With over 900 farms in Albemarle County alone, several well-attended farmers’ markets per week, and more than a handful of CSAs, Charlottesville has a thriving local food scene. But one thing that’s missing, says Little Hat Creek Farm’s Heather Coiner, is grain.
Coiner started the Common Grain Alliance to fill that gap in our local food system, and in our feature this week, we look at how farmers, millers, malters, brewers, and bakers are connecting to re-establish the tradition of growing and using local grains.
Also in this issue, our political columnist Molly Conger challenges the perception that City Council meetings are chaotic and dysfunctional. She should know—she’s attended almost every one of them since August, 2017, and says most “are, in fact, very mundane.” But they’re still where many of our city’s important decisions get made.
While public comment, well-mannered or not, is valuable, your best chance for affecting those decisions is in deciding who represents you on council (or, for those in the county, on the Board of Supervisors, where Jerrod Smith faces Bea LaPisto Kirtley in the Rivanna District). So don’t forget to vote in the primary this Tuesday, June 11.
I can’t comment on what else has been happening around here in the last week (for that, see Twitter). But, in an era in which the President of the United States has called the press “the enemy of the American people,” I’m grateful to all our readers, and for everyone who seeks to encourage debate rather than stifle it.