Join us for our MCLG Community Potluck!

A good friend of ours, farmer, author, progressive extraordinaire, Lynn wrote a piece in his beloved quarterly Small Farmer’s Journal that envisions the need and potential of building the kind of community possible with this market…

He retells the Greek myth of Sisyphus who’s cursed with rolling a huge stone up a hill, only to have it roll back down – up and down, no resolution, no freedom. “That is what large scale debt-ridden farming is for far too many good folk… It is manifest desperation. How does one escape it? I humbly suggest that it begins with doubting. As humans and as farmers we need to doubt what society and the marketplace have been telling us and trust that gut instinct to go for our own version of a debt-free handmade life working with family and friends to produce, to be caretakers, to belong to a place, to have that place allow us to be a good part of what it may become.

“Some of us are small, debt-free or close to it, and challenged by our farming, but we’re happy because we are doing what we want to do and embraced by the ownership of it all… quite a few of us would do this work even if we didn’t make anything at it. We happily farm for free (at least it seems like we’re farming for free) because the intangible rewards are so grand and fine [and I know my husband and I aren’t the only ones who feel this way].

“Good farming is always about good farmers working carefully with what they have, what they know, what they may learn, and in concert with each other and nature.” Big governments around the world “are dead wrong on this subject… as they hold that the way forward… is leveraged industrial farming. They do not see that this model has failed and continues to destroy the food supply, the environment, the planet, human societies and dignity.

“The answer rests in the opposite direction. A move to allow and encourage people and peoples to return to the land and their agrarian heritage would transform the world’s economy with natural growth, all the while healing human society and the environment. Confusion about words like sustainable, organic, non-GMO, local, healthy… biodynamic, green, and small farming all will fall away as the waves of new small farmers answer every question with a positive action.

“You will know what is local because you will know first-hand the people who raised that meat, because you will have picked the crop yourself, because you will have watched that food grow as you drove by, because your brother and sister work at the creamery that buys Fred’s milk and makes your cottage cheese, because you stood patiently waiting at the farmer’s market as Sandra backed her husband’s produce-loaded pickup to the table. Every cog in the wheel of your community’s agrarian pursuits will have cause to know and protect every single piece of the puzzle, to avoid poisons, to encourage fertility, to guarantee freshness, to embrace what makes that region’s food unique.

“We need more people in farming, so that we might repair the earth and save humanity.

“But it has to start by talking it up”…

ENTER OUR MARKET COMMUNITY POTLUCK

Tonight available on the Market under our MCLG category is a Community Potluck open to any vendor or customer interested in attending… limited to 10 customers (who are encouraged to bring a guest/family) and 10 vendors (also bringing a guest/family), and again hosted by our ever-gracious Deb Spencer, 6635 StudeBaker, at her lovely farm in Tipp City (what would we do without her bake oven?) on Monday September 17th at 5pm.

A chance to get to know your fellow customers and local producers, this is sure to be another unforgettable MCLG event – last month we invited our long-term supporters and volunteers for our first crack at a dinner that would allow vendors and customers to enjoy a fantastic evening of good food and good company, nurturing the relationships we’ve been building thru this market for two years. And using them as willing (and hungry) guinea pigs, we quickly realized how vital and fun such an event could be – in fact, afterwards we had more vendors AND customers AND even strangers volunteer their own farms, yards, and homes for our next event, because they couldn’t wait to participate! Talk about community building! And there will be more.

We were the most eclectic, quirky, wonderful group of folks that may never have gotten along under any other circumstances – yet in this relaxed, intimate environment, the obvious was clear – we all shared one truly indispensable thing in common… we all eat, and want to eat good food. You could mingle from one conversation to the next and join the talk about the potential products available with access to a shared-use kitchen, hydroponics, backyard poultry, getting kids involved in the garden, ancient grains, heirloom tomatoes, bake ovens, all the necessary fabric to knit a sustainable, healthy society right around us.

We have barely begun to “talk it up”, and must continue… won’t you join us? :-)