Farm-to-table
Encyclopedia
Farm-to-table refers to, in the food safety
field, the stages of the production of food
: harvest
ing, storage
, processing
, packaging, sales
, and consumption
. Farm-to-table also refers to a movement
concerned with producing food locally
and delivering that food to local consumers. Linked to the local food
movement, the movement is promoted by some in the agriculture
, food service, and restaurant
communities. It may also be associated with organic farming
initiatives, sustainable agriculture
, and community-supported agriculture
.
Many farm-to-table advocates cite the works of Wendell Berry
, Wes Jackson
, Michael Pollan
, John Jeavons
, Alice Waters
, Joel Salatin
and others in their preference for the freshest ingredients and in their attempts to educate their customers about the link between farmers, farm communities, ancient food-production practices, and the food we eat. Increasingly, the public backlash against genetically-modified organisms in our food supply has added a note of political activism to what had been, until recently, a largely aesthetic movement. Farm-to-table restaurants may buy their produce
directly from farmers, usually local. In a few cases, the restaurants and farms may be owned and operated by the same people. Restaurants who choose to buy from local food producers regularly yield healthier, better quality meals for their customers. The farm-to-table movement has arisen more or less concurrently with recent changes in attitude about food safety
, food freshness, food seasonality, and small-farm
economics. Advocates and practitioners of the farm-to-table model frequently cite as their motivations the scarcity of fresh, local ingredients; the poor flavor of ingredients shipped from afar; the poor nutritional integrity of shipped ingredients; the encroachment of genetically modified food
s into the food economy; the disappearance of small family farms; the disappearance of heirloom
and open-pollinated
fruits and vegetables; and the dangers of a highly-centralized food-growing and -distribution system.
Among the first vocal and influential farm-to-table businesses were: Alice Waters' Chez Panisse
restaurant in Berkeley, California
; Jerry Traunfeld's
Herbfarm in Washington; Blake Spalding and Jen Castle's Hell's Backbone Grill in Boulder, Utah
; and Stone Barns restaurant outside New York City. In the last few years the number of farm-to-table operations has grown rapidly.
Recently, some food and agriculture writers have begun to describe a philosophical divide among chefs: the "food-as-art", or, in some cases, "molecular gastronomy
" camp, including Ferran Adrià
and Grant Achatz
have increasingly focused on "food made strange", in which the ingredients are so transformed as to be surprising and even unrecognizable in he final food product. The farm-to-table chefs, on the other hand, have increasingly come to rely upon extremely fresh ingredients that have been barely modified, sometimes presented raw just a few feet from where they grew. Generally, the farm-to-table chefs rely on traditional farmhouse cooking, and may refer to their preparations as "vernacular food" or "peasant food", with its emphasis on freshness, seasonality
, local availability, and simple preparations.
Food safety
Food safety is a scientific discipline describing handling, preparation, and storage of food in ways that prevent foodborne illness. This includes a number of routines that should be followed to avoid potentially severe health hazards....
field, the stages of the production of food
Food
Food is any substance consumed to provide nutritional support for the body. It is usually of plant or animal origin, and contains essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals...
: harvest
Harvest
Harvest is the process of gathering mature crops from the fields. Reaping is the cutting of grain or pulse for harvest, typically using a scythe, sickle, or reaper...
ing, storage
Food storage
Food storage is both a traditional domestic skill and is important industrially. Food is stored by almost every human society and by many animals...
, processing
Food processing
Food processing is the set of methods and techniques used to transform raw ingredients into food or to transform food into other forms for consumption by humans or animals either in the home or by the food processing industry...
, packaging, sales
Sales
A sale is the act of selling a product or service in return for money or other compensation. It is an act of completion of a commercial activity....
, and consumption
Ingestion
Ingestion is the consumption of a substance by an organism. In animals, it normally is accomplished by taking in the substance through the mouth into the gastrointestinal tract, such as through eating or drinking...
. Farm-to-table also refers to a movement
Social movement
Social movements are a type of group action. They are large informal groupings of individuals or organizations focused on specific political or social issues, in other words, on carrying out, resisting or undoing a social change....
concerned with producing food locally
Local food
Local food or the local food movement is a "collaborative effort to build more locally based, self-reliant food economies - one in which sustainable food production, processing, distribution, and consumption is integrated to enhance the economic, environmental and social health of a particular...
and delivering that food to local consumers. Linked to the local food
Local food
Local food or the local food movement is a "collaborative effort to build more locally based, self-reliant food economies - one in which sustainable food production, processing, distribution, and consumption is integrated to enhance the economic, environmental and social health of a particular...
movement, the movement is promoted by some in the agriculture
Agriculture
Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...
