By Anthony Boutard, Ayers Creek Farm
Several years ago, Carol and I started experimenting with integrating various grains into our market farm. Our research led us to an ancient food called "frikeh." Produced by farmers since Biblical times, frikeh is wheat harvested while still green, then burned and threshed. The resulting grain is jade green with a grassy, sweet and smokey flavor. The green wheat is also more nutritious than mature wheat. Over the last five years, we have offered our farmers' market customers frikeh for a short time in early summer. With its smokey quality, frikeh offers a distinct and exciting variation on normal starchy grains. It is especially popular with vegetarians. Frikeh is prepared in Australia and throughout the Middle East, and is occasionally imported to the US. Until we began our experiments, there was no commercial production of frikeh in the US. There is a three day window where the grain, durum wheat, can be burned. It is a rustic process, done out in the field on sheets of corrugated metal. The grain must also be dried outside on screens. For more detail discussion of the grain, go here.
Because of the new and aggressive direction taken by the Oregon Department of Agriculture Food Safety Division, we will not be able to sell frikeh at the Hillsdale Farmers Market this summer. Yes, we can make frikeh again. But here's the problem. It is not factory food. There is no industrial facility to license. So we are prohibited from selling it at the market. Is there a food safety issue with frikeh? Absolutely not. ODA has simply developed a cramped, narrow vision of its regulatory authority. Unfortunately, whether intentionally or unintentionally, the ODA is going to stifle innovations at the farmers' market level.
Last week, ODA staff were looking for information on Hood strawberries. It is fine to cling to cherished old varieties, but as diseases and viruses decimate the remaining gene pool, the state needs to encourage new food ideas and presentations. The ideal laboratory for such experimentation is the farmers' market. We need to make it easy for farmers to follow their muse, whether roasting frikeh, or drying a surplus of chili peppers. In fact, reading ODA's proposal, it appears that farmers who sell grains or dry beans, for example, must get a license. This is absurd and without any basis in food safety.
What is troubling to me as farmer as I look at this push by ODA's FSD is the absence of a larger, positive and forward looking vision of farmers' markets. Reading the ODA document, it is clear that the markets and vendors are just a regulatory version of a widget. The "widget" is used by economist to avoid the messy conclusion that every manufactured good is different.
By gum, they want to treat us just like Safeway or Resor Foods. But we are not the same. There is no sense of appreciation or affection for farmers, managers and customers, articulated in the document. The directive's language is cold and dismissive. It speaks volumes that ODA does not trust the vendors to fill out their own forms.
Culturally, ODA is so wrapped up in the world of lobbyists and trade organizations, of corporation and industries, that the agency is unwilling to deal with individuals and communities. The agency is trying to impose a hierarchy within the loose and independent farmers' market community. The food safety administrators are directing the Oregon Farmers' Market Association to tell market managers to collect information on farmers and other vendors, and send it back to the agency so they can bust farmers who wander into the gray areas.
I will leave a lawyer to guide us on whether the state can collect this sort of information on fishing expedition, and without statutory authority. This is not a congenial request on the part of an agency to fulfill its statutory obligation to notify people of rules changes. Its purpose is to bust people who might be processing frikeh, or something similar. If a farmer is accused of violations based on information supplied by a farmers' market association without the expressed permission of the farmer, the legal case could be interesting. In fact, I don't see any indication that this directive has been reviewed by the AG's office.
If the ODA wants information on farmers, the agency should seek funds from the legislature to carry out the task. Using farmers' market staff as ODA's clerical support is wrong, and without any compensation, insulting. Information on the farmers' operations should be supplied directly to the agency by farmers, not market managers. Remember, if there is an error in the information given to the state agency, the farmers' market staff supplying the information are on the hook.
Finally, a plea to ODA staff. Please work on developing a farmer friendly approach. Why not make it a positive experience, rather than stalking and spying on us. We are, compared to Safeway or Resors, tiny operations. In 2006, Muhammad Yunus won the Nobel Peace Prize for his pioneering work on micro-loans. Those loans provide critical capital to individuals frozen out of the commercial credit market. Loans were predicated on trust in the borrower's good sense and, if I remember correctly, the default rate was zero, or close to it.
We need a micro-processing registration that will provide a path with few regulatory burdens when adding value to our produce if the activity, such as drying peppers, producing frikeh, or grinding grains, poses an insignificant risk. The approach needs to be tailored to the realities of a farm and farmers' market, rather than food factories or standard retail outlets. We need staff to develop a collaborative approach to farm gate value in the same way Yunus did with his micro- loans.
Earning a living from farming is tough, especially at the market farm level, and the Oregon Department of Agriculture should be doing everything it their power to make the task easier, not harder. We need advocates, not antagonists, of our efforts to build a robust farming business and a secure food system. The ODA should also review the efforts of colleagues in other states who are actually working to encourage greater on-farm processing and farmers' market participation.
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