Nov. 26, 2008 (World News Trust) -- The U.S. financial system is in collapse, and energy costs are likely
to come back again next spring and summer with a vengeance that we
can't imagine. This will make the price of food, already off the scale,
skyrocket even further. We must all get to know our local farmers, or
better yet, become them. In the moment, we have the "luxury" of low
energy prices, and it is during this time that we should be making food
security our top priority.
A few months ago I was introduced to Stuart and Margaret Osha of Turkey Hill Farms
here in Central Vermont. I originally contacted them because people
around me were raving about the taste and health benefits of raw milk.
In fact, a couple of Truth To Power subscribers who live in the area
were thrilled to have attended a workshop with the Oshas on "The
Family Cow," and they wanted me to check out Turkey Hill Farms.
I'll never forget the day I met the Oshas and the feeling I had when I
left there driving off into the lush, rolling hills with a couple of
quarts of raw milk, home made granola, eggs, and vegetables-all
produced at Turkey Hill. For the first time in my life I had purchased
my food directly from local farmers-not at a farmer's market, but
directly from the farmer at the farm, and the feeling of satisfaction
and a sense of rightness about it brought tears to my eyes. This was,
after all, what I had been promoting for years, and finally, I had the
opportunity to practice what I had been writing about.
But Vermont is not the only place where people can and should get to
know their local farmer. Opportunities to do so exist almost everywhere
in North America. As I have learned more about organic farming, and
particularly as I have consumed vast quantities of raw milk and gotten
to know the people who produce it, I'm deeply motivated to invite Truth
To Power readers to create similar opportunities in their local
communities.
I cannot stress the urgency of this. The U.S. financial system is in
collapse, and energy costs are likely to come back again next spring
and summer with a vengeance that we can't imagine. This will make the
price of food, already off the scale, skyrocket even further. We must
all get to know our local farmers, or better yet, become them. In the
moment, we have the "luxury" of low energy prices, and it is during
this time that we should be making food security our top priority.
To that end, I thought that sitting down with the Oshas and allowing
them to share their experiences with local farming would be especially
useful. They graciously took time from their many chores to speak with
me.
Carolyn Baker: Stuart, you were an organic dairy farmer before you moved to this
property in Central Vermont. At that time, you wrote a book, Loving A
Dying Way of Life, so can you tell our readers a little bit about what
inspired you to write the book?
Stuart Osha: Margaret and I were living on her family farm, and I was doing a
lot of writing, and emotions were just coming out about a time in my
life that was so dear and precious to me -- childhood memories and a sense
of community back in the 1940s and 50s. I began to realize that this
life as I remembered it, was dying. That's really what inspired it.
Margaret and I were farming at the time, and it took a tremendous
amount for us to be doing it because there wasn't as much organic dairy
farming going on at that time. I think maybe there were thirty-some
organic dairy farms in Vermont that were NOFA-qualified.
CB: Can you explain what NOFA is?
SO: NOFA is the
Northeast Organic Farming Association, and they do a number of things,
but their main focus is certifying farms as organic, and they offer a
number of workshops and have an annual conference. They have been the
torch carriers for the organic movement here in Vermont and the
Northeast.
CB: So there wasn't much support for what you were doing, and you had
been talking about The Dying Way of Life. Please feel free to continue
with that.
SO: Yes, in the ten years or so since I wrote that book, I could say
the dying way of life is coming back. I see it everywhere. And it's so
exhilarating to both Margaret and I to see this, and our communities
are going to be depending on us once again for this way of life. So at
that time in the mid to late-nineties, I really thought that it was
dying, and in just ten years, it's started to come back. We notice
every year that more and more people are interested in what we do, and
more and more people are buying our products. We started out with just
having a milk cow, and it's really grown into something tremendously
inspiring.
CB: Right now we're finding ourselves in a very painful recession that
by all accounts is going to become much more severe. Some very astute
economists are calling this what it is, the collapse of the global
economic system. An overwhelming majority of our readers eat organic or
natural foods and are strongly committed to their local economies and
local solutions. What is your sense of the role of local economies and
family farms in providing an alternative to the global economy?
SO: Back when 9/11 happened I remember distinctly thinking that it
would be good for small farmers because if you want food security you
need lots of small farms. Well, obviously it wasn't, and we continued
to go in the direction we were already going.
Food security is now a huge issue. When you find out that China's
putting chemicals in the milk, that ought to wake up most people -- that
you need to be buying local, and you need to know the people that
you're buying your products from. So I think this has been coming, but
the present economic situation is creating an awareness in people that
local is better, and they should know their producer.
Everyone is on hold with the oil situation because prices are down now,
and people have put that on the back burner because they're worrying
more about their mortgages. But in reality, the oil situation will be
back, and when it comes back, it will come back with a vengeance, and
we're not prepared to face it. The point here is that the prices of
food produced locally have always been higher than food from the
grocery store, but really not when you consider how much of the grocery
store price includes the price of transport.
