Full Plate: Recent Episodes
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From early Native American farming to modern urban agriculture, agriculture in southeastern Wisconsin has been a transformative and defining force. This summer, Lake Effect's Full Plate series explores the people, places, flora and fauna that makeup our diverse ecosystem. _
In our Full Plate series, Lake Effect has been exploring the many facets of agriculture, from city bee farms to the history of our state fair to how teaching agriculture to communities can help cities in the long run. However, one topic that has made a resurgence in the news cycle, particularly with concerns about immigration and DACA, is migrant labor. Contributor Dave Kozlowski operates Pinehold Gardens in Oak Creek, a smaller farm that does not employ migrant labor. His operation can help put into perspective what running a farm exactly entails: READ: Jesus Salas: A Lifetime Advocating for Migrant Workers' Rights in Wisconsin As a produce farm, Pinehold has 40-50 different crops on about 16 acres of cultivatable land. "According to the USDA, we fit in with a little better than a third of the farms in the United States based on gross sales," Kozlowski explains. From 5,000 acres to only 16, he says produce growing, in general, is labor intensive. Even with advances in technology,
It’s a sunny Sunday afternoon at Pinehold Gardens in Oak Creek as guests park off-road and make their way to a long table. Adorned with a white table cloth and wildflowers, the table is set up on the side of a field full of kale, wildflowers, and other rows of produce. The occasion for this special (and literal) farm to table dinner is a fundraiser for the Racine Area Youth Farm Corps Program, a branch of the Eco-Justice program. “We are a sponsored ministry of the Racine Dominicans. Our mission is environmental education in the context of 4 values: community, contemplation, creativity, and cultivation,” explains Sister Rejane Cytacki, executive director of the Eco Justice Center. “I’m just so excited because I think it’s all about collaboration of different nonprofits working together and it’s been a wonderful relationship with Dave and Sandy. Actually, it started with calling David up to ask for help with our hoop house and that’s how this conversation unfolded about farm to table.
Farmworkers in the U.S. face unique challenges, complicated by a lack of workplace protections and immigration status that makes it difficult to hold employers accountable. Combined with amplified threats of deportation, many farm laborers are finding their jobs increasingly more difficult. "The labor laws generally discriminate against farmworkers, so they are not protected by the same wage protections or occupational, safety, and health protections and other legal requirements that most other workers enjoy in this country," says Bruce Goldstein, president of Farmworker Justice , an organization that works to improve conditions for farm laborers in the U.S. Goldstein admits there aren't very good statistics on U.S. farmworkers, but estimates show the majority are immigrants, some of whom are in the country on work visas and others who are undocumented. "We believe that there are about 2.5 million farmworkers in the country - not including their family members - and statistics suggest
At the Wisconsin State Fair this month, among the extreme food offerings - like, say, the deep-fried bacon-wrapped olives on a stick - was one menu option you might have missed: cricket nachos . Although the idea of cricket nachos might sound repulsive to many fairgoers, the shock value was served up with a side order of science. As the fair's menu described it: "Cricket nachos have all the flavor of regular nachos but are high in protein and gluten free! Crickets are a sustainable protein that require less water to grow, providing an eco-friendly way of eating." University of Wisconsin-Madison doctoral student Valerie Stull didn't make it to the fairgrounds in West Allis to try the cricket nachos, but she's eaten crickets - and other insects - prepared in a myriad of ways. And she believes the world would benefit if the rest of us would open our minds to the nutritional value of entomophagy - the practice of eating insects. Stull is the cofounder, with Rachel Bergmans, of MIGHTi - the
Jesus Salas has been involved in nearly every aspect of the agriculture and migrant worker movement in Wisconsin - from founding Obreros Unidos to being CEO of United Migrant Opportunity Services. As a child, Salas and his family traveled from Crystal City, Texas to the Great Lakes Region to cultivate and harvest crops. In 1959, the family settled in Wautoma, where the young Salas (a third-generation migrant worker) became actively involved in fighting for the rights of improving migrant workers. Salas was a founder of Obreros Unidos - the United Workers union. The group organized a march from Wautoma to Madison in 1966 to protest migrant worker conditions as well as walkouts against the produce company Libby’s. The organization also joined forces with Cesar Chavez’s national boycott of grapes to expand its impact in Wisconsin. Salas went on to become the first Latino CEO of United Migrant Opportunity Services in 1969, and fought for equal opportunity for Latino students at UW
