 |
|
 |
|
The
Duncans host thousands of children at their educational farm,
which features exhibits about the soil and the importance of recycling
water.
|
|
Arnott
and Kathleen Duncan
Duncan Family Farms
Goodyear, Arizona
Summary of Operation
Wholesale vegetable and fruit operation on 2,000 acres, about 400 of
them certified organic
Diverse
“agri-tourism” educational and recreational opportunities
Problems Addressed
Spending time with family.
Kathleen Duncan, who had worked outside the home, became unhappy with
the time she spent away from her young sons. She and her husband, Arnott,
wanted to combine their careers—farming and education—with raising their
two sons in a family enterprise.
Public education.
“We realized that we were looking at the first generation who really
doesn’t know where their food comes from, other than the grocery store,”
Kathleen says. “People can get anything year round.” Moreover, the “good-guy”
image of farmers had taken a beating, at least in their area, Kathleen
says, primarily because of perceptions of agriculture’s heavy use of
chemicals and water.
Relations with non-farm
neighbors. With
houses in plain view of the farm, the Duncans needed to create an enterprise
that not only fit in with the suburban community, but also took advantage
of the proximity to potential customers.
Background
The couple designed Duncan Family Farms to educate children and other
visitors about food production and the environment. On their farm, located
near Phoenix in Goodyear, Ariz., they offer a yearly pumpkin festival
and myriad educational programs and tours. Through their educational
programs, the Duncans stress where food comes from, how farmers play
a vital role in the community and the importance of caring for the environment.
The Duncans demonstrate the sustainable agricultural practices they
use on their 2,000 acres of vegetables and berries.
A fourth-generation farmer, Arnott joined his brothers, Michael and
Patrick, and his father, Carl, on the family cotton farm in the early
1980s. When the Duncans decided to diversify into a wholesale vegetable
operation, Arnott headed up vegetable production. After gaining experience,
he decided to farm on his own. In 1987, he secured financing and started
Sunfresh Farms by leasing various farm parcels totaling 2,000 acres.
Over the years, after marrying Kathleen, he began to phase out cotton
to focus on vegetables until, by about 1995, all 2,000 acres were in
fruits and vegetables. They also worked to lease contiguous properties,
and today farm two square miles owned by two landowners.
About that time, Kathleen realized she was tired of sacrificing time
with her kids to drive into downtown Phoenix every day to her job as
an early education consultant. The couple also began to grow increasingly
concerned about the negative connotations surrounding farming. “There
is just a lot of misunderstanding,” Kathleen says. “Most of the farmers
we know are incredible stewards of the land.”
Focal Point of Operation
— Environmental/agricultural education
In 1992, they combined
their careers of farming and education. Their location amid suburban
neighborhoods was ideal for reaching out. They planned an ambitious
educational program, but didn’t realize how quickly it would grow. “We
never advertised, other than by word of mouth,” says Kathleen, and in
that first season, from October through June, 20,000 school children
visited Duncan Family Farms.
Their instincts behind the educational venture have been proven true.
“We hop on those buses every day and greet the kids, and ask, ‘How many
of you know where your food comes from?’ They all say, ‘The grocery
store,’” Kathleen says.
At Duncan Farm, they are able to see most of what is grown — broccoli,
red and green cabbage, red potatoes, watermelons, cantaloupes, specialty
melons, lettuces, strawberries, peaches and more, about 400 acres of
which is certified organic. When the children leave the buses, they
watch crews harvest the crops. Each child is allowed to pick and take
home a bag of that day’s crop, such as sweet corn or red potatoes.
Duncan Family Farms began to expand quickly. Reacting to demand, the
Duncans planted 25 acres in pick-your-own produce, opened a farm bakery,
offered wagon rides, created a petting zoo of donated 4-H animals, operated
a small roadside produce stand on weekends, offered parties at three
birthday barnyards and even hosted weddings.
In 1992, they opened their farm for a one-day Pumpkin Festival, complete
with bluegrass music, wagon rides, hot dogs and roasted corn. The festival
now stretches over three weekends in October, with 37,000 attending
in 1999. The 25-acre festival grounds includes wagon rides through a
giant pumpkin patch, a three-acre corn maze, a children’s activity area,
live entertainment, pumpkin-oriented refreshments, a petting zoo and
train rides. When people seemed to want more, they put on a Christmas
Festival, a spring/Easter event and a June melon harvest.
The Duncans finally had had enough in June 2000 after eight very full
seasons. “On top of everything else we have our 2,000-acre ‘real’ farm,
Sunfresh Farms. That’s our livelihood, that pays the bills,” Kathleen
says. “We felt the need to do fewer things and do them better.”
They eliminated the pick-your-own garden, the farmstand and bakery,
and all of the festivals except for the Pumpkin Festival, one of their
most popular attractions. The Duncans now concentrate on improving their
educational programs and tours.They built more interactive educational
exhibits and converted the farmstand and bakery into a bug barn, where
children learn about the roles of insects, such as bees and ladybugs,
on a farm.
