Farm-to-Table

The Farm-to-Table Movement

Tags: Alternative Agriculture; Organic Food; Local Food Production; Sustainable; 'Slow Food'; 'Four-Star' Restaurants; "Peak of the Season"; Wellness

Back in the early 1990's, when I was working with Seeds of Change and its pioneering ('Bioneering') publishing efforts to create and spread the biodiversity and organic/heirloom importance of seed saving/co-evolution/fresh, healthy and tasty food production, I often would use a phrase that captured what was, to me, the key to our alternative to 'Big Ag', with its industrial-size production methods, petrochemical fertilizer regime with pesticides/herbicides/miticides/fungicides and varied health-threatening inputs.

The phrase I felt was right was "peak of the season" and so I'm added it again to GreenPolicy360 -- the notion of "peak of the season" choice of what is best in the garden, in the fields, a choice that is made in a co-evolutionary sense between human and nature, a choice that often includes saving the best (healthiest, most undamaged-by-insects, flourishing varieties of crops), the seeds that you choose to carry forward to the next generation planting --- and to harvest the best of the rest. This 'natural' method is involved in market gardening/farmers markets/CSA/Alt Ag and/or "farm-to-table" production. What arrives at the kitchen of your favorite restaurant or via your own choice (not the industrial producers choice and the grocery chain or restaurant wholesaler distributor's choice) is fresh and, at best, is Peak of the season.

I'll give you one example of my love of the phrase "Peak of the Season."

The central Florida "Strawberry Festival Season." 'Nuff said.