North Carolina Organic Bread Flour Project

Main Street

2012-01-07T08:37:00.000-08:00

I was in Pittsboro a couple days ago for a CFSA staff meeting. During our meeting, I wrote the words, “slow money” on my hand to remind me to contact our slow money lender as soon as I returned to Asheville to give her an update on the mill. We closed our meeting with a group lunch at Angelina’s Kitchen, http://www.angelinaskitchenonline.com/. The food was amazing—fresh, local, flavorful-- and the atmosphere felt more like a community center than a restaurant. During lunch I looked down at the words on my hand and then remembered reading about Angelina’s Kitchen in the Abundance Foundation’s website, http://slowmoneync.org/our-loans. This place had received one of NC Slow Money’s first loans. I mentioned this to our group and Angelina, who happened to be sitting one table away doing paperwork, chimed in. She said that getting a slow money loan was so much more than just getting a loan. It was building community. Her small business loan came from real people. Her lenders chose to invest in her business because she adds something to this community—and so everyone benefits. She and her husband have their business; Pittsboro gets this wonderful restaurant; and she is supporting local growers, buying their produce, meat, cheese, and even flour. And she dishes up the most delectable food.

When I told her that our mill, Carolina Ground, L3C had recently received the first Western NC Slow Money loan, she lit up. With brimming enthusiasm she told us how she had gotten rye flour that had been grown by Bobby Tucker and milled by baker Abraham Palmer of Box Turtle Bakery, http://www.boxturtlebakery.com/. And then she disappeared, swiftly reappearing with slices of apple cake made with this flour for all of us to taste. Delicious.

Yesterday I called our lender. I told her we had hoped to be milling by now, but had hit an obstacle having to do with electrical, though we’re addressing it and hope to be milling soon enough. We had planned on beginning the first payment on our slow money loan this month, as it is the first of the year. I told her I still wanted to go ahead and make our first payment. She thanked me for calling. She said it meant so much to her that I was keeping her abreast of our progress. And she said she was not attached to beginning payment in January-- that getting this mill off the ground is what matters most right now.

This is what it looks like when we move our money from Wall Street to Main Street.

a plea for an angelic electrical engineer...

2012-01-03T09:20:00.000-08:00

We, of course, expected to at least be milling test batches of flour by now, but alas, we have hit an obstacle (after clearing a good many along the way)... something to do with amperage and voltage...the terminology continues to ring in my ears even when I sleep-- 480/600; 110/220; 208; three- phase; step down; transformer; sub-panel; bus duct..on and on... and all I really want to hear is the simple, slow rotation of our mill...

What we need-- what would be AMAZINGLY helpful-- is if there were an electrical engineer out there that would be willing to volunteer to meet with us and offer his/her opinion as to the best route to take to get the proper juice to power our mill. For the sake of good and local bread, rustic pastries, and even NC-grown malt balls, please if you are out there, email me. A couple years back a woman reached out and said if we needed help, her husband is an electrical engineer. I have scanned through both of my notebooks and cannot find her contact info. If you are out there, please contact me.

feeling ground to a pulp,

jennifer

a few more pix

2011-12-19T11:08:00.001-08:00

the present

the past

Touring the farms...

2011-12-19T06:14:00.000-08:00

Billy Carter's Wren's Abruzzi Rye

Hofner's Thoroughbred Barley

Fred Miller TAM 303 hard wheat seedling

Billy Carter's grain bin

Kenny Haines and his field of Turkey wheat

We are scratching our heads (me, the contractor, the electrician) as to why we still do not have our CO. Evidently our electrical inspection (on friday) was red tagged because the panel was not labeled the way the inspector wanted it labeled (yes, it was labeled, and yes, our electrician has done plenty of commercial work before our job). I am confident we will extricate ourselves from the talons of the city inspectors soon and grain will be made into flour... in the meanwhile, an UPDATE ON THE FARMS:

I spent a good bit of last week traveling around North Carolina visiting our growers. My first stop was on the far northeastern end of the state-- Tyner, NC-- to Looking Back Farms, Inc. I have mentioned Looking Back a number of times in blog posts-- Ben and Kenny Haines, a father and son team. Kenny Haines sits on Carolina Ground, L3C's Board of Directors, so he is the farmer that I speak with often. He has mentioned more than once that I need to come out and ride around in the tractor and/or combine to really get a feel for what is going on on their farm. And so, moments after parking my car on the edge of one of their fields, I was up in the tractor cab with Kenny, and while he dragged a land planer on the field he was preparing for planting our NuEast seed, we talked. One item in need of further discussion (beyond our oft phone conversations) is pricing. A major impetus for launching this project has been to establish fair pricing based on real value removed from the pressures of the global commodities market. This past harvest, the prices we paid for grain were much higher than anticipated but this was partly due to the small lots of various varieties of grain we had planted. My plan for this year has been to streamline the process by having fewer varieties planted and on larger plots of land. For 2012 harvest, the Haines are growing for us a little over twenty acres of Turkey wheat and another twenty of NuEast (as opposed to last year when they grew a bit of Turkey, a bit of NuEast, a bit of Wrens Abruzzi rye, a bit of Appalachian White, etc.) Although I am confident that we will find sustainable pricing, while riding around in the tractor, Kenny discussed with me costs that the farm must incur that they have no control over. He pointed to a small metal blade on his land planer that they needed to replace-- it cost close to a thousand dollars just for that small piece of metal. And they are still strapped to the cost of fuel for their tractor and combine. The rise in the price of steel meant that they were only able to put in two grain bins with their newly acquired grain and seed cleaning equipment instead of the four bins they had originally planned for. I know we are heading in the right direction by working to close the gap between our farmers and bakers and brewers, but the idea of completely hedging ourselves from global economic pressures is sadly not so simple. But the Haines are in it for the long haul and they are constantly working to improve their farming systems for greater efficiency and productivity. They have around 350 acres of certified organic land in production and they recently set up grain and seed cleaning infrastructure that is also certified organic. They are poised to sell grain by the truckload-- 55,000 lb bulk or cleaned in 1-ton totes, or cleaned and bagged in 50# bags. The cleaning equipment works for various grains, pulses, and beans. On my visit I spied a couple 1-ton totes of cow peas-- beautiful-- on route to Anson Mills, in Columbia, SC.With their grain and seed cleaning set up, they are now both grain farmer and seed dealer-- of certified organic (grain and cover crop) seed to boot.

The next farm on my tour was Fred Miller's Hill Top Farms in Willow Springs, just outside of Raleigh. I first met Fred a couple years ago in the Sam's parking lot off I-40 on the edge of Raleigh, to procure 500# of Arapaho wheat that he had grown. This is Fred's tenth season farming, and grains are something he is slowly integrating into his farming system. This year he has both hard wheat-- TAM 303 and barley-- six-row Thoroughbred-- in the ground. Fred's is a diverse farm which includes high tunnels and gardens, chickens, goats, horses, a CSA and a farm stand. Across the road is where his grain is planted.

My next farm was in the Sandhills, in Eagle Springs, to Carter's Farm. Billy Carter showed me the close to twenty acres of Wrens Abruzzi rye he is growing for us and the 150 acres of TAM 303 he has in the ground that is likely heading to Lindley Mills, although it is not all spoken for and I am hoping we will be milling some of this as well.

Next stop was outside of Charlotte-- Gastonia-- to Job White's farm. Job is a young farmer just starting out. I am sure I have mentioned in previous posts that last year he planted ten acres of Turkey wheat but sadly had no way to harvest. Arranging with neighboring farms for combining can be iffy at best. He bush hogged the wheat but then called and said it reseeded itself. He asked me if he should just let it grow or plow it under and replant. I called Chris Reberg- Horton at NCSU and Thom Leonard (who has a lot to do with bringing Turkey back into production) and Kenny Haines for their advice and they all echoed the same sentiment-- let it grow! So he did. And btw, he is looking for a small combine-- ideally a PTO-driven all-crop combine-- if anyone had a lead, please let us know.

On my way from Gastonia to my final stop in Mt Ulla, I drove through Morresville where right on the very edge of town, across the street from the fire dept, towers Bay State Milling. I got out and took some pictures. The air smelled like flour.

Next and final stop-- the western piedmont-- Mt Ulla, to the Hofner's famer. The Hofner's are members of the Organic Valley Co-op and they grew five acres of Appalachian White for us last year. We were hoping for twenty acres of TAM 303 from them this year, but sadly the ground had been too wet and as of last week, they had not been able to plant. Buddy said he thinks they still have til X-mas to get their seed in the ground, but he didnt seem too hopeful. Though he had a beautiful field of barley growing that they planted back in October for the Riverbend Malt House.

Upon leaving the Hofner's I drove to the end of their Kerr Mill Road to visit the Kerr Mill, which is now a state park. see pix above...

Green tag!!

2011-12-09T12:37:00.001-08:00

So we finally got our green tag from the fire marshall!! Green looks so much more promising then the callous red tag we received a couple months back...

Monday we hope to have our Certificate of Occupancy in hand...

Treska Lindsey's children's books and their wonderful connection to our mill

2011-12-02T08:01:00.000-08:00

This Saturday (the 3rd), and next, and the following (the 10th & the 17th) is the 9th Annual Holiday Bazaar, taking place in the parking lot behind the Asheville Chamber of Commerce. Amongst the many vendors of local crafts and food, Farm & Sparrow Breads can be found, and alongside Farm & Sparrow's rustic breads and pastries, sharing their tent, will be Treska Lindsey selling her wonderful children's books. I mention this for a couple reasons. The first-- the most obvious-- is that Treska is donating a portion of the proceeds to our mill project. And the second-- also pretty obvious once you see the books-- is that these books are a wonderful find and a great gift. Also, there is a rich story that connects these books to our mill project...

The story began with a loaf of bread brought back to the States from Belgium. This was during the 1970's health food craze in this country that deemed yeasted brown bread as the healthy choice-- bread that both looked and tasted like cardboard. But a slice from this bread brought back from Belgium was handed to a Dr Hy Lerner.

Lerner was a medical doctor impressed by evidence that pointed to the overwhelming importance of proper nutrition in relation to mental and physical health. I imagine that within the jungle of brown bread touted as healthy, tasting this bread from Belgium must have been a revelatory moment. At the time Lerner was working as a researcher at Harvard, but he began spending all of his spare time trying to recreate that loaf without success. Finally he and his friend, Paul Petrofsky pooled their savings and headed to Belgium. The bread had come from Lima Bakery, and that is where these two landed. They secured an apprenticeship with Omer Gevaert of Lima Bakery. They learned all they could about desem, this traditional Flemish natually-leavened bread, and eventually returned to the states to open Baldwin Hill Bakery in Phillipston, Massachusetts. In 1979, the Saturday Evening Post published an article about Baldwin Hill written by Charlotte Turgeon, a colleague and friend of Julia Childs,

Hy Lerner and Paul Petrofsky, white-collar professionals turned bakers, who produce perhaps the best tasting bread this side of the Atlantic—or the other—a bread that preserves all the natural vitamins, minerals, and usable protein that nature put into wheat germ, sea salt, and pure water

Cookbook author, Laurel Robertson (Laurel's Kitchen) read that article and made a pilgrimage to Baldwin Hill to learn about this bread. And she later devoted an entire chapter in her Laurel's Bread Book to desem. Laurel happened to have been dear friends with the late oven builder and designer, Alan Scott. And it was Laurel's interest in this bread that got Alan to build his first oven, as this traditional bread which predates commercial baking yeast and conventional ovens-- this bread made with simply freshly milled flour, water, and sea salt-- deserved the ancient technology of the wood-fired brick oven. Alan began baking this bread as well, in the wood-fired brick oven he built in his own backyard. He also began selling bread, door-to-door.

Fast forward to the early 1990s. I read Laurel's chapter on desem and tried to recreate this bread without success. And so I secured an apprenticeship with Alan Scott. I eventually launched Natural Bridge Bakery and then, after over a decade of baking, at the point when I was ready to begin the transition out of baking, I reached out to Alan to see if he could find a young baker that may want to share my bakery space in order to launch his or her own bakery. Alan found Dave Bauer, who would become Farm and Sparrow Breads.

Now if you dig back to my original posts, you will read the story of how we acquired our mill. It was Alan's mill, and he passed away before he was able to launch his milling operation in Tasmania, Australia. But how does Treska come into this story? Well, her brother was Omer Gavaert. Treska now lives in Flat Rock, raising her extensive garden and goats and fruit trees, and writing these wonderful children's books. My favorite, of course, is How Batistine Made Bread. But come see for yourself...

From the ground up,

Jennifer

ps the images embedded in this post are a little preview of Treska's work.

pss The Bazaar is from 11am to 3pm, Dec 3, 10th, and 17th, in the parking lot behind the Asheville Chamber of Commerce.

Update

2011-11-30T09:40:00.000-08:00

I wish I could say the stones are turning, but sadly, we are not quite there yet. The mill remains idle as we attempt to disentangle ourselves from the labyrinth of city code and permitting. But we are close. We received our grain. Sitting in our mill space awaiting our Certificate of Occupancy are pallets-- five rows wide by five rows deep-- each carrying a one-ton tote of NC-grown grain. Our grain stores are comprised of grain from the far eastern corner of the state, the Sandhills, and the western piedmont. We have Appalachian White, NuEast, TAM 303, Turkey Wheat, soft (pastry) wheat, and Wrens Abruzzi Rye. I just got off the phone with one of our growers, Kenny Haines, who said he just planted a little over twenty acres of Turkey for us, and in another couple days, he will be planting our twenty acres worth of NuEast. We’ve also had seed delivered to Billy Carter’s farm in the Sandhills for twenty acres of rye, and seed placed at the Hofner’s farm in Mt Ulla for twenty acres of TAM 303. Job White, a recipient of CFSA’s Beginning Farmers and Ranchers Scholarship Program that awarded forty young farmers full scholarships to attend CFSA’s Sustainable Agriculture Conference (SAC) in early November, has about ten acres of Turkey growing in his field in Gastonia, and is hoping to have secured a small combine by June for harvest.

