A basketball game between the KU and K-State women’s teams Monday was also the occasion for a CommonGround meeting between some farm and city women.
CommonGround was founded by the Soybean Association to “bridge the gap between the women who grow food and the women who buy it.” It is now active in 15 states.
While that gap isn’t very wide in Lawrence, Manhattan or most any other Kansas community, truth-telling organizations always have an important role to fill. And that’s what CommonGround is all about.
In the press release sent to the Register, Teresa Brandenburg of Alton explained:
“Many consumers are confronted by a barrage of inaccurate information and rumors about food. We farm women want to share our stories and personal understanding of agriculture and food. Who is better to tell that story than someone like me, a mom and a farmer?”
LaVell Winsor, a grain farmer from Grantville, added, “many of the topics discussed between the city and farm women centered around the facts on organics and the implications of a shift toward eating locally-produced foods. Some of the attendees pulled me into a discussion on the benefits of organics and asked my thoughts. I explained that … there is no evidence that organic production results in a more nutritious, healthier choice. Really, they could rest assured that they were providing their family with the wholesome nourishment they need whether they buy organic or conventionally produced foods. It was great being able to put a face and a name with agriculture so that people knew they can contact a real person about farming and food.”
There were four women at the Lawrence meeting who spoke about farming from first-hand knowledge and call themselves “volunteers.” The press notice didn’t say who the non-farm women who asked the questions were.
But CommonGround meets a need. There is a lot of misinformation abroad in the land about food and farming. Perhaps much — maybe most — of it is deliberate, promulgated to persuade consumers to buy higher priced fruits, vegetables, milk, eggs, meats, etc., etc., etc. with dodgy claims of nutritional superiority — or to sell more sugar and fat than consumers should eat.
If a CommonGround chapter forms in this neck of the woods, the Register will be quick to carry its message.
THIS OFFER PROMPTS the observation that dinner meetings between farm and non-farm women with conversation about food as the object are commendable — but must be the slowest conceivable way to inform Miss and Mrs. Citygal about healthy nutrition and give them facts about farming.
These basic facts should be presented to children of both sexes from grade school on. No knowledge is more important. The facts people need to guide them to choose a healthful diet should be presented to students over and over again in their classrooms, in their athletic programs and wherever they are served, or can buy, food or drink in their schools.
The farm women who are volunteering in the CommonGround cause should first convert every school board member, superintendent and principal in their areas and move on from there.
— Emerson Lynn, jr.
