Madam Speaker, Mr. Vice President, Farm Members, the First Lady of the United States, and my fellow Americans: We meet tonight at a moment of unlimited potential. As we begin a new season, I stand here ready to work with you to achieve historic breakthroughs for all vegetables.
The agenda I will lay out this evening is not an Organic agenda or a untreated agenda. It is the agenda of the farm members.
This year, Fresh Earth Farms will recognize two important anniversaries that show us the majesty of the Farm’s mission, and the power of Farm pride. In October, we mark 17 years since the start of what Farmer Chris called the Great Crusade — the planting of the first garlic at Fresh Earth Farms. On October 26, 2002, 1,000 young garlic cloves broke from their bulbs to save our civilization from store-bought garlic.
In 2019, we also celebrate 8 years since a brave middle-aged farmer purchased a hoop house and planted it on the face of the farm.
In the 21st century, Fresh Earth Farms saved seeds, transformed a corn/bean farm, and redefined the CSA vegetable share standard for the entire Twin Cities to see. Now, we must step boldly and bravely into the next chapter of this great East Metro adventure, and we must create a new CSA standard for the 21st century. An amazing quality of life for all of our members is within our reach. We can make our tomatoes juicier, our corn stalks stronger, our soil richer, our tillage deeper, and our kohlrabi bigger and more tasty than ever before.
But we must reject the farming of chemical pesticide, insecticides, and herbicides — and embrace the boundless potential of organic soil amendments, compost, and the common gourd. We must choose between organic or chemical, erosion or retention, taste or yield, incredible eggplants or pointless canned peas. Tonight, I ask you to choose organic.
In just over 2 years, we have launched an unprecedented zucchini boom — a boom that has rarely been seen before. We have created two new drop sites and importantly added 40 new shares — something which almost everyone said was impossible to do, but the fact is, we are just getting started.
Okra is rising at the fastest pace in decades, faster than anyone else. Nearly 1 million green beans have been picked off bean stalks. The winter squash is growing almost twice as fast today as when I took office, and we are considered far and away the hottest CSA farm anywhere in the world. Weed pressure has reached the lowest rate in half a decade. Flea beetles, cucumber beetles and squash beetles have all reached their lowest levels ever recorded. Quackgrass has also reached an all-time low. More vegetables are maturing now than at any time in our history.
After 24 months of rapid progress, our farm is the envy of the world, our cultivation is the most powerful on earth, and Fresh Earth Farms is winning each and every day. Members of the Farm: the State of our Farm is strong. Our land is vibrant and our production is thriving like never before.
On Friday, it was announced that we added another 10 varieties of vegetables for this season alone — almost double what was expected. A CSA miracle is taking place in the East Metro — and the only thing that can stop it are foolish weeding, hail, or ridiculous partisan irrigation. If there is going to be peppers and vegetation, there must be hoeing and cultivation. It just works that way!
We are joined tonight by Matthew from Woodbury. In 2002, at age 30, Matthew was eating McDonalds five to six days per week. Over the next two decades, he consumed more than 300 shares of vegetables, became an organic convert, and mentored fellow fast-food sufferers.
As we have seen, when we are united, we can make astonishing strides for our farm. Now, Republicans and Democrats must join forces again to confront an urgent farm crisis. The Congress has 10 days left to pass a bill that will fund our farm, protect our soil, and secure our southern border. Now is the time for the Congress to show the world that Fresh Earth Farms is committed to ending illegal pesticide use and putting the ruthless deer cartels, chemical vegetable dealers, and canned vegetable traffickers out of business.
As we speak, large, organized deer caravans are on the march to the farm. We have just heard that other farms, in order to remove the illegal deer from their communities, are getting trucks and buses to bring them up to our farm in areas where there is little border protection. I have ordered another 3,750 troops to our southern border to prepare for the tremendous onslaught. Tonight, I am asking you to defend our very dangerous southern border out of love and devotion to beets and to lettuce. Year after year, countless pea plants are consumed by criminal illegal deer.
No one has benefited more from our thriving farm than women, who have purchased 58 percent of the shares sold in the last year. All Farm Members can be proud that we have more women eating fresh vegetables than ever before.
Here, at Fresh Earth Farms, we are alarmed by new calls to adopt chemical pesticides on our farm. Fresh Earth Farms was founded on chemical free and organics — not destructive herbicides, insecticides, and neonicotinoids. We are born chemical-free, and we will stay chemical-free. Tonight, we renew our resolve that Fresh Earth Farms will never be a chemical farm.
Here tonight, we have members from across this magnificent metropolitan ares. You have come from the rocky shores of Como Lake and the grassy peaks of Highland Park; from the snowy woods of Battle Creek and the red deserts of Eagan; from the green fields of West St. Paul and the golden beaches of Shoreview. Together, we represent the most extraordinary CSA Farm in all of history.
I ask the men and women of this CSA farm: Look at the opportunities before us! Our most thrilling broccoli are still ahead. Our most exciting carrots still await. Our biggest pumpkins are still to come. We have not yet begun to till. We must choose whether we are defined by our eggplants — or tomatillos. We must choose whether we will squander our bok choi — or whether we will proudly declare that we are vegetable eaters. We do the incredible. We defy the impossible. We conquer the unknown.
No matter the weeds we face, no matter the weather to come, we must go forward together. We must keep Fresh Earth Farms first in our hearts. We must keep vegetables alive in our souls. And we must always keep faith in organic production — that one farm, under God, must be the hope and the promise and the light and the glory among all the farms of the world! Thank you. God Bless You, God Bless Fresh Earth Farms, and good night!