If you think about small-scale farming, you may think of tiny plots in large cities, like the half acre farms of Seattle, Houston, Chicago, or Atlanta. Perhaps you picture the small farms in peri-urban areas that help supply big city farmers’ markets —farms that exist close enough to the city to access those markets but far away enough to afford land. Even farther away from big cities is another type of small-scale farming, small-scale farms and market gardens being tended to in very rural areas. This type of small scale agriculture is rooted in a long history of rural people with small farms and expansive gardens feeding themselves and their communities.
Greenway Gardens, managed by April and Roger Westover, based out of Waycross, Georgia, is one of those farms. As Roger tells it, they first got into growing food motivated by the simple fact that they wanted “to be able to grow our own food.” Once they started growing, he realized, “Man, we can, we can grow a lot of food. And then it was evident that we were growing enough to support a small farmer’s market, and we still had more food.” Growing enough to have abundance might make you picture at least an acre, maybe more, but April defined ‘small scale’ for them as “less than a quarter of an acre.”
Small scale and how it’s defined feels very regional and debatable. As Roger says, with a laugh, “I think it depends on who you are.” He added, “small scale could be a hundred acres. It’d be small scale depending on what you’re growing, what your production looks like.” Like many growers, Roger is an avid farming podcast listener and said that “a lot of small-scale growers that I’m listening to are 10 acres or below.” It’s all a matter of perspective. Roger grew up in Indiana on 3,000-plus acres. He remembers talking to his cousin about their farm and his cousing saying that the family farm was a small one. Roger said that’s becasue there are “other places in the Midwest that are thousands and thousands and thousands of acres.” For Roger, “small scale is what you can handle. You know, there are people out there that can handle two acres easily . . . And we’re not to that point. We got plenty to do on this quarter acre.”
Small-scale and rural can bring some challenges – there’s a lot to handle outside of just growing the food. Not every neighbor may know what you are growing or how their growing practices could impact your farm. After you do a land risk use assessment, an approach recommended as a Good Agricultural Practice (GAP) that encourages you to look around, be curious, and recognize how surrounding land and neighbors could impact your crops, it helps to have a chat with those close by. You may see something that could negatively impact your farm, like manure piles uphill from your lettuce. Or you might notice something that could benefit your farm, like a pollinator garden you could help tend or new neighbors eager to purchase and share local food. April notes that good communication and clear barriers are keys to success. She said they talk with their “neighbors so that they know how we are growing.” And, just in case something gets lost in translation and a neighbor sprays something that could wreck their crops or animals get out of their fence, she and Roger also focus on “making sure we have barriers” like woods and hedgerows to help reduce any risks to their crops.
USDA defines rural in a few ways, but it all mainly boils down not having many people — also known as customers – around. A rural area is typically defined as having between 2,500 and 50,000 people and it is not part of a significant labor market. Roger says, for their farm, one big challenge is location to a big market of people. They do have loyal customers, but not a large customer base like you’d find in Minneapolis or Bozeman. To help get their produce to more people and increase sales, April and Roger work cooperatively with other small farmers in the area to sell through an organization called WayGreen. WayGreen organizes a food box distribution called Family Farm Share and a local, monthly farmers market called the Local Fare Market.
Over the years, April and Roger have enjoyed watching the WayGreen market grow as community members have learned more about the farm and how they grow their produce. April and Roger have found that once people learn about the market and the farm, they like supporting a local business. The farm has also found customer and chef support from restaurants in a coastal community about 60 miles away, and those customers and chefs love that the produce comes from the region and that they can support a small, local farm.
Since they are small, they don’t have employees – it’s a two-person family farm. That means they need to communicate well. A rough day in the pack shed could lead to an awkward dinner. April said, “it’s good, at least the day before, to plan together your itinerary and your goals for the next day.” Emphasis on the word together. She said that helps a small farm and team “to be on the same page about your standard operating procedures for accomplishing a task.” It helps keep things efficient and effective. April is “all about the lean farm aspect” because she likes “the thought of being efficient at what we’re doing. . . our time is managed well. And that makes me feel good when we work together like that and to accomplish things.”
Source: nfu.org
Photo Credit: gettyimages-shotbydave
Categories: Indiana, Business