A “water-wise” maze runs through an area of about 100 feet by 100 feet
and teaches children about desert areas and the importance of water.
The children run into “dead ends” where they see depictions of water
being wasted, including both agricultural and household scenes. When
the children leave the maze, they are asked to talk about each of the
times that water was wasted and what could have been done differently.
A recycling exhibit allows children to crawl through an earthworm tunnel
where they can see how office paper is shredded and put into bins for
the worms to convert into a soil amendment. The recycling message is
taken home via instructions and brochures developed to teach the children
how to make worm bins to dispose of their own paper waste.
In the summer of 2000, the earthworm tunnel exhibit was re-designed
to teach kids about soil. The exhibit now appears like a fallen tree
with a giant root ball that has been uprooted. The children climb into
the dark tunnel under the root ball. Throughout the tunnel, realistic
carvings of animals and their burrows, worms, an underground view of
plants and their roots, and a soil profile show children about soil
in very visual ways.
Economics and Profitability
Sunfresh Farms subsidized the education programs of Duncan Family
Farms in its first years. It soon became apparent that the Duncans
needed to offset some of those costs by charging for the school
bus tours. They began by charging $1 per student and gradually increased
the fee to the current $4 because of increased costs and improvements.
“We collect from 95 percent of the kids,” says Kathleen. “We will
never turn a group or a student away because they can’t pay.”
The Pumpkin Festival added a major source of funding to the educational
programs. That revenue helps run the program and even allows for
a small scholarship fund. Admission to the festival is $4 and includes
most activities.
Grant funding also has been important in establishing some of the
recent educational exhibits. A grant from the state Department of
Water Resources covered about half the cost of constructing the
water-wise maze. A grant from the Arizona State Department of Environmental
Quality (DEQ) provided some funds toward building the earthworm
tunnel.
Environmental Benefits
The Duncans hope to improve the quality of the environment through
educating children about water, soil, plants and insects, and how
they are all natural resources to be conserved and used responsibly.
The Duncans practice what they preach in the operation
of Sunfresh Farms. They use a holistic pest management approach
that includes releasing hundreds of thousands of ladybugs and other
beneficial insects each season, using ‘sticky traps’ to monitor
pest populations, growing plants that provide a desirable environment
for beneficial insects, and rotating crops.
There’s more. The farm is a release site for threatened barn owls
that have been rescued and need to be relocated. The Duncans have
established a Christmas tree re-planting program within the community,
and plant a half-mile of trees each year for windbreaks. They established
a composting program using about six truckloads of waste each day
from a local horse track that they convert into compost. They have
implemented an efficient irrigation system to recover and reuse
water that runs off into their lined ditches. They plant grain sorghum
and other “green manure” crops to reduce the need for synthetic
fertilizers.
Community and Quality
of Life Benefits
The Duncans have provided their family with the lifestyle they yearned
for: both parents working at home with their children. Arnott and
Kathleen are doing the type of work they love and their sons benefit,
not only from having their presence, but also from the exposure
to all of the educational and recreational activities.
The Duncans have invested in being good neighbors to their non-farming
community. Every year, they line the farm roads with wood chips
to minimize dust. They plant half a mile of fast-growing Elderica
pine trees every year not only to cut down on wind erosion but also
to provide a natural buffer between the farm and urban dwellers.
The Duncans wanted to find more ways to help the community and decided
that feeding the hungry fit well with their business of food production.
They helped establish the Arizona Statewide Gleaning Program that
has now donated more than five million pounds of fresh produce to
Arizona food banks.
The Duncans have been widely recognized for their community support,
receiving numerous awards for their entrepreneurship, educational
efforts and environmental stewardship.
Transition Advice
Kathleen Duncan admits that the growth of Duncan Family Farms evolved
too quickly. Instead, she would advise others to create and stick
to a business plan.
One of their abandoned enterprises, the pick-your-own garden, was
very popular with their customers, but became a financial burden
because of its unpredictability. On a given weekend, customers ranged
from 20 to 1,000. The Duncans offered up to 25 different U-pick
crops, and according to Kathleen, should have focused on one crop
with a huge draw.
“If we had to do it over again, we would specialize in one seasonal
crop,” she says.
The Future
The Duncans plan to continue creating new and exciting ways to educate
and entertain children about agriculture, with a goal of increasing
yearly attendance from 20,000 to 40,000 children.
 Profile
written by Mary Friesen
For more information:
Kathleen and Arnott Duncan
Duncan Family Farms & Sunfresh Farms
17203 West Indian School Road Goodyear, AZ 85338-9209
(623) 853-9880
www.duncanfamilyfarms.com
More profiles
from the Western region
New
American Farmer home
 Top
|
