Local food is good. It's good for you. It's good for the economy. It's good for the environment.
And it tastes terrific. What's not to love?
Today, we're here at the Meet Your Farmer event at the Harwich Community Center.
An event featuring farmers and local food producers from across the Cape, all sharing some of what they're growing and what we're going to be able to eat.
My farm is Wellfleet Chick-Coo and Farm, and I'm in Wellfleet, Massachusetts.
My main crop are eggs, healthy and delicious, non-GMO feed, certified organic.
I also raise pullets to sell to people who don't want to do chicks on their own.
I specialize in raising heritage and endangered breeds.
And then this year, I grew hot peppers, and I brought them up to Alex's ugly hot sauce,
and he's got a kitchen at the crop circle in Dorchester, which is the Massachusetts food incubator,
and we co-branded a micro-batch of hot sauce. So I'm very proud of that. Eight different peppers.
Organizers say that at this, the eighth annual event, more than 50 farmers and farm-related products are here to show that agriculture is alive and well on Cape Cod.
And yes, we can indeed eat local.
It's all about emphasizing local agriculture right here in Barnesville County.
A lot of times, local agriculture is overlooked, but the fact is it's very real and it's very much alive.
And what we're trying to do is keep it in the public eye. It's really easy to get in the habit of going to stop and shop like everybody does daily,
but there's a local source for virtually every product right here in Barnesville County.
Agriculture, in all of its forms, plays an important economic role too, helping to sustain our year-round economy.
I'm here with some of my goat friends. I guess you could say they've got my goat,
but I'm here to help celebrate local agriculture and how important that is.
You know, people might be surprised to know throughout the Cape there are farms that raise delicious food for us to eat and enjoy.
It's an important part of our economy. And actually, there are farms that are on the tidal flats and in our harbors as well,
because aquaculture, raising clams and oysters, is an important part of Cape Cod agriculture.
The event's partners also see an explicit connection between our region's environmental and human traditions.
This is such a great partnership between Cape and Islands Farm Bureau, representing all these farmers and Harwich Conservation Trust,
talking about how there's that common ground of being stewards of our land and water resources.
This eighth annual event is just such a great evolution of how farmers and conservation groups have gotten together,
and also our local agricultural commissions in the town, is that right?
Aren't you the agricultural commission, Peter Herman?
Farmers also say there's nothing quite like giving kids a chance to see livestock, farms, and the connection to our land.
You know, a lot of kids don't get an opportunity to see these things up close, but today we've got two calves,
we've got four goats, and a miniature donkey.
We have chickens down at the other corner too.
Hi, my name is Callie, and I'm part of Farm Friends 4-H, and today we're here with the goats,
and they're just walking around and eating everything. They are part of our farm.
We have horses, goats, ducks, and chickens.
These are Nigerian dwarf goats.
They're very lovable.
We brought the goats here today just to kind of give people a chance to meet animals like this,
because usually the public doesn't get to see goats, cows, or donkeys.
My name is Jerry May. The farm is Sea Wind Metals, and we're in Dennis on the north side,
and my wife and I, it's been a family farm.
I have three daughters, and we do shows where we actually compete with the cattle.
We go out actually to Denver, Colorado with them in January,
and different events like the Barnsville County Fair locally.
We also have a beef program that we got into.
We sell it at Orleans Farmers Market on Saturdays.
This guy here is Ferg, and he is one year old. He's a male,
and he actually can see you through all that hair.
Yes, he can.
We blow dried them and combed them out to bring them in here.
Sea Wind Metals raises a breed of cattle called the Scottish Highland,
which, yes, do indeed hail from Scotland originally.
And how do Scottish cattle enjoy our cape?
They love it because the foothills in Scotland is very similar to the Cape weather.
The summers they don't particularly like, because it's warm, of course, with all that hair,
but they find shade. We have a lot of trees in our pastures.
With spring here and summer, Pete growing season right around the corner,
what kinds of local bore eats are we looking at?
Well, we have up to 50 varieties of product being grown at different times during the year.
During the winter time, we grow a lot of spinach.
We're just starting our seedlings for the year.
We've got about 35, 37 different varieties that we grow on a regular basis.
One of the big things we do is strawberries, and local fruit is as good as a get.