We were able to showcase a number of these grains at SAC, using my small mill to supply flour to the bakeries. West End Bakery made hundreds of small herb garlic biscuits with the Hofner’s Appalachian White; Farm and Sparrow Breads supplied hearth loaves of Market Bread made with Turkey wheat grown by John McEntire in Old Fort and the Looking Back Farms in Tyner. Farm and Sparrow also supplied Seeded Rye made from Wrens Abruzzi Rye grown in Old Fort by John. Wildflour Bakery supplied their insane herbed crackers, so addictive they ought to just call them crack. These savory crackers were made from soft wheat grown by Billy Carter. And Annie’s Naturally Bakery supplied focaccia made from NuEast grown by Looking Back Farms.

One last tidbit of news—in the spirit of collaboration with a holiday twist, the Riverbend Malt House brought a sack of malted barley to the mill (barley grown by the Hofners and malted by Riverbend) that I then milled (with my small mill) and sifted and then delivered to the doorstep of French Broad Chocolates here in Asheivlle. We are hoping for NC-grown malt balls for the holidays. Still waiting to hear back on the results…

From the ground up,

Jennifer Lapidus

Some really great PR (click on title below to read the article)

2011-11-08T13:50:00.000-08:00

Carolina Ground Launches New Mill in Asheville

Getting closer...

2011-08-31T07:09:00.000-07:00

Our pilot group of bakeries in Western NC gathered this week to sample bread made from this year’s NC wheat harvest. Both modern and heritage wheat was baked into hearth loaves, pan loaves, focaccia, and pita. NuEast and Appalachian White grown at Looking Back Farms, Inc. in Tyner, NC, as well as Appalachian White grown at the Hofner’s farm in Salisbury were the modern varieties on display. Heritage varieties sampled were Red May-- a soft wheat traditionally grown in the Carolinas, and Sonora; both were grown at Looking Back Farms, Inc.

We are weeks away from turning on the mill. A window is being installed today to provide visitors with a view of this exquisite Austrian-built mill. Walls have been primed; fresh paint is soon to follow. And harvest is being assessed: how much of what varieties are available? How much seed needs to be held back. How many varieties should be planted? Plans for right now (August), this fall (planting starts in late Sept), next June, and the following fall are being assessed, all at once. We’re this deep in, and the simple loaf of bread—the concept of a local loaf-- is all the more humbling.

Just bear with me...

2011-08-19T13:29:00.000-07:00

Sorry no posts for awhile. I have been traveling around, checking out exciting regional milling endeavors in other places, and readying our space to start milling some flour. More on all that to come (very soon), but for now, a bit more about a very important and pressing topic-- how the proposed federal budget cuts affect us...

With a federal deficit bursting at the seams, lawmakers in Washington are looking not only at how much money the federal government spends, but also at what the federal government is spending its money on. Government programs put in place when a very different sentiment was governing this country are in peril, at the mercy of proposed federal budget cuts driven by ultra conservatives and libertarians. Programs built upon the concept of pubic good—the idea that we as a society have a responsibility to the elderly, the poor, the sick, and to our farmers that grow our food—are at risk. The irony that those pushing this agenda have claimed the moniker “Tea Party” smacks in the face of those who crafted the U.S. Constitution. James Madison, one of its primary authors, wrote: “The public good, the real welfare of the great body of the people, is the supreme object to be pursued.”

I was on the phone the other day with Dr David Marshall, public wheat breeder and pathologist with the USDA’s Plant Science Research Unit of the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) in Raleigh, North Carolina. We were discussing the proposed budget cuts that threaten to do away with the ARS. Dr Marshall is the lead researcher for the Uniform Bread Wheat Trials launched in 2002 breeding for regionally-adapted bread wheat varieties that can withstand the higher rainfall and humid conditions of the eastern U.S. He is also the U.S. leader in a global community of wheat researchers seeking sources of resistance to a new race of stem rust pathogen-- UGG99, first discovered in Uganda in 1999-- that threatens wheat production worldwide. This new pathogen is capable of overcoming most of the stem rust resistance genes in almost all of the global wheat germplasm, as in all the wheat grown around the world.

I know Dr Marshall because I am a part of a consortium of bakeries, millers, and growers in the Carolinas that are trying to establish a market for regionally produced grains. To revive the link between the farmer, miller, and baker in the Carolinas; to produce high quality organic flour with regional significance; and finally, to create a truly local loaf of bread—this has been our raison d’etre. Dr Marshall’s work on new regionally adapted bread wheat varieties has provided the backbone for our efforts. NC growers are now planting bread wheats-- both heritage varieties as well as higher yielding modern varieties and it is thanks to Dr Marshall and his team that we have access to modern varieties that can thrive in our climate. When we realized that all the rye grown in the Carolinas had been bred solely for feed and fodder and not for flour, Dr Marshall incorporated rye varieties into his trials, accessing varieties from Italy and France to test in our climate. When two young entrepreneurs interested in launching a micro-malt house (the soon-to-be Riverbend Malthouse) inquired about malting qualities of Carolina grown barley, Dr Marshall incorporated two-row barley into his trials. He responds to my emails, whether he is in Kenya, New Zealand, Pakistan, or wherever his work takes him. “It sounds noble and corny, but we want to feed every person on the planet,” he says in describing their efforts. He is accessible to the public. He is a dying breed.

Throughout the first half of the 20th century nearly all professional plant breeding was done by the USDA and Land Grant Universities (LGU). LGUs were established during Lincoln’s administration. Creating LGUs and cooperative extension agencies meant taking the university to the people, assisting farmers with research and breeding to help them solve on-farm issues. All of these institutions were established with a public-minded spirit. It is a very different picture now. Public breeders have become an endangered species as private companies with more money and fewer factors to consider have pushed out practically all of the public corn and soybean breeders; wheat being the red-headed stepchild-- not as easy for the private sector to profit by-- still has its Dr Marshalls, but proposed budget cuts threaten to do away with or greatly affect our public breeding programs. A June press release issued by House Conservatives asserts, “Many of the functions of the Agricultural Research Service, the Economic Research Service, the National Agricultural Statistics Service, and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture could be consolidated or accomplished through private-sector efforts” And yet, private companies and public breeders are not interchangeable. Private companies do all of their breeding in the Midwest, home to mega agri-business. Diseases are not the same in the various regions of the United States. Although testing of varieties is done in different regions, it is short lived, with the intention of assessing best yield. Also, private companies want fewer and fewer varieties because each variety costs them money, and for private companies, money is the bottom line. Dr Marshall’s elite plots-- those varieties that have made the cut and are being selected for public release-- contain one hundred and thirty different varieties of wheat. Growers are encouraged to plant more than one variety to mitigate risks posed by weather and unforeseen disease. Public breeders are breeding for disease resistance and regional adaptivness. From the UDSA-ARS website, “Our job is finding solutions to agricultural problems that affect Americans every day, from field to table.”

I asked Dr Marshall if he had a sense of the how much his budget may be cut. He said he really didn’t know—that it could be anywhere from no cuts at all to a complete wiping out their program. One thing is clear—there is a very real sentiment coming from an outspoken faction on Capital Hill that wants to see a reduction in federal programs, if not the complete elimination of them.

Current update:

The House already passed their version of the Ag Appropriations Bill; in that Bill, the House recommended a 15% reduction in all funding to the USDA. This Bill has now gone to the Senate, which is currently in recess. The Senate will write their own Bill, which could agree with the entire House Bill, or offer another version. Following the approval of the Senate Bill, the two versions of the Bill will go to a Conference Committee (made up of Ag Appropriations Committee members from both the House and the Senate) and a final compromise Bill will go to the President for approval or not.

And some real numbers—

The USDA-ARS Raleigh FY10 budget is $9,528,034.

The percent reductions would be:

% Reduction- Amount reduced  

1%- $95, 280  

5%- $476,401  

10%- $952,803  

14%- $1,333,924  

17%- $1,619,765  

20%- $1,905,606

A 1% reduction ($95,280) would be one technician plus approx $20,000 in materials and supplies. A 5% reduction would be the new people (3 technicians, material and supplies, travel, and all operating funds to conduct any wheat stem rust research (including funds we give to NCSU and other Universities to assist in stem rust research). A 10% reduction would include all at the 5% level plus all other technicians, other support staff, and operating dollars. A 20% reduction would be the equivalent of the entire ARS wheat research program in Raleigh.

If you feel moved to voice your concern, please contact your Senator and tell him/her how you feel.

from the ground up,

Jennifer Lapidus

Carolina Ground, L3C

Please Help Us Protect the Uniform Bread Wheat trials

2011-06-22T10:15:00.000-07:00

I received an email from Dr David Marshall, USDA-ARS lead researcher for the Uniform Bread Wheat Trials (the variety trials that are breeding for regionally-adapted bread wheats) the other day. The email basically said that if the Chaffetz Amendment (info below) were to be passed and enacted, that this would result in effectively eliminating the USDA-ARS.

The North Carolina Bread Flour Project was launched because of Dr Marshall's work. Bread (hard) wheat is a promising crop for Carolina growers and bakers. It is relatively easy to grow, is a good winter rotation crop, and it commands a higher price than soft wheat. Carolina Ground, L3C and Riverbend Malthouse are both launching this September, working with Carolina growers of organic bread wheat, rye, and barley (the Uniform Bread Wheat Trials also includes barley and rye). Variety selection is key for growers and the ability to access regionally adapted varieties is thanks to the work of the USDA-ARS.

We have seen consumer demand for local continue to grow despite the current recession. And we know that addressing our staple crops is a key piece in terms of sustainability and food security. The Chaffetz Amendment threatens to effectively do away with the Uniform Bread Wheat trials and the essential work that Dr Marshall and his staff are doing for our local foods economy. Please urge your representative to oppose the Chaffetz Amendment.

American Society of Agronomy | Crop Science Society of America | Soil Science Society of America
Science Policy - Action Alert

Urge your Representative to Oppose the Chaffetz Amendment

WHAT: Call your Representative now and say: "As a constituent, I urge (your Representative ) to OPPOSE THE CHAFFETZ AMENDMENT (H.AMDT.428) to the House Fiscal Year 2012 agriculture spending bill, which cuts funding for the USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS) by $650 million (the bill currently provides $993 million)." You can add that this amendment puts in jeopardy the ability of American agriculture to remain competitive; it will set back the innovation and development of new knowledge and technologies needed to ensure food security, sustainable renewable energy production, and adaptation to climate change.

HOW: Call the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121 and ask to be transferred to your Representative’s office. If you do not know who your Representative is, there is a zipcode look up at: www.house.gov
Note to Federal and University employees: check with your supervisor about any regulations concerning citizen advocacy prior to taking part in this action alert.

BACKGROUND: Funding for the USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS) is under attack. Specifically, Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) has introduced an amendment to the fiscal year 2012 agriculture appropriations bill which would slash funding for salaries and expenses of ARS by $650 million (the bill currently provides $993 million). If this draconian cut is passed, many ARS facilities could be closed and hundreds of ARS scientists may be let go. Decadal long studies will be lost, and the very ability of American agriculture to remain competitive will be in jeopardy. In addition, Rep. Chaffetz’s amendment would also cut funding for the Economic Research Service $43 million (the bill provides $70 million); reduce funding for the National Agricultural Statistics Service by $85 million (the bill provides $150 million); and reduce funding for Food For Peace Title II Grants by $1 billion (the total amount provided by the bill). Thank you for your time and attention to this important matter.

Address all comments to the ASA, CSSA, and SSSA Science Policy Office: sciencepolicy@sciencesocieties.org

The ASA, CSSA, and SSSA Science Policy Office organizes events to educate Congress and the Administration about how agronomic, crop, and soil science can be used to solve related challenges facing society. The Science Policy Office also performs advocacy on behalf of members in support research and development programs related to our sciences. To obtain more information about our activities, visit: www.agronomy.org/science-policy, www.crops.org/science-policy, and www.soils.org/science-policy.

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American Society of Agronomy | Crop Science Society of America | Soil Science Society of America
5585 Guilford Road, Madison, WI 53711-5801; 608-273-8080 phone; 608-273-2021 fax; www.agronomy.org; www.soils.org; www.crops.org; www.acsmeetings.org

A video about Carolina Farm Stewardship Association (our fiscal sponsor!)

2011-06-14T08:13:00.000-07:00

Carolina Farm Stewardship Association - Join the Food Revolution from GeoCore Films on Vimeo.

Carolina Farm Stewardship Association is our fiscal sponsor. It is doubtful that we would have gotten this far with Carolina Ground, L3C without them. (Carolina Ground, L3C is the result of the two-year grant funded NC Organic Bread Flour Project, a CFSA initiative.) I am proud to work for and be associated with this organization. Check out the video!

The Kneading Conference!

2011-06-13T10:51:00.000-07:00

The 5th Annual Kneading Conference is July 28th and July 29th in Skowhegan, Maine. This conference brings together novice and professional bakers, grain farmers and millers, researchers, wood-fired oven enthusiasts and anyone who loves to eat handcrafted breads for two days of participatory workshops, presentations, and panel discussions.

Get your tickets today!

A big hurdle cleared!

2011-06-08T14:04:00.000-07:00

So the big news today is that we FINALLY got the green light from the City of Asheville to begin the upfit for our mill room. It seemed we were getting caught in the snare of regulatory overload. The word mill conjured images (in the minds of city officials) of explosions caused by dust combustion. Yes, mills have caught on fire, but we are a different brand of mill-- a micro mill with top projects of 1-2 tons of flour per day (a 'small' mill can produce up to 10,000cwt of flour a day-- that means 100,000 pounds of flour(!) before being designated a 'medium-sized' mill). So yeah, we are sort of off the map. But hell, we are reinventing the map! Construction begins on Monday!!!

And a very big BIG THANK YOU goes out to architect Marni Graves and engineers, Ray Morgan and Gus Sims of Sims Group Engineers for volunteering to help us through this regulatory process.

!!!!!

