Clark County people should nurture local farms if they want better health and a thriving community and economy, an agriculture expert said in Vancouver on Thursday.

Many Clark County farms have failed as food has been imported from other states or overseas, Minnesota-based agriculture economist and journalist Ken Meter told more than 100 health and food activists at a "food summit."

"The average food item in the U.S. travels 1,500 miles from farmer to consumer," Meter said. Even after those transportation costs, supermarket prices are often lower than a farmer can offer a local consumer. This is illogical and not sustainable, he said.

The cook needs to see the farmer's face again. The distance from farm to table needs to shrink, he said.

Milk produced in Clark County may travel to Tillamook, Ore., to be made into cheese and shipped and sold around the country, while milk on Clark County grocery shelves may come from Wisconsin or California.

California is no different, even though California's farm lands are some of the richest in the world, said Meter, executive director of Crossroads Resource Center, a Minneapolis agricultural think tank. He has also worked as a journalist and economics and agriculture professor at Harvard University and the University of Minnesota.

California imports $5 billion worth of food each year, he said.

It's cheaper in California to buy an artichoke from Paraguay than it is to walk out in a field at Watsonville, Calif., and buy one from a farmer, he said. Cheap labor, high petroleum prices, international finance and marketing concerns, and lack of trade barriers have brought this about.

"Clark County's farmers sell $58 million of crops and livestock per year, and they spend $59 million to produce those crops," he said. In other words, Clark County farms are losing $1 million a year. That's why farmers are selling out.

Meter came to Vancouver to keynote the Community Choices forum, "Clark County Food System Summit: Connecting Food, Farm and Community."

The conference backs the five-month-old Clark County Food System Council, a 14-member group representing health, nutrition, education, food security, conservation, agriculture, distribution and manufacturing interests.

The goal is to upgrade the personal and economic health by closing the gap between the farmer and the consumer, raising awareness of health problems such as obesity and diabetes.

Local food economics should build health, wealth and community, he said, but right now they do none of those things.

That's why community-supported agriculture, cooperative groceries, farmers markets and protective zoning are needed, he said, along with social reorganization.

Change will be difficult, Meter said. He cited an hour's worth of statistics, illustrating powerful forces that have led to the decline of the systems for food growth and delivery.

Clark County's changing landscape has brought in nursery crops that have replaced dairies, berry fields and fruit orchards. Now the nurseries depend on the growing suburbs, which cover former farmland and make food cultivation ever less likely, he said.

Nursery crops are the biggest agricultural product in Clark County, amounting to $18.7 million annually, Meter said, followed by livestock, $17 million; dairy products, $9.5 million; fruit, $6 million; and Christmas trees, $1.3 million.

While the 2002 Census of Agriculture noted Clark County had 1,596 farms averaging 44 acres, Meter said that figure counted any operation producing as little as $1,000 a year. He said the total number of Clark County working farms that can support a family in 2008 is closer to 200, and the average farm size is 20 acres.

Many of those farms are losing money even though they've become more efficient and more productive, he said.

To learn more

The Clark County Food System Council meets every fourth Thursday from 4 to 6 p.m. at varying locations. Telephone Kristine Perry at 360-567-1089.

Crossroads Resource Center can be reached at www.crcworks.org/econ.html or 612-869-8664.

Dean Baker can be reached atat 360-735-4511 or e-mail dean.baker@columbian.com.