Earlier this summer, the owners of a longtime staple on the Wisconsin produce scene announced they will shut their doors for good at the end of September. Brennan’s Markets was founded 75 years ago and operates five stores around Wisconsin, including in Brookfield and Oconomowoc. "The recession in '08 was a significant down turn in sales...but what happened was when the economy rebounded and customer confidence rebounded - our sales didn't," explains Brennan's Markets spokesperson Wayne Glowac. Frank Brennan opened his first fruit stand on the corner of Highway 69 & 8th street in Monroe, Wisconsin in 1942. From that first corner store grew others retail locations and a cheese warehouse & packaging facility, which collectively employs 150 full and part-time workers. "They provided a premium product and really amazing service. Throughout the Brennan family history, the concept was really to respect the customer, and that exists today through their unfortunate closing," Glowac
The Lake Effect team headed to WE Energies Energy Park at the Wisconsin State Fair in West Allis as part of our summer series Full Plate , which has been showcasing agriculture in our region. The series has looked at the impact of bees on agriculture , how the dairy industry impacts Wisconsin's economy , and what it means to be a modern-day farmer , among other topics. There will be even more stories to come as the harvest approaches, but we decided to take time out to look at the Wisconsin State Fair, where many suburbanites and city-dwellers are first introduced to the people and processes that put food on their tables. Lake Effect contributors Kyle Cherek and Melinda Myers joined us on stage, along with Dale Leidheiser from Wisconsin's 4-H program and Jason Kollwelter from WE Energies. The Wisconsin State Fair celebrates Wisconsin’s agricultural heritage; past, present, and future. And the Fair itself is where we start with regular Lake Effect contributor Kyle Cherek. According to
The tang of a freshly picked tomato, the crunch and sweetness of a recently harvested carrot, the crisp floral flavor of a just-picked cucumber. Chef Dave Swanson wants to facilitate restaurant-goers' ability to taste these items, and pretty much anything else that can be produced or foraged in Wisconsin. He is the owner of Braise Restaurant in Milwaukee, and in 2008, he put together the country’s first RSA , or Restaurant Supported Agriculture. It’s like a CSA, or Community Supported Agriculture, where farmers deliver a package of fresh produce to individuals. Except in the RSA, restaurants, food trucks, caterers and cafes order produce from farmers, who deliver to a hub in the city. For Lake Effect's Full Plate series, Swanson explains what he was going for in setting up this collective. “I just didn’t want to bring a red wagon to the marketplace and fill a couple things up and bring it back to the restaurant. I wanted to source on a different level,” he says. “To do that, I needed
There’s a local youth agriculture program that has goals bigger than getting kids into farming. Milwaukee native Nick DeMarsh founded Young Farmers MKE with the intent to encourage participants to make goals and plans for the future - farming just seemed to be the perfect medium to get there. The program is part of Groundwork Milwaukee and teaches kids about nutrition, ecology, and farming practices. Students then sell the food they’ve grown at a weekly farm stand, which teaches kids how to manage a small business and helps develop their entrepreneurial skills. But DeMarsh says the program really came together once he started to listen to what his participants wanted. “In this world, which is very commodified, in order for these young people to see an inherent value in the food that they’re growing, they need to see an economic value. So for me, that involved what I think is really critical, which is listening to them and what it is that they value and what their perspective is,” he
Bees first began to creep into Charlie Koenen’s life in 2002. Today his previous careers in computer programming and consulting might as well belong to someone else altogether. Koenen is a beevangelist through and through. “I never would have predicted the path, but the importance is really astonishing - a beehive when it’s operating. That’s the amazement I want to give everybody,” he says. In 2009 Koenen introduced a system called the Beepod. He says it works with bees naturally by spreading the colony out sideways, rather than up as it would be in traditional stacked boxes. His aim was to use the system to educate people about bees. The Beepod is one of three different systems atop Redeemer Lutheran Church’s small rooftop terrace. As if by cue, a visitor appears. Susan Martyn lives in Toledo, Ohio now, but her husband was pastor here back in the 1970s. She’s fascinated by the bees – but fearful at the same time. “I’m not going to be stung am I? Because I’m allergic,” Martyn says.
