10 Ways to Become a Locavore

Locavores are popping up all over the nation. They are a group of people who are focused on where their food come from and commit to eating local foods as much as possible. This may mean supporting a local farmer or are growing much of their own food in their back yard. Whatever their method, they are helping support their local agriculture and local economy!

If you are interested in this movement and want to find a way to get involved, start by contacting your local extension office.

Here in Harrison County, a group of people are calling themselves "Grassroots Locavores" and starting a movement to help change how people look at their food. Their mission is to educate their community on healthier eating habits and help support their local farms who use sustainable agriculture practices. They have started by hosting a Local Harvest Pot Luck dinner open to the public. Each season there will be a new theme and new foods available for the table. The dinner allows people to bring their favorite seasonal dish and share with others.
The next dinner will be held November 7th, at 6:00pm located at the Extension office, 247 Atwood St., Corydon, IN.
If you are interested in attending this one or want more information for future dinners and programs, contact me at the extension office! 812-738-4236

Now just a bit about becoming a locavore!

By Jennifer Maiser, PBS.org

1) Visit a farmers' market
Farmers' markets keep small farms in business through direct sales. Rather than going through a middleman, the farmer takes home nearly all of the money that you hand him or her for a delectable apple or a wonderful bunch of grapes. Need to find a market in your area? Try the USDA's farmers' market guide.

2) Lobby your supermarket
Ask your supermarket manager where your meat, produce and dairy is coming from. Remember that market managers are trained to realize that for each person actually asking the question, several others want to know the same answer. Let the market managers know what's important to you! Your show of interest is crucial to help the supermarket change its purchasing practices.

3) Choose 5 foods in your house that you can buy locally
Rather than trying to source everything locally all at once, try swapping out just 5 local foods. Fruits and vegetables that can be grown throughout the continental U.S. include apples, root vegetables, lettuce, herbs and greens. In most areas, it's also possible to find meat, poultry, eggs, milk, and cheese—all grown, harvested and produced close to your home.

4) Find a local CSA and sign-up!
Through a CSA—Community Supported Agriculture—program you invest in a local farm in exchange for a weekly box of assorted vegetables and other farm products. Most CSA programs provide a discount if you pre-pay for your share on a quarterly or yearly basis because a pre-payment allows the farm to use the cash in the springtime when money is needed for farm equipment or investment in the farm. CSA programs take the work out of buying local food, as the farmer does the worrying for you.

5) Preserve a local food for the winter
There's still time! Though we are headed into winter, many areas still have preservable fruits and vegetables available. Try your hand at making applesauce, apple butter and quince paste. To learn about safe preserving techniques, go to the National Center for Home Food Preservation.

6) Find out what restaurants in your area support local farmers
You can do this by asking the restaurants about their ingredients directly, or by asking your favorite farmers what restaurant accounts they have. Frequent the businesses that support your farmers.

7) Host a local Thanksgiving
Participate in the 100-mile Thanksgiving project by making a dish or an entire meal from local foods.

8) Buy from local vendors
Can't find locally grown? How about locally produced? Many areas have locally produced jams, jellies and breads as well as locally roasted coffee and locally created confections. While these businesses may not always use strictly local ingredients in their products, by purchasing them you are supporting the local economy.

9) Ask about origins
Not locally grown? Then where is it from? Call the producer of your favorite foods to see where the ingredients are from. You'll be amazed how many large processed food companies are unable to tell you where your food came from. By continuing to ask the questions we are sending a message to the companies that consumers want to know the origin of ingredients.

10) Visit a farm
Find a farm in your area and call to make an appointment to see the farm. When time allows, the farmers are usually happy to show a family or a group around the farm. When you visit, ask the farmers what challenges they have had and why they choose to grow what they are growing. Be sure to take the kids along on this journey! Children need to know where their food is coming from in order to feel a sense of connection to their dinner.

November Calendar

It's getting colder, but there's no lack of things to do at the extension office this winter!

