North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[mIEKAL aND <dtv@mwt.net>]

The amount of hogwash circulating in this thread is really 
uncharacteristic of the NAFEX list.  I work for Organic Valley, a 
national farmers coop centered in WISC but with farmer members in 17 
states.  We have 650 "small farms" in our coop alone, from about 40 
acres to a thousand acres or so.  The majority of our farmers are dairy 
farmers who are receiving almost double the pay price of conventional 
dairy. We have a waiting list of 3 years for farmers waiting to get on 
the truck, sold $150 million in product this year.  We also have a lot 
of meat & vegetable producers as well.  The board of directors has had 
to slow down growth for several years in a row because it was decided 
growth about $25% a year was not sustainable.  We have also become a 
model for other producer coops around the US & abroad.


mIEKAL


On Tuesday, December 23, 2003, at 08:49 AM, Jim F wrote:

>      The talk of small farms dying out is not necessarily true unless 
> we speak of 'what type' of small farms are dying.  There are alot of 
> thriving farms but they are different from what many think of as a 
> "farm."
>      The small family farms that are going extinct are those that 
> produce milk or raise grain.  Those folks who are creative enough to 
> enter alternative agriculture often do quite well and we do not need 
> vast tracts of land to do it - by "vast", I mean anything over ten 
> acres.  One of the most successful small farms that I am familiar with 
> grosses up to $200,000 per year.......................on just ONE 
> acre.  I'm speaking of the well known(?) Kona Kai farm near Oakland, 
> California and all they raise is mesclun (specialty lettuces) and 
> edible flowers.
>      The Kona Kai has an advantage that we, in Minnesota, do not 
> have.  They can produce crops the whole year around.  My wife and I do 
> not have that advantage, however, we do manage to earn a decent living 
> on 1.4 acres - we are a fruit and berry farm and we direct market our 
> produce raising peaches, apples, plums, a good variety of berries and 
> specialty mushrooms.  Besides fresh fruit, we also sell jams, jellies 
> and syrups, including maple syrup.  For the maple operation, we own 
> the processing plant and tap other people's trees and others tap their 
> trees bringing us the sap to process.
>      That's us.  I know of others who farm just a few acres raising 
> vegetables to sell at farmers' markets plus a host of others who raise 
> herbs, some do cullinary, others raising medicinal.  I could write a 
> full paragraph about other small family farms that I know of and none 
> of them, zero, raise grain or produce milk.  The family farm is alive 
> and well here in America.
>  
> Jim Fruth
> Pequot Lakes, MN