Farming is the Future, Man

My typical shift at the coop is Sunday afternoons, usually working the coolers in the basement sending up crates of produce, cases of juice and boxes upon boxes of dry goods. This morning I had the opportunity to do the opposite: help fill those coolers back up.

When I told Allen Zimmerman, the Coop's produce buyer, that I was interested in meeting some of their farmers and delivery people, he suggested I come in early one morning when the folks from Hepworth Farms would be bringing by a shipment. Not only was I amazed by the quantity and variety coming off the truck, my sleep-busting efforts were well rewarded by Jay: an ex-LA recording artist and neo-farm loving truck driver extraordinaire.

He was a riot. Jay is from El Salvador by way of LA, who now lives in Upstate New York and works on Amy and Gerry Hepworth's Farm with his wife and daughter. He's as excited by juicing wheat grass or onions and apple juice ("gotta make it sweet"), as he is by the huge bundles of dark kale he carries ("this would be two bundles anywhere else, man, they love the Park Slope Coop. But it's bitter, man, anything good for you tastes bad, you know, but you juice it with apple juice to make it sweet"), to their program for kids in Harlem in which they set up a roof-top garden, teach them to grow tomatoes and other produce, and check in on them regularly ("kids love it man, you know, but they expect me to be in overalls"). Get people talking about something they're into and they don't stop. I heard about his mint and thyme plants, how to grow parlsey, that they donate extra crop to a church in New Jersey, that you can fool bees into pollinating apple trees nearly year round, and about his restaurants in LA and Florida.

Growing up in the self-sustaining agriculture community of El Salvador, he was taught that fruits and vegetables grew anywhere. He grandfather would tell him to plant a mango seed anywhere and in a couple weeks come back and there'd be a tree there. Though farming in the States is commerce-driven, and vegetables are planted in neat little rows not wherever you might feel like it, he maintains a desire for his daughter to know where food comes from. "Money comes and goes, but if you know how to farm, how to grow food, you're all set. You'll be good."

Local Produce, Local Buyer

Today was a tremendous day for 'the project'. I was contacted a few weeks ago by Allen Zimmerman, Produce Buyer for the Park Slope Food Coop, who had first seen my blog on a Google Alert for the Coop, and then again on some recent press. He generously invited me in this afternoon and walked me through some basic 101s of his job. A particular thanks to Allen for his patience with my amateur 'journalism'!

Allen has lived in Brooklyn for 50+ years and has been involved with the Coop since the very first days when he became friends with Joe Holtz - the Coop's first employee - who convinced him to come on board in his current role in 1988. From the early years of buying mainly grains in bulk from Huntspoint (a drive-in farmers' market in the Bronx still active today), the produce section alone has grown to one which requires 220 decisions per day figuring out where everything will come from. From the start, the Coop complied with what was assumed to be certain law, C.O.O.L. (Country of Origin Labeling). Even now, all produce is labeled with its origin, as specifically as possible. Sometimes that means the individual farm, sometimes it means "USA" if it comes from multiple sources, but Allen always knows where it's from, even when dealing with national wholesale vendors.

A story Allen is particularly proud of is the Coop's fifteen year involvement with Amy Hepworth and her farm in Milton, NY. They have a particularly trusting relationship, as the Coop had been buying from her when she was originally part of a farmers collective and then took her on as one of their primary apple and organic vegetable sources. The closeness is apparent when Allen shows me the handwritten invoices that often come blank. The two entities have relied on each other for so long it is like dealing with family. (Check out a great article about their shared history in The Scotland Sunday Herald)

In the next week or so, I'll swap shifts at the Coop so I can go in early early morning when the deliveries come in and help unload the trucks. If we time it right, I hope to make it in on a day when Amy is delivering her regular shipment. Allen is a tremendous resource and I look forward to ongoing connections with him.

More to come on this afternoon's surprise visit from Nicaragua!