Farms and Co-Ops

As a child visiting the UP (Upper Peninsula of Michigan) every summer, I remember sneaking into the cornfield across the road with my twin brother for corn that my Dad would roast in the husks. It might have been field corn but warm with the charred husks peeled back and brushed with melting butter..it was so delicious. And I remember picking and eating wild strawberries with my cousins.  For everything thing else food wise (watermelon especially comes to mind), it was a trip to the co-op, which I remember reading aloud (and being corrected on it) the coop. The Co-Op was the grocery store in town, the only one. This was some 50 years ago but from what I hear now Co-Ops are one way some family farmers in north Florida are trying to find a better market and make a profit today. The farmers I am referring to here run farms from 100 to 1,500 acres and often support four to six families. They need to generate a couple of million dollars in sales to produce a couple hundred thousand dollars to keep their farms going and one way to do it is by forming a cooperative and selling their produce under a single banner. If the Co-Op gets large enough it can go straight to the retailers. And there is the whole movement toward eating local foods produced within a 100 mile radius that works nicely in the cooperative marketing model.

I like the idea of knowing where my food is coming from and I hope the Co-Op in the UP from my childhood summers is still going strong too.