, food service, and restaurant
Restaurant
A restaurant is an establishment which prepares and serves food and drink to customers in return for money. Meals are generally served and eaten on premises, but many restaurants also offer take-out and food delivery services...
communities. It may also be associated with organic farming
Organic farming
Organic farming is the form of agriculture that relies on techniques such as crop rotation, green manure, compost and biological pest control to maintain soil productivity and control pests on a farm...
initiatives, sustainable agriculture
Sustainable agriculture
Sustainable agriculture is the practice of farming using principles of ecology, the study of relationships between organisms and their environment...
, and community-supported agriculture
Community-supported agriculture
Community-supported agriculture, a form of an alternative food network, is a socio-economic model of agriculture and food distribution. A CSA consists of a community of individuals who pledge support to a farming operation where the growers and consumers share the risks and benefits of food...
.
Many farm-to-table advocates cite the works of Wendell Berry
Wendell Berry
Wendell Berry is an American man of letters, academic, cultural and economic critic, and farmer. He is a prolific author of novels, short stories, poems, and essays...
, Wes Jackson
Wes Jackson
-Early life and Education:Jackson was born and raised on a farm near Topeka, Kansas. After earning a BA in biology from Kansas Wesleyan University, an MA in botany from the University of Kansas, and a PhD in genetics from North Carolina State University, Wes Jackson established and served as chair...
, Michael Pollan
Michael Pollan
Michael Pollan is an American author, journalist, activist, and professor of journalism at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. A 2006 New York Times book review describes him as a "liberal foodie intellectual."...
, John Jeavons
Biointensive
The biointensive method is an organic agricultural system which focuses on maximum yields from the minimum area of land, while simultaneously improving the soil. The goal of the method is long term sustainability on a closed system basis...
, Alice Waters
Alice Waters
Alice Louise Waters is an American chef, restaurateur, activist, and author. She is the owner of Chez Panisse, a Berkeley, California restaurant famous for its organic, locally-grown ingredients and for pioneering California cuisine.Waters opened the restaurant in 1971. It has consistently ranked...
, Joel Salatin
Joel Salatin
Joel F. Salatin is an American farmer, lecturer, and author whose books include You Can Farm and Salad Bar Beef.Salatin raises livestock using holistic methods of animal husbandry, free of potentially harmful chemicals, on his Polyface Farm in Swoope, Virginia, in the Shenandoah Valley...
and others in their preference for the freshest ingredients and in their attempts to educate their customers about the link between farmers, farm communities, ancient food-production practices, and the food we eat. Increasingly, the public backlash against genetically-modified organisms in our food supply has added a note of political activism to what had been, until recently, a largely aesthetic movement. Farm-to-table restaurants may buy their produce
Produce
Produce is a generalized term for a group of farm-produced goods and, not limited to fruits and vegetables . More specifically, the term "produce" often implies that the products are fresh and generally in the same state as where they were harvested. In supermarkets the term is also used to refer...
directly from farmers, usually local. In a few cases, the restaurants and farms may be owned and operated by the same people. Restaurants who choose to buy from local food producers regularly yield healthier, better quality meals for their customers. The farm-to-table movement has arisen more or less concurrently with recent changes in attitude about food safety
Food safety
Food safety is a scientific discipline describing handling, preparation, and storage of food in ways that prevent foodborne illness. This includes a number of routines that should be followed to avoid potentially severe health hazards....
, food freshness, food seasonality, and small-farm
Small farm
The definition of a small farm has varied over time and by country. Agricultural economists have analyzed the distinctions among farm sizes since the field's inception. Traditional agricultural economic theory considered small farms inefficient, a stance that began to be challenged in the 1950s...
economics. Advocates and practitioners of the farm-to-table model frequently cite as their motivations the scarcity of fresh, local ingredients; the poor flavor of ingredients shipped from afar; the poor nutritional integrity of shipped ingredients; the encroachment of genetically modified food
Genetically modified food
Genetically modified foods are foods derived from genetically modified organisms . Genetically modified organisms have had specific changes introduced into their DNA by genetic engineering techniques...
s into the food economy; the disappearance of small family farms; the disappearance of heirloom
Heirloom plant
An heirloom plant, heirloom variety, or heirloom vegetable is a cultivar that was commonly grown during earlier periods in human history, but which is not used in modern large-scale agriculture...
and open-pollinated
Open pollination
Open pollination is pollination by insects, birds, wind, or other natural mechanisms, and contrasts with cleistogamy, closed pollination, which is one of the many types of self pollination...
fruits and vegetables; and the dangers of a highly-centralized food-growing and -distribution system.
