Jacksonville Farmers Market Opportunities

INSHORT: Please concact Jacksonville City Council Members and ask that the Jacksonville Farmers Market be easy for farmers to use and that it keeps its Arkansas Only ordinance.
http://www.cityofjacksonville.net/Elected%20Officials.htm



Peculiar!
That’s how I feel composing this post. Peculiar because I find myself advocating that the new Farmers Market in my home town of Jacksonville be easy for farmers to use. Why I would have to do that just seems peculiar to me, I would hope that when the city of Jacksonville decided to build a Farmers Market their goal would be to build a place that is conducive for famers and the local citizens to use. This would provide a venue that would help distribute fresh market produce, something that Jacksonville could really use. This would seem to demonstrate a proactive approach to the cities health and well being.
One would hope anyway, well it seems that the city is hedging their bet to the determent of the very market the city is building. After several emails and phone calls to the administrative folks detailing the issues that I see with the new market, it seems they have fallen on deaf ears. Here is the content of the email I sent after I talked to the city engineer about the proposed work flow they envisioned for the market:

From: Kelly Carney [mailto:kelly@northpulaskifarms.com]
Sent: Tuesday, January 26, 2010 2:48 PM
To: 'Jim Durham, Director of Administration'
Cc: 'Jay Whisker, City Engineer'; 'Gary Fletcher, Mayor'; 'Jody Hardin'
Subject: RE: Jacksonville Farmers Market
Jim,

Thanks for putting me in contact with Jay. He was able to verity the proposed process for Farmers to use when setting up at the Jacksonville Farmers Market.
While I would not begin to understand the procurement process for local municipalities with regards to construction projects, I can advise you that building a market that is easy for Farmers to setup and use should warrant consideration of a design review. In my opinion there is 1 critical and 1 major design flaw with the proposed market.
The one CRITICAL flaw that could keep farmers from this market is the requirement that the sales booth is separated from the farmer’s climate controlled storage facility (van or truck). This creates burdens on the farmer to either attempt to unload his produce in the booth area or have to leave their booth to replenish their tables. Either of these options is not ideal. Farmers who use refrigerated vans or trucks would not risk the potential spoilage by unloading and would have to make many trips to their vehicles there by leaving their sales area unattended. The setup time for coordinating several farmers loading/unloading could create bottlenecks as the market grew in popularity. I am no designer but the resolution of this may be as simple as removing the walls from the current design so farmers could back their vehicles up to the sides and setup their booths accordingly.

The one MAJOR flaw that could keep larger farmers away is that there is not room for larger refrigerated trucks to unload with a 10ft roof. I am not talking about 18 wheelers, but the smaller (9-10ft tall types used by many farmers and local merchants). This flaw could be mitigated if the unload requirement was not in place because the larger trucks could just back to the edge of the roof and work from there.

I have visited only 2 covered farmers markets. Memphis and Little Rock’s markets support farmers utilizing their vehicles for storage as part of their booth.

End of email

The cities solution to this was to say (in the Arkansas Democrat attached article) that the farmers could setup in the parking lot of the market. As a taxpayer in Jacksonville, I find this to be absurd. Hey here’s an idea, lets build a farmers market pavilion and ask the farmers to setup in the parking lot of it.

Now for the Ironic part of this post. The city in what seems to be its desire to sell produce at the market at any cost, is considering removing the current ordinance that requires farmers to only sell Arkansas grown or produced products. The mayor in the attached Leader and Arkansas Democrat Gazette article seems to claim that you can’t have variety and locally grown food at the same time. Well I don’t know if the mayor has been to a farmers market recently, but I guarantee that a successful Arkansas Farmers Only market has more variety that any Wal-Mart Supercenter or Kroger has. At the Argenta Farmers market in NLR, you can find dozens of varieties of tomatoes, green beans, squash, greens, melons and more. The fact is local farmers grow not just the plain vanilla easy to sell produce staples, but much much more. Does the local grocery store have shitake mushrooms or fresh basil or cilantro? Not the last time I checked. When you drill down on the data, you find that it’s the farmers markets that have the variety, not peddlers selling out of state products. Additionally it’s an educational platform that can be used for local schools to teach where food comes from, why certain foods are abundant during certain times of the years and the importance of farmers in the local economy. Why do I have to advocate locally grown to a city who has invested in consultants who tell them of the revenue bleed that happens within its city limits? Do they think that produce peddlers selling out of state produce keep their money local? The oldest manufacturing job that exists is that of a farmer. The money I spend growing my crops is re-circulated many times in Jacksonville. Sam Proffit who helps part time at my farm, pays rent in Jacksonville and buys from local merchants. I am no economist, but it seems pretty simple to me that the more money that is re-circulated in a small town the better the economy for that town becomes. Hello Jacksonville? Are you getting any of this?
The entire country is in the midst of a local foods title wave and we have the opportunity to embrace this. Let’s not miss this opportunity!
Jacksonville should have a farmers market that is easy to use and fair to the farmers. If they do this, while it probably won’t happen overnight, farmers will show up to sell, more new farmers will want to be a part of it and the variety that will be found there will be second to none.


