"The values and beliefs held by farmers who settled the region, and the children and grandchildren who followed them on the land, forged the basic foundation for today’s heartland people, Farmers are the heart and soul of this country. In the settlement years of the heartland, more people worked as farmers than any other occupation. As the years passed, farmers began leaving the land; now, less than 2 percent of the American workforce farms."
Now this strikes a cord with me..being the 4th generation growing up on my family farm and fearing the fact that it might end in the near future due to our ignorant government basically forcing us out of our work. Treating family farms like we're a corporation..like a factory farm and expecting us to be able to pay this new minimum wage, while our seed, fertilizer and packaging go up in price, and our produce prices stay stagnate or even drop! I truly do not understand what has happened to the market for farmers..but we're dying out. Our produce is wasted 80% of the time due to blemishes caused by mother nature and end up in a compost pile because super markets say to us "oh this produce isn't pretty" or "why are they all different sizes?" Um I don't know maybe because that's how it friggin GREW...We don't have control over these things..it's nature.
I'm mainly writing this post today because I follow a local produce market in Fish town PA, and they are selling "local, hail damaged zucchini" explaining to the customers that the weather hasn't been nice recently and obviously has affected the zucchinis appearance. They're still edible even though they have a few blemishes. Why let a perfectly yummy zucchini go to rot. You get food on your table and you help feed the farmer who grew it.
Support your local farmer, it's always a great feeling to know where your food is coming from. Unlike these factory farms putting preservatives and harmful pesticides on your produce to keep it fresh for the weeks of travel it has to go through just to get to our supermarkets and then to you. Always, always go local! You can't get more fresh than that.
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https://www.grit.com/community/farming-rural-wit-and-wisdom-ze0z1205zsch