Upcoming Forestry Programs

I wanted to make you aware of a couple of forestry programs coming up in November.


Indiana Forestry and Woodland Owners Conference, Nov. 4-5 in Jasper, IN – a two day event with field tours and several education sessions.
Agenda and registration information at: http://www.ag.purdue.edu/fnr/ifwoa/Pages/annualmeeting.aspx


Hardwood Tree Improvement and Regeneration Center field day, Friday, Nov. 11 at SEPAC – field tours highlighting hardwood tree research efforts including black walnut, butternut, black cherry, red and white oak.
Program and registration information at http://www.ag.purdue.edu/fnr/Documents/HTIRCDay11_2011.pdf


Please share with any of your contacts who may be interested.
Thanks!

Home Invaders of the Six-Legged Kind

By Tome TurpinProfessor of Entomology; Purdue University
turpin@purdue.edu

It happens every year about this time. I refer of course to the arrival of fall. It is an appropriately named season. Leaves fall from trees. Football teams fall from the ranks of the unbeaten. Nuts, apples and acorns fall from their nurturing boughs. Petals fall from the last flowers. And temperatures fall from the highs of summer. All of this falling stuff means that winter is on the way.
But there are other signs. Some birds bid our fields and gardens a fond farewell and head south. Other creatures just hunker down for the cold season, a process known as hibernation. These animals generally store up a supply of fat to use as energy during their long winter's nap. Some squirrels build a nest from leaves and twigs for protection from the howling wind and cold. Cold-blooded frogs, toads, salamanders and snakes burrow into the soil for winter insulation.
Insects are also cold blooded, and they don't do winter either. A few insects build winter protection in a squirrel-like fashion. For instance, some giant silkworm moths spin a cocoon for their winter quarters. Other moths wrap themselves in a leaf blanket. In these cases the insect whiles away the days of ice and snow as a pupa inside a winter cover.
Some species of insects are much like frogs and toads because they seek shelter as winter approaches. Insects crawl into piles of leaves, beneath the soil or under the bark of trees. And like some birds a few insects, such as the monarch, migrate to warmer climes for the winter.
Still other insects do a short migration from their summer habitats and seek shelter in our homes. These six-legged home invaders do not receive warm welcomes from the human homeowners. Quite the opposite. We humans look with disdain at any insects brazen enough to try to move into our quarters. So who are these dastardly demons of the insect world?

Asian lady beetle

First, there is the Asian lady beetle. These beetles are sometimes called Halloween beetles because of their orange coloring and propensity to show up around Halloween time. This insect was introduced to the United States because, like all lady beetles, it feeds on pest aphids. Like other species of lady beetles this one also spends the winter in sheltered sites. But it is more likely than other lady beetle species to seek winter protection in our homes, and because of the sometimes-high populations of the insect, it can become a real nuisance.

Asian Lady Beetle


Attic fly

Another home invader is the attic fly, sometimes called a cluster fly. This fly, about the size and color of the well-known housefly, is so-called because it frequently hibernates in the attics of our homes. It can also be found in winter slumber in corners of garages, wall voids and chimney flues.
Paper wasp queens hibernate and will also take up winter residence in unused portions of human dwellings. These social-insect queens spend the winter in hibernation; with the arrival of spring and warmer temperatures they will try to establish a nest under the eves of a house, barn or shed.

Attic Fly

Boxelder bug

A number of true bugs also try to share our domiciles during the months of winter. These include stink bugs, squash bugs and that notorious home invader, the boxelder bug. True bugs are called that because scientists agree that these insects classified in the order Hemiptera are the only insects that are bugs. The name is based on one of the group called the bed bug, but that is another story. The bugs in general produce an odor. That means you can generally use your nose to tell some bugs are hiding in the corner of the garage in the fall.
The marmorated stink bug is another insect that behaves as if our houses were built for the purpose of providing winter sanctuaries for six-legged creatures. This stink bug is becoming more of a pest on fruits in the Eastern part of the United States. In the fall, just like the lady beetles, the paper wasps and the attic flies, this insect tries to move into our homes. And that, my friends, means we homeowners are becoming used to seeing insects marching across the living room wall in the dead of winter.

