The market will be closed on December 26!

Please note that on Tuesday, December 26, there will be no farmers' market. This is the only farmers' market closure for the season--we will be open on December 31 and January 2.

Saturday, December 16 ~ Winter Festival

Come welcome winter at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market! Sweet winter greens are here, as well as turnips, rutabagas, cauliflower, and mandarins. Do you know what to do with them? Let us warm your belly with a cup of soup, and learn all about winter produce, winter cooking, winter nutrition, and winter on the farm. This is our last day of educational programming until February, but the farmers will continue to bring their bounty every week. Stock up on tips to carry you through the cold season.

Winter Festival schedule of events:

• 10:00 – 12:30 Winter soup samples and Ask the Nutritionist table
• 10:00 – 10:25 Winter soup cooking demonstration with Sarah Henkin, CUESA's culinary intern
• 10:25 – 10:40 Discussion on winter in the orchard with Polly Bates of The Apple Farm
• 10:40 – 10:50 Spiced apple cider cooking demonstration with Sarah Henkin and Polly Bates
• 10:50 – 11:00 Winter market outlook from market manager Dexter Carmichael
• 11:00 – 11:20 Talk on nutrition of winter produce by Jessica Ingersoll-Cope, Certified Nutrition Consultant
• 11:20 – 11:40 Winter greens cooking demonstration by Shanti Wilson, CUESA's Market Chef
• 11:40 – 12:00 Discussion of winter on the farm by Nigel Walker of Eatwell Farm
• 12:00 – 12:30 Talk: Deepening our Sense of Seasonality this Winter by Jessica Prentice, co-founder of Three Stone Hearth and author of Full Moon Feast. Book signing to follow.

location: CUESA's Dacor teaching kitchen in the arcades north of the Ferry Building's clock tower

In 2007, one of the most influential pieces of legislation affecting how our country eats, uses land, produces energy, and relates with other countries is up for renewal. The farm bill debate is broader, louder and more heated this time around than at perhaps any time in history. Hundreds of billions of dollars are at stake, and farmers are not the only ones weighing in; so are diverse interests from environmental and food security organizations, to healthcare providers, to multi-national corporations, to the WTO. The five-year omnibus bill will be number one on the agenda of the House and Senate Agriculture Committees in 2007.

The farm bill is a bulky package of food- and farm-related legislation that, at least in theory, allows lawmakers to look at the big picture of food and agriculture in the U.S. The bill contains ten sections, or titles: Commodity, Conservation, Ag Trade & Aid, Nutrition, Farm Credit, Rural Development, Research, Forestry, Energy, and Miscellaneous. Surprising to some, the largest area of spending in the farm bill is the Nutrition Title, which includes the food stamp, child nutrition, and commodity distribution programs. While in the past most public input about the bill has focused on Title I (the commodity program), the Nutrition Title is getting a lot of attention this year. As Michael Pollan wrote in a September article in The Nation magazine, “The farm bill determines what our kids eat for lunch in school every day. Right now, the school lunch program is designed not around the goal of children’s health but to help dispose of surplus agricultural commodities…” The result of many farm bill policies, Pollan argues, is a glut of unhealthful food that fuels our country’s obesity epidemic. Food security, anti-hunger, and public health organizations along with health care providers are pushing for policies that promote health and accessibility.

The second largest appropriation in the farm bill is for the commodity programs, which are what come to the minds of most people when they think of the bill. Thanks to the Environmental Working Group’s Farm Subsidy Database and the extensive coverage that many news sources have provided about this issue, public awareness about Title I and its implications has risen. There is serious inequity in the distribution of subsidies: 92% of funds go to just five different crops and even though California is the largest agricultural producer and exporter in the nation, only 9% of California farmers benefit from subsidies. This, combined with some undeniable problems about how and to whom the funds are distributed (illuminated in this Washington Post article), has brought about agreement among an unlikely assortment of groups that the bill is out of date.

Why the increased attention to the farm bill this time around? Many contextual changes have caused interest and unrest. For one thing, American consumers are showing unprecedented curiosity about their food and are fueling the growth of the organic industry. Also, the nation is facing more and more problems related to food and health: we are losing small family farms, our obesity epidemic is growing, food markets are becoming increasingly global, and the World Trade Organization is putting pressure on the U.S. to comply with trade agreements by decreasing or eliminating subsidies to farmers. Add to that a strong interest in domestic fuel production (especially ethanol) and a huge federal deficit, and you’ve got a raging debate.

Several organizations that feel the bill needs a comprehensive redirection have laid out frameworks and made recommendations. In his recent talk at the Ferry Building (summarized here), American Farmland Trust President Ralph Grossi talked about his organization’s agenda for positive changes to the bill (view pdf). Included are recommendations to double the funding for conservation programs, increase funding for the Farm to Cafeteria program, and reward ecological farmers with green payments. Other organizations that have proposed change include the Farm and Food Policy Project and the Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

Some of the changes proposed by these and other organizations are exactly the kind that might benefit sustainable family farmers, including those who attend the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market. Farmer John Lagier of Lagier Ranches, who is involved in a campaign (with the California Coalition for Food and Farming and the National Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture) to advance the agenda of the sustainable agriculture community, is hoping that in the next farm bill, small and ecological farmers will see benefits from the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, sustainable farming research, and conservation programs.

How can you join this lively debate? Though the public comment period is closed, let your elected officials know what you hope to see in the next farm bill, support organizations that are pushing the kind of policies you want to see, and learn more at the links below!

Learn more:
USDA's official Farm Bill page
American Farmland Trust's farm policy campaign
Daniel Imhoff’s book, Food Fight: A Citizen's Guide to the Farm Bill, out in January, 2007
Washington Post's series of articles about farm subsidies

This is the most up-to-date information about which sellers will and won't be attending the market as of Friday, when we send this letter. If there are no changes to a sellers' status, they will not be listed! To find out which farmers regularly attend each market, click here. Please understand that there are always last minute changes--it's the nature of farming!

Saturday, December 16

In/Returning: Knoll Farms, Viccolo Pizza, Rose Pistola, McGinnis Ranch
Out: Bernard Ranches, Yerena Farms (for the season), Happy Quail Farm (for the season), The Peach Farm (for the season), Double K Tree Farm (for the season), Flatland Flower Farm (for the season)

Tuesday, December 19

In/Returning: Snyders Honey
Out: Yerena Farms (for the season), Devoto Gardens, McGinnis Ranch
Note: The Tuesday market will be closed on December 26!