Earlier this summer, the owners of a longtime staple on the Wisconsin produce scene announced they will shut their doors for good at the end of September. Brennan’s Markets operated five stores around Wisconsin, including in Brookfield and Oconomowoc. But does the closing of the 75-year old business mean that the specialized grocery store is going the way of the dodo bird? No, says grocery retail analyst David Livingston of DJL Research . "That was probably more of a business operations issue. Brennan's was a small retailer compared to the large multi-billion dollars retailers that we have today," he explains. With so many choices of stores - both commercial chains and specialty - how does the natural selection of markets sustain both? Livingston says there will always be room for a small operator such as Brennan's, but in today's "over-stored" market it needs to be debt-free, well operated, and truly offer something compelling and different to get customers in the door. "I think we
Entering a grocery store, buyers are often bombarded with seemingly all-important yet ill-defined terms; words like “organic”, “sustainable”, or – perhaps the most pernicious culprit – “natural.” But what do these terms actually mean? And how can consumers know if the foods they’re buying - usually at a premium - were grown or raised in an organic environment? The US Department of Agriculture, or USDA, is tasked with setting minimum organic standards that farms of all sizes must meet, and then ensuring compliance with those standards. “Starting in 2002, federal regulations were governed to create a minimal standard for organic. So in a nutshell it means: for a minimum of three years before having the right to use that label, a farmer must shun almost all use of toxic agrochemicals. In terms of caring for their animals, it means there are no antibiotics and many other drugs, like synthetic parasiticides, poisons that might end up in the tissue of the animal, or the milk, or the meat, or
It may come as no surprise that much of our agriculture is wrapped up in dairy - after all, Wisconsin is called America's Dairyland. But despite the moniker, Wisconsin is not immune to the market forces that drive the price of dairy both here and throughout the country. You might notice when you go to the grocery store, the price of milk varies a lot. In fact, it changes so much that it’s routine for some groceries and delis to post the price outside of the store - like signs at a gas station. So what makes the price of milk so variable, and what does that volatility mean for the Dairy State? Bob Cropp is a professor emeritus and dairy marketing policy specialist at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. He says there are three main factors that impact the price of dairy nationwide. "One is the level of milk production: how much milk we're producing," he explains. "The second would be demand, our domestic demand: how our cheese is selling, butter, fluid milk is selling, other dairy
Molecular biologist Michael Schläppi experimented with rice varieties from around the globe for five years - testing how they stood up to Wisconsin weather in miniature paddies he built on his rooftop lab on campus. He settled on a short-grain variety from Russia. Two years ago, he took the experiment to a farm field outside Port Washington. A story we produced on that experiment made its way as far as Vermont, where it reached the ears of a rice farmer named Erik Andrus – who today is on a tractor in this field, breaking up soil as Schläppi watches. Andrus grows rice on 5.3 acres back at home. “Which is small by most any standard, but we’re hoping for better than 10,000 pounds of rice sales this year,” he says. Like Schläppi, Andrus hopes to inspire others, because he says there’s no way he can personally scratch the surface of the demand for high quality rice. “And I also have a personal connection to Wisconsin because I attended high school and graduated from Whitefish Bay. And now
Summer is in full swing, and for many that means regular visits to a local farmers’ market. Since 1994, the number of farmers’ markets in the country has grown from less than two thousand to nearly nine thousand - and that's just counting the ones registered in the US Department of Agriculture’s directory . In fact, there are over 350 markets within 100 miles of Milwaukee. Many shoppers visit a farmers market to support their local community, to be environmentally friendly, to educate themselves about their food, or to simply socialize. But these shoppers represent only a fraction of the $800 billion dollars spent annually on groceries in the United States - and farmers markets are only one of numerous options for consumers to buy produce. Contributor and local farmer David Kozlowski of Pinehold Gardens notes that farmers markets are "beautiful things" - when they're working right. "A farmers market is the Greek agora, it's the community coming together to discuss politics, social
