By Terry Byrne, Boston Globe Correspondent
Winter is usually a quiet time for farmers' markets, as most simply go into mothballs until the first spring crops come in. But the Westford Farmers Market just couldn't wait.
"Our last outdoor market on the Westford Common was Oct. 15," said market manager Gail Gilbert, "but people kept talking to me about things they want to share."
Starting this Sunday, the market is launching its first Winter Educational Series with a screening of the documentary "King Corn," followed by "Cheese Workshop with Vic Tirrito of Fior D'Italia" (Feb. 15), "How to Raise Chickens in Your Backyard and Make EGG-celent Recipes" (March 8), and "Organic Farming and Gardening" (April 26). All of the workshops are free, with a small fee for supplies for the cheese workshop.
"I love the mission of the market," said Gilbert, whose regular job is as a landscape designer. "It's about bringing the community together and sharing what we know. We are made up of 100 percent volunteers, and it's a tribute to everyone's willingness to participate that we're extending our programming through the winter."
During the market's outdoor season, nearly two dozen vendors bring their produce to Westford Common, and in the two short years the market has existed, it has become an important weekly social event, with arts activities for children, musical performances on the common's recently built bandstand, and an educational station where a different environmental topic is addressed each week. The winter series, Gilbert said, grew out of interest in those sessions.
The film "King Corn," according to Gilbert is a perfect way to launch the series because "it puts together so many pieces and gives such a full picture of the importance of buying produce locally. We still struggle with answering the question of why organic and locally grown foods are more expensive than big grocery store chains, and I think this film will definitely make the case for us."
"King Corn" follows two best friends who decide to grow an acre of corn in Iowa. While they start out simply fascinated by small-town farming, in the process they grow a bumper crop of genetically modified corn with the help of powerful herbicides. After the harvest, they try to follow their corn into the food system and discover some disturbing facts about what Americans eat.
As a bonus, Gilbert said "King Corn" producer Aaron Woolf has agreed to come for a question-and-answer session after the screening.
Woolf said he enjoys speaking to community groups about the film.
"I've been making documentaries for about 20 years now, mostly for public television," Woolf says from his home in Brooklyn, N.Y., "but I've never been so profoundly affected by one as this."
Woolf said the film was made on a very intimate level with his cousin Curtis Ellis and his best friend, Ian Cheney, living and working in the small farming community of Greene, Iowa.
"But it has really touched audiences in ways we never expected," Woolf said. "It's played in 60 cities and 40 festivals, but I find I really enjoy coming to community screenings because people are deeply interested in talking about why the richest country in the world has the worst diet and what we might do about it."
Woolf was so moved by the film that instead of immediately starting work on his next film, he opened a grocery store in Williamsburg, a neighborhood in Brooklyn, called Urban Rustic to bring more locally grown products to his neighborhood.
"It's so hard in America to know where your food comes from," Woolf said. "We wanted this store to have simple, straightforward answers."
Woolf said his store is struggling a bit in the winter months as he searches farther afield for fresh produce, but he is committed to making it work.
"Living and working in that small farming community reinforced the idea of the great entrepreneurial spirit Americans have, and how generous people can be," he said.
Woolf said the next project he is researching involves questions of American infrastructure. In a way, he said, it follows the same path as "King Corn," which involves questioning policies that need to be reexamined.
"The film 'King Corn' was meant to be a conversation starter," Woolf said. "The website [www.kingcorn.net] has become a place where information on the farm bill and other issues is available, and I hope it will be one small step in helping us reassess our food and agriculture policies and adjust our priorities."
Terry Byrne can be reached at trbyrne@aol.com.
