strawberries field trip

Recently when I was home I stopped by my grandparents’ house and they were talking about their neighbor who was getting his strawberries ready. We have talked in class about the strawberries that are on sale in the supermarkets that are not quite ripe yet because the season hasn’t truly started. My grandparents’ neighbor however has hydroponic strawberries and so his growing season is much different than that of a regular strawberry farmer. About five years ago Mr. Schneider added six rows of about twelve hydroponic systems that have five layers of four or five cups on each layer. Each cup holds a strawberry plant that will start to produce around the middle of May depending on the weather and continue until the end of October sometimes. Since he keeps his plants outside instead of in a greenhouse he is limited by frosts but the growing season is much longer than if they were grown in the soil. Mr. Schneider has grown strawberries for many, many years but found that switching to hydroponic strawberries not only lengthened the growing season but also limited the number of fertilizers and pesticides he had to buy. Though he doesn’t use nearly as many “-cides” as some farmers, since he is much smaller, he has found that the initial amount of money spent to buy the hydroponic systems was worth the larger upfront cost compared to what he would save in the future. Though his main concern was not necessarily for the environment, Mr. Schneider does realize the positive impact that his hydroponic strawberries are having compared to other options. The strawberries that are produced on Mr. Schneider’s farm are the sweetest, juiciest strawberries I have ever eaten in my entire life, and I am not exaggerating. Hydroponic strawberries tend to have a lighter and sweeter taste to them than standard strawberries and don’t have as long of a shelf life either. Because they are essentially made from water they don’t stay very well in refrigerators which pull the water out of foods and they tend to become very soft when they sit on the counter for many days. Most people don’t find a problem with either of these since the strawberries are often consumed very quickly and the need that arises is for more to be bought rather than how to store them!
In class we have discussed how to be environmentally stable and to be as sustainable as we can. Being able to buy food locally is one of the best ways that we can do this. Unfortunately more advanced systems such as hydroponics are often more expensive and not as accessible for small farmers but my grandparents’ neighbor has clearly shown me the benefits of splurging in the beginning and receiving many benefits. If there was a way to encourage more people to find more economic friendly ways to produce crops it would be wonderful. However, where I live the farmers are all middle class citizens who sometimes just have to get through the season and can’t find any extra money to splurge on a better system. I think that as consumers who are worried about our earth and our neighbors we must encourage the government to aid small farmers to move in the direction of sustainability. The biggest problem I think is that most of the money that comes from the government goes to the large farms that are commercializing everything. This is only going to cause the small farmers to go out of business and either leave lots of open land or the land will be turned into developments which won’t help anything. If small, local farmers are willing to produce food for us to buy we need to support our communities to keep them up and running.