More pictures from the Lake Wheeler Wheat Event

2011-05-31T13:40:00.000-07:00

The Lake Wheeler Wheat Workshop

2011-05-31T08:15:00.000-07:00

May 20th, 2011: We gathered under an EZ-Up tent-- the only shade available in a field of wheat. We were assembled at the Lake Wheeler Field Laboratory in Raleigh to see the Uniform Bread Wheat trial plots and hear from USDA-ARS wheat breeder, Dr David Marshall, as well as USDA-ARS plant pathologist Dr Christina Cowger. The Lake Wheeler Field Laboratory is the main breeding station for the Uniform Bread Wheat Trials, propagating hard wheats and some soft wheats as well as a bit of barley and oats. It is one of 11 sites ranging from the panhandle of Florida all the way up to Pennsylvania and over to Kentucky.

Spanning Lake Wheeler Field Lab's 25 acres of trial plots, 1500 populations from different crosses exhibited varying degrees of maturity, height, awn and awn-less, red wheats and white wheats. The combination created a striking patchwork effect. Dr Marshall explained the orderly process of breeding for the best genetics-- disease resistance, yield, and quality baking performance. (And btw, this is old-school breeding practices, not genetic modification.) Crosses begin in a greenhouse up the road and those first year varieties or F1 are grown in a single row in the field. A good bit of these crosses are made between ancient germ plasm from the Fertile Crescent such as emmer and goat grass, and new genetic material. Dr Marshall likened the process of breeding to herding cats, explaining that all the way to F4 (or year 4 material) the genes are still segregating. Varieties that make it to the advancing lines-- the elite material-- are grown in fifty foot plots. Next week, on Tuesday June 7th from 3-5 p.m. we will gather again with Dr Marshall, this time at the Mountain Research Station in Waynesville-- the smallest of his sites-- where one acre's worth of trial plots display largely the elite material that he hopes will eventually be released to the public as long as the lines make the cut, meaning strong disease package, good yield, reasonable maturing time, quality baking performance... And I should mention, in case it is not obvious, this is a public breeding program and Dr Marshall is a public breeder.

Following Dr Marshall, Dr Christina Cowger spoke about mycotoxins, the range of toxic fugal infection that can strike grains. She specifically addressed scab or Fusarium head blight, which can produce two mycotoxins-- deoxynivalenol or DON and zearalenone. These mycotoxins can cause severe gastric irritation in animals and humans. Wheat is most vulnerable to infection during flowering stage and the 10 days following. The main culprit is wet, humid weather two weeks before flowering. Cowger described some of the visual indicators of infection-- diseased spiklets become bleached or tan in appearance, grain exhibits pink tips-- and other indicators include low test weight. The FDA's recommended threshold is 10ppm for poultry and cows, 5 ppm for swine, , and 1 ppm for humans. She explained that for organic growers, who cannot simply spray fungicides, the best defense is going to be variety selection and/or selecting more than one variety, thus staggering harvest (and flowering times). Another defense is crop rotation. And Scabsmart.org can assist growers in managing risk with an online Fusarium Headblight Risk Assessment Tool. For testing on farm, kits are available through Seedboro and similar companies. For lab testing-- I have been told the the NCDA Consumer Services does testing, but I have yet to find an individual at the NCDA who can confirm this info. There are other private labs though that do such testing.

I realize this post is getting a bit long winded for a blog, so just a brief mention of the other presenters-- Dr Chris Reberg-Horton of NC State University spoke on organic production methods, pointing to variety selection as the organic grower's biggest tool. And Carolina Farm Stewardship's Karen McSwain spoke about the EQIUP-OI program as a potential resource to growers interested in growing grains (more on that in a later post).

from the ground up,

jennifer

NC-Grown Bread Wheat: From Field to Hearth

2011-05-04T13:02:00.000-07:00

CFSA in conjunction with Carolina Ground, L3C present:

NC-Grown Bread Wheat: From Field to Hearth

Friday, May 20^th from 1:00-4:00pm

Lake Wheeler Road Field Laboratory in Raleigh, NC

On Friday, May 20th from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. at the Lake Wheeler Road Field Laboratory in Raleigh, Carolina Farm Stewardship Association and Carolina Ground will host a workshop entitled NC-Grown Bread Wheat: from field to hearth. USDA-ARS wheat breeder, Dr David Marshall will be present to discuss the Uniform Bread Wheat trials planted at the field lab. Dr. Marshall will also lead us in a tour of the plots. Dr Chris Reberg-Horton of NCSU’s NC Organic Grains Project will follow Dr. Marshall’s talk, and will address organic methods of production for food-grade grain as well as potential markets. And Karen McSwain, CFSA’s Organic Initiatives Coordinator, will speak about the EQIP-OI program, eligibility, the application process, and examples of some scenarios applicable to grain production. She will also talk a little about her role in making the program more applicable to organic/transitioning farmers. This workshop, which is free and open to the public, is geared toward growers.

To register please contact: jennifer@carolinafarmstewards.org

We did it!

2011-04-17T09:02:00.001-07:00

Our kickstarter campaign was a success!! Thanks to all of you that supported this effort either by pledging, passing on our link, or helping us with the video (thank you Hazen Hunter Photography)!

whew.

from the ground up,

jennifer

If you haven't already done so.. please check out our kickstarter site and pass it along to friends!

2011-04-12T07:29:00.000-07:00

help us with our kickstarter. the clock is ticking!

2011-04-11T18:17:00.000-07:00

An article about us(!) in The Laurel of Asheville

2011-04-05T13:08:00.000-07:00

The NC Organic Bread Flour Project

Our first Board Meeting!

2011-03-31T13:23:00.000-07:00

Carolina Ground, L3C had its first official board meeting this past week-- a great group of folks and a very effective first meeting. Our board is made up of four bakeries (drawn from our pilot group of seven bakeries that have been working with the NC Organic Bread Flour Project for the last two years), one grower (Kenny Haines, for his years of experience growing and selling grains), one allied business (Brent Manning of the Riverbend Malt House), one allied non-profit (of course, our very own Roland McReynolds of CFSA!), one member from the community possessing skills the rest of us lack (John Dickson, formerly president on Asheville Savings Bank, and also a gifted photographer), and me, project coordinator of the North Carolina Organic Bread Flour Project, soon to be general manager and interim miller of Carolina Ground, L3C.

We began the meeting with introductions all around and then we dove right into the details. I handed out our financial projections, which show what we expect to pay per bushel for grain and what we expect to get per pound for flour. Here we were, bakers, a farmer, and the mill, and all the cards on the table. Our farmer (Kenny) said he thought the numbers looked fair. One of the bakers chimed in, asking why we should expect growers to sell to us at these prices in a year where commodities prices keep climbing. Kenny responded that it’s about long-term relationships. He said their farm would rather know, just like the bakeries, what their costs and income is going to look like year in and year out. We all need each other and fair pricing to the grower, miller, and baker is what is going to sustain us in the long run, not simply an amazing bushel price one year and rock bottom the next.

We rolled right into the next item of business—should we be an acting Board or simply an Advisory Board? Hands down, all agreed this would be an acting Board. A sub-committee of bakeries was established to determine criteria for the hiring of a miller—all agreed that this should be up to the bakers.

I'm going to back up a bit, because what brought us to the table for this first board meeting was not just that our growers have seed in the ground so we better have a board meeting soon, but that substantial pieces for Carolina Ground. L3C have fallen into place. At the beginning of February, our pilot group of seven bakeries met to discuss how we intend to finance Carolina Ground. It was decided we would launch a kickstarter campaign to match the grant we got which covers half the cost of our equipment (please, if you have not already done so, check us out and help us make this happen! http://kck.st/dRWAuR). It was also decided that we would seek equity investors to (hopefully) cover our build out costs. One of our bakeries compiled a list of potential investors, and, with success, he reached out to a handful of friends and community members. One of our investors wrote this to me in an email, so touching and inspiring, that I must share:

I will invest in the project because I think it is a good idea for the local farmers and bakers, not because I expect to make money. A return on my investment would be nice, but doing a project like this makes sense and seems like a better way to do things. My friendship with Steve and Gail is a big factor in my investment, but the bigger concept of connecting the growers and end users is a larger factor. Good luck with the project.

And spring has sprung.

From the ground up,

Jennifer

7th Annual Asheville Bread Festival

2011-03-28T15:20:00.000-07:00

For the last two years our group-- seven bakeries plus one spent baker-- have been meeting around a table every few months to strategize about linking the farmer with the baker here in the Carolinas. We've sampled varieties of grain from Dr Marshall's Uniform Bread Wheat trials. We've given our feedback. We've worked with two teams of MBA students and four teams of law students-- proving to be quite an educational specimen. We brought in a milling specialist from Kansas and then a baking/flour consultant (also, of course, from Kansas) to work with us bakers. We had a bake sale to raise money. Our project coordinator (the spent baker) has met with growers, wheat breeders, crop specialists, grain and seed cleaners, bakers, and spoken with millers nationwide, as well as distillers, miso makers, brewers, and malters. But how did the eight of us come together in the first place?

Well, seven years ago Steve Bardwell and Gail Lundsford, better known as Wake Robin Farm Breads organized the first ever Asheville Bread Festival inviting all the area bakeries to come out and vend. We came, and so did the customers. And not just a few or a reasonable amount of customers-- the customers came en mass-- hundreds-- my memory sees it as thousands, like a rock concert sized crowd (okay, so i have a colorful memory...) Regardless, they swarmed in, bought all the bread, and we knew then that this would be an annual event.

Gail and Steve also asked us bakers to come together after the fest for an evening meal at Asheville's Market Place restaurant. We were provided a large table on the second floor, a space all to ourselves. We trickled in, one baker at a time, and at first we were all a bit reserved, as each of us was basically the others competition. But then we started talking and conversations flowed on and on, as we realized pretty quickly that we really liked each other AND we were much less like competitor than compatriot. We were all bakers, each of us, committed to this life.

So basically, that's where is all began. And this Saturday marks the 7th Annual Asheville Bread Festival http://www.ashevillebreadfestival.com. Fittingly, proceeds from the bread fest will be pledged toward our kickstarter goal.

And a reminder about our kickstarter-- http://kck.st/dRWAuR (If you have not already done so) please help us make this happen!!

From Food First/Institute for Food and Development Policy

2011-03-16T05:42:00.000-07:00

Wheat: The New Frontier

Another piece of the puzzle..

2011-03-14T12:54:00.000-07:00

One of the first questions we asked ourselves when launching the North Carolina Organic Bread Flour Project was, what pieces need to be in place to connect the farmer with the baker?

We started out with this idea that if we could get a group of bakeries together, that together we could become a formidable buyer and establish direct relationships with Carolina growers of regionally adapted bread grain varieties (and other grains as well). The bakeries would be more sustainable, have more control, and for both the grower and baker, there would be an increased level of financial security. But as we took a closer look, did the numbers, we soon realized it was going to take more than simply a group of bakers to ensure a market for growers. And so we began to forge relationships with other grain users. Who else is importing grain? And what other grain-based businesses could be launched with Carolina grains? As with the group of bakeries—forming a group of small to medium sized grain users would create a formidable voice. We spoke with the American Miso Company in Rutherford Co and they said they would love to buy from Carolina growers, but they need to receive clean grain in 50lb bags, as their system is based on working in 50lb increments and they are not set up to receive unclean grain in bulk. We spoke with brewers—as there are at least 14 in the western region and a minimum of 30 statewide and over 50 including the surrounding states—and they said mostly they need their grain malted. In response, a couple of incredibly bright committed guys contacted me to discuss the launching of Riverbend Malthouse in WNC (we now consider them our sister company and plan to launch Carolina Ground at the same time as they launch Riverbend Malthouse-- fall 2011). And distilleries—craft distilling is on the rise and with it, a demand for local grains. So we identified the demand, but the different grains—wheat, barely, rye-- great for long term successive rotations in the field, though how do we go from field to processor?

In NC, we have existing potential markets for organic grain—Lindley Mills and Bay State Milling, but we—small to medium sized grain users--are a different kind of market to a grower. The larger mills have volumes high enough to justify in-house cleaning and lab work of grain. Grain is shipped—55,000 lbs-- in bulk, in grain trucks to the mill, tested then cleaned and processed. But for growers to access smaller markets, or put another way, for bakeries or distillers or malters to establish direct relationships with growers, certain pieces needed to be put in place. Also, we discovered along the way, that there was no clear source for regionally adapted organic grain and cover crop seed (seed varieties developed through both the USDA-ARS Uniform Bread Wheat Trials as well as NCSU’s BOPS project, www.organicbreeding.ncsu.edu). Our lens opened even wider. It just so happens that grain and seed cleaning infrastructure is one and the same. And so an idea began to take shape. On-farm grain and seed cleaning infrastructure would create not only a source for organic regionally adapted grain and cover crop seed, it would also provide a service to grower who wanted to sell a higher value product—clean grain, bagged or in one-ton totes. Not only that, but numerous varieties of clean grain (in totes or bags) could be transported together on one truck-- hard wheat, soft wheat, rye, barley, oats...

Enter Looking Back Farms-- already instrumental in their partnership with Lindley Mills in assuring a seed supply of TAM 303 (see: ncobfp.blogspot.com/2011/01/locally-grown-nc-organic-wheat.html), Ben and Kenny Haines expressed interest in setting up full-scale organic grain and seed cleaning infrastructure on-farm to assure a source for double certified grain and cover crop seed as well as provide grain and seed cleaning service. They faced the chicken-egg scenario though, in that because the infrastructure did not yet exist, and seed availability is still sparse, the demand for this service is not yet there. So, in order to jumpstart this essential piece of our sustainable food system, I assisted Looking Back in seeking grant funding and we were successful. Looking Back Farm received 40% cost share assistance from NC Market Ready for on-farm grain and seed cleaning infrastructure. And we just learned that RAFI-USA’s awarded them a Tobacco Communities Reinvestment Fund Community Grant. Very good news indeed!

From the ground up,

jennifer

A shout out for freshly stone ground flour...

2011-03-09T06:36:00.000-08:00

From LA Times article entitled Home-ground goodness,

Award-winning baker Craig Ponsford, former chairman of the Bread Bakers Guild of America, compares white flour to Humpty Dumpty: "It's a deconstructed food, and then we put it back together. But we don't put it back together very well."

He adds that most of the whole-wheat flour sold in grocery stores is actually white flour to which the bran, but not the germ, has been added back. He points out that many people will reject baked goods made from commercial whole-wheat flour because it is dry, dense and bitter. In contrast, freshly milled whole-wheat flour usually has a sweeter taste. And the grinding process itself aerates and sifts the flour, making the texture lighter.