As we go forward and as we face the economic crisis, the oil crisis,
and climate change, locally is going to be the only way to get your
food, and it's also going to be a more economical way to get your food.
Also, the development of local communities where people work together
and share together-this combination is going to be our road to
survival.
CB: In this article we're going to be linking to your Turkey Hill Farm
website, and of course, one of your specialties here at Turkey Hill is
raw or real milk. You've certainly researched a great deal and have
found some very interesting things about raw milk. Please tell us what
you know.
SO: I can tell you what I know, and I'm pretty sure Margaret can tell
you more. Raw milk gets a bad rap -- everywhere -- the medical profession,
agricultural departments all over the country, and I believe probably
there's a lot of politics here as there always is. But the fact of the
matter is that raw milk is good for you. It contains enzymes and
vitamins that are not depleted through the pasteurization process. It
boosts the immune system too. In Vermont, we're very fortunate to be in
a state where we can advertise it. We have a naturopath physician who
is one of our raw milk customers and sends people here to get it
because he wants people to have it as part of their diet.
Vermont law states that you have to go buy raw milk at the farm where
it's produced. I think that's a good idea because you should be able to
see the cleanliness, milking practices, cows, how the milk is handled
and make your own decision as to whether you want to buy it. What we
can't legally do yet is advertise products related to the raw milk such
as butter and cheese, and that would be a big help if we could.
We've been absolutely amazed. We started out with one cow and a few
milk customers. We now have two cows and over 30 customers getting milk
from us.
CB: I remember one time you and I were talking about raw milk, and you
said, "'Cleanliness, cleanliness, cleanliness,' is the motto." How do you
do that?
SO: In any food preparation it's fundamental. It starts with the barn,
keeping everything cleaned up every day, the cows, the milking
equipment, the udders, how the milk is handled once they have dumped it
into the pail, through the strainer, to where it's bottled-everything
has to be cleaned very well every day, and attention to detail is
crucial. If you don't do that, then you're probably risking some
bacteria.
CB: Margaret, do you have anything to add about the raw milk?
Margaret Osha: Well, I've just been reading The Untold Story of Milk.
There's a lot of history in that book. Back in the early 1900s a lot
of people were getting sick from city dairies in New York and Boston,
and the cows were actually eating swill from liquor making. It was a
very unnatural diet for them, yet they produced a tremendous amount of
milk. Also the cows weren't housed properly, facilities weren't clean,
the swill wasn't that digestible for the cows, and a lot of problems
came about from that. It was that poor quality milk that led to the
pasteurization process. Yes, there have been cases off and on where raw
milk can cause problems, but they stem from doing something unnatural
for the cow.
CB: You know, I have to say that my own experience with drinking raw
milk has been amazing. I feel so much better, and people have commented
that my skin looks better too. For me, it's like medicine.
SO: I've received the same comments, and Margaret has become a chapter leader for the Weston Price Foundation,
and we're pretty much following that diet. It's very much about eating
whatever you like and not avoiding fat. We've been doing that, and I
feel like I've responded tremendously. Of course, we're talking about
fats that come from natural, not processed, foods.
CB: This is very much the philosophy of Michael Pollan who wrote Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto.
It's about eating whatever you like as long as it's natural and not
avoiding certain food groups simply because someone says they're not
good for you.
Stuart, I'd like to get back to you and your health. A couple of years
ago you were diagnosed with cancer and went on a journey that many of
us who are cancer survivors are quite familiar with. How did that
journey change you?
SO: Well, it did. I looked at life quite a bit differently afterward.
My oncologist told me that my chances of not having a recurrence were
much better if I were to have chemotherapy. So I did, but it nearly
killed me. Actually, I didn't get through it all because of that. At
that time I had a business, and I said, "We're getting out; I'm going
to sell the business, and we're going to do what we want to do." We
weren't sure what we were going to do, but we started to evolve back
into a farming situation. Since we have started doing what we're doing
now, life has become so sustaining and so inspiring, especially all the
people we meet. The illness really changed my thought process.
CB: More recently you've had a spike not only in your raw milk business
but with an increase in customers who want to buy organic eggs, butter,
cream, organic meat, and vegetables. What do you make of this surge in
people who want to buy these products?
SO: I think sometimes that's easy to analyze, but on the other hand it
isn't. A big thing for us is being able to advertise the raw milk.
Also, if you look at the demographics, many of these people are folks
who have moved here from other places. And we are more left of center
than some states, although I myself came from a family that was pretty
far on the right. These folks have moved here, and they have an
appreciation for our quality of life, and they're probably more
educated and informed, and they know that food is extremely important.
The difference in the quality of the food from a farm where it's been
raised naturally and what you buy in the store -- there's no comparison in
the flavor.
MO: We've had several people say that they used to be vegetarians, but
since they know where the meat is raised and how it's being raised,
they're eating meat now.
CB: And so you sell meat?
