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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] Got farmers?
  • Date: Mon, 21 Mar 2011 11:04:27 -0700


"persuading older, experienced farmers to grow and sell food again is key
to building sustainable, local food systems"

Got farmers?
By Jane | Published: March 21, 2011
http://www.janeblack.net/got-farmers/

Farmer Kim Jackson’s eyes light up when he tells me about the broccoli he
tried to sell one fall off the back of his truck in Huntington. “It was the
most beautiful crop – tender, picture perfect,” he remembers. “But I couldn’t
give it away.”

That was 23 years ago.

Twenty three years is a long time to hold a grudge. But Jackson, a
44-year-old former tobacco farmer, has reasons to be skeptical. Ever since
1982 when the U.S. government first began to dismantle the system of tobacco
subsidies and price guarantees, local growers have been promised one
save-the-farmer scheme after another. In the 1980s, it was what folks here
refer to as the Great West Virginia Pepper Debacle, when the agriculture
extension agents persuaded local farmers to grow bell peppers in such
quantities that the bottom fell out of the market. Today, it’s farmers
markets and local food. And yet, every year, making a living on the farm just
got harder. Jackson now gets $1.75 per pound for his half-runner beans, 25
cents more than he did 10 years ago. In the same time period, the cost of
fuel, fertilizer, seeds and his medical insurance has doubled or tripled.

The media likes to divide farmers into two groups: big and small. But in
Appalachia, where the series of hills and hollows has prevented many farms
from growing to an industrial scale, there’s another, more crucial
distinction: old and new. And while it’s easier (and often more fun) to focus
on new, young farmers – the goat cheese makers and the folks who specialize
in baby amaranth greens — persuading older, experienced farmers to grow and
sell food again is key to building sustainable, local food systems.

That’s the lesson that organic farmer Anthony Flaccavento, learned when he
helped to found Appalachian Sustainable Development, a co-op of farmers in
southwest Virginia and eastern Tennessee. The plan, as much as there was one
back in 1995, was to take away much of the risk and inconvenience of selling
locally. ASD would aggregate and grade the produce and market and distribute
it to local grocery stores. Moreover, it would offer a variety of training
courses on irrigation systems and organic regulations plus services such as
coordinated seed purchases. “Surely we’ll be flooded with farmers,” remembers
thinking. “But the truth of it is, supply is really difficult in our part of
the world.”

More than 15 years later, ASD sells to more than 600 regional grocery stores.
The key, Flaccavento told me, was convincing old-time farmers to join them.
“Our strategy was to get those salt-of-the-earth guys. They gave it a certain
degree of instant cred.”

This week, local food advocates in Huntington will make a pitch to their
salt-of-the-earth farmers to supply the city’s weekly Fresh Markets. They
will talk about pent-up demand for local food, the premium prices that
consumers are willing to pay and how keeping the food dollar local will
benefit, not only farmers but the whole community. Their case is strong. But
whether such words can erase 23 years of heartbreak is an open question.




  • [Livingontheland] Got farmers?, Tradingpost, 03/21/2011

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