Ponsford explains: "The tastiest part of the wheat berry is the germ; that's where all the fat is. When you remove all the fat … it doesn't have all its properties and it doesn't taste good. With the germ, with what you guys are doing at home, it's super-duper tasty. And incredibly more healthful than the flour that's available at the grocery store."

We've launched our Kickstarter campaign!!

2011-03-01T10:40:00.000-08:00

http://www.kickstarter.com/e/HiZw8/projects/1139809766/carolina-ground-farmer-miller-baker-nc-grown-bread

An interview with Dr Marshall, from the Mtn Xpress

2011-02-28T05:25:00.000-08:00

http://www.mountainx.com/news/2008/is_local_grain_production_in_jeopardy

Proposed Federal Cuts threaten to eliminate USDA-ARS bread wheat program

2011-02-25T11:49:00.000-08:00

Monday morning I received an email that emphasized the reality that it was Monday morning. The email was from Dr David Marshall, plant pathologist and geneticist, and research leader of the USDA-ARS Plant Science Research Unit in Raleigh, NC. Dr Marshall is the lead researcher for the Uniform Bread Wheat trials. His email informed me that, in short, the entire wheat research program may be wiped out by the proposed Federal budget cuts.

This program has been the foundation by which our project has established sure footing. If it were not for Dr Marshall's work, us bakers would not have pulled our chairs into a circle and begun the conversation (2 years ago this month) as to how we can establish direct relationships with growers in the Carolinas. We like our quality wheat and had relied on the high quality and performance of our Midwestern supply. But Dr Marshall's varieties (all old school breeding-- no GMOs) have worked in the bakery and in the field -- the first regionally adapted modern bread wheats to be released in the southeast. We have rallied behind Dr Marshall's work, and we plan to launch Carolina Ground, L3C by Sept 2011.

But the story is about more than us bakers-- the ability to grow bread wheat in the Carolinas has had a rippling effect, not only amongst bakeries statewide, but also amongst other grain users, and potential grain users. The Riverbend Malthouse, also to be located in Asheville, is in its formative stages with plans to be online by fall of 2011 using local organic barley, wheat, and rye. WIth over thirty microbreweries throughout the state and another fifty in the combined surrounding states of Georgia, South Carolina and Virginia (and of course, more than a dozen in WNC), a malthouse was the logical next step. There is also a growing movement in craft distilleries. Top of the Hill Distillery in Chapel Hill is on track to open in 2011, producing vodka, gin, bourbon, and rum with local and organic grain. And receptive to all of this, Dr Marshall has incorporated two and six-row barley as well as rye into his trials.

We have been so lucky in NC to not only have the growing interest in local, but already existing markets for organic grains-- Lindley Mills, Bay State, and Braswell Milling, as well as a burgeoning movement in smaller scale grain users that want to source their grain locally. Having the markets is only one piece. The work of Dr Marshall continues to be essential to the long term viability of regional grain commerce. Access to regionally adapted seed is key. This is all public breeding of public varieties, something that is practically nonexistent in corn and soybeans (GMO, private company breeding). I can't stress enough the significance of protecting the work of Dr Marshall and his team.

So please, if you are reading this blog, you must be interested in the future of real bread, so please let your representative know how you feel on this matter.

The nitty-gritty details: US House of Representatives passed H.R.1, the proposed Continuing Resolution for the Federal Government last Thursday. The Bill now goes to the Senate, then to Conference Committee, then to the President to sign (or not). The Bill contains $185.1 million or about 22% cut to the USDA-Agricultural Research Service. This proposed reduction would result in the elimination of $2 million from the USDA-ARS program in Raleigh, NC, which is the total amount for the wheat research program. This includes 4 Project Leaders and 12 support staff.

At present, influence would be best excercised on the NC Senators (Richard Burr and Kay Hagan); then on the North Carolina Representatives in the House who voted for the Bill (all the Republican Party Representatives).

I will post more details soon-- I think those sitting on the Appropriations Committee will be key figures to contact, so I need to do a little homework. But for now- get contact info at: Congress.org

From the ground up,

jennifer

Locally Grown NC Organic Wheat = Locally Grown NC Baked Goods

2011-01-19T08:03:00.000-08:00

For those who attended CFSA’s 25^th Annual Sustainable Agriculture Conference, you likely tasted at least one of the various baked goods made with NC grown wheat. The cookies provided for the mid-day break were from West End Bakery, made with Arapaho wheat grown by Fred Miller on Hilltop Farm in Wake Co, smack dab in the middle of the state. The bread presented at Saturday evening’s reception was from Farm and Sparrow Breads, made with Turkey wheat grown by John McEntire on Peaceful Valley Farm in Old Fort, at the foothills of our mountainous western region. And the rolls served with Saturday evening’s dinner were from Annie’s Naturally Bakery, made with Lindley Mills flour, from TAM303 hard red wheat, grown by Ben and Kenny Haines of Looking Back Farms located in Tyner, on the far northeastern end of the state.

For each, there was a story, each illustrating a different route to the same end: the revival of regional grain production and commerce. Three different varieties of wheat, each from a different time in agriculture’s history: a heritage wheat, Turkey; a modern wheat, Arapaho; and a regionally adapted wheat, TAM303.

Turkey wheat is a landrace grain, meaning that it predates modern breeding. Turkey arrived in this country in the early 1870s, brought to Kansas by Mennonite immigrants from the Ukraine, fleeing Tsarist persecution. Turkey wheat is, ironically, partly to blame for the death of the community stone mill. It thrived in Kansas, swiftly becoming the primary wheat variety planted throughout the Central Plains. It did so well, that it pushed forward the advancement of milling technology. But that’s a whole other story. What’s important for this telling is that Turkey was replaced in the mid- 1940s, by modern higher-yielding cultivars. Though a small group of farmers in Kansas have started a wheat revival project to bring back this wheat. And Slow Food has inducted Turkey into its U.S. Ark of Taste, its mission: By promoting and eating Ark products we help ensure they remain in production and on our plates.

But how did bread made with Turkey wheat grown in NC make it onto our plates?

Enter Farm and Sparrow Breads. Farm and Sparrow is a small operation, a craft bakery run by owner and operator, Dave Bauer. Dave is deeply committed to his craft. He employs Old World methods—cultures to leaven his doughs and wood to fire his massive masonry oven. Finding a farmer to grow his wheat was the natural next step. Dave befriended farmer John McEntire. John grows heirloom corn that he mills into grits that Dave uses in his Heriloom Grits Bread. Dave acquired enough seed for four acres of Turkey wheat and John, whose daddy and uncle used to grow wheat, happily planted it.

Dave was able to acquire the seed because of that small group of farmers back in Kansas committed to reviving this wheat. The seed that grew the wheat that went into the rolls baked by Annie’s Naturally Bakery was thanks to a friendship between a farmer and a miller. Kenny Haines has been growing soft (pastry) wheat for Joe Lindley for years. The two met when Kenny, who also has a trucking business, arrived at Lindley Mills for a pick up, and they got to talking. At the time, regionally adapted bread wheat varieties were not even a possibility, but in 2002 the USDA-ARS launched the Uniform Bread Wheat trials to develop bread wheat varieties that can withstand the hot and humid climate of the southeast. The first of the varieties released was TAM303, through Virginia Foundation Seed. No one was growing out the seed stock though, so Joe and Kenny stepped up to the plate, purchasing all the seed that was available. The seed was treated, so it could not be planted on an organic farm, but Kenny had a conventional grower plant it, so there would be untreated seed to plant the following year. Which, the next year, is what Kenny and Ben did. And with the harvest from that planting, and Lindley Mills, and Annie’s Bakery, the rolls from Saturday evening’s dinner were made. And enough seed was held back so that this past planting (planting just ended), over 600 acres of TAM 303 were planted on four different organic farms in NC and one in VA. Kenny and his son, Ben, btw, also planted close to twenty acres of Turkey.

And the Arapahoe? Fred was curious about growing wheat, acquired some seed, not regionally adapted, but he got lucky, the weather behaved, he had 500 pounds to sell, and he called me up. We met in a Sam’s Club parking lot in Raleigh to make the exchange. Yes, a Sam’s Club parking lot.

From the ground up,

Jennifer Lapidus

Some great news and how you can help

2010-12-16T09:17:00.000-08:00

We have been awarded a grant!

And not simply the kind of grant that covers feasibility studies or travel or personnel; no, although all of the above have been instrumental along the way, this particular grant we just received (!) is by far the most action-packed in its ability to produce tangible, material, physical results. The grant we just received is from NC Market Ready, a program of the NC Cooperative Extension, and it will pay for HALF the cost of all of our equipment! That means HALF the cost of our mill, bucket elevator, and bolter (as mentioned earlier in this blog, the use of the mill has been gifted to us by the estate of Alan Scott, but with the understanding that we would purchase the mill from the Scott family as soon as we are able), a moisture/test weight meter, sampling probe, bench scale, portable bag sewer and suspension system. The total cost of the equipment is around $36,500, so, in terms of equipment, we are now halfway there!

At the same time Carolina Farm Stewardship Association, the non-profit organization that made our project possible when, back in 2008, director Roland McReynolds called me up out of the blue and said he had heard about the proposal I was working on to organize bakers in WNC to work directly with growers. He said his organization wanted to take on our project—get it funded and see it through. And he did. Roland took what I had written and gave it greater breadth and vision. This was no longer just about a group of bakeries in the western region of the state. This was and is about food security and sustainability and regional food systems. So, (as I was saying), Carolina Farm Stewardship Association was recently approached by an anonymous donor with the challenge that it they raise $50,000 by December 31st, this donor will pledge a matching $50,000 donation. The challenge was made right before CFSA’s 25^th annual Sustainable Agriculture Conference (the largest sustainable ag conference in the Southeast), which was last weekend with 900(!) people in attendence. (I was one of the many presenters at the conference.) Thus far, they are 2/3rds of the way toward their goal of $50k by Dec 31st.

So here’s the double bang—donations to CFSA can be earmarked for the NC Organic Bread Flour Project. If you would like to help us raise the other half of our equipment costs, while at the same time help CFSA meet their $50k challenge, this is a really exciting end of the year tax-deductible donation.

And it's easy. Just visit cfsa’s website, www.carolinafarmstewards.org, and click on the ‘Donate Now’ button to make a tax deductible donation today. And please indicate (if you feel moved) that the donation be earmarked for the NC Organic Bread Flour Project.

Thanks so much folk.

Truly from the ground up,

jennifer

An exciting example of a grain/flour CSA

2010-12-13T05:22:00.000-08:00

http://thetyee.ca/News/2010/12/10/GrainChain/

Yeah Somerset Gristmill!

2010-12-08T17:49:00.001-08:00

http://www.wmtw.com/video/26070461/detail.html

Carolina Ground, L3C-- it's official!

2010-10-29T12:09:00.001-07:00

After wheat prices spiked in 2008, it became more than evident to the bakers here in western NC (and beyond our borders-- see blog post dated 5/25/09) that the gaping distance between the baker and farmer had run its course. Clearly, the commodities market cared little for either the farmer or baker, or an honest loaf of bread, for that matter. In regards to the price spike, at the time the news reported floods in Northern Europe, drought in Australia, the displacement of wheat with corn for ethanol, but in Harper’s recent July 2010 article "Food Bubble How Wall Street starved millions and got away with it" author Fredrick Kaufman eloquently delineates what else happened,

…in 1991 nearly everything else that could be recast as a financial abstraction had already been considered. Food was pretty much all that was left. And so with accustomed care and precision, Goldman’s analysts went about transforming food into a concept. They selected eighteen commodifiable ingredients and contrived a financial elixir that included cattle, coffee, cocoa, corn, hogs, and a variety or two of wheat. They weighted the investment value of each element, blended and commingled the parts into sums, then reduced what had been a complicated collection of real things into a mathematical formula that could be expressed as a single manifestation, to be known thenceforward as the Goldman Sachs Commodity Index. Then they began to offer shares.

The first meeting of the NC Organic Bread Flour Project took place in February 2009-- seven bakeries and one spent baker (me) pulled our chairs into a circle and began discussing the possibility of existing outside the commodities market-- the possibility of establishing direct relationships with growers. Everyone agreed that the grower should get the best possible price for his/her grain, but at an affordable cost to the baker. The mill could be the entity to make this happen.

About a year into this project and many meetings later, a discussion ensued amongst this group of bakeries about whether this mill ought to be for profit or not for profit. One of the smaller bakeries voiced the concern that if the mill was not driven by profit, it may loose the incentive to press on into the future; another bakery responded that profit alone would never be enough of an incentive, and that to ensure the longevity of this future mill, it would need to be sustained by something bigger than simply profit. This mill would enable our many bakeries to become more sustainable; it would allow for long-term relationships to be established between growers and bakers, with the hope of building our knowledge base of local grains —both in the field and in the bakery.

But still, a non-profit mill?

I sought assistance from Wake Forest’s Business and Law Clinic and UNC Chapel Hill's Center for Sustainable Enterprise. We examined the coop model, felt as a legal entity it was too restrictive, and learned through a conference call with a number of growers on the line that joining a coop was of no interest to them, although they would be happy to sell grain to the mill.

After four teams of law students and two teams of business students, along with my own networking and research, we finally arrived at the answer to the question that we struggled with-- how to define this mill, legally. And now it's official-- we are registered with the State of North Carolina as Carolina Ground, L3C.

Most of you are probably scratching your heads wondering what an L3C is… and that is to be expected. It is a fairly new entity, just signed into law in NC in August 2010, initially established in Vermont in 2008 (to my knowledge, thus far L3Cs can be formed in: Michigan, Vermont, Illinois, Wyoming, Utah, Louisiana, North Carolina, and the Indian Crow Nation and the Oglala Sioux Tribe.)

