Buy Local Food In Kitsap

The KCAA supports the Puget Sound Meat Producers Co-op as a mission critical piece of building the local food network in Kitsap County and Puget Sound. The KCAA joined the co-op as an associate member in April of 2009. We encourage all producers, consumers and business owners to consider becoming at least associate members of the PSMPC for $50.00/year dues.

You can read a lot of information about the PSMPC and our support below or visit PSMPC at their direct website.

Are Giant Steps Sometimes Unnoticed?

Last modified on 2009-04-25 23:55:04 GMT. 4 comments. Top.

The April meeting of the KCAA featured a presentation of the Puget Sound Meat Producers Co-op (PSMPC). The president and driving force behind the co-op, Cheryl Oullette, told us of the history of its formation, early obstacles, obtaining grants, meetings, organizing up through contracting for construction of a mobile slaughtering unit that meets USDA standards.

Cheryl Oullette Before A Large KCAA Crowd

Something very important and exciting happened that night but first I need to tell you the story leading up to what happened.

Cheryl and her husband own five acres in Pierce County and raise animals for local meat supply. They employ the very best methods of raising and caring for the animals and supply high quality, natural fed beef, pork, poultry and other products to local consumers. So Cheryl knows firsthand the problems facing local farmers and ranchers trying to supply healthy meats to local markets in competition with industrial feed lot operations around the world.

When I first heard her story a few months ago I was shocked to learn that western Washington meat producers were on the ropes, ready to quit because of increasingly burdensome regulation and unrelenting price competition. Worse yet the people who were capable of meeting progressively more difficult USDA regulations for harvesting and packaging were simply giving up because there wasn’t enough reward for doing so.

The only option for local ranchers and farmers was to pack up their live animals in trailers and drive them hundreds of miles to Sandy, Oregon for processing. Not an efficient or cost effective prospect.

They all were feeling pretty isolated and desperate.

This would have meant a catastrophic loss of willing producers, experience, capacity…in short our ability to produce locally any significant fraction of the demand for meat in western Washington. The story of what happened next should inspire any individual who has an idea and the resolve to create new capacities that solve real problems for real human needs.

To cut to the point, Cheryl became a focal point to organize farmers and ranchers toward a practical solution for the problem. As I have written about previously on this blog animals are critical to healthy soil development. Their movement of the soil with their hooves, their grazing and their manure provide irreplaceable components of what many people call whole farms.

Without animals, local production of any farm product simply would not be healthy or “sustainable”.

Without the ability to earn income from their animals, farmers cannot afford to keep and raise them.

Without income farmers can’t produce food or buy land, tractors, fences, greenhouses, refrigerators or even feed themselves.

You see how critical formation of the PSMPC is?

But that is not the most important thing that happened that night.

The first mobile slaughtering unit that is being built by a firm in Ferndale, WA will be operational by May or June of this year. Then, Cheryl and the co-op board will begin the process of working out the kinks to get the operations portion right: scheduling, procuring a tractor, getting enough drivers certified for a commercial drivers license, getting enough producers to supply animals, coordinating connections with certified cut and wrap facilities, etc.

PSMPC Mobile Slaughtering Unit

In my experience getting operations right can be an even bigger challenge than developing the idea and procuring the capital but I am impressed with the quality of thought that Cheryl and the board have put into their operating plan and I believe they have prepared themselves well for eventualities.

But even that is not the most important thing that happened that night.

Maybe because formation of the co-op is such a critical piece of building a local food network, that could explain the large attendance at our meeting. It was perhaps the largest of the last twelve months of meetings, over 100 people. There were many serious farmers including Cheryl Oullette; Scott and Peggy Hall made a presentation on mini-cattle; Tracy Smaciarz of Heritage Meats, Rochester, and Joe Keehn of Farmer Georges, Port Orchard explained how they could cut and wrap meat products with USDA certification for delivery direct to consumers, through farmers markets, CSAs or wholesale to retailers; Rikke Giles and Randy Wagner of Foxdog Farm, Hansville, raising goats; Sharon and Jay Howard who raise cattle in South Kitsap; Nikki Johanson who raises poultry and beef in Silverdale at Pheasant Fields Farm; Brian McWhorter of Butler Green Farms who farms several different parcels on Bainbridge Island and North Kitsap; Rebecca Slattery of Persephone Farm in Suquamish who is thinking of adding animals to her farm.

