Organic farming has done more to feed our body and soul than industrial farming ever will. According to Chef David Bouley, “It’s just the ingredients talking to you, we’re not doing too much.” Farming, food, it all used to be about community and soul. Some still hold on to that feeling. 

 

                Industrial farming started out as an idealistic way to minimize the work and feed everyone. As most idealistic ideas end, reality has another thing coming. The nutrients in the soil get all used up. There are all sorts of nutrients in soil, and there’s a take a give relationship between a crop and soil. The crop takes some nutrients and gives some back. And of course, the nutrients taken are not the ones given. Year after year, the nutrients that a specific type of crop needs are eventually depleted.

 

That’s what’s happening all across America. Farmers are forced to use artificial soil or pack up and find new land to essentially ruin—assuming they don’t use practices that wouldn’t eat all the nutrients in the soil. This story has been told for a while now, if you’ve had your ear to the dirt long enough. And that story ends with six classes of wheat in America as far as the eye can see, with food insecure homes all across the country. 

 

                But there’s a new story being told. A story of community farms, remembering how America began. It’s more time and money than the average person is willing or able to put in because it means a community of people pitching in, growing and selling or sharing varied, yet complementary crops. It means starting new again, rotating crops every year, and getting it wrong sometimes. But we’re better off making mistakes like this than we ever were with industrial farming.

 

                Taylor Naples, sous-chef at Craft in New York City says that food is so expensive now because there is “Not enough of it... We try to serve GMO free, antibiotic hormone free, responsibly sourced... To do all that, it’s costly.” It’s all about a lack of supply not meeting the cost of the demand. 

 

                Remember those six classes of wheat we mentioned? That’s a huge part of this story, and we could write an entire article about just that. To simplify it, most of the wheat in America is from a single wheat variety, with a high gluten content and are missing critical portions of the wheat kernel. They are then bleached, enriched, and made to be shelf stable. All of this results in gluten sensitivity and basic gut-related issues, both symptoms that people across America experience. And it’s hard to find affordable, accessible alternatives without doing major research. 

 

That’s the problem with industrial farming. It’s too widespread; its major accessibility makes the accessibility of other options unviable. 

 

Let's talk about one of those other options, einkorn. It’s an ancient variety of wheat, uncovered after thousands of years of dormancy. Like most European varieties of wheat, and the products produced by their flours, people who are known to be gluten-sensitive find that they can eat the bread made from it. Not to mention how delicious it is.

 

What experts infer about this is that the lack of variety in nutrients and products makes humans sick, not unlike soil. 

 

Salt Lake City does well, but there’s a direct lack of community farming. We have many local farms, like Clifford Family Farms and Frog Bench Farms. We have restaurants, like Franklin Ave or Pago, that source as much of their menu as they can from those local farms. And we have farmer’s markets.

 

We’re missing local markets, open week-round to give those local farms a direct way to interact with consumers. Right now, there is one being built, the Wasatch Food Co-Op. However, at the publication of this article, they’re looking for donations to build a location in Millcreek that would provide sustainable food in a market to the Salt Lake Valley.