I'm no agriculture or food processing expert, but I found myself thinking of KAF after reading Deep Economy by Bill McKibbin. I'm taking a bread class at the Education Center next week and when I got there I was going to ask around about some of the issues McKibbin raised. And here you go and answer many of them ahead of time! I'm not sure supporting small farms, per se, is the appropriate goal. Instead local farms are an important focus. Of course, many local farms are small, but KAF shouldn't be trying to redistribute income or guarantee the livelihood of one business over another. What I appreciate from your experience at the Oregon conference is the focus on water use. The other topic which may have been addressed is the idea of reducing shipping costs and the carbon footprint they leave. That's where the local goal should be. The challenge for KAF is to find a wider network of quality grain suppliers, and a more disbursed distribution network. And I'm told another challenge is providing sufficient economies of scale in terms of milling and other post-field processing. None of these are easy tasks. I'm so glad you're thinking about them, though. Thanks, Doug. Enjoy your class next week! -Allison@KAF

• Reply