contrasts of Manhattan, had the intended effect of absolute amazement and curiosity. It was a tour-de-force from morning until late at night. We covered all the major sights, rode the subway like gophers on adrenaline, and spent most of our time walking the grid of streets and buildings from one sight to the next. When exhaustion finally caught up with us I couldn't wait to relax and spend Saturday morning visiting the Farmer's Market at Union Square. It was one of our highlights, with warm weather and clear blue skies; everybody was out and about. The small park at Union Square was filled with people relaxing and soaking up the sun. The farmer's market was lively, a real oasis, where the encounter between two cultures – the urban and agrarian – felt like a fresh breeze within this hard core financial epicenter of the world. It is sometimes the contrast that makes one see things that otherwise go unnoticed. As a farmer standing in the middle of this vibrant and thriving market, not too far from Ground Zero, I was filled with hope that we are in fact starting to transform things towards a more encouraging alternative future, away from the current and more vulnerable industrial and economic model of our times. Just like the mighty World Trade Center towers were vulnerable, and crumbled in the face of an unexpected terrorist attack, so too is the centralized, industrial food system, in the hands of a few corporate mega-farms, vulnerable to crumbling under economic and ecological pressures. Union Square Farmers Market 1

I was right at home talking to fellow farmers here in New York, enjoying the taste of their first fresh tomatoes, sampling goat cheese handcrafted by a small farm in Pennsylvania, and sipping deliciously refreshing cold raw chocolate milk. I was thinking of Luis, who at the very same moment was setting up our Live Earth Farm farmstand at the Westside Market in Santa Cruz, and of the probably thousands of others at farmer's markets all across the country. Security and peace can be built around a food system that relies on smaller and widely dispersed family farms and local enterprises, where the producers and consumers can have a conversation, look each other in the eye, and trust the story behind the product being exchanged. Here at the Union Square Farmer's Market, the products offered for sale involved much more than just a financial transaction: it involved a conversation, a handshake, smelling, tasting, colors... it felt like a community. I like to believe that food is a wonderful vehicle for creating a more secure and stable future, one where we celebrate our interdependence rather than our independence. Happy 4th of July!

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