By TIM THORNBERRY
Kentucky Correspondent

FRANKFORT, Ky. — In the wake of the recent food scare, many consumers are pondering how to enjoy their favorite produce without the fear of illness.
In recent years many consumers are looking closer to home for their food.
To assist these patrons, Kentucky has a network of 120 farmers’ markets and a marketing effort created by the Kentucky Department of Agriculture known as Kentucky Proud, which represents state-grown or produced goods sold globally. Kentucky Ag Commissioner Richie Farmer touted the marketing effort and the importance of the program.
“The FDA has confirmed that home-grown tomatoes are not considered part of the salmonella outbreak,” Farmer said. “When you buy Kentucky Proud tomatoes or corn or any other fresh food product this summer, you know you’re getting products that were grown with care and harvested just recently. You can serve Kentucky Proud fruits and vegetables with confidence that they will be good for your family. Many value-added Kentucky Proud foods, like salsas, use raw products that were raised right here at home.”
Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) is another initiative in which consumers develop relationships with local producers and buy shares of commodities.
According to CSA of North America at the University of Massachusetts Extension, a CSA is “a partnership of mutual commitment between a farm and a community of supporters which provides a direct link between the production and consumption of food.
Supporters cover a farm’s yearly operating budget by purchasing a share of the season’s harvest. CSA members make a commitment to support the farm throughout the season, and assume the costs, risks and bounty of growing food along with the farmer or grower.
“Members help pay for seeds, fertilizer, water, equipment maintenance, labor, etc. In return, the farm provides, to the best of its ability, a healthy supply of seasonal fresh produce throughout the growing season. Becoming a member creates a responsible relationship between people and the food they eat, the land on which it is grown and those who grow it.”
Local Harvest, an organic and local food website reports there were approximately 1,500 CSAs in the United States and Canada as of 2005. An organization known as the Community Farm Alliance (CFA), a grassroots group that has touted the benefits of a local food economy for more than 20 years, has pushed for ways to get local goods to citizens not only for food safety concerns but for economic benefits as well. The organization has grown into one of the strongest lobbies in Kentucky, helping to win passage of many farm-related proposals - including House Bill 611, passed in 2000 that guaranteed money from the tobacco settlement funds be re-invested in Kentucky agriculture.
The CFA, which has 2,000 members in 75 counties, has launched initiatives to achieve a more locally sustained food economy including LIFE (Local Innovative Food Economies). LIFE is a five-year plan started in 2003 that focuses on local people growing and consuming local foods. Another CFA supported project is called Grasshoppers Distribution, a producer-owned, local-food distributor in Kentucky founded in 2006.
Berea Ernst is the distribution center’s general manager and works with growers.
“We purchase from Kentucky and Southern Indiana farmers and were created to get rural producers into more markets especially into urban areas in light of the tobacco economy crumbling here,” said Ernst. “Having such a strong legacy of small farms, we want to transition the farm economy to other crops. Grasshoppers is a link in that chain.”
She also said that as the food system has experienced more safety problems, it is ironic that the small growers have become more of a source of safe food supplies, and those small growers are keenly aware of food safety.
“We can’t live without food and the global food system has become inherently unstable over a long period of time. It’s important to retain a knowledge base of growing food here and also it is important to our cultural traditions in this area,” said Ernst. “For a long time smaller farms have been struggling with the ‘get big or get out’ trend in the 70s and 80s. But now we’re seeing that system fall apart, I think, and it’s especially important with regards to food safety. It’s the huge vendors that are cropping up with these problems. We want our customers to understand that with all the farms we work with, they’re feeding themselves, they go to farmers’ markets, and they’re feeding their neighbors.”
Last year Kentucky government officials and the University of Kentucky initiated the Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) program, which educates fruit and vegetable growers as well as processors on best practices for growing, transporting and handling produce to minimize the risk of food contamination. To date, 855 Kentucky producers have been trained on GAP principles.