Growing food doesn’t always occur in the country. From city-based commercial operations like Growing Power to personal backyards or even balcony herb and vegetable gardens, urban agriculture in Wisconsin’s largest city is booming. But no matter where they are, the one thing all gardens have in common is the need for pollination. And when we think of pollination, most of us think of honeybees. The rooftop of Redeemer Lutheran Church on 19th and Wisconsin is host to three flourishing hives. Recent Marquette graduate Maggie Stang is one of the people who helps maintain them. “I met a beekeeper named Charlie (Koenen)," Stang explains. "He was speaking about the bees in such wonderful, mystical terms, and explaining the ways they pollinate our neighborhood. From that moment on I was absolutely hooked.” When asked about what makes bees mystical, Stang says that “it’s hard for me to think of another community, another species that creates their own home and their own food and also has a
Many of us find ourselves at a frozen custard stand or an ice cream shop on a summer weekend, but few of us give much thought to what goes into making the stuff in our cones. Bill Klein is different. Klein is the plant manager for the Babcock Dairy Plant at UW-Madison, which trains many of the people who make a living in ice cream, and the dairy world at large. READ: What Makes Milwaukee's Frozen Custard Scene Special? He says that when it comes to eating custard or ice cream, the fresh stuff is always better. But why? The short answer: ice crystals. "So when you think of soft serve coming out of the machine, it's got X amount of ice crystals in it and those ice crystals are a certain length in size. The quality of that ice cream at that point - whether it's soft serve or not - the quality of that ice cream is at its best. It only goes downhill from there," Klein explains. The longer ice cream or custard sits around, the longer the ice crystals get, which alters the way it tastes. "The
From canning to fermenting to dehydrating, Christina Ward is an expert in teaching Milwaukeeans how to preserve food. She says that among the many professional hats she wears, this is the one she’s particularly proud of. “I’m the master food preserver, which means I’m a volunteer in my community charged with giving people the latest and greatest science,” says Ward. Ward's new book, Preservation , teaches the techniques the home cook needs to safely put food by. Ward says people often think we no longer need to know how to preserve our own food, but she says the knowledge is still relevant, especially here: “Milwaukee is on the cutting edge of the urban agriculture movement," she explains. “All of the folks with guerilla gardens, with the victory gardens, with all of the garden plots we have around the city, you’re going to grow a lot of stuff and you need to figure out how you’re going to extend the life of it.” She notes that it really wasn't too long ago that our survival as a
We are a long time removed from the era in which farming represented the majority of southeastern Wisconsin's economy, but there remain many people who make a living on farms in the region. Writer Anna Blessing highlights compelling stories of farms in Wisconsin and throughout the Midwest in her book, Locally Grown . In her acknowledgements, Blessing described the farmers she met “heroes," who approach their work as a kind of art. "What they are doing is some of the hardest work that I've ever seen in my life," she says. "They work from literally dawn to well past dark, frequently lighting fields with headlights to harvest. And they're such hard workers, and they do this thing that's so unpredictable, that's so based on the weather and it's so hard." The book profiles smaller-scale farms, often family-operated for generations, which have had to evolve with the rise of factory farming. Blessing lauds their creativity in their dedication to growing and raising heritage plants and animals
If you travel about seven miles south of Milwaukee County's airport, you’ll find one of the last farms that is run full-time by the people who own and live on the land they farm. David Kozlowski and Sandy Raduenz own Pinehold Gardens , and have grown produce using organic methods for the past 23 years. For Kozlowski, farming is not a hobby or a pastime, it’s a living. Our Full Plate series continues with one perspective of why people go into agriculture in the first place. Kozlowski came into full-time farming later in life, having initially been a "doubting Thomas." Having previously worked for a local magazine in Milwaukee, Kozlowski felt he was doing something good - but farming took his sense of altruism a step further. His wife, Sandy Raduenz, had been running her own Community Supported Agriculture, or CSA, for about ten years - with help from Kozlowski on the weekends. But as the CSA grew and the need to tend the farm became greater, he decided to join his wife out in the fields