An L3C is a sort of hybrid between an LLC and a 501 C-3, in other words, it is a mission-driven for-profit business; it's also know as a "low-profit" company. Carolina Ground, L3C will be structured as a bakers' owned co-op mill, but incorporated as an L3C. Because what we hope to accomplish with this mill is to enable the farmer to get the best possible price for his/her grain at an affordable cost to the baker-- to exist outside the commodities market-- it is our stakeholders -- the farmer and the baker-- that we want to see thrive, not necessarily the mill; although we need the mill to do well, exist in the black, provide jobs, ect... The L3C felt like the perfect fit for us and I think it is going to conjure a lot of dialogue (hopefully) about the way we do business-- a triple bottom line approach (with economic, social, and ecological value) whose ecological and social value are the direct benefits of keeping it local.

Harper’s author Fredrick Kaufman describes Wall Street bankers whose riches did not come from the sale of real things like wheat or bread but from the manipulation of ethereal concepts like risk and collateralized debt.

Carolina Ground, L3C, dedicated to grains grown and ground on Carolina ground is real and tangible. From seed to loaf, we are working to rebuild sustainability in our communities.

from the ground up,

jennifer

Update: the mill and the grain and the legal entity

2010-10-22T09:27:00.000-07:00

We've finally got the motors for the mill and our stellar electricians-- Jesse and Donny (pictured above)-- are busy at work installing them!

Also, the pilot group of bakeries are engaged in bake tests of a few different varieties of wheat from Dr David Marshall's Uniform Bread Wheat trials.

The above photo is from Farm and Sparrow Breads. He hand sifted this wheat (I milled the grain in my 12" Jansen Gristmill). This variety of wheat has not yet been released to the public-- it is ARS05-1044. Yes, it sounds like something from Brave New World, but no, this is not genetic modification, it is just old school modern breeding practices-- public varieties developed via a public servant. The profile on the grain, btw, for those of you that want the nitty-gritty details, according to the USDA-ARS in Raliegh are: test wieght- 58.4#; protein- 14.4; falling numbers- 272; and hardness- 78

Next post: Carolina Ground as a legal entity and planting season...

Know Your Farms Charlotte Area Farm Tour

2010-08-28T11:22:00.000-07:00

I got a call the other day from Buddy Hofner. Buddy is a dairy farmer, part of the Organic Valley Co-op. Actually, my understanding is that Buddy happily passed the dairy onto his son when his son was old enough, and now Buddy is a grain grower, growing the feed for the cows. The Hofner's farm, a four generation farm, is located in Salisbury which is in the western piedmont of NC. In 2008, when wheat prices shot up and availability plunged, Buddy for the first time, sold his organic soft wheat to Bay State Milling in Morresville, NC, as food grade (for flour), not feed grade.

So Buddy called me up the other day to tell me about the Know Your Farms 2nd annual Charlotte area farm tour taking place September 18th and 19th. His farm is one of 27 farms on the farm tour map. He asked me what I thought about coming to their farm and doing some on-farm milling of their organic soft wheat to sell to folks coming on the tour. Sounds like fun, but lets try the wheat first, to know what we've got. So his wife, on her way back from Waynesville the following weekend, dropped a bucket of grain off on my front porch in Asheville; well, she thought it was my front porch. I did eventually find the bucket of grain one block up, on someone else's porch. SO I got the grain and took it down to Old Fort, where I had heard John McEntire of Peaceful Valley Farm had just gotten a Farmstead seed cleaner.

I met John early one morning and we tried out his new cleaner. After a few adjustments and input from his 94 year old uncle, we got the grain pretty clean. We both noticed a few dirt clods in the grain and discussed the merits of cutting high when combining one's wheat (John successfully grew 4 acres of Turkey Red, a heritage variety of wheat, this past growing season. We hope he will be planting more wheat this fall and some rye.)

With my clean grain back in the bucket, a couple days later I headed out to Madison County where the remains of my Natural Bridge Bakery live and I milled the wheat on my 12" diameter stone Jansen gristmill. The grain milled beautifully. It is soft wheat, which is traditionally used for cookies and pastries (hard wheat is traditionally used for bread.) I divided the flour into a few different sacks, and passed a sack on to Dave Bauer of Farm and Sparrow Bakery and Cathy Cleary of Westend Bakery. I made cookies and scones. The flour worked well. Cathy reported "We made scones yesterday and today with the wheat - and they were AWESOME. The flavor was great! . Yesterday we made peach ginger and today was blackberry. The peach ones rose really well and had a delicate texture." And Dave's report, "I bolted the soft wheat flour and we made a pastry crust with it and tonight made peach tarts with Barry's peaches. It made an exquisite rustic tart. We were all surprised at how flavorful yet unbitter it was."

So, next weekend I am heading back out to Madison County to crack open my little mill-- it's a 8" diameter stone Jansen gristmill-- blow it out with the compressor and get it ready to take over to Salisbury on the 18th.

from the ground up,

jennifer

that last post

2010-08-13T20:41:00.000-07:00

sorry folks, I did not realize the link I provided in the last post was not going to take one to the full article unless one is a subscriber to Harpers. I am happy to email anyone interested in the pdf version of the article. Just send me an email through this blog and I will email back the article.

An article worth reading: The Food Bubble How Wall Street Starved Millions and Got Away With It

2010-08-13T08:17:00.000-07:00

The idea for the North Carolina Organic Bread Flour Project came about when, back in 2008, the price of wheat hit the roof. At it's worst wheat prices rose as much as 130% and bakers were left to swallow much of that increase, only able to pass on to the customer a fragment of their heightened costs, as an honest loaf of bread must be affordable. So this is when bakers came together here in WNC and began the conversation of reviving this age-old but long forgotten link between the farmer, the miller, and the baker.

The July issue of Harper's ran a story that sheds light on how far we had strayed from that simple link: the farmer, the miller, and the baker. In light of the current potential wheat deficit scare, with Russia's ban on wheat exports and Ukraine soon to follow, I thought it timely to post this worthy read: The Food Bubble. How Wall Street Starved Millions and Got Away With It

A big THANK YOU (more pix!)

2010-07-23T13:04:00.000-07:00

A big THANK YOU to all the restaurants: Biltmore House Bistro, Early Girl, Jack of the Wood, Laughing Seed, Laurey's Catering, Sunny Point Cafe, Corner Kitchen, Luellas and Zambras; the breweries: Asheville Brewing Co, Craggy Brewery, the Lexington Ave Brewery, and French Broad Brewery; and the bakeries: Farm & Sparrow and Wake Robin Farm Breads. Also, thank you to both Greenlife and Earthfare for sides. A big thanks to Hickory Nut Gap Farm and East Fork Farm for pork and lamb. And thank you to the French Broad Food Co-op for the use of your tents. And of course-- thank you thank you Asheville Slow Food for making this happen.

Pix provided by Nicholas Hazen Hunter, hazenhunter.com.

A big THANK YOU

2010-07-23T12:49:00.001-07:00

A big thank you to all the businesses and individuals that made the Slow Food Beer & BBQ Fundraiser for the NCOBFP such a success. Pictures proved by Nicholas Hazen Hunter, www.hazenhunter.com.

Slow Food Beer & BBQ Fundraiser for the NC Organic Bread Flour Project

2010-07-14T08:48:00.001-07:00

Slow Food Beer & BBQ Fundraiser for the
North Carolina Organic Bread Flour Project!

Come join us on Saturday, July 17th from 5p.m. til 8p.m. for a Beer & BBQ fundraiser with proceeds going to the North Carolina Organic Bread Flour Project. This event will be in West Asheville, outside, in the grassy area next to West End Bakery.

Many thanks to our farmers: Hickory Nut Gap Farm and East Fork Farm for providing pork and lamb for this fundraiser. Luellas, Corner Kitchen, and Zambras have volunteered to cook the meat. Donations of sides are coming from: Early Girl Eatery, Jack of the Wood, Laughing Seed, Laurey’s Catering, Sunny Point Café, Earthfare, Biltmore House Bistro Restaurant, and Greenlife. Beer has been donated by Asheville Brewing Company, Lexington Ave Brewery (LAB), Craggie Brewery and French Broad Brewery. And a big thank you to the French Broad Food Coop for supplying the tents to allow this event to be outside. (Please bring blankets or chairs to sit on.)

Tickets are $20 in advance, they can be purchased at West End Bakery or purchased on-line at Brown Paper Tickets or $25 at the door.

The North Carolina Organic Bread Flour Project is an initiative of the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association with funding from the North Carolina Tobacco Trust Fund Commission. With the goal of linking the farmer and baker in North Carolina, NCOBFP is laying the groundwork for the future Carolina Ground Flour Mill, dedicated to grains grown and ground on Carolina ground. Although North Carolina has not traditionally been a hard (bread) wheat growing state, since 2002 the USDA has been conducting hard wheat trials throughout the state and the results have been quite encouraging, both in the field and in the bakery. For the last year and a half this project has been driven by a core group of seven bakeries in the WNC region-- Annies, West End, Farm & Sparrow, Flat Rock Village Bakery, Loafchild, Wildflour, and Wake Robin.

If you cannot make it to the fundraiser but would like to make a tax-deductible contribution to this endeavor, please go to the CFSA website http://www.carolinafarmstewards.org/, click on the store tab on the left hand side which will take will take you to a place where you can donate directly to the North Carolina Organic Bread Flour Project.

2010 NC-Grown Organic Wheat Workshop—from field to bread

2010-07-12T08:37:00.000-07:00

One hundred and thirty varieties of wheat, twenty varieties of barley, and twenty-five varieties of oats formed a patchwork of various shades of amber. A crowd of us gathered amongst these trial plots of grain on June 17th at the Mountain Research Station in Waynesville, NC. We gathered to view the plots and to hear from Dr David Marshall, wheat breeder from the USDA-ARS; Sharon Funderburk, organic crop consultant; Molly Hamilton, Organic Grain Project, NCSU; and Jennifer Lapidus (me), NC Organic Bread Flour Project.

Dr Marshall began the talk by providing a bit of background, explaining the impetus for the Uniform Bread Wheat Trials, launched in 2002, when someone from Bay State Milling in Morresville, NC, asked him if hard wheat could be grown in the Carolinas. At the time, he was doubtful. NC traditionally grows soft wheat (hard wheat is typically used for bread, whereas soft wheat is mostly used for cakes, pastries, crackers, and some flat breads). But trials began with selections from any available hard wheat varieties they could get their hands on, and plots were planted from the panhandle of Florida all the way up to central Pennsylvania. The USDA-ARS partnered with a program in New Zealand so they could accelerate the program by getting two generations of wheat per year. Since 2002, about 1000 crosses have been made each year, breeding for disease resistance, yield, and quality (baking quality which addresses things like protein, and resistance to sprouting in the field-- which dramatically affects performance in the bakery). Dr Marshall's crosses are all old school natural breeding (as opposed to gmo, which modifies genes between different species). All the genes Dr Marshall works with are within the wheat family. And all his breeds can be traced back to the Fertile Crescent where wheat originated.

Thus far, three varieties have been released: TAM 303, NuEast, and Appalachian White. The varieties are widely adapted, the first two have done well grown from North Georgia all the way to Pennsylvania; the latter does not grow as well down south but grows best from NC north (these varieties were not planted north of PA in the trials, thus he did not address performance for the NE.)

Dr Marshall answered questions regarding harvest, storage, moisture, commercial availability of seed, and taste: Harvest is to occur somewhere between 13-14% moisture; storage was recommended at 13% and below, ideally 12 % moisture. And aeration in one's storage is ideal. The NuEast and Appalachian White were provided to the North Carolina Foundation Seed Service last year to be grown out for seed, though harvest had just occurred the previous week and he could not say how much seed would be available. Taste is a difficult quality for the breeder to access, as baking techniques differ, but the NC Organic Bread Flour Project intends to develop a survey for their participating bakeries to use when testing flour; this survey will need to address baking methods-- straight dough vs sponge, yeasted vs naturally-leavened, etc...

As a group we proceeded to tour through the trial plots of wheat, oats, and barley. Amongst the wheats Dr Marshall began with the oldest of the varieties planted: Mediterranean, and then moving up about fifty years, to a variety that is about 200-250 years old, a selection out of Mediterranean known as Federation. He then pointed out Coastal and Coker 57-6, which he explained, represent, among tall, standard height varieties (pre-dwarf or semi dwarf), state of the art varieties grown commercially on the east coast in the 1940s and 50s; these varieties were bred soft wheats (as opposed to the older varieties-- Mediterranean and Federation-- that predate the distinction between hard and soft). Next, Dual, similar to Coastal and Coker 57-6, and then Red Fife, which was a variety released out of Canada around 1900-1910, brought over by the Mennonites. Red Fife has hard wheat qualities (higher protein). He then pointed out the modern varieties, considerably shorter than the older varieties, the result of the work of Norman Borlaug and the mainspring of the Green Revolution. And then we arrived at his wheats-- TAM 303, NuEast, Appalachian White, and 5 or 6 lines of very similar hard red wheat that have all been very successful with very good lodging resistance (lodging is when the wheat falls over, making it difficult to harvest), high yield, and a very good disease package. He expects his next line to be released to come from this selection of wheats.

He spoke about mixing time-- one of the qualities they select for. He shoots for mix times around three and a half to four minutes-- from the time flour and water are mixed together to when this mixture becomes a dough. Shorter mix times can be a problem, as the dough can fall apart. He pointed out one variety of wheat with a seven minute mix time, which may be favorable to a baker.

He led us to a plot of grain that appeared less mature that its surrounding wheat-- spelt--and admitted they have done very little work on spelt and have no recommendations about growing or fertilization rate or seeding rate. Molly Hamilton chimed in that starting this fall, the Organic Grain Project will begin work on organic spelt production with NC State so they can have research-based recommendations for NC growers. The growing will be in the eastern part of the state and maybe in the piedmont as well. They will be looking at seeding rates, fertility, and harvest efficiency. She added that organic dairies in NC are interested in feed grade spelt with the hull on because of the nutritional factor.

Dr Marshall also led our group to the barley and oat plots where the conversation naturally led toward the possibility of malting barley for the many micro breweries in NC (13 in WNC; at least 30 in the state) [but, more on that later...]

After the tour of grains, we gathered under the shade of the EZ-up and Sharon asked the group if they had any specific concerns regarding growing grain. Molly Hamilton gave a brief overview of the Organic Grain Project and mentioned the North Carolina Organic Grain Production Guide which is available online for download. And I gave a bit of an update of the NC Organic Bread Flour Project (more on that later.)

