The last time I was in Indianapolis was the summer of 2003. I remember it pretty well because I was still sulking about The Colts being moved there without my permission and not quite over their inglorious departure from my hometown of Baltimore twenty years earlier. My bitterness melted away however in nearby Plainfield at The National Chimney Sweep Training School, the site of my very first Dirty Job. There, I was instructed in the fine art of “flue maintenance,” and engulfed in flames while attempting to extinguish a raging creosote fire from the top of a rickety demonstration platform. Things went downhill after that and by the time I finally left town I was unrecognizable, concealed under a thick layer of ash and soot, with no plans of ever returning to The Crossroads of America.

Of course, in those days I was unrecognizable on a daily basis. Dirty Jobs would not debut for another six months, and I had no reason to think that anyone would watch when it did. I was wrong about that, and I’ve been wrong about a great many things ever since. A few months ago in fact - proving once again that my plans and my life have little in common – I returned to Indianapolis a lot cleaner, and a lot less anonymous, to deliver the keynote address at The 82nd National Convention of The Future Farmers of America (10/21/09).

For those of you who don’t know, The FFA is an organization of 500,000 teenagers, most of who look like they fell off the front of a Wheaties box. Wholesome, polite, and impossibly well mannered, these are the kids you wish you had, diligently pursuing an adolescence of agricultural acumen. Unfortunately, I arrived at their annual convention with the same level of planning and forethought I brought on my last visit, (i.e., none,) and found myself pacing in the wings twenty minutes before my appearance, trying to arrange my thoughts into an “inspirational and G-Rated message.” Luckily, I happened to glance down at the “FFA Briefing Packet,” recently handed to me by one of the organizers, and found some inspiration on page 4. Read More...

One of the sad realities of ‘twenty-first century living’ is that we are disconnected from the people who create the products we use every day — from electronics to the food we eat. My laptop was manufactured in Japan, and my running shoes in Indonesia. My jeans were actually made somewhere in the USA, but I’ll never meet the workers who constructed them. The stewed tomatoes on my pantry shelf are from PA, and the apple sauce came from New York.

It wasn’t always that way. My grandmother personally grew and canned all the vegetables on her pantry shelf, and bought her family’s milk, butter and cheese from Mr. Douglas, the dairy farmer on the corner. She knew the very cows that had given the milk. I treasure the bookcase my father made for me sixty-five years ago, the afghans crocheted by my mother, and the oil paintings done by family and friends.

And that’s why I love summer. Every Friday morning I gather up my cloth shopping bags and head for the local farmers market. Not only do I find the freshest fruits and vegetables at reasonable prices, I get to meet the farmer who grew them. I see the hands that drove the tractor that tilled the land — the hands that picked the tomatoes and corn and squash and peppers early that morning while I slept.

I’ve always admired farm families — the hardworking, honest lifestyle; their contributions to society; their relationship with nature and the changing seasons… When I was a child, my plan was to marry a farmer so that I could live that life. So naturally, I fell in love with a history teacher with allergies to pollen. That doesn’t stop him from accompanying me on Friday mornings. Read More...

From the outbox of Meyer’s inbox:

Good news/bad news. Bad news: an outbreak of salmonella has forced the recall of millions of eggs. Good news: they were able to trace the salmonella back to a specific farm in Iowa. Bad news: This could have been prevented with precautionary measures like the kind they use in California who boast salmonella free eggs. Bad news: these measures cause an increase in the cost of eggs. In hindsight, feels like a couple of pennies per dozen is well worth it. Do you know where your eggs come from?

BATTLING SALMONELLA SQUEEZES EGG FARMERS By P.J. Huffstutter, Los Angeles Times

A strict quality assurance program has virtually wiped out salmonella in California henhouses, but it makes locally produced eggs more expensive.

Amid a rolling landscape of browning chaparral and battered trailers, Alan and Ryan Armstrong’s metal henhouses line up like military barracks. Keeping their 450,000 birds safe — and Salmonella enteritidis out of their henhouses — is a daily battle.
Since they were old enough to drive the family skip loader and shovel chicken droppings, the Armstrong brothers followed a state-sanctioned quality-assurance program designed to curtail salmonella in eggs.

So have dozens more California egg farmers, who helped develop the guidelines alongside federal and state officials following a salmonella outbreak 15 years ago that sickened thousands of people. The program, which includes vaccinating hens and testing barns regularly for bacteria, has essentially wiped out salmonella on California farms, industry officials say. Yet only nine other states have enacted similar government-sponsored efforts.

One reason, the Armstrongs and other California farmers contend, is cost. Injecting chickens and swabbing cages takes money — not a fortune, but enough to send egg distributors searching for lower-cost sources.

“We have lost contracts over pennies a dozen,” Ryan Armstrong said. “They want cheap eggs.” As the nation grapples with a salmonella outbreak that has made more than 1,500 people ill and led to the recall of 550 million Iowa eggs, the Food and Drug Administration has enacted rules that it said would prevent future outbreaks.

The regulations force large operators to buy chicks and young birds, known as pullets, from firms that check for salmonella; create protocols to keep out pests; and perform salmonella tests in henhouses. Read More...