�Celebrity’ grocery baggers help Farm Bureau honor special event

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By Mary Louise Speer | Saturday, February 11, 2006 1:08 AM CST | () comments

Larry Fisher/QUAD-CITY TIMES Jack Schinckel, left, of the Scott County Farm Bureau, and Larry Minard, chairman of the Scott County Board of Supervisors, bag groceries Friday at the East Kimberly Hy-Vee Food Store on National Food Checkout Day.

Scott County Administrator Ray Wierson shifted duties Friday and chatted with customers as he slid tubs of butter and vegetables into bags at Hy-Vee Food Store at Kimberly Road and Eastern Avenue in Davenport.

The job was a first-time adventure for him, he admitted. But he had an idea of the demands of the job gained from doing the family grocery shopping and watching real baggers in action.

“It was great fun. The public is very conversational. I think the most important thing is to keep the cold (foods) with the cold and the eggs are precious,” he said.

Celebrity baggers helped Scott County Farm Bureau celebrate locally the National Food Check Out Day. The day commemorates the time when the average American will have earned enough income to pay for their year’s supply of food.

In the United States, statistics show that people have to work until mid-February to pay for their yearly food supply. They pay 9.5 percent of their disposable personal income for food according to statistics from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. People in France fork over 18 percent of their income and Mexicans pay a third of their take home dollars.

“We want the consumer to realize that we as producers provide a bountiful crop of things for them to chose from at an affordable price,” said Pat Dierickx, the legislative chairman for the farm bureau and owner of the Pride of the Wapsi.

But Rep. Ed Fallon, D-Des Moines, wants to see the shelves of grocery stores around the state filled with more food grown in Iowa. He is running for governor. If elected, he wants to see more legislation aimed at keeping farmers in business and limiting urban sprawl. In 1998, he co-founded 1000 Friends of Iowa, a nonprofit organization working to protect farmland and revitalize local economies.

City and county officials working cooperatively together could have a greater impact on protecting farmland and revitalizing urban neighborhoods and small towns, he said. Every year Iowa loses more than 30,000 acres of irreplaceable farmland to poorly planned development, he said.

He led the way through the store, pointing to foods grown in the state. Iowans consume about $8 billion in food every year but more than 80 percent of the food eaten in Iowa comes from outside the state, he said.

“Agriculture is very important to me. I served on the Ag Committee for six years as a legislator,” he said. “While I don’t agree with Farm Bureau on every issue, I am a strong supporter of legislation to curb the abuse of eminent domain.”

He pointed to the lettuce, peppers and carrots in the fresh produce section. There is no reason why more of these cannot be grown in Iowa, he said. He also wants to see more jars of fresh fruits arrayed on the shelves, meat raised in Iowa, dairy products and corn going into products such as cereal and tortilla chips.

“This could be a whole new agricultural industry. We’re not going to put corn and soybean farmers out of business,” he said. “I have a goal of capturing four billion of the seven billion currently being lost in potential food sales.”

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