Thanks to all for coming out and supporting our Bread for Bread Bake Sale

2010-07-06T10:01:00.000-07:00

Thanks to all for coming out to support our Bread for Bread Bake Sale. We didn't know how much bread to bring, afraid of bringing too much bread, but the bread went, and quick. We were all too busy selling bread to capture any 'before' pictures of tables piled high with loaves. After the crowd subsided, I got a few pix of our empty tables...

We hope to do this again in the fall with some actual NC-grown wheat...

Bread for Bread Bake Sale

2010-06-25T12:17:00.000-07:00

The North Carolina Organic Bread Flour Project presents, in conjunction with Carolina Farm Stewardship Association and the North Asheville Tailgate Market:

Bread for Bread Bake Sale!

Saturday, July 3^rd, 2010

8 a.m. to Noon

at the North Asheville Tailgate Market on UNCA campus

Seven Western North Carolina bakeries:

Annie's Naturally, Farm & Sparrow Breads, Flat Rock Village Bakery, Loafchild Breads, Wake Robin Farm Bread, Wildflour Bakery, West End Bakery, and Natural Bridge Bakery will join together in a bake sale to raise money for our future Carolina Ground Flour Mill, a mill devoted to Carolina grains, grown and ground on Carolina ground. All proceeds from bread sales will be donated to this milling endeavor.

Our goal is to raise at least $5000 to pay for the bare essentials necessary to launch into the production-level testing and product development phase essential to this project. It’s gonna take a lot of bread to raise the needed bread, so please come out and support this effort.

For more info: jennifer@carolinafarmstewards.org

NC-Grown Organic Wheat Workshop—from field to bread

2010-05-27T12:53:00.000-07:00

The North Carolina Organic Bread Flour Project presents, in conjunction with Carolina Farm Stewardship Association and with funding from the North Carolina Tobacco Trust Fund Commission:

NC-Grown Organic Wheat—from field to bread

Thursday, June 17^th, 2010

9 a.m. to 10:30 a.m.

at the Mountain Research Station, Waynesville, NC

On June 17^th, 2010 from 9:00 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. at the Mountain Research Station in Waynesville, NC, the North Carolina Organic Bread Flour Project in conjunction with CFSA and NCTTFC, will host NC-Grown Organic Wheat—from field to bread. USDA-ARS wheat breeder Dr. David Marshall will provide an overview of the bread wheat trials planted at the station, and will discuss varieties of hard wheat that grow well in NC and their quality components. Organic crop consultant Sharon Funderburk will follow Dr. Marshall’s talk, providing organic methods in addressing fertility concerns and/or other issues that can be addressed in the field to ensure a food quality crop. Molly Hamilton, Extension Assistant, NCSU, will give an overview of the North Carolina Organic Grain Project and the services they provide. And lastly, Jennifer Lapidus, project coordinator of the North Carolina Organic Bread Flour Project will discuss the project, its timeline, its bakers, and the mill.

This workshop is free and open to the public.

Registration is requested. To register for the workshop, go to: http://www.carolinafarmstewards.org/ and register at the on-line store.

Date: Thursday, June 17, 2010

Time: 9:00am – 10:30am

Location: Mountain Research Station

265 Test Farm Rd
Waynesville, NC 28786

(828) 456-3943

Concerns or questions? Contact the NCOBFP Coordinator, Jennifer Lapidus, at 828-768-0153 or email jennifer@carolinafarmstewards.org.

Continuing Support

2010-05-03T07:31:00.000-07:00

Our UNC-Chapel Hill STAR team just completed their semester-long focus on our seed-to-loaf initiative and have concluded that our concept-- to center our endeavor on the growing consumer demand for local, thus existing outside the commodities market with the goal of providing the farmer the best possible price for his/her grain at an affordable cost to the baker-- is viable. (I will post more detailed info on this soon...)

Also, I'd just like to share the good news that the North Carolina Tobacco Trust Fund Commission has awarded our project additional funding for business planning and consultation with UNC Chapel Hill's Center for Sustainable Enterprise, as well as two days of on-the-ground mill flow consultation from Kansas State University associate director of International Grains Program, Mark Fowler, and finally, for the purchase of the 5-unit Correspondence Course in Flour Milling by the International Association of Operative Millers Association, to have as an educational resource onsite for improved knowledge in flour milling and grain processing and handling.

Miller's Training

2010-03-05T10:51:00.000-08:00

http://www.spoom.org/MILLERS%20TRAINING%20IN%20THE%20SMOKIES%20v2.pdf

Tompkins grown: Farmer Grown Flour

2010-02-24T08:56:00.000-08:00

Another geat article about a regional grain initiative:

Cayuga Pure Organics: Farmer Ground Flour

Tompkins grown: Farmer Grown Flour

ovens, mills, and bakers

2010-02-12T11:56:00.000-08:00

Before you sink your teeth into this artisan bread…

by Jeff Fobes

The Bakeries

2010-02-05T11:44:00.000-08:00

Although, thus far this blog has spoken to the history, ideology, and progress toward regional grain initiatives, and specifically to this NC organic hard wheat initiative linking the farmer and the baker, there has been very little mention of the actual bakeries involved. So, with no further adieu, let me introduce the bakeries:

Annie's Naturally Bakery, Flat Rock Village Bakery, Farm & Sparrow , Loafchild, Wake Farm Robin Breads, Westend Bakery , and Wildflour Bakery .

For the last year, these seven bakeries have met as a group every couple months discussing the sustainability of locally-grown organic wheat, and the benefits of a successful micro milling facility devoted to organic NC grains. Benefits identified: the potential for a beautiful, unique product; security for their most essential ingredient; and the ability to have a working relationship with the grower(s). Their fears: quality, consistency, a bad harvest. They all tried the 2009 NC wheat harvest of two wheat varieties from NC's USDA-ARS wheat breeder, Dr David Marshall, and they were delighted with their baking results. I have watched these bakers come together over the last year, as their enthusiasm for this project has evolved from an idea to something real and tangible, something they could bring back into their bakeries and work with. Their continued commitment to this idea and their growing enthusiasm has been vital to the sustained momentum toward a NC organic bread flour. Especially since the arrival of the mill, the enthusiasm keeps growing.

We hope to begin working with the mill, doing trial runs and bake tests with different grains beginning this Spring, and although this past Fall was one of the wettest on record, and many growers were unable to get into their fields to plant their wheat, our hope is to get enough NC grown hard and soft wheat to really see what this mill can do and see what the bakeries come up with...

In the meanwhile, we are spending the winter working on details not quite as appetizing as grain to flour, flour to dough, dough to hearth... this winter we are looking at numbers. Because we intend to treat NC-grown hard wheat as an agricultural product (and not a commodity), centering our endeavor on the growing consumer demand for local, we have been fortunate to have sparked the interest of UNC Chapel Hill Kenan-Flagler Business School and have been assigned a team of MBA students from their Student Teams Achieving Results (STAR) Program. The STAR team is working with us this semester to provide a comprehensive value-systems analysis of organic hard wheat in the state from seed to loaf, determining both what the value of wheat is as it goes through its numerous stages to becoming a loaf of bread (plant, cultivate, harvest, clean, store, mill...) as well as what other potential services and needs exist within the value chain of seed to loaf in NC. Okay, so this doesn't sound quite as enticing as a golden crust and the scent of fresh bread made with NC grown organic wheat... but it is no less important. Our hope is to see that the farmer get the best possible price for his/her grain at an affordable cost to the baker.

Etre bon comme du bon pain. To be as good as good bread.

The Mill has arrived

2010-02-02T13:32:00.000-08:00

The Mill has finally arrived.

When it first left Austria for Tasmania, Australia, it was mistakenly sent to Tanzania. Its records show a journey that involved passage through Denmark, East Midlands, UK, Leipzig, Germany, back to East Midlands(?), London's Heathrow, Sydney, AU, to Hobart, Tasmania... and then

Hobart to

Melbourne onto a ship bound for Long Beach, CA. Other items on the boat with the Mill: stamped metal coins/tokens; safety products; personal effects; vine labels; Zusralian canned abalone; Zustralian wine; drum of parsley herb oil; craftwares; ergologics corkscrew; screw compressor; machine parts returned to supplier; saltwater spares...

Upon arrival in Long Beach, the Mill was put through numerous examinations before it was placed onto a railcar, bonded, for Charlotte, NC. It took only 5 days for the Mill to cross this country by rail, but the check from NCSU to pay for all the processing and shipping charges took 10 days to get to Long Beach, so the customs warehouse in Charlotte kept the Mill hostage, until the check finally arrived. The NC Research Stations arranged to have the Mill picked up. The Salisbury Station did the initial pick up and brought it back to the Station, and then the Waynesville Station came with a flatbed rollback. We all expected the Mill to have been in a crate, but no, it was just on a pallet, exposed for all to see as they drove from Salisbury all the way to Asheville.

What a sight.

2010 Commercial Organic Crop Conference: presentation on the bread flour project

2010-01-27T10:15:00.000-08:00

Click on the title of this post and then press the "play" button to listen to an NCOBFP presentation at the 2010 Commercial Organic Crop Conference in New Bern, NC 1/15/10.

(It's about 25 minutes long, but quite informative.)

more in the news: Reviving New York State’s Grain Belt

2010-01-05T20:06:00.000-08:00

Reviving New York State’s Grain Belt

click on the above title to link to the article. Yes i am a total novice blogger...

in the news

2009-10-29T11:21:00.000-07:00

A brief article in the USDA-ARS News and Events about NuEast and Appalachian White wheat varieties: http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr/2009/091029.htm

The Mill

2009-10-23T09:02:00.000-07:00

So it’s wheat planting time here in North Carolina. Although most of the planting will be soft wheat, hard (bread) wheat will be sown as well. This year’s harvest of two varieties of organic hard wheat grown in Moore Co, NC (and planted this time last year), received overwhelmingly positive feedback in both flavor and performance by the pilot group of bakeries from the North Carolina Organic Bread Flour Project (NCOBFP) (see past blog entries). These varieties, NuEast and Appalachian White, were bred and developed for production in the eastern United States by USDA-ARS plant pathologist and geneticist Dr David Marshall, research leader of the Plant Sciences Research Unit in Raleigh, NC. The next step will be taking the wheat from fifty-foot test plots into the field. Although most of Dr Marshall’s wheat is going to seedsman to grow out for seed, he has provided organic grower Kenny Haines with two acres worth of seed of each variety, to grow for the bakers.

But how do we go from grain to flour? NCOBFP received funding to lay the groundwork for a viable bread wheat economy in North Carolina. I had this idea that if we organized the many bakeries of western NC into one buyers unit, we would become a formidable voice of bakers and a significant buyer of NC grain. In theory, everyone loved the idea. But could North Carolina really produce quality bread wheat? My bakery was one of only a few bakeries in western NC milling its own grain. How are we to go, on a larger scale than my little bakery, from grain to flour?

Rewind a bit. Alan Scott (whom I had apprenticed with 15 years ago, milling our grain to flour and baking our old world flemish naturally leavened breads in a wood-fired brick oven that Alan designed and built himself) called me from Tasmania last year. He called to tell me what he had set in motion during the short amount of time-- two or three years tops-- since he had moved back to Australia. He was organizing bakers and he had purchased a 48" diameter stone-burr Osttiroller gristmill with sifters; in an email he wrote me that his "family in the district has recently built a gigantic dam for water to irrigate with pivots, enough for 30,000 acres! It is shared by 12 farmers who have all suffered from global warming but now will put them in a very favorable position to grow grain crops." He asked that I come to Tasmania and give workshops on desem baking, but I am a mother and cannot go. Yet he planted a seed. I shifted my focus onto what was stewing in North Carolina in regards to potential bread wheat production. And so we got funded, and then Alan died of congestive heart failure.

I got a call from Lila, Alan's daughter, asking if our project was interested in Alan's mill. Yes, we want to do this, but the bakers are not yet totally convinced about NC wheat. And then they tried the wheat. It was freshly milled in my little 12" diameter stone burr Jansen gristmill. The bakers loved the flour-- the freshness, the quality, the flavor, and performance. Dr Marshall was thrilled for the feedback. A mill devoted to NC grains made sense to everyone. A re-budget request to pay freight to bring Alan's mill to NC was approved. The estate of Alan Scott, is providing our project with the use of his 48” diameter stone-burr Osttiroller gristmill with sifters for one year as a test mill. It was Alan’s work that inspired me to do the work of linking the farmer, miller, and baker in North Carolina. It seems the appropriate measure, a bittersweet story, for Alan's mill to be used to inspire growers to plant wheat and bakers to buy local grain in North Carolina.

This trial use of a gristmill with sifters will enable the bakers to work with NC wheat on a production level, figuring out product, level of extraction, and grains (beyond hard wheat) that can be milled. The mill will be located in western NC, amid a high concentration of artisan bakeries and amongst the pilot group of seven bakeries. The pilot group has agreed that with each new batch of flour, they will provide feedback as to how they used the flour, its performance, their likes and dislikes etc. The goals of working with the mill for the year are to come up with product and work out operational logistics. The end goal is a micro milling facility devoted to organic NC grains. After one year of using the mill, if the results from this experiment are positive, expect to see a campaign launched to raise money to pay the Scott family for the purchase of the mill.

more feedback... this one from Loafchild

2009-09-04T11:04:00.000-07:00

"Okay, just so I don't wind up being the completely lazy and non-participating baker here... while I have yet to use this flour to make any actual BREAD I did make some oatmeal-wheat scones (50% whole wheat) with the App. White and it gave a lovely golden color (more golden than [what I am used to]) and a micro-thin crunchy crust. Lovely overall texture too. I have also made a Concord grape pie with a 100% whole wheat crust, again App. White. Again, the remarkable golden color and a rich flavor that stood up well to the filling, a wonderful light crunch to the pastry. I'm gonna try Danish too and then maybe I will be over my sweet tooth."