Kristin Griggs who is in charge of the market has asked for feedback about the new market. If you share my perspective on this, please call or email her at 501-982-4171 or kgriggs@cityofjacksonville.net . As of last Friday she said she received 3 emails about this new market, please help in adding a few digits to that number.



Check out these links for more farmers market information:
Wikipedia - Check out the picture of the Durham NC Market -:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farmers'_market

USDA Farmers Market Fact Sheet:
http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/getfile?dDocName=STELPRDC5080175&acct=frmrdirmkt


USDA Farmers Market Website:
http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/FarmersMarkets

Conferences, Tomatoes and Farm Heroes

This last week has been one of the coolest ever. I attended my first farm conference, the Missouri Organic Association annual meeting in Columbia. The MOA is an association of farmers, chefs, gardeners, health professionals and consumers who advocate organic food. I met many experienced organic farmers and look forward to getting to know all of them better. There were workshops on Organic advocacy, high tunnel production, pest and soil management as well as marketing using social networks. I picked up some Amish made organic tea that I am going to dilute and feed my seedlings with. They had planned to hold a “silent” auction for a fund raiser when one of the Amish members volunteered to actually call the auction. The Amish are well known for their farming skills and their produce auctions. When the auctioneer pulled out a 2.5 gallon of Hummus Tea, I could not help but bid on it. One can’t help but wonder how many pounds of tomatoes this fine gentleman has sold. The
MOA members are clearly part of the “early adopters” in organic farming and were happy to share their insights with this rookie.
I would be remiss if I did not offer my thanks to Jody Hardin for inviting me to join him at this conference.

This leads me to the Farm Heroes section of this post. The MOA members referred to many of their members as “farm heroes” for their contribution in helping fellow farmers. Making it to my second year as a farmer would not have been possible with out the help of one of my farm heroes. Jody Hardin with the Certified Arkansas Farmers Market has committed his life advocating for the small farmer. He was a speaker at the MOA conference, is obviously very well respected by his peers and his vision for Arkansas small farmers helped created the states premier farmers market in Argenta. Jody Harding has probably forgotten more about farming than I ever hope to learn.
The Jacksonville Military Museum hosts a War Stories Lecture Series and recently featured Lt. Col. Keith Moore with the Arkansas Army National Guard. Lt. Col. Moore is leading the Arkansas Agricultural Deployment Team to Afghanistan.
He detailed their plans to help rebuild local agriculture in a country that has lost much of its knowledge base to over 30 years of war. I have to admit that I was very skeptical so I planned on attending this event to learn more details. History has not been kind to foreign armies in that country. Lt. Col Moore was the first to say that we are not going to teach farmers who have been farming since the beginning of time how to farm. Their plans are to help rebuild irrigation infrastructure, assist with building markets and do what it takes to rebuild local agriculture as a means for economic development. Lt. Col Moore and his team of volunteer guardsmen many of whom are farmers are doing this under the most challenging conditions imaginable with little to no resources. This will keep our local agricultural challenges in perspective.

Finally I am proud to announce that our seed germination is in full swing. Our spring tomato crop has been transplanted from their germination flats to 2x2’s, and our spring spinach has been transplanted into the ground in Wilma. We have started our cucumber, pepper, lettuce and melon seeds and look forward to filling our ebb/flow growing tables with these youngsters. I have some very nice Amish tea I am sure they are gonna love.

