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In his book, Petrini points out that food raised by his "good, clean and fair" standards costs more. The way he tried to explain the point started a controversy earlier this month on a stop in San Francisco. Representatives of the popular Ferry Plaza Farmers Market there canceled a signing for Petrini after they read his description of the market in the book as an expensive boutique for status seekers populated by "well-to-do college graduate" farmers.

Petrini called the controversy "a sensation" that got out of hand.

"It's good that this food costs more" than mega-mart produce, he said.

Farmers have to make a living. According to figures from NC Choices, a program encouraging local small-farm hog farming, less than 25 cents of every dollar spent on food in the U.S. goes to farmers under the conventional system.

The dust-up did revive charges that Slow Food is elitist. Petrini countered that the group's efforts to help farmers around the world through Terra Madre, and to build relationships between farmers in wealthier countries and poorer ones, show that's not the case.

Locally, proceeds from the Farm to Fork Picnic will help plant old Southern apple trees at Lakewood and Burton elementary schools in Durham. The group also is working for better nutrition and taste education in the schools and with NC Choices to help local farmers promote pasture-raised pork.

Also, NC Choices is promoting meat-buying clubs, such as one started recently at A Southern Season in Chapel Hill. Shoppers place orders and pay in advance, so that the farmer only delivers what is pre-sold and all at one time, rather than having to make a lot of small stops. Bailey Newton of Triple B Farms, who is working with the Southern Season club, said it makes things a whole lot easier for him.

Small farmers need every little bit of help to keep going, he said.

"We're losing 383 acres [of farmland] a day to development," Newton said as he supervised the transformation of one of his naturally grown hogs into barbecue.

Across the field, Sara Foster of Foster's Market in Durham served a salad of produce from Peregrine Farm in Alamance County that included snow peas, spinach and thinly sliced beets and cucumbers. She thinks the demand is there for local food but more supply is needed.

"More and more people support farmers markets," she said. "We need more farmers growing these great things."

Supply vs. demand. It's like that chicken-or-the-egg question, which one farmer answered at the picnic.

Ristin Cook posted a photo of one of her laying hens at Castle Rock Gardens next to the plates of garlic-and-horseradish-flavored deviled eggs she offered. Now, that's a collaboration.

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