-- Darci, Loafchild Bakery

Farm and Sparrow's feedback

2009-09-02T09:14:00.000-07:00

"On Monday, I milled up the Nu East Red wheat and sifted the flour to about an 85% extraction, mixed a wet dough, and set it in the cool room for a long bulk rise. Then I clumsily injured my left hand and wound up with a splint. Having only one hand to shape with, all I could think to do was pull it into a ciabatta style rustic log. It turned out phenomenal with a big open interior and good red wheat flavor. I don't think I would have got that crumb with a high protein spring wheat. I agree with Abraham about the mellowness though, I think it has good flavor but lacks some of the bitterness of bran heavy red wheats. This is very promising!
Also, I got to try Steve's loaves last saturday. They were tasty and wheaty and were a perfect illustration of the different flavor profiles of red/white wheat."

More results from Dr Marshall's wheat

2009-09-01T11:21:00.000-07:00

More feedback is rolling in: Flat Rock Village Bakery said, "We had really good results with both flours mixing up sourdough loaves with each on two different days. I found the flavor of both (NuEast and Appalachian White) to be noticeably fresher and "wheatier" than the [flour] I'm used to. Both flours performed well developing into very nice 100% whole wheat loaves with good volume, structure, and shape. Overall thumbs up, thanks."
Abraham Palmer of Box Turtle Bakery in Chapel Hill, "I baked with all fresh-milled flours in a sourdough hearth loaf (wheat, water, salt, and starter culture) side-by-side a Montana-grown hard white wheat. The recipe uses a Reinhart-style 12 hr soaker for the bulk of the flour. I would be very pleased to have a supply of both of these grains. Loaf height of my Appalachian White was better than Nu East although both performed acceptably. The flavor of the Nu East lacked some of the bite I associate with the tannins and that I look for in a red wheat, but some might like the milder flavor anyway. The Appalachian White I thought had very good buttery/nutty notes and the customers I sampled it with preferred it of the three. It made my Montana-grown hard white wheat seem fairly bland by comparison."
Wakerobin breads, "I just tasted the bread made with the organic Appalachian White whole wheat flour. It is distinctly nuttier and sweeter than [my usual supply of] the whole wheat bread flour. I really like it!"
The above picture is from Farm and Sparrow. This bread was made with the NuEast, hard red wheat (grown in Moore Co on Billy Carter's farm). Baker Dave Bauer hand-sifted out the larger bran, for about a mid-80s extraction.

Dr Marshall's wheat

2009-08-31T08:54:00.000-07:00

Dr Marshall's wheat arrived in the bakery last week. 80 lbs of the NuEast (HRW)/USDA-ARS03-4736 and 80lbs of Appalachian White (HWW)/USDA-ARS05-1234. The wheat was grown organically in Moore Co, the Sandhills of North Carolina, by farmer Billy Carter. With my 12" stone-burr grist mill, I milled for the seven bakeries that make up the pilot group here in WNC: Annies Naturally, Farm & Sparrow, Loafchild, Wildflour, Flat Rock Village Bakery, Westend, and Wakerobin Breads. Basic lab results showed very decent numbers: protein- NuEast- 13.74, Appalachian White- 13.32 with falling numbers of the two varieties at 511 and 432 respectively. Thus far, I have tried Wakerobin's whole wheat bread done in a pullman pan, using the Appalachian White. Steve Bardwell, of Wakerobin, compared this NC bread to one made with mid-western wheat, using the same formulas. We both preferred the flavor and texture of this NC white wheat to the mid-western wheat. Very exciting. More to come, as the baker's feedback rolls in...

NC-Grown Organic Wheat- from field to bread

2009-06-18T11:05:00.000-07:00

Wheat harvest in NC is fully underway, most of it soft wheat, with some hard wheat, and the hope to see more and more hard wheat grown throughout the state. Soft wheat-- wheat with lower protein used for pastries, cookies, biscuits (usually not bread)—is the wheat traditionally grown east of the Mississippi. In 2007, 560,000 acres of wheat (most all of it soft) were planted in NC and over 24 million bushels were harvested, used mostly for feed, with a small amount going to food-grade mills. Hard wheat, aka bread wheat, has not traditionally been a successful grain in the Southeast due to our humidity that causes disease in the field which affects both yield, and performance quality in the bakery. But beginning in 2002, the USDA-Agricultural Research Service began a program to identify and breed wheat having hard (bread wheat) quality for production in the humid environments of the eastern U.S.. For the identification phase of this program, varieties and advanced breeding lines were obtained from breeders in the Great Plains (principally Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado) and tested in Georgia, North Carolina, Kentucky, Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania.
Several hard wheats were identified that had the yield, disease resistance, and grain quality needed for production in the eastern U.S. From those wheat trials, TAM 303 (Texas A&M 303) was the first of the hard wheats to be released. This year two more varieties-- a hard red and a hard white—will be released.
A couple weeks ago, on Thursday June 11th, a group made up of mostly interested growers with a few bakers thrown in the mix, gathered in Waynesville, NC, at the Mountain Research Station to view the wheat trials of UDSA wheat breeder, Dr David Marshall. Presented as part of the “New Marketing Opportunities for NC Farmers” grant proposal funded by Golden LEAF Foundation and administered by the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services in conjunction with NCSU and USDA, this event, the "NC-Grown Organic Wheat- from field to bread” enabled the pubic to both view the trials and hear from Dr Marshall, as well as Dr Chris Reberg-Horton, organic crop specialist and Assistant Professor, NCSU, and (me) Jennifer Lapidus, Project Coordinator of the NC Organic Bread Flour Project.
Dr Marshall began his talk by pointing out why we are able to gather in this field and view wheat, that public breeding still takes place with small grains—wheat, barley, and oats—as opposed to corn and soybeans, which are controlled by private corporations. Both federal and state tax dollars are used to support breeding of small grains and variety development is done through public institutions. Coupled with my last blog entry that linked to the press release—“Monsanto's Genetically Engineered Wheat Rejected Globally: Groups Respond to Industry Plans for GE Wheat” – one begins to understand the crossroads by which we find ourselves. In the last fifty years a lot has changed in agriculture. Public sector versus private sector is a significant piece of the puzzle. If/when Genetically Engineered (GE) wheat is approved certain genes can then be patented and our public breeders will no longer have access to these genes. We are lucky to have Dr Marshall, and these trials of wheat here in NC.
Dr Marshall’s rows of wheat contain both old and modern varieties, soft and hard. Old varieties such as Federation and Red Fife grow next to newer varieties such as Dual, Hondo, ARS03-3806 and ARS505-1234. Traits that he is observing in the field include disease resistance, maturity time, lodging (this is when the wheat falls over, making it impossible to harvest mechanically) and yield. The bakers want flavor and performance, something that cannot be detected in the field (except if it rains too much right before harvest, which can cause sprouting in the field, which in turn can affect performance by causing an increase in alpha amylase, an enzyme that breaks down starch. But the weather is something we cannot control...)
Dr Chris Reberg-Horton discussed the challenges we face getting the grain from field to bread. Beyond the growing of the wheat, there is the cleaning and storing of the grain. Growers that have already been growing soft wheat in NC and would like to grow hard wheat for a better price point, may have harvester thresher combine equipment, but may not have proper grain storage. Most of the wheat grown in the state has traditionally gone to the feed mill; quality wheat and quality grain storage is essential for food-grade wheat growing. These are the pieces that I am looking at as well, as i try and forge relationships between growers and bakers-- what does it take to get that grain from the field into the bakery? Wheat is harvested in June and must be stored in the hottest most humid time of the year. Grain stores better if it is clean. And if we want to create a truly NC flour, we need to be able to store NC wheat separate from imported wheat-- mills traditionally store grain by grade, not locality. My job is sort of all over the map-- talking with everybody-- trying to connect the dots...If only wheat from field to bread was as easy as apples to apple sauce...
Dr Reberg-Horton also addressed the challenges and benefits of growing wheat organically. Organic wheat demands a much higher price, but what about weed control and fertilizer? Chris has been conducting organic trials throughout the state looking at green manures and roll-kill/no-till methods for building soil fertility organically.
This talk amongst row of wheat in Waynesville, surrounded by mountains, generated questions about possible wheat growing in WNC. Most all of the wheat in the state is grown everywhere but the western region, because acreage in the mountains is much smaller and to own the harvest threshing combine equipment for less than 30 acres may not be cost effective... But what about the remnants of old grain mills scattered throughout these mountains? People were growing wheat here, on smaller plots, and the smaller equipment to harvest and combine, Dr Reberg-Horton explained, are those strange pieces of equipment gathering dust, covered in cobwebs, tucked back in the back corner of many barns...

Dr Marshall's wheat has been harvested. The next step will be sampling these trials. Samples of TAM 303 and the other two varieties of hard wheat that have been approved for release this year- Nuese East and Appalachian White-- will be sent to mills for lab testing and to bakeries for bake tests. I am coordinating between Dr Marshall, the local bakeries, and Lindley Mills, located in Graham, NC. These local bakeries are a pilot group located in WNC that have agreed to test the wheat: Annies Naturally Bakery, Farm and Sparrow Breads, Westend Bakery, Flat Rock Village Bakery, and Loafchild Bakery. Other bakeries throughout NC have also expressed interest and I am hoping to get samples to these bakeries as well. I will be milling the sample wheat varieties for the bakeries in my mill, stone-ground, whole grain and Joe Lindley, of Lindley Mills is hoping to provide these bakeries a more refined sample to try. After baking and lab tests, the next true test for the grain will be beyond the fifty foot row trials-- into the field-- how will the wheat do in 30 acre and up plots... The TAM 303 has done well thus far on large plots and performs well in the bakery. Thanks to Dr Marshall, we have two more varieties to work with.
So, this is the the formal realm-- agencies, institutions, etc.. the informal realm is what is going on in the community, and on the farms with wheat. I will try and address this somewhat in the next entry.

on a side note: News on GMO wheat

2009-06-02T05:36:00.000-07:00

Small-scale regional grain initiatives continue to spread throughout North America and beyond, with many looking back to the older varieties of wheat-- landrace and heritage -- for genetic traits that show resistance to disease, and also, from the bakers perspective, to these varieties that present flavors and texture not found in modern wheat. Trial plots of wheat, from the USDA'a Agricultural Research Stations to non-profits like Monica Spiller's Whole Grain Connections, academic research such as North Carolina State University's North Carolina Organic Grain Project and Cornell's trials at Willsboro Research Farm, to Eli Rigosa's Northeast Organic Wheat, and those 100 bakery customers in Massachusetts's that planted trials in their backyards, and the work being done at The Land Institute in Salina, Kansas-- the list goes on...trials of heritage, landrace and modern wheat, classical breeding, no-till, cover crops, inner plantings-- this is all taking place. And then, on the other side of the coin are multinational agricultural biotechnology corporations such as Monsanto, who continue to strive to introduce Genetically Engineered (GE) wheat. Fresh in the news: Monsanto's Genetically Engineered Wheat Rejected Globally: Groups Respond to Industry Plans for GE Wheat

Burgeoning Regional Wheat Initiatives

2009-05-25T07:17:00.000-07:00

North Carolina is not alone in its effort to create a regional bread wheat economy. Burgeoning regional grain initiatives have sprouted up (pun most certainly intended) all over the United States and Canada. A combination of factors have contributed to this resurgence in regional grain growing-- crop failures in the Great Plains states, increasing global food demands, volatile fuel prices, and the shift from grain to corn production for ethanol--all of which have affected the price of grain, which in turn has affected both the price of feed for livestock, and the price of flour, that most essential ingredient for the baker. Another factor contributing to these burgeoning grain initiatives is an upsurge in demand for local. Whereas in the past, the centralization of large-scale food production meant food security, this was based on the premise of cheap fuel. Today, local, smaller-scale food production equates to food security and sustainability, and consumers are demanding local.

So what does this look like nationwide? If the demand exists, what about the supply? And then there is the business of the consumer—the consumer wants local, but is the consumer willing to buy local bread that may perhaps not look or taste the same as the bread one is use to? The country's largest outdoor farmers market program, Greenmarket in New York, with 46 locations across five boroughs has set a 15 % minimum of local grain for its baker vendors to sell at its market. Although the bread does not need to be made with local flour per se, the bread and other baked goods must contain at least 15% local grains. Setting minimums like this not only puts all bakers on a level playing field, it also serves to educate the consumer as to what local grain really means.

In the Bay Area, Eduardo Morell of Morell’s Breads, has one loaf made completely with local wheat. On the back of his packaging, along with his other breads, he has listed one bread called simply, “Local Loaf.” This bread may change its appearance—from pan to hearth—or perhaps its texture from lofty to dense, depending on the variety of wheat that is available locally. Eduardo sells his bread at the Berkeley Farmers’ Market where his Local Loaf has conjured a devoted following. Not only does he have a market for this bread, but this baker has found that his customers are interested in what local looks and tastes like in terms of bread. Eduardo’s wheat is grown by Full Belly Farm, located in Capay Valley, northwest of Sacramento. The wheat is both cleaned and milled on-farm.

But lets rewind a bit-- before the bread can hit the market, one first must consider the grain, as it all begins, first and foremost with the grain or seed-- that is, finding varieties of wheat and other grains that will grow well. In 1991, Monica Spiller of Whole Grain Connections in Los Altos, CA, began trialing old varieties-- landrace and heritage wheat-- focusing on what wheat grew historically in California . Using organic growing practices, she noticed the advantages of the older varieties whose height shades out weeds, and deep root structure sequesters nutrients from the soil. She saw this as especially advantageous to the organic grower. Sonora wheat was one of her winning varieties, as she found this wheat also contains a natural resistance to stripe rust. This is what Morell’s Local Loaf is made with at present. It is a softer wheat with lower protein, and so Eduardo bakes it in a pan.

Three thousand miles east, in North Hampton, Massachusetts, Hungry Ghost Bakery gets 100 of its customers to grow plots of wheat in their backyards in order to figure out what wheat will grow well in their area. Initially, this bakery approached local farmers to grow for them, but the farmers did not know what varieties of wheat would grow well in their area, hence the trial plots in customers yards... Northeast Organic Wheat (NOW), a consortium of farmers and bakers in Vermont, New York, Massachusetts, and Maine led by permiculture activist Eli Rigosa and funded by a Northeast SARE grant is working to identify varieties of wheat, both heritage and modern, that grow well in the Northeast, and perform in the bakery. NOW is looking at yield, disease resistance, and quality, specifically within organic systems. (On a side note, and something I will go into in later posts-- Eli sent down 18 varieties of wheat for trialing here in NC. I passed the seed on to local organic grower, Anne Gaines of Gaining Ground Farm, who planted trial plots in Leicester and Swannanoa. We are in the process of counting plants and wheat heads.)

