[Riddles Penultimate Cafe & Wine Bar]

     Testimony Before the Governor's

     Task Force on Agriculture



intro

My name is Andy Ayers. I'm the owner and chef at Riddle's Penultimate Café & Wine Bar in the University City Loop, just outside the City of St. Louis itself.

I did a little ciphering before I came over here and I see that since April 1 of this year, I spent $8,530.00 on locally grown produce from small Missouri farmers. But at the same time, I spent $15,210.00 on produce that was trucked in from out of state, or even from outside the country.

Now, I think there is something wrong with this picture. I buy every single item locally that I possibly can - I don't believe there's a restaurateur in St. Louis who is more aggressive about local sourcing than I am - but I still sent almost twice as much of my produce dollar out-of-state as I spent with Missouri farmers.

The theme of these hearings is "One Missouri - One Agriculture". Sometimes you have to wonder who comes up with these slogans. If One Missouri - One Agriculture means anything at all, I'm afraid it means exactly the wrong thing. I'm afraid it means a vertically integrated, heavily fertilized, genetically altered, mono-cropped, capital- and chemical-intensive agriculture designed to compete in the Globalized Agri-Business Market!

I'm sure you've heard from people who represent the "bigger is better" agriculture model. I'm here to argue that it would be very short-sighted for this committee to endorse that model as the One Agriculture for Missouri. I'm for a Missouri of Many Agricultures. I'd like to speak in particular for Missouri restaurateurs like myself who would love to spend more with Missouri farmers - if we only could. And also for the thousands of customers of mine who are delighted to see homegrown products on my menu because they're so hard for them to find for their home kitchens.

Since July 10, I served almost 3,000 salads with homegrown tomatoes. And yet grocery stores all over the state of Missouri are piled up with Arkansas and Florida tomatoes, right now, at the very peak of the season for homegrows! Go figure!

We need a state agriculture policy that encourages more small farms in Missouri instead of fewer, closer to urban centers instead of further away. We need farmers' markets all over the state, small towns, big cities and even at interstate highway rest areas. We need to help the folks who sell at farmer's markets and through consumer subscriptions and out of roadside stands with practical business and marketing advice but also with cash money in the form of interest free loans and outright small farm incubator grants - to build that greenhouse or buy that tractor.

I'm so crazy about small farmers that I think there should be a "reverse property tax" that would pay family farmers with state funds for integrating their farms into of the public school curriculum.

I invest a lot of time and energy buying from local farmers because it makes for good eating AND it makes for good politics, too. Let's just imagine that there might be some politics affecting the recommendations you folks end up making. That's fine - as long as you remember to represent not just the dwindling number of bigger and bigger "factory farms" in the state - but also the small farmers, the family farmers, the farmers who have another job in town but wish they didn't have to. These are the farmers that I buy from.

Don't forget, either, to represent the restaurateurs of Missouri like me, the institutional feeders, the grocery stores and the hungry, individual citizens of Missouri, all of whom should be buying more Missouri products. The right ag policy will bring together all of these Missouri consumers with Missouri producers, the big ones and the little ones, because Missourians can be and should be our own best agriculture market.

I say One Missouri - Many Agricultures. That's good eating and good politics.

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