Shadowing Practice: What's safe to eat now? - Learn English Speaking with Video

What we eat and where it comes from is a critical part of human health.

In fact, 59% of Americans think it's a top factor to know where their food comes from,

and 54% prioritize food that is consistently available locally.

And one of the best places to get that locally sourced food?

Small family farms and farmers markets.

I love a good farmers market, and I'm not alone.

There are over 8,700 farmers markets in the U.S., where roughly 40,000 farmers sell their products.

And they seem to be getting a bit more attention thanks to a certain lettuce-related issue.

Americans are growing weary of the rising number of recalls related to those stomach-churning cyclospora and salmonella outbreaks.

With only 55% of Americans feeling very or somewhat confident in the safety of the food supply, buying direct from your local farm could be the answer.

But how does a small family farm business compete with major grocery stores for customers?

And what's behind their sales pitch for safer and fresher food?

I came out here to Camarillo, California to check out McGrath Family Farms.

This farm has a pretty unique model.

It's a collective of a few smaller farmers working land that's been a Southern California staple for generations.

Phil McGrath, who's my mentor, he's the fourth generation McGrath on this same land.

And him and his siblings, they started some of the first farmers markets in our area.

A group of us that were apprentices here were carrying on that legacy.

We are 35 acres of certified organic land.

We grow a lot of different crops, over 20 different varieties of produce and vegetables, as well as over 20 different varieties of flowers.

McGrath Family Farms practices regenerative and organic farming, which means fewer chemicals and machinery.

But this more natural approach also means they're frequently adjusting to mother nature.

I always say farmers, especially smaller farmers or mid-sized farmers, were some of the best problem solvers around because we're dealing with problems constantly.

You plant those seeds, you're investing all your upfront capital, right, in all this, and you're hoping those seeds come up, that the conditions are right for those seeds to germinate.

My whole family does work here, so my mom, my dad, my grandpa, my uncles, and then my siblings and I,

another 10 to 15 workers here at the farm that do an assortment of things,

whether it's packing, weeding, harvesting, washing the produce.

Growing crops organically, there's going to naturally be challenges.

Weeding is one of the biggest costs of organic farming.

We spend all our time weeding.

Then you have pest pressure that comes in.

You might have some kind of soil pathogen you got to figure out.

And the second you harvest that crop, it needs to get to our end customer immediately, as quickly as possible to have all that viability, to have all that nutrient density.

So how do only a couple dozen people maintain food freshness and availability while keeping the business afloat?

Everything is harvested for the markets the day before.

Then everybody packs up the produce and fans out to several farmers markets in Southern California each week, all of them about 50 miles or less from the farm.

Our whole family, especially on Sunday, when we have two farmers markets everyone's away at a market that's a lot of ground to cover

and the cycle restarts again every week

if there's any disruption it can be costly we can't miss the market

because we're expecting the money that's made throughout the week to be able to reinvest it into our seeds

and our employees i think for the most part our pricing

has been the same for the last like 10 years people will always notice

when the price goes up but they tend to not notice when the price goes down.

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Farmers markets are a main driver of this farm's business, but not just because that's where they see the most sales.

It's also where they form direct relationships with customers,

which means that farmers like Mike and Tony also have a pulse on their customers anxieties when food safety issues happen.

When anything happens like this on the news, automatically customers are concerned.

You're rightfully so.

They want to now know where does the food come from?

People start to come more to the markets and buy stuff directly from the farm

to prevent being affected by any sort of outbreak that's through the supply chain.

We don't want the food to travel far.

It's alive.

It needs to get enjoyed immediately.

It'll be harvested today, washed and packed, and then you go to market.

These hands grew it, these hands washed it, and these hands brought it here.

An operation like Taylor Farms, the lettuce distributor linked to the cyclosporiasis outbreak, is massive by comparison.

It has over 25,000 employees,

30 processing facilities, and produces over 265 million servings of produce weekly that makes its way into chain restaurants,

major grocery retailers and big box stores.

And generally speaking, buying food from grocery stores is highly regulated and safe.

But its supply chain does have more potential contamination points.

Some produce travels hundreds or thousands of miles from where it's grown to where it's sold, passing through processing, storage and distribution facilities.

People come to the farmers markets and sometimes be like, The produce at the stores is a lot cheaper, but one thing that I tried to explain to them,

the produce in the grocery stores most of the time is coming from another country.

And also the produce that we're providing to them is most of the time just a day old.

The ultimate advantage of a small local farm is how direct

the journey of their produce from the fields to their customers is.

You're getting a more nutrient dense and flavor dense produce.

And more than anything, it's going to last longer

and be safer for you because it's being transferred from less hands and stuff.

We grow the food in the greater Los Angeles area here, and we bring it into the city in our local area as well here.

So that direct feedback informs our growing decision.

We'll have people that ask us to grow beets, or they'll ask us to grow a specific variety of tomato.

And we're always willing to try new things too.

It's a small community that supports each other.

The farmers and our customers at the farmers market, we all come together to make this possible.

Even with thousands of farmers markets and farms across the country, There are still areas known as food deserts, places with limited access to affordable,

nutritious food because of geography or economics.

The farmers I met with had some advice for people who live there, too.

A national and a global food system.

It's a miracle that humans created this.

We were able to figure out how to grow food and ship it all over the world.

Do your due diligence when you get your produce home.

You make sure you wash it, you store it safely.

We never take anything for granted.

And these small farmers are always looking for creative ways to reach more people with healthy, safe food.

When we have a surplus of produce, especially after the farmers markets, we donate it to Food Forward and then give it to food banks.

Where I spend a lot of my time today is in farm to school.

Today, we're in six school districts reaching around 60,000 students in just Ventura County.

So if you have a local farmers market and it's within your budget, consider buying a few fruits or veggies.

Your local farmer and your taste buds will thank you.

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