Among the first vocal and influential farm-to-table businesses were: Alice Waters' Chez Panisse
Chez Panisse
Chez Panisse is a Berkeley, California restaurant known for using local, organic foods and credited as the inspiration for the style of cooking known as California cuisine. Well-known restauranteur, author, and food activist Alice Waters co-founded Chez Panisse in 1971 with film producer Paul...
restaurant in Berkeley, California
Berkeley, California
Berkeley is a city on the east shore of the San Francisco Bay in Northern California, United States. Its neighbors to the south are the cities of Oakland and Emeryville. To the north is the city of Albany and the unincorporated community of Kensington...
; Jerry Traunfeld's
Jerry Traunfeld
Jerry Traunfeld is an American chef and author, was the executive chef of The Herbfarm restaurant in Woodinville, Washington. He was the chef at The Herbfarm from July 1990 to November 2007...
Herbfarm in Washington; Blake Spalding and Jen Castle's Hell's Backbone Grill in Boulder, Utah
Boulder, Utah
Boulder is a town in Garfield County, Utah, United States, 27 miles northeast of Escalante on Utah Scenic Byway 12 at its intersection with the Burr Trail...
; and Stone Barns restaurant outside New York City. In the last few years the number of farm-to-table operations has grown rapidly.
Recently, some food and agriculture writers have begun to describe a philosophical divide among chefs: the "food-as-art", or, in some cases, "molecular gastronomy
Molecular gastronomy
Molecular gastronomy is a subdiscipline of food science that seeks to investigate, explain and make practical use of the physical and chemical transformations of ingredients that occur while cooking, as well as the social, artistic and technical components of culinary and gastronomic phenomena in...
" camp, including Ferran Adrià
Ferran Adrià
Ferran Adrià i Acosta is a Catalan chef born on May 14, 1962 in L'Hospitalet de Llobregat. He was the head chef of the El Bulli restaurant in Roses on the Costa Brava, and is considered one of the best chefs in the world.-Career:...
and Grant Achatz
Grant Achatz
Grant Achatz is an American chef and restaurateur often identified as one of the leaders in molecular gastronomy or progressive cuisine...
have increasingly focused on "food made strange", in which the ingredients are so transformed as to be surprising and even unrecognizable in he final food product. The farm-to-table chefs, on the other hand, have increasingly come to rely upon extremely fresh ingredients that have been barely modified, sometimes presented raw just a few feet from where they grew. Generally, the farm-to-table chefs rely on traditional farmhouse cooking, and may refer to their preparations as "vernacular food" or "peasant food", with its emphasis on freshness, seasonality
Seasonality
In statistics, many time series exhibit cyclic variation known as seasonality, periodic variation, or periodic fluctuations. This variation can be either regular or semi regular....
, local availability, and simple preparations.
See also
- Food milesFood milesFood miles is a term which refers to the distance food is transported from the time of its production until it reaches the consumer. Food miles are one factor used when assessing the environmental impact of food, including the impact on global warming....
- Low carbon dietLow carbon dietA low carbon diet refers to making lifestyle choices to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions resulting from energy use. It is estimated that the U.S. food system is responsible for at least 20 percent of U.S. greenhouse gases. This estimate may be low, as it counts only direct sources of GHGe....
- Organic farmingOrganic farmingOrganic farming is the form of agriculture that relies on techniques such as crop rotation, green manure, compost and biological pest control to maintain soil productivity and control pests on a farm...
- Sustainable agricultureSustainable agricultureSustainable agriculture is the practice of farming using principles of ecology, the study of relationships between organisms and their environment...
- Kitchen gardenKitchen gardenThe traditional kitchen garden, also known as a potager, is a space separate from the rest of the residential garden - the ornamental plants and lawn areas...