Market Farming

[lucy Owsley <boulderbelt AT voyager.net>]

I am making a living from farming 9 acres. It has taken over 10 years of learning how to do this and building up a very loyal customer base (along with helping to create 2 farmers markets and a co-op that hopefully will be opening a store front by September). My husband and i do not have kids or debt other than the mortgage on the farm (which I put every spare dollar towards in order to get it paid off in less than 10 years, a goal that should easily be reached) We buy used as much as possible. 

We do live in an area with a college town nearby and that has made all the difference for our business. We started trying to make a living in the town nearest to us (and where my husband's alma mater is located). Not enough interest in local foods I believe because the education level was pretty low other than the few folks' from Earlham that supported us. When a market opened up in the college town where i grew up and where my alma mater is located things Things started getting a lot better for us and we were able to quit our part time day jobs and focus on the farm. A second farmers market opened up in this town (which I was involved in creating and sat on the board for 2.5 years) on Saturdays that is a great market with tons of support, good management and exceptional growth. 

Another market opened up in this town that is huge. the university there, Miami University (not to be confused with the much much younger University of Miami), now has an edict to buy as much locally grown food as they can source. Even though we are quite small (3 acre market garden) we have started supplying them with various items. the food service at the school is big and diverse so while they feed something like 45K meals a day they rarely need a local producer to supply for more than a couple hundred meals, often far less.

Than there is the locavore movement which has taken off in the SW Ohio area mostly due to a woman in the Cinci area creating this great Yahoogroup called Cincilocavores, that is bringing together growers and eaters. I have gotten several new customers from this list during the off season and I expect during the main marketing season I will get many more. I have also met a couple of farmers I did not know in our area.

I have real hope that this year will be our best year ever by far. People are scared of the industrial food system, food prices are rising by leaps and bounds making my prices look down right cheap (even if I raise them 25% to 50% this year). people are turning to local farmers in droves, at least in my area, and I suspect the biggest problem we will have is not having enough produce to supply the demand. 

Lucy Goodman

Boulder Belt Eco-Farm

Eaton, OH

http://boulderbelt.blogspot.com