Boxelder Bug

October Ag Outlook

October 10, 2011
REVISITING RECENT CORN STOCKS ESTIMATES

While the USDA’s estimate of the September 1, 2011 inventory of old crop corn is old news, there are ongoing questions surrounding the quarterly stocks estimates.  For corn, quarterly stocks estimates have not been well anticipated since June 2010.

The June 1, 2010 estimate of stocks was surprisingly small and implied feed and residual use during the previous quarter that was too large.  The September 1, 2010 estimate of stocks was larger than anticipated based on the level of June 1 stocks, but seemed to “correct” for the small estimate in June.  The implied feed and residual use for the 2010-11 marketing year based on that estimate was reasonable. 


The December 1, 2010 and March 1, 2011 estimates of stocks were marginally smaller than expected and implied a high rate of feed and residual use during the first half of the marketing year, 8 percent above that of the previous year.  In contrast, the June 1, 2011 estimate of stocks was much larger than expected and implied a very dramatic slowdown in the rate of feed and residual use during the third quarter of the 2010-11 marketing year.   Unlike in the previous year, the September 1, 2011 stocks estimate did not correct for the large June estimate, but instead compounded the implications of the June estimate.  Implied feed and residual use of corn during the final quarter of the marketing year was unreasonably small and implied use for the last half of the 2010-11 marketing year was a third less than in the same period a year earlier. Such a large decline seems unreasonable given that the number of livestock fed was larger, average slaughter weights were about equal, implied feed and residual use of wheat was 45 million bushels less, feeding of soybean meal was down 4 to 5 percent, and feeding of distillers grains was only about 3 percent larger. Calculated feed and residual use of corn for the 2010-11marketing year is unreasonably small.  The estimate of large September 1 stocks also appears at odds with the on-going very strong corn basis.

Explanations offered for the surprisingly large September 1 stocks include the possibility that the 2010 corn crop was under-estimated and/or the amount of corn used for ethanol production has been over-estimated.   If correct, either of these explanations would result in a larger calculation for feed and residual use and might make sense if the September stocks estimate was the only one available for the year.  However, neither explanation is consistent with the level of stocks on December 1, 2010 or March 1, 2011.  In addition, the size of errors implied by these explanations would have to be very large to result in a reasonable calculation of feed and residual use for the year.  Some speculate that stocks of the newly harvested crop were included in the estimate of “old crop” stocks.  Such an inclusion would require unique reporting errors by survey respondents and those errors would have to be very large to result in a reasonable calculation of feed and residual use in the last quarter of the year.  There is not an obvious problem with USDA methodology that has produced reasonable stocks estimates until recently.  

The implied low level of feed and residual use last year complicates the forecast for the current year.  Use might be expected to decline in 2011-12 due to a combination of unchanged hog numbers, declines in broiler chick placements, declining cattle feedlot inventories starting in early 2012, and a stable supply of distillers grains.  But will use really decline from the extremely low level implied for 2010-11?

Corn prices declined after the release of the September 1 stocks estimate, but were already under pressure as a result of concerns about U.S. and world economic conditions and a general decline in commodity prices (excluding livestock).  In addition, the corn market has been influenced by reports of better-than-expected yields.  It is yet to be determined if “better-than-expected’ translates into “higher-than-forecast’.  The USDA will release new corn production and consumption forecasts on October 12. 

The recent decline in corn prices has resulted in profitable margins for almost all users of corn, suggesting that prices are low enough to encourage an increase in consumption.  The USDA’s October reports will provide a new benchmark for evaluating consumption.  After that, weekly estimates of exports, ethanol production, and broiler placements will provide information to gauge the pace of consumption relative to projections and to judge the price level.

Issued by Darrel Good and Scott Irwin
Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics
University of Illinois