SO: Yes we sell chicken and pork. We may have some veal to sell by February.
CB: Margaret, I wanted to ask you about the workshops you've been
conducting. Why are you presenting these workshops? What has been the
response?
MO: We've mostly done a series on raw milk, and most of that has been
cheese making. There again we did a workshop this summer through NOFA,
and it was called "Family Cow." We were amazed at the amount of
interest that generated-probably 30 people from all over the state. The
interest in cheese and butter-making has been huge. There are lots of
things to do with raw milk besides drink it, and we wanted to
demonstrate that. We want to have seasonal workshops with another one
coming up in January, probably focusing again on cheese-making. We also
want to share some knowledge about broth-making and some of the old
time farmer kitchen things that people just don't do so much of
anymore. There's an art to doing it well.
I'm just so interested in local food and food that's been raised in a
thoughtful, healthy manner. I'm interested in peoples' health, and I
feel badly for people who just go to the store and buy prepared food
and don't know the joy of cooking-the joy of eating very simply and
nutritiously.
CB: You've also become a chapter representative for the Weston Price
Foundation. Please tell us what the Weston Price Foundation is, and
then tell us what you'll be doing for the foundation.
MO: The Weston A. Price Foundation's president, Sally Fallon, has a wonderful cookbook called Nourishing Traditions.
This is all based on the experiences of Weston Price who was a dentist
who saw in his practice a generation of people who had very healthy
teeth and pallets, and then he started seeing in their children and
their children's children that something was changing, and the teeth
were becoming crooked with many more cavities, so he decided to travel
the world and research diets. He traveled to many different places
where people hadn't been exposed to industrialized food, and he found
that what people were eating made a huge difference in their dental
health. Although the diets of these people varied, they were generally
diets of natural foods and were high in fats. The foundation is very
much about bringing back traditional ways of raising and cooking food.
As a chapter leader I'll be trying to organize a group of people in the
area to help create a resource list of organic farms, holistic
practitioners, and others who support natural eating and food
production.
CB: In one of our conversations recently you commented that you're both
at an age where people should be slowing down, taking it easy,
traveling, and not working so hard, but you find yourselves doing just
the opposite. Would you comment on this?
SO: Well, I just couldn't slow down. I want to slow down naturally. An
old farmer I used to know said, "You can tell when you're getting older
when you have to go back out after lunch to finish morning chores." So
we slow down naturally, but it's hard to imagine not doing the type of
work that we're doing. I would not be happy traveling, camping -- a lot of
the things that people enjoy in retirement. Actually, this is my
retirement. Life doesn't get any better; these are the best years right
now as far as I'm concerned -- oing good things for the land and for
people.
We're part of nature; we're part of the land, and when you have that
feeling, it doesn't get any better. That's not to say it doesn't get
discouraging sometimes.
MO: Agriculture is in one's blood.
CB: I'm asking this question of both of you now: What is your passion?
What excites you and keeps you doing what you're doing? And if I may
ask, what is calling you right now?
SO: Farming is my calling. I'm not a social person. I can stay right
here for days, but it's so wonderful having people come, coming to get
something they want, and the conversation is wonderful. This life that
I'm living motivates me and brings me meaning. It's also a very
spiritual feeling. I feel close to the land. I love the woods; I love
cutting firewood; I love sugaring -- I just love it in the woods.
Sometimes when I'm having a hard time about whatever, I have to go to
the woods.
MO: I have really found meaning and purpose in what we're doing. I love
food and everything about it. I love food that I grow; I love preparing
food-in fact, I almost have to have a relationship with food, and if I
can give that love to somebody else, that really makes me feel good. It
feels so good to get back to raising all of our own stuff and being
self-sufficient. It has a wonderful purpose for me these days that it
didn't have twenty years ago. I feel really blessed to have had all the
experiences I've had with cooking, baking, gardening, and farming. I
also feel really grateful to be living in Vermont and for all that's
happening here.
Summary: As I left Turkey Hill Farms after this interview, I felt what
I always feel when I leave there-so blessed and fortunate to know the
Osha's and so filled with awe for the work they are doing. My wish for
everyone reading this conversation between them and me is that you will
be inspired by it to create similar networks in your local community
that sustain the land and animals and people around you. My challenge
to you-to all of us, is to continue nurturing the "dying" way of life
by fortifying your own food security and that of your local place.
Please visit the home page of Turkey Hill Farms where you can purchase Loving A Dying Way of Life. Stuart and Margaret Osha may be contacted at:
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***
Carolyn Baker
CAROLYN BAKER, Ph.D., is a professor of history and author of her latest book, Coming
Out From Christian Fundamentalism: Affirming Sensuality, Social
Justice, and The Sacred. This book and her previous two books, U.S. History Uncensored: What Your High School Textbook Didn't Tell You and The Journey of Forgiveness, may be purchased at her site: CarolynBaker.net. She is available for speaking engagements and author events.