I heard this great line at the Direct Farm Marketing Conference this weekend in Gimli and its been on my mind ever since. It really resonated with me. A mission statement of sorts... after all that is what we are after on the farm.
Our business is food but more than that, its about relationships. We want to form a relationship with our customers, that is important to us and we think it is important to our customers. Likewise, we encourage people to find out where their food comes from, how it is grown and who and what is involved.
We first got involved in growing our own food because we wanted our children to be raised in an environment where their relationship with food (and their environment) was healthy and intimate. And of course... tasty!
I find it curious when I meet someone who would rather not "know" their food. They prefer the anonymity of picking up their meat and produce at the grocery store. Is this changing? How will this change the way we interact with food.... our farmer.... our world.
This topic of not "intimately knowing food" seems to be at the core of so many health problems. Just this morning I saw an article in a German newspaper about a study revealing that almost all "children's foods" are respectively too high in sugar and fat (e.g. not good for children's health at all). Of course this relates only to foods engineered to give the impression that it caters to children - colourful packages with cartoon characters and "appropriate" food names. I think that meeting your farmer and knowing their land has way more benefits than fancy packaging, and I wonder why not more people realize this as well (after all hide and seek around the barn has more entertainment value than an early-morning staredown with Snap Crackle and Pop).
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