Tracy Smaciarz, Joe Keehn, Cheryl Oullette

At least half of the people there were not farmers. They were local food entrepreneurs like Dale King of Wildly Organic in Silverdale, Jeff Waite of the Harbour Pub in Winslow, Monica Downen of Monica’s Waterfront Bakery and Café in Silverdale, Pericles Tarsinos of Fooducopia.com or culinary chefs like Jeff McClelland of the Harbour Pub and Adam Victor.

And there were just plain old eaters in the room like me. This last category of course includes everybody but the point is that “pure consumers” were at the meeting with as much interest and excitement as the producers and traders.

It was encouraging just to be there, to actually see how the people in that room by working together was the group of people to create new income and opportunities in our local communities including Kitsap County.

And this is where maybe the most important and exciting thing happened that night.

You see, farm co-ops aren’t anything new. For centuries now, farmers have formed and joined co-ops for the obvious benefits of pooling capital, operating mutually beneficial facilities, marketing, insurance, risk sharing and a host of other good reasons. Co-ops are good, but they are not the answer to all economic problems facing local farmers. Indeed, the recent history of co-ops in Washington State has been discouraging. Gerry Peterson, the 93 year old owner of the 160 acre Peterson Farm in Silverdale was a successful dairy farmer and president of the local dairy co-op for a long time. That co-op is now just faded memories and there are just about zero dairies left in Kitsap County. Some members of the Yakima Fruit Co-op told me that in recent years the number of wholesale buyers from the co-op dropped from numbering in the hundreds to something like 10. Central Washington orchardists are supplying west side farmers’ markets and fruit stands with their high quality fruit and produce in an attempt to develop any other options for selling their products.

In both cases the global trend toward industrial scale production, distribution and retailing ran over even successful cooperative organizations by heading off their retail customers at the pass with attractive pricing, presentation, marketing savvy, convenience, etc. The small, medium and even relatively larger operations had no ability to negotiate price and were told to “get big or get out”. This process unfolded largely without the conscious participation by consumers but has left everybody vulnerable to experiencing changes in how we obtain our food and everything else without much ability to have a say.

So, co-ops in and of themselves don’t guarantee success or even survival. Many of the historical co-ops were a bit one sided. Membership was usually limited to say just producers. You see, co-ops or associations need to have three elements involved at the price negotiating table including producers, consumers and what you could call pure traders or middle people. They need to share detailed information with one another, voluntarily, to create an atmosphere of mutual trust and sympathy. Over time, they need to develop the principles of food production, processing, distribution and retailing that reflect what they find valuable including seeing that their neighbors have opportunities to provide basic necessities and earn an income. They need to voluntarily develop the principles that they find valuable while caring for the land. With all three elements at the table as “insiders” in a process of continuous conversation with shared, detailed information communities will have the ability to set the right price for what is produced, consumed and maintained according in the manner that the community values most.

The producers, consumers and pure traders need to share risks and provide capital to finance the means of production together, voluntarily. It will benefit consumers greatly to combine our consumer demands with the experience of becoming investors and co-creators of the enterprises that supply our needs.

This was what happened that night that was so important.

At least ten people, most of them consumers or non-farm business owners stepped up to plate and become at least associate members of the Puget Sound Meat Producers Co-op. And Jeff Waite and his wife Jocelyn of the Harbour Pub purchased stock to help finance the means of production and future growth for the co-op. Several others pledged to join upon their return home. We all moved from being outsiders to insiders, from just consumers to investors.

Jeff Waite, Local Food Investor

It is just a small start but as I have explained one that could very well be the primary influence for saving the disappearance of local meat producers in western Washington and maintaining an irreplaceable source of healthy, “sustainable” input for soil fertility.

Prior to the meeting I believe there were very few non-farmers or ranchers that had demonstrated their commitment to become insiders. KCAA can claim some success in boosting their efforts. This is what our task force is all about. I believe that Kitsap County has all it needs right now to build a healthy, robust local food network promoting production of healthy food, farmland preservation, soil fertility, an improved environment and economic opportunity with just a few adjustments to our thinking and activity.

Could KCAA become an organization where the conversation, capital formation and risk sharing takes place? What do you think?