Newcomer’s Search for CBA Local Food

One of my main goals in the Chequamegon Bay Area (CBA) is to do better at honoring future generations and honoring the land. Local foods is one part of the path to my future.

[Note: for me personally, and in this article, "local food" refers broadly to a combination of food grown or produced as much as possible in the CBA, with a lesser amount grown or raised in the much larger Western Lake Superior / Anishinaabeg-Gichigami bioregion. Other people and organizations have differing definitions of local. For example, a Chequamegon Co-op employee told me the co-op's definition of local was food grown or raised within 100 miles of Ashland.]

It's pretty challenging to figure out exactly what "honoring future generations" and "honoring the land" mean. But for me, it seems like one way to honor both is to work on making local food a much bigger part of my diet. When I use the word "diet," I just mean the food I eat. I'm not using diet to refer to a special menu or limited types of food that will help me lose weight or achieve some other narrowly-defined goal. 

Right now, as of 19 May 2023, most of my diet isn't grown or raised in the CBA. I decided in April of 2023 to start working on increasing the amount of local food I buy and eat. What I quickly found out was how difficult it is for anyone other than wealthy people to buy primarily local food.

Since I want to buy local food instead of buying food grown in California (fresh fruit and vegetables in the winter), or Costa Rica (pineapples) or Guatemala (bananas), my diet will have much less variety than it currently does. The climate and growing season in the CBA don't allow pineapples or bananas to be locally produced. And the amount of local fresh fruit and vegetables available in winter, spring, and early summer will be only a very small fraction of what a person can buy if they are OK with their food coming from thousands of miles away.

I've only been in the CBA a few months, so my knowledge about CBA local food is close to zero. Here's what I found out when I first tried to buy local food for a large percentage of my diet:

1. Availability
• Limited Variety -- There isn't a wide variety of locally produced food that can be substituted into my diet to replace in-kind the non-local supermarket food that I typically have bought in the past. Shifting to a primarily local food diet means a less varied diet and a transition period which includes continuing to buy supermarket food while I figure out a nutritious diet based heavily on local food.
• Chequamegon Co-op -- The Chequamegon Food Co-op in Ashland appears to be the store with the largest variety of CBA local food that a shopper can walk in and buy. https://www.chequamegonfoodcoop.com/
• Non-seasonal Foods -- Eggs and meat have much better availability in May than fruits and vegetables. But there are still commonly eaten non-seasonal foods, like butter or cheese from cows, which don't have locally produced options, as far as I could figure out.
• Bayfield Co-op -- There are three ways to get a variety of local vegetables and fruits through the Bayfield Foods CSA, https://www.bayfieldfoods.org/
• Bayfield Foods CSA subscription shares -- this is the traditional CSA share model for customers who don't also contribute work hours on a CSA farm. There are a wide variety of share options for different types of food and different times during the year. https://www.bayfieldfoods.org/bayfield-foods-csa.html
• Farm to Doorstep, fresh local foods shipped right to your door https://www.bayfieldfoods.org/store/c1/Featured_Products.html (and near the bottom of the page at https://www.bayfieldfoods.org/)
• Farm Stand: Shop -- a way to place one-time, market-style orders from your farmer if and when they have extra product available. https://www.bayfieldfoods.org/farmstand.html, https://www.harvie.farm/farm-stand/bayfield-foods,  https://harvie.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/1260803486070-How-Farm-Stand-Shop-Works-for-Members-
• White River Country Market -- Operated by a local Mennonite family, this market has a wide variety of organic and non-organic nutritious food and ingredients for baking and cooking. Much of the food is non-local, but there is quite a bit that's from elsewhere in Wisconsin. This is where I bought my local eggs.
2. Cost
• Expensive -- This won't be a shock to anyone, but local food, especially if it's organically grown, is quite a bit more expensive than buying non-local and non-organic food from Walmart or Super One in Ashland or from Hansen's IGA in Washburn. The mainstream American consumer culture supermarket business model and government supports for agriculture have kept food prices (and nutritional value) artificially low. Healthy local food will always cost more than corporate agriculture products in large supermarkets.
• Possibly Lower Cost Options -- although less convenient than one-stop shopping with the Chequamegon Co-op or Bayfield Co-op, the following may be less expensive options for local food. I haven't bought local food from any of these places yet, so I can't say what the prices or selection are for these local food alternatives, but they're at least worth checking out for yourself. They're also likely to give you food varieties you won't get through the larger businesses mentioned above. The only thing I know about some of these is what I found online, so they may not all still be in business.
• Homestead Gardens (Washburn)
• Bear Trap Creek Farm, Ashland, https://www.localharvest.org/bear-trap-creek-farm-M71912
• Hilltop Eggs, Washburn, https://www.localharvest.org/hilltop-eggs-M16835
• North Wind Organic Farm, Bayfield, https://www.localharvest.org/north-wind-organic-farm-csa-M73675
• Ashland Farmers Market, 
• Washburn Farmers Market, https://washburnfarmers.wixsite.com/washburnfarmmarket
• Bayfield Farmers Market, https://www.bayfield.org/listing/bayfield-area-farmers-market/702/
• Cornucopia Farmers Market, https://bestfarmersmarkets.org/place/cornucopia-farmers-market-cornucopia-wi.html
• Port Wing Saturday Market, https://www.localharvest.org/port-wing-saturday-market-M65514
• Hermit Creek Farm, Highbridge, https://www.hermitcreekfarm.com/
• Happy Hollow Farm, Bayfield, https://www.localharvest.org/happy-hollow-farm-creamery-and-sassy-nanny-farmstead-cheeses-M46651
• Elsewhere Farm, Herbster, http://www.elsewherefarm.com/
• River Road Farm, Marengo, https://www.localharvest.org/river-road-farm-M52077
• Two Creeks Farm, Marengo, https://www.localharvest.org/two-creeks-farm-M58396
• I'll update this list in a week or two with the orchards and farms on the Bayfield Fruit Loop, https://www.bayfieldapple.com/bayfield-fruit-loop.html
• I'm sure this isn't a complete list for 2023 local food purchasing locations in the CBA, so please let me know in person what changes are needed for this list or send updates to me at bwaldron att gmail dott com.

19 May Summary of Newcomer's Search

• The CBA local foods I've bought so far are whole wheat flour (Washburn, at Maple Hill Farm), eggs (Marengo, at White River Market south of Ashland on Hwy 118), maple syrup (Grand View, at Chequamegon Co-op), apples and pears (Bayfield, at Hauser's Superior View Farm), and Lake Superior whitefish and lake trout (Bayfield, at Hoop's Dockside Fish Market).
• I'm looking forward to finding several good places to buy local fruits and vegetables this summer. My personal schedule this summer is uncertain, so I probably won't get a CSA share in 2023, but that's a definite possibility for the summer of 2024.
• This post doesn't have room for the topic of harvesting non-cultivated food on public lands, sometimes called foraging. Future posts will cover that topic. But I hope to do a fair amount of harvesting food from publicly-accessible land this summer, especially for blueberries and apples. 

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