What Wonderful Winter Weather

So with snow, sleet and ice covering Fred & Wilma (our greenhouses), I could not help but think what a great time to start our Tomato seeds.
We started Wilma’s spinach seeds last week and they have already started to sprout.
Seed starting is one of my favorite parts about farming. I get my hands dirty and in 3 or 4 months from these tiny little seeds I will deliver my popular grape tomatoes. Last year at this time we were focused on our construction goals and missed the chance for an early crop, this year we hope will be different.

We have finalized our 2010 retail crop plan and it can be found under our “Produce” tab. Our popular heirloom tomatoes are back and we hope to have some Grape tomatoes ready sometime in May. This year we are introducing three different melon varieties, an heirloom green bean and are trying our hand with some lettuce and spinach. February will be spent germinating and transplanting our spring crops seedlings into 2x2’s for later transplanting in March & April. Currently Fred’s winter cover crop or rye grass is coming in strong and I expect much better soil fertility in the spring. Shutting our production down this winter was not an easy decision but one that I am confident will pay off. Soil fertility is the most critical element in growing healthy plants, taking the time to build our soil over the winter will increase the likely hood of that outcome. Our farms first and foremost method for insect and disease management is a healthy plant.


I have been waking at 5 am almost daily for the last year without the assistance of an alarm, this last week it’s been 4:45, I just can’t seem to get my hands dirty enough.

Finishing up our first year

First I would like to thank Nancy Dockter with the Arkansas Leader for the opportunity to be interviewed about my new career choice last week. Nancy is not only an excellent reporter; she is a local farmer.
She stands as one of the examples of why I maintain you will find no finer group of peers to work with.

It was sad to see our tomato and pepper plants succumb to the cold a few weeks ago, but keeping heirloom’s alive from April to December is one of this years success stories.
One of our lessons learned this year was that while high tunnel greenhouses are very hot in the Arkansas summers, they do a fantastic job of water management.
Keeping the rain off the tomatoes and most of the rest of our crop was most likely the key to their success. Fred was a bear to build and his soil has a long way to
go, but I suspect he will be a very productive growing system within the next few years.

Another success this year was finding great people to work on the farm. None of what we accomplished this year would have been possible without their help.
So thanks to Shawna, James, Sam, Brady, Mike, Gump, Steve-O, Justin, Jon Paul Sr & Jr, Tony, Josh, Tom, Tim, Ryan and Cody for all the hard work.
This group of local workers rose to the task of keeping this years construction and growing schedule on time and I could not be more thankful for their effort.

The next few weeks will be spent getting Fred ready for winter. We have spread leaves, lime & litter and will be lightly tilling it into the soil.
Afterwards we will seed rye grass for our winter cover. This process will help build our soil fertility and assist in the prevention of nutrient run off.
Starting in March of 2010, we will begin building our beds and transplanting our young ones.

Finally I would like to thank all of our customers. Thanks for the feedback and continued support. I am excited about next years crop and look forward to re-uniting with everyone in the spring.


Happy New Year!

Rainy Afternoons

OK, so Mia Vermillion’s “In the Dark” set’s the mood for a smooth afternoon listening to B.B. King’s Bluseville on the satellite radio. Farmers usually love August rain and I am no different, but do for different reasons. For me, it’s a chance to work in Fred without the brutal heat. I have some aphid collecting to do and get to try out my super duper bug sucker (leaf blower vacuum).

We have learned many valuable lessons with this year’s crop and continue to learn more every day. We are starting our fall crops and look forward to testing the limits of Fred this year. The tomatoes are starting to produce and the green beans have received good reviews. The Tyria’s have been a big hit at the market and their size certainly has been a fun conversation piece. We have learned much with regards to our cantaloupe. I think we may choose a different variety next year. We are loosing a very high percentage of these very fragile melons. We have started another row of Yellow Squash and Zucchini and hope to have some by the beginning of Oct. We are starting our spinach, basil and cilantro next week.