What about the infrastructure to process this grain, once it is grown? Remember the loss of the regional mill? This too is experiencing a resurgence. The town of Skowhegan, Maine recently took bids for their old jailhouse located in the center of town. Built in 1887, the jailhouse was no longer serving the town's needs. With an asking price of $200k for the 14,000 square-foot building, the town took bids for the most interesting idea. The winning bid went to Amber Lambke who proposed a grist mill, wood-fired oven bakery, and restaurant. Not only did Lambke win the bid, but the town approved the sale of the jailhouse at the reduced price of $65k. According to Maine Organic Farm and Garden Association (MOFGA), there are 4,600 certified organic acres within a 30-mile radius of Skowhegan. Lambke will not only be processing grain into flour at her micro-mill, but the facility will be equipped for grain cleaning and grain storage. Lambke is one of the key organizers of the Kneadering Conference in Skowhegan, which on July 30^th and 31 will have its third annual conference, bringing together farmers, breeders, oven designers and builders, and bakers to learn from one another, bake, and eat local bread http://www.heartofmaine.org/kneading/.

An innovative approach to ensuring a market for grain has been the emergence of Grain Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) projects. In Canada, Matt Lowe of West Kootenany EcoSociety reached out to farmers within a 75 mile radius. He found 3 interested growers and then he recruited 180 shareholders who each paid $100 for 100 pounds of grain, and one bakery that bought 20 shares. The grain was transported via sail boat on Kootenay Lake, the quickest, least environmentally impacting route. Shareholders paid half the money upfront, in order to share in the farmer's risk. In 2009 this grain CSA expanded to 600 shares. 2009 shareholders pay $125 for 20# of Hard Spring Wheat, 20# of Hard Winter Wheat, 20# of Spelt, 20# of Khorasan Wheat (aka Kamut), and 20# of Oats. For an additional $50-- 20#s of Little Green Lentils and 20# of Red Fife Wheat.

So this is somewhat of a brief overview of what I have observed thus far nationwide. And this is just an overview, because there is more-- there's Thom Leonard with his Turkey Red wheat in Kansas, and there's Pioneer Valley Grain Project's grain CSA in Massachusetts, and there's Daisy Flour in Pennsylania, and there's Westwind Milling Company in Genesee County, Michigan and there's Anson Mills in Columbia, SC, and there's also what I do not yet know about, or have forgotten to mention, and I have not even begun to really speak about the the growers, who are the true pioneers in this movement, but the point is-- this is a MOVEMENT and it is taking shape in many different and innovative forms.
Here in North Carolina, we have our own exciting work underway.

Next post-- North Carolina Wheat Initiative.

what happened to the regional mill?

2009-03-11T18:22:00.000-07:00

Regional wheat initiatives have sprung up all over the United States and beyond. Rising fuel costs, as well as the volatile price, availability, and quality of wheat have bakers thinking hard about this fundamental ingredient. Total reliance on the Midwest for wheat carries with it an inherent flaw in terms of regional food security. Historically, local mills and regional grain growing was the norm. Wheat had been grown throughout the United States, arriving in North America as early as the 1500s, according to Monica Spiller of Whole Grain Connections, a non-profit committed to the rebuilding of our local grain economies through research and propagation of heritage grain seed. Wheat first arrived in Mexico via explorers from Portugal and then, along the Eastern seaboard in the 1600s, with settlers from Western Europe; next, it was California by the late 1700s with settlers from Spain; and finally, in the 1870s, into the Great Plains and all the way up to Canada, wheat found its way, via settlers from Eastern Europe and the Ukraine. In Spiller’s Local Organic Landrace Wheat Programs: Position Paper, she explains wheat’s arrival into the different regions of North America, with each wheat type reasonably well matched to the corresponding climate. The Great Plain States would become the Modern Breadbasket due to the high volume of wheat produced on its large swaths of land, which, in turn, created the incentive to advance milling technology, thus the transformation of milling technology from stone milling to roller milling. According to Spiller, the greatest economic success due to America wheat came to the Plains states by about 1880…This huge success in the Plains had a difficult beginning because the hard red wheat type that grew there was unlike the familiar softer white wheat varieties from the West, and the East, or the softer red wheat varieties from the East. All wheat was milled with stones, and although there was some attempt to sift out the bran and germ to produce refined endosperm flour, the flour was usually whole grain even after sifting, in the sense that all the parts of the original grain where still present. The sifting process was to remove larger particles, which meant in practice that a portion of the bran was removed, but the germ was still present, having spread into the endosperm flour.... The same stone milling process produced unfamiliar whole grain flour from [the] hard red wheat [of the Great Plains]. Even after sifting, the brittle and finely divided hard red wheat bran remained in the flour; in particular it produced darker colored bread at a time when the ideal for bread was a light color….The sheer volume of wheat being produced, suddenly, throughout the Plains generated an extremely rapid development of a milling process to remove the dark red bran, as well as the germ from the hard red wheat grain. The new milling method was roller milling, using metal rolls grooved especially to slice away the germ and peel off the bran from grain that had first been moisturized to ease the process. The resultant refined endosperm flour was instantly popular; the bread was whiter than people ever experienced and had an appealing texture. In retrospect, it appears that stone mills were abandoned almost instantly in 1880 all over the Western world, in favor of the new roller mills.
Thom Leonard, author of The Bread Book refers to the “stone age” of milling that lasted for thousands of years, until the late 1800s when “the stone age has at last ceded to the age of steel.”
The rest of the United States could not compete with the sheer volume being produced in the Great Plains, and the softer varieties of wheat grown in the East and West did not mill as well with the new roller mill technology. Roller milling not only added speed and efficiency to the milling process but it made for a shelf stable product, as it is the oils contained within the germ that cause rancidity in flour, and in the roller milled product, the germ is completely removed; hence, the centralization of the milling and growing of wheat. There is more to this story, but this is a brief synopsis of how we got to where we are today, with our reliance upon the Great Plains to grow our wheat.
Next post: the burgeoning regional wheat initiatives

A great loss

2009-01-29T20:19:00.000-08:00

Although his passing happened literally on the other side of the world-- in Tasmania, Australia-- Alan Scott left his mark here in Western North Carolina with at least seven wood-fired brick ovens that he designed, and a few he was here to build—and this is just a count off the top of my head. Alan Scott was a pioneering oven builder and designer. He was also a baker of desem bread, a Flemish Old World, whole grain, naturally-leavened bread. I apprenticed under Alan fifteen years ago at his then home in Marin County, California. Alan was my teacher of bread, and a dear friend. But beyond my own personal experience with him, his impact on the world of artisan baking should not go unnoticed. Alan was an innovator who brought the concept of wood-fired brick ovens baking into reality in backyards and bakeries throughout the United States and beyond. He was wonderfully eccentric—his oven plans were likened to drive the type-A recipient of such designs, a little crazy. But his ovens are tried and true and unbaked loaves that finds their way to the hearth of an Alan Scott oven are blessed with a radiating heat that caramelizes the crust and provides a welcome oven-spring, assisting even a highly-hydrated artisan dough into perfect form.
Alan was born in Toorak, Australia in 1936, and raised in Melbourne with summers spent in Tasmania. After university, Alan hopped on a ship headed for Greece and spent the next couple years abroad, a good bit of that time in Denmark. It was the early 1960s. He returned to Melbourne for a bit, claiming to be “the first hippie” in Melbourne. He took off again, this time, heading for the States. Alan settled in Marin Co, California for more than thirty-five years. He raised his daughter, Lila, and son, Nicholas, in Marshall/Peteluma/Point Reyes area. Alan ran a little underground bakery out of his kitchen—kitchen table converted from dining to mixing dough with the addition of a few blocks to raise it up, and a piece of plexi-glass clamped to its surface. He baked a couple hundred loaves of desem on his weekly bake in his backyard wood-fired brick-oven that he designed and built himself. People came to bake with Alan all the time-- a range of visitors—from the backwoods hippie-type to the chef from highly acclaimed culinary circles. During my apprenticeship with Alan, he was asked to give a demonstration at the George Lucas Studios, nothing too out of the ordinary for him.
When Alan was not baking, he was traveling around the world, leading oven building workshops. Alan’s ovens can be found all over the world. The publication of The Bread Builders (Chelsea Green Publishing Co., 1999), co-authored by Alan and Daniel Wing fed the flames of a growing movement in artisan baking. Alan moved back to his ancestral homeland of Tasmania a few years ago to give attention to his ailing heart. Roger Jansen of Jansen Gristmills, who was inspired to build mills after meeting Alan and tasting desem, reflects, "The contribution that Alan made to our pursuits cannot be overestimated. I felt the space when I learned he had gone back to Australia." In Tasmania, although faced with congestive heart failure, Alan was still driven by his passion for real bread. In Oatlands, Tasmania, he began the process of setting up a bakery. Sadly, his ailing heart continued to persist, and on January 27th, 2009 Alan Scott passed away.
Last April, Alan called me from Tazmania and planted another seed of inspiration that we shall hopefully feel here in North Carolina. He called to tell me about the farmers he who will be growing wheat for bakeries in Tasmania that have his ovens. At the time of the call, wheat prices were soaring. His call got me thinking in terms of local wheat, and the revival of the centuries-old tradition of linking the farmer, and baker, and the miller. I knew the USDA-Agricultural Research Service had been working on hard wheat trials in North Carolina. Alan’s call pushed me to dig deeper. The result-- NCOBFP. The process has just begun, and there are many factors to consider, but the idea is in motion, and I have Alan to thank for planting the seed. Alan’s passing is a great loss, yet upon reflection, Roger Jansen aptly put it, "Alan was a great storyteller and he will now become part of our story repertoire."

Welcome to the NCOBFP blog

2009-01-19T14:13:00.000-08:00

The North Carolina Organic Bread Flour Project (NCOBFP) aspires to revive the centuries-old tradition of linking the farmer, the baker, and the miller. As I would imagine anyone reading this blog already knows, due to a combination of factors, most prominently-- drought conditions in the major bread grain growing regions of the world and the displacement of bread grain production with corn production for ethanol-- 2007/08 experienced a deficit wheat crop, causing the price of wheat to soar. Additionally, in North Carolina where the vast majority of bread wheat is trucked in from other parts of the United States, the price of wheat is compounded with the ever-increasing cost of fuel. On the other side of the coin, it is now economically viable for North Carolina farmers to grow bread wheat.
The idea of this project is to link the farmer, the baker, and the miller, forging relationships and creating security for all three. Under the auspices of the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association, this initiative has been supported with funding through the NC Tobacco Trust and Sante Fe Tobacco. Partnering in this project is North Carolina State University’s North Carolina Organic Grain Project, the USDA- Agricultural Research Service, and NCDA with funding from the Golden Leaf Foundation.
This blog intends to be both informational as well as an interactive site to guide the discussion. So, here we go...

North Carolina Organic Bread Flour Project

Main Street

a plea for an angelic electrical engineer...

a few more pix

Touring the farms...

Green tag!!

Treska Lindsey's children's books and their wonderful connection to our mill

Update

Some really great PR (click on title below to read the article)

Carolina Ground Launches New Mill in Asheville

Getting closer...

Just bear with me...

Please Help Us Protect the Uniform Bread Wheat trials

A video about Carolina Farm Stewardship Association (our fiscal sponsor!)

The Kneading Conference!

A big hurdle cleared!

More pictures from the Lake Wheeler Wheat Event

The Lake Wheeler Wheat Workshop

NC-Grown Bread Wheat: From Field to Hearth

We did it!

If you haven't already done so.. please check out our kickstarter site and pass it along to friends!

help us with our kickstarter. the clock is ticking!

An article about us(!) in The Laurel of Asheville

The NC Organic Bread Flour Project

Our first Board Meeting!

7th Annual Asheville Bread Festival

From Food First/Institute for Food and Development Policy

Wheat: The New Frontier

Another piece of the puzzle..

A shout out for freshly stone ground flour...

We've launched our Kickstarter campaign!!

An interview with Dr Marshall, from the Mtn Xpress

http://www.mountainx.com/news/2008/is_local_grain_production_in_jeopardy

Proposed Federal Cuts threaten to eliminate USDA-ARS bread wheat program

Locally Grown NC Organic Wheat = Locally Grown NC Baked Goods

Some great news and how you can help

An exciting example of a grain/flour CSA

Yeah Somerset Gristmill!

Carolina Ground, L3C-- it's official!

Update: the mill and the grain and the legal entity

Know Your Farms Charlotte Area Farm Tour

that last post

An article worth reading: The Food Bubble How Wall Street Starved Millions and Got Away With It

A big THANK YOU (more pix!)

A big THANK YOU

Slow Food Beer & BBQ Fundraiser for the NC Organic Bread Flour Project

Slow Food Beer & BBQ Fundraiser for theNorth Carolina Organic Bread Flour Project!

2010 NC-Grown Organic Wheat Workshop—from field to bread

Thanks to all for coming out and supporting our Bread for Bread Bake Sale

Bread for Bread Bake Sale

NC-Grown Organic Wheat Workshop—from field to bread

Continuing Support

Miller's Training

Tompkins grown: Farmer Grown Flour

Tompkins grown: Farmer Grown Flour

ovens, mills, and bakers

The Bakeries

The Mill has arrived

2010 Commercial Organic Crop Conference: presentation on the bread flour project

more in the news: Reviving New York State’s Grain Belt

Reviving New York State’s Grain Belt

in the news

The Mill

more feedback... this one from Loafchild

Farm and Sparrow's feedback

More results from Dr Marshall's wheat

Dr Marshall's wheat

NC-Grown Organic Wheat- from field to bread

on a side note: News on GMO wheat

Burgeoning Regional Wheat Initiatives

what happened to the regional mill?

A great loss

Welcome to the NCOBFP blog

Slow Food Beer & BBQ Fundraiser for the
North Carolina Organic Bread Flour Project!