To the average Hudson Valley resident's mind, food is whatever gets eaten for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and farmland is something we look at from a distance - whether through a window or the windshield, or out during a walk.  But for the people behind the National Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture (NCSA), a nonprofit, national network headquartered in bucolic Pine Bush, the link between what we eat and where we live is vital to the area's future, and all too often overlooked.

Although most Hudson Valley residents have an appreciation of both the beauty and the bounty of the agriculture that surrounds them, they tend not to make the connection "between healthy farmland, beautiful landscapes, and federal policy," says NCSA executive director Kathy Lawrence.  "The fact is that federal agricultural policy for decades has had an extremely strong influence on the food we eat and the shape of our landscapes."

The NCSA, which is opening its second office in Washington, DC, this summer, is at the hub of hundreds of organizations working locally and at state and national levels lobbying for a wide variety of agricultural interests.  "We are farmers, organics, environmentalists, social justice advocates, urban, and rural constituents," explains Lawrence, "and we bring them all together to work at local levels to change federal policy.  What we're really trying to do is create democracy in action around agriculture and food in this country."

The NCSA's Web site cites 31 federal sustainable agriculture programs that the organization advocates, supports, and is educating people about.  The two greatest successes out of those programs are inclusion in the Farm Bill of the Conservation Security Program, which "rewards farmers for taking care of the environment while practicing principles of sustainability in producing healthy fruit, vegetables, and farm products;" and the federal government's Value Added Producer Grants Program, which "provides grants to farmers that allow them to figure out better ways to grow their crops or to market their crops so they can be more profitable," says Lawrence.  But getting such programs up and running is only the first step in making a difference to local agriculture.  "A lot of people in this area, and in the state, don't know about these programs because they feel that federal agricultural policy has never served them well - and for the most part it hasn't," she explains.  But the kinds of things we've been working on and have had passed will serve them, so we're trying to help more and more farmers understand what is out there that they can tap into right now.  Also, we want to help consumers understand that we need them to advocate for these programs so that the programs will continue to exist and be funded - so that our farmers can make money and so our food systems can become much more sustainable and much more just."

POLITICS ON YOUR PLATE - AND IN YOUR GLASS! an awareness-building celebration of local agriculture, will be held on Saturday, July 10, from 4 to 7PM.  The event is free and open to the public.  Locally produced wines and hors d'oeuvres - made with local ingredients by The Main Course in New Paltz and Aroma Thyme Bistro in Ellenville - will be served. Internationally recognized Hudson Valley artist and environmental art activist Shawn Dell Joyce will feature her recent pastels of organic and heirloom food varieties at the event.  Joyce's works are included in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.  A portion of proceeds from the sale of art and wine will benefit the National Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture. For more information on the event, contact Yancey Stanforth-Migliore at Whitecliff Vineyard, McKinstry Road, Gardiner, at (845) 2554613 or (845) 2425085 or visit www.whitecliffwine.com. To find out more about the NCSA or its programs, visit www.sustainableagriculture.net or call (845) 728-4001.

In an effort to promote local agriculture, along with an "understanding of the political forces that shape our food system," says Lawrence, the NCSA will host a public celebration at Whitecliff Vineyard in Gardiner on July 10.  The event is designed to offer people "an opportunity to discover and enjoy the very high quality of both art and wine produced here in the Hudson Valley, and at the same time learn about what they can do as citizens and consumers to promote a sustainable and regionally based food system.  Although local farmers will attend the event, it is designed for the general public.  "We're building the sustainable agriculture movement well beyond farmers, so we need the 98 percent of Americans who aren't directly engaged in farming to have a voice in federal policy," Lawrence says.  Guests will hear a talk by Lawrence and Joan Gussow, both nationally known food system experts.  Lawrence is also the founder of Just Food, an organization that works to build a just and regionally based food system in New York City.  Gussow, Professor Emeritus of Nutrition and Education at Columbia University's Teachers College and Chair of the Board of Just Food, chronicled her own efforts to eat local in This Organic Life: Confessions of a Suburban Homesteader (Chelsea Green Publishing Company, 2001).

Together, Lawrence and Gussow will speak about their work in "bringing together a diversity of people who care about farming, food quality, and a sustainable system of production, from farmers and consumers to environmentalists, labor, and urban and rural community activists, to participate in shaping federal agriculture policy that works, for both people and the land," Lawrence explains.  "One goal is to help people understand how successful grassroots citizen advocacy has been in sustainable agriculture programs.  We have won some major victories, and we really can make a difference in federal policy - we already have.  But we need to keep pushing for change."

For Lawrence, working at the grassroots level to create and protect healthy farmlands is challenging, exciting, and ultimately the most effective way to create change.  "Innovation in agriculture all happens at the local level.  But all that energy has to get translated into federal policy; otherwise, we're just banging our heads against a brick wall."  For example, she explains, 75 percent of taxpayer dollars in federal farm programs "go to very large-scale, very destructive industrial agriculture, which puts our local farmers at a competitive disadvantage right off the bat.  We've decided as a nation that it's important to have federal government protecting air and water, but we haven't accepted that there's an important federal role in healthy agriculture systems and food production, that they're as essential to human life as air and water.  Agriculture has a bigger impact on air and water than any other single industry."

Whitecliff Vineyard is a good example of the new face of local agriculture; it is a small family-owned farm that produces a high quality, value-added product which it markets directly to the public within its own region.  Set on 23 acres of vineyard, with a panoramic view of the Shawangunk Ridge, Whitecliff offers award-winning varietals like Chardonnay, Merlot, and Riesling.

There's a lot of satisfaction to be had in discovering the riches of your own region," says Whitecliff's co-owner Yancey Stanforth-Migliore.  "Perhaps ironically we have a lot to learn from the French on all this.  Although many people think of them as the original snobs, in Burgundy they don't just drink French wine - they drink Burgundy.  They take pride in the unique qualities that each region brings to its wine, and don't feel they have to bring something in from far away to prove that it's good.  My hope is to help people see that the benefits of regional food production extend to wine."

Stanforth-Migliore agrees with Lawrence that the greatest impact on agriculture occurs at a grassroots level.  "People can vote with their food dollars," she says.  "They can buy at a farmers' market, join a local community-supported agriculture (CSA) farm, go to a pick-your-own, ask in their grocery store for local apples or blueberries, or ask in local liquor stores or restaurants for local wines."  And people who are aware of the role of local agriculture in their lives tend to "support their local farmers when they vote in the voting box," as Lawrence explains.  "For decades now, Americans have been sold the line 'Government doesn't work.'  People say it's not worth the time to try to get federal government to do anything right.  That's not true.  The only thing that's going to make our government democratic again is citizen action.  Nothing else will do it."