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Dear Friend of Farms and Food,
We are taking some time to give thanks this month. Thanks for the farmers who grow the delicious food we share around our table with friends and family at this special time of year.
We hope you enjoy our stories this month about the farmers at Open Door Farm in Cedar Grove, NC and Patient Wait Farm in Piedmont, SC and thoughtful essays by three faith leaders on food, faith and farming.
Join us in a celebration of farmers and food this month at the Sustainable Agriculture Conference, and the keynote Local Food Feast. The Feast is coordinated by Chef Isaiah Allen, creator of this month's recipe, Chicken and Grits (one of many mouth-watering dishes he's cooking up at the Conference). I look forward to seeing you there and celebrating the food on our table.
Thank you for all that you do,
Elizabeth Read, CFSA's Communications and Development Director
P.S. Don't miss our 31st annual Sustainable Agriculture Conference happening Nov. 4-6 in Durham, NC. Advanced registration is closed, but there is still plenty of room for you! Just register on-site.
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by Stephanie Campbell, CFSA’s Outreach Coordinator
The journey to becoming sustainable farmers is a difficult and complicated one, and success is far from assured. Starting a farm encompasses so much – learning to grow a wide variety of produce (including soil science, irrigation, disease and pest management, cover cropping, harvesting, handling, etc.), business planning, marketing, sales, equipment and infra-structure, food safety, water and land conservation … and making a sustainable income. Still, Jillian and Ross Mickens bought forty-three acres of worn out, abandoned tobacco and cattle land near Cedar Grove, NC, in December of 2013, and called it Open Door Farm. With a lot of love and hard work, they are now in their sixth year of production. Thank goodness.
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by Traci Barr
Gail Cooley of Patient Wait Farm in Piedmont, SC recalls first hearing the phrase “heritage turkey” early in the fall of 2008. After learning the local supply of Thanksgiving heritage turkeys had already sold out, and recognizing the demand for them, she thought, “I’ll just have to raise my own!” I ask Gail if, in 2008, she knew anything at all about how to, actually, raise turkeys. “No,” she says, laughing.
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To celebrate the upcoming holiday season, CFSA asked three faith leaders – a Rabbi, an Imam, and a Reverend – to contemplate the importance of food in their faith traditions and what it means to share a meal.
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by Isaiah Allen, The Eddy Pub
Warm, savory, and comforting, this recipe is just what you need now that the weather has cooled down. Created by Chef Isaiah Allen, our famous Local Food Coordinator for the upcoming Sustainable Agriculture Conference, you know it's going to be good!
By the way, there are still a handful of tickets available for the Local Food Feast at the Conference, featuring fresh, local, organic dishes and keynote by Clara Coleman. Hope you can join us Friday Nov. 4 in Durham, NC! Buy your tickets on-site.
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The Sustainable Agriculture Conference will bring together over 1,200 beginning and experienced farmers, agripreneurs and ag-tivists, health advocates and gardeners, consumers and homesteaders – and everyone in-between – for workshops, hands-on intensives, farm tours, demonstrations, good food, great conversations and community-building. It is a once-a-year opportunity to celebrate, champion and build a vibrant, sustainable food system in the Carolinas.
You need to be there! This is the future of food & farming.
Advanced registration is now closed, but there's plenty of room for you in Durham. Register on-site!
CFSA Members get discounted rates! Not a member? Join today and you'll save, too.
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