One a more personal note, it was a beautiful drive to Northern Virginia to help my oldest daughter Michelle move for her new job at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. A big thank you to my nephew Joe for his hospitality, from a parent’s perspective, it is comforting knowing that your child still has family around who can help if needed. So thanks to Joe, Lesa, Jules, Adeline, Missy, Bill, Kerry & Joe (jr) for having the insight to move to the DC area all those years ago. I have no doubt that my little girl’s new career will take off and her new employers will see her value quickly. Those who know me, know that I have never let a little geography get in the way of being with my daughters and I look forward to more trips to our nations capitol.

I also look forward to more rainy afternoons and Mia Vermillion can sing the blues for me anytime.

Role Reversal with Channel 7

I want to thank Jessica Dean and KATV for the opportunity to talk about organic farming. While I do wish that more of what I said could have been shown, I understand that television news stories have to fit within given time slots. It was a pleasure meeting Jessica and showing her the farm and talking about the value of organic foods.
You can see the story at the following link:
http://cfc.katv.com/external.cfm?p=chooseyournews&h=2000&menu=news

For over 20 years in the IT arena I have been on the side of science and it was interesting seeing me as the emotional defender when in fact there are many issues with the science the report was based on. The report from the United Kingdom was based on the evaluation of published studies over a 50 year time frame. I can say from a methodology perspective, this is bad science. The inconsistent data sets and lack of standard quality controls for collecting this data puts it in question to begin with. In fact, more recent U.S. studies that track antioxidant levels in plant based organic foods show completely different results. Keep in mind that it’s only been in the last 25 years that we even knew what an antioxidant was. Finally the study focused only on nutrient density and did not take a holistic approach. Any one who knows me, knows how I feel about making decisions based on only one piece of information, it’s not a good idea. Especially if we are talking about purchasing food!

Organic food is not just about the nutrient levels, it’s about the processes used to produce it. Organic farming is about sustainability and health. From a health perspective, not using petro-chemicals or any other synthetics in our process prevents any possibility that an accidental human error could cause an overdose to the plants or product. Recent studies have shown that plant based organics have higher levels of antioxidants and lower levels of nitrogen than there conventionally grown counterparts. The higher nitrogen levels are a real health concern. The fact is we don’t know what the long term effects of chemical fertilizers and pesticides are because they have only been in wide production for the last 40 years. From a sustainability perspective, we simply can’t continue to over fertilize and over water and hope to stay on the top of the food chain. Organic products are produced using natural fertilizers and management practices that can be sustained. Organic Farmers have to have a soil management plan that prevents fertilizer runoff and builds soil fertility. The fact that our soil gets better with use extends the life of the farm.
Certified Organic farmers are inspected by USDA certified auditors who verify our practices and test our soil. This 3rd party audit is an assurance that we are following the rules.

Here is a link to the recent report regarding higher levels of antioxidants in plant-based organic foods:
http://www.organic-center.org/reportfiles/5367_Nutrient_Content_SSR_FINAL_V2.pdf

Granted, I have a vested interest in organic foods, but the reason I chose to grow organically was because of the science, not the emotion.

Markets & Tasty Lessons

The last few weeks of selling our produce in North Little Rock and Jacksonville has rocked!
Re-Connecting with many of my former travel colleges has been a pleasant surprise. I never knew that so many of them supported local agriculture and am thankful for it. We have sold several hundred pounds of squash, zucchini, and tomatoes. Starting soon, our cantaloupe will be here. Now understand I am perfectly happy being Mr. Squash Man. I like it and it has been profitable. But, if I am not Mr. Cantaloupe Man before fall, I will surely be disappointed. Our Sweet Granite’s are starting to mature and hopefully will produce thru the fall. Look for them online at www.cafm.locallygrown.net .
Additional produce information is available at our online calendar www.northpulaskifarms.com/calendar.html .


Last week, I harvested 8 pounds of sun scaled Brandywine’s. Deciding not to sell them was difficult, Brandywines are grown for taste, not appearance and I am selling out each week. Since the scald was pretty bad and for the good of our customers, I sacrificed them and made a marinara sauce. I am not a real cook, but have been known to play one at parties, the Brandywine Tomato flavor was very rich and now I am really questioning the logic in me putting up a shade screen to prevent the scalding from happening again.



This season has started slow for us, but we are stating to find our grove and our crops are maturing.
Meeting new customers and re-connecting with former colleagues, networking with all the local growers and sharing the experience with my daughters has been priceless.


Mr. Squash Man