My Foodprint

Dan Barber, chef and co-owner of Blue Hill and Blue Hill at Stone Barns (Tarrytown, NY), had a piece in the Op-ed section of the New York Times last weekend. The article sings with optimism, and in it he says that the rising price in oil and the world-wide food shortages will have a positive effect for small farms. Small farms use less oil and less fertilizer, ideally they use none. Oil is a key ingredient in fertilizers for farms, which is why big farming operations now are suffering due to a spike in price which has mirrored the oil spike. Barber says that small farms often do not ship their crops great distances cutting down on the moral complications consumers now face.

This is to say that the current instability in world markets, and a rising awareness of the pollution emitted by your grocery store’s shipment of bananas or kiwis, can cause a shift. A shift toward more stable eating patterns, toward healthier stomachs, toward happier stomachs. Chefs can also help with this. As Barber says, chefs that demand better ingredients will assist in the growth of small localized markets, and therefore shift away the need for massive industrial farms.

–Nick