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From farm to table: Organics take root
| Friday, Jul 11 2008 8:32 PM
Last Updated: Monday, Jul 14 2008 8:51 AM
Every Saturday morning a semi truck rolls to a stop next to the In-N-Out Burger on Stockdale Highway and hundreds of boxes of organic fruit and produce are stacked in the parking lot.
Last weekend the small Abundant Harvest Organics box included 10 organic items.
Total: $19.80
Compared to the nonorganic produce at a local grocery store, the box came out on top (grocery store prices in parentheses):
Peaches 2, ($2.50)
Red plums 6, ($3.75)
Cantaloupe, ($2.99)
Corn, 6 ears, ($3)
Carrots, 4, ($0.79)
Red leaf lettuce, ($1.79)
Basil, ($3.29)
Green peppers, 6, ($1.50)
Eggplant, 1, ($0.75)
Onions, 2 ($0.99)
Total: ($21.35)
www.abundantharvestorganics.com
Subscriptions, big box: $33.80; small box: $19.80 per week
Photos:
Emily Hall helps unload a truck as part of the Abundant Harvest Organics produce operation where customers come every Saturday and pick up their fresh produce.
A customer picks up a box of fresh produce from the back of the Abundant Harvest Organics truck in the parking lot of Sports Chalet on Stockdale Highway.
Customers line up to pick up their weekly produce supply.
Customers lined up for their produce. Abundant Harvest Organics operates a subscription-based program where customers pick up a box of fresh produce on Saturdays.
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There’s a flurry of activity as people arrive to pick up their pre-ordered boxes that might include fresh peaches, dill, spinach, cherries, potatoes or tomatoes — whatever is in season at the time.
It’s an incongruous sight: organic produce plopped down in the middle of a vast parking lot next to a fast food restaurant. But no one seems to mind. An hour later the truck pulls out, and all but a few of the boxes are claimed. The extras will go to charity.
This is the Abundant Harvest Organics model, one that cuts out the middleman and delivers fresh-picked produce direct from farmer to customer, sometimes via a parking lot.
Mirroring consumer interest in locally grown, fresh food, Abundant Harvest Organics has grown from 50 delivery boxes per week to more than 1,000 in just more than 10 months. Boxes are packed, then delivered to 20 cities between Tulare and Simi Valley.
Organic reckoning came to Vernon Peterson six years ago.
The man behind Abundant Harvest, Peterson has always worked the 150-acre chicken and stone fruit farm that his Swedish great-grandfather established in Kingsburg in 1892.
But the year came when Peterson knew the competition had grown too steep; the family farm wasn’t going to make it much longer by growing the conventional, or nonorganic, peaches, plums and nectarines it had been turning out for decades.
So Peterson made the switch.
Converting to organic is a three-year process, but the bigger hurdle is finding a niche market to sell the organic products.
“The organic market, for all the hype, is incredibly small,” Peterson said as he walked a 12-acre patch of organic Zee Fire nectarines on a recent morning.
“If I produce it … and I don’t have a way to market it for a significant premium, I’m not going to be here long,” Peterson said.
When big wholesale buyers push low prices on small growers, family farms often look for alternative methods to sell their products. Farmer’s markets and subscription services, also referred to as community supported agriculture, are common avenues to diversify beyond the wholesale market.
SMALL FARM HURDLES
Shermain Hardesty, director of the small farm program at the University of California, Davis, ticked off the hurdles small farms face selling products.
Marketing, developing a customer base, offering a steady variety of products in the box, and coming at the venture with a customer service mentality are important elements, Hardesty said.
“There’s growing interest in local foods. So he’s taking advantage of the locally produced, and the identity about who’s produced what in the box,” Hardesty said.
While the national food market was only 2.5 percent organic in 2005 according to the Organic Trade Association, the tide is shifting.
Organic sales in California are growing at double-digit rates without an increase in the number of growers, according to a recent study, “Riding the Organic Wave,” by the University of California, Davis’ Karen Klonsky.
A couple of miles down the road from the Peterson farm, Kyle and Michele Reynolds are looking to join the shifting tide. They grow dozens of crops, from green pepper plants to avocado trees on their 38-acre farm. For 11 years they’ve sold produce at farmer’s markets, and a self-serve, weigh-and-pay stand at the edge of the farm.
But with gentle prodding from Peterson, they’ve made the decision to go organic. With the paperwork filed, they plan to contribute to the all-organic Abundant Harvest boxes.
“It gives us a guaranteed home at a fair price, so we can grow more crops, and count on some income coming back so we can invest back into our people and the farm,” said Kyle Reynolds.
Giving family farms a guaranteed home for their products is a key part of Peterson’s model. Peterson talks about creating a win-win system where, “farmers can do what they do best — farm,” and consumers get great produce.
Local farmers are talking, Reynolds said.
“I think Vernon’s created quite a stir. It’s different, and I see growers jumping on board, and I see growers that think he’s crazy,” he said.
A few miles away in Reedley, Ginger Balakian’s family has grown heirloom tomatoes, squash, grapes and pomegranates since 1939. She was one of the first farmers Peterson contacted when he began looking for organic sources. He wanted her heirloom tomatoes for the boxes.
Balakian said she sells as many of her tomatoes and squash as she can to Whole Foods, a major organic buyer. But when Whole Foods says no more, she sends pallets of squash for the Abundant Harvest boxes.
“I really believe in what he’s doing. It benefits the farmer and the customer. There’s such a difference from what’s in the store and what’s picked the day before,” Balakian said.
LONG VISION
A deeply spiritual man quick with a joke and a smile, Peterson lost his calm in the nectarine patch when conversation shifted from organic farming techniques to economics.
Stomping his work boot and spitting his words, Peterson described small organic farmers struggling to survive in a marketplace that rewards size and volume over almost all else.
Abundant Harvest is Peterson’s stab at leveling the playing field for family farms.
So far the farmers he’s talked to have been an easy sell. They like the idea of reconnecting with consumers.
Consumers like Sam Herbert, a subscriber for several months, appreciate organic food that comes from the United States, as opposed to overseas.
And subscriber Bruce Cook likes the idea he’s supporting local farmers, and eating food picked at its ripest.
As he took a bite from a Zee Fire nectarine, Peterson wondered aloud how, given a choice, anyone would choose to eat a fungicide-treated piece of fruit over an organic nectarine with more nutritional value and taste.
“We’re giving them fresh organic for what they’re paying for not-so-fresh conventional,” Peterson said.