Hong: All my food is covered in dirt!

When working as a naturalist, I taught a class called Stone Soup. We would take kids out into the nature center garden to harvest vegetables, and then head inside to make soup with our bounty.

As the soup was cooking, we would share the story of a wandering traveler who helped townspeople to make soup using only a rock (plus a little carrot, a little celery, a little potato...).

You can't help but love a class with such a good message of sharing, especially when you get to eat at the end.

I was shocked, though, at how many children would wrinkle up their noses saying, "Eww! We're going to eat those dirty vegetables after they came out of the ground?"

At first I laughed at the kids, wondering how they could possibly think the vegetables from the garden were any different than the ones sold in the store.

Soon, I started to realize that not only kids, but also quite a few adults today, are disconnected from farming and agriculture to the degree that many no longer know how their food journeys from the field to the table. At the same time, we are hearing statistics about the sources of water pollution in local lakes and rivers, with much of the blame placed on the shoulders of farmers. Researchers estimate that nearly 80 percent of the sediment and nutrients being washed into the St. Croix River are coming from agriculture within the 7,760-square-mile St. Croix Basin.

In the Minnesota and Mississippi river basins, the story is much the same. Upon learning this information, therefore, it is easy for the average Minnesotan to think, "Darn those farmers! Why don't they do something to stop polluting our water?"

While it may be accurate to say that agriculture is responsible for much of the water pollution in Minnesota, it would be unfair to blame farmers solely for a system in which we all take part. Moreover, when people discuss modern agriculture, they tend to focus on just a few aspects of farming, ignoring some of the practices that contribute the most to water pollution. The use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers is a good example. It is easy to recognize the inherent dangers of these chemicals, and easy therefore to understand how their use could ultimately pollute our lakes and rivers. To avoid this danger, some people advocate for organic farming, leading their counterparts to argue that without synthetic pesticides and fertilizers our farmers could never produce enough food to feed over six billion people worldwide.

Taking a step back from the argument over organic farming, however, it may be useful to note that the biggest pollutant found in the St. Croix River is phosphorus, a common element found in both natural and synthetic fertilizers, as well as leaves, grass clippings, organic debris and sediment.

Researchers have learned that phosphorus makes its way to the St. Croix River when rain washes manure, dirt and debris out of farm fields and into ditches and streams that eventually connect with the St. Croix and its tributaries. An equal amount of phosphorus is attached to soil along the banks of those streams and ditches, and then washed into the water when rain and melting snow cause flooding and erosion.

The best way to keep agricultural sediment and nutrients out of our lakes and rivers is to keep them from being swept away in the first place. Our county soil and water conservation districts offer a variety of solutions for reducing runoff from farm fields.

They recommend, for example, that farmers build fences to keep livestock out of streams and wetlands so that the animals don't cause erosion and track dirt and manure into the water. They also recommend that farmers plant buffers of deep-rooted native plants along stream banks to stabilize the sides and soak some of the water and nutrients into the ground before they are washed away.

There are dozens of recommended practices for farming, most of which are applicable for both organic and conventional agriculture, but none of which are free. It is up to consumers, then, to request that our farmers begin implementing practices that keep soil and nutrients on the farm fields and out of the water. It is also up to us to provide the needed support, whether through financial and technical assistance or through changes in agricultural policies, that enable farmers to meet our request without unnecessary hardship.

All of this leads back to the importance of understanding where your food comes from.

How can we ask farmers in the St. Croix Basin to change their practices if we aren't even sure what they're growing?

Are they raising horses? Growing lettuce? Sowing wheat? Could you say where most of the food in your refrigerator was grown? Can we really expect a farmer to spend $10,000 to plant a buffer along his stream if we aren't willing to pay an extra 50 cents a pound for his beef in the store?

Whether we go to a farmers market, start reading the labels in the grocery store or take a Sunday afternoon drive out in the country to see what's growing in our community, we can make better strides towards improving water quality by reconnecting with our farmers and engaging in thoughtful discussion than by pointing fingers and laying blame.

Without making this connection and beginning these discussions, we're little better than a bunch of kids wrinkling our noses and calling the carrots dirty.

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Angie Hong is an educator for the East Metro Water Resource Education Program, which includes Brown's Creek, Comfort Lake - Forest Lake, Middle St. Croix, Ramsey Washington-Metro, Rice Creek, South Washington and Valley Branch Watersheds, Cottage Grove, Dellwood, Forest Lake, Lake Elmo, Stillwater, West Lakeland and Willernie, Washington County and the Washington Conservation District.

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