Bob Comis operates Stony Brook Farm in Schoharie New York where he and his wife pasture raise heritage breed pigs, lamb, goat and poultry. In his posts, Bob shares his thoughts on farming, regional food systems, and how it all could be better and different.

It is time to stop screwing around, I think. Enough of farmers markets, CSAs, and direct on-farm sales. Yes, they are exciting — they feel like they are getting us somewhere — and, if I am honest and give them their due, they have gotten us somewhere. The reality, however, is that they will never get us there, whither goest we must if we want to make a change, real change. It is time to make local passe. It is time to make regional the new local.

I will say it as straight as I can….I want to see my pork in Price Chopper (a supermarket). Can this be done with integrity? Yes, yes it can. But, you’ll need to have faith and let me recede into the background again, let me fall out of the limelight into the limeless light of the sun shining brightly on me and the critters living lovely on the fields.

Wither goest? To work: to build infrastructures enabling us to regionalize our farm and food systems.

What infrastructures?

• Regional distribution
  • Trucking and rail, and yes, where appropriate, even barge
  • Distribution hubs (logistics and storage) to gather produce into regionalizable quantities
  • Regional distribution outlets
    • A plethora of mom and pop butchers
    • A plethora of mom and pop groceries
    • Supermarkets

• Regional wholesale markets and wholesale distributors without which regional distribution infrastructure is fruitless
• Regional processing
  • Slaughterhouses with smallish to mid-sized kill floors
  • Mid-sized packing plants to break carcasses into primals and/or all the way down to retail cuts
• Regional-scale production infrastructures
  • Scaled-up farms producing enough that when gathered by the regional distribution infrastructures can consistently and reliably supply regional distribution outlets

This can all be done with integrity and with no loss of animal, farmer, or consumer welfare. This all must be done.

Is 1% enough for you? It is not for me. I want 30%. But, to get there we need to get my pork in front of the consumer, not the consumer in front of my pork. It’s as simple as that.