Growers able to sell their foods for more
Aug. 13, 2006
By JOSEPH M. DELEON News-Post Staff
jdeleon @ fredericknewspost . com
FREDERICK — When Jackie Miller enrolled in the environmental science program at Hood College, she never dreamed she would become a farmer. Living with a family of subsistence farmers in a remote part of Nicaragua while helping a professor research forest ecology changed her life.
“It really appealed to me and inspired me because it gave me the experience of actually seeing where food comes from,” she said recently at the farmers' market near Shab Row. “Suddenly, I knew what I wanted to do.”
Two years after graduating in 2001, she planted her first certified organic garden on an acre of her parents' land in Taneytown. She started a business called De la Tierra Gardens, “From the Earth,” a name influenced by her time in Central America.
While she sells individual fruits and vegetables, she also offers her customers salad and produce mixes, which she can sell for more. The garden's certified organic status also adds value to her produce.
“It's like a renaissance where people are realizing they are disconnected from their food source,” she said. “And they want to support local farmers.”
Ms. Miller is one of many small and large growers who are able to sell their foods for more by creating a product with a higher value than the raw food alone.
Traditionally, farmers relied on federal subsidies to help them get through lean years. Now, with the ability to add value to crops and sell them for more, many farmers have an additional layer of protection.
The federal farm subsidy system attempts to keep food costs down while encouraging an abundant food supply grown in the United States. Subsidies are often issued when crop prices fall below a federally mandated level so farmers don't suffer too much from low prices, according to the United States Department of Agriculture.
Robert Butz farms about 1,700 acres of soybeans and corn on Windridge Farm in Adamstown with the help of his three brothers. To a certain extent, Mr. Butz relies on federal subsidies, but he and his brothers have recently jumped on the value-added crop bandwagon.
The brothers received $572,312 in disaster and commodity subsidies from 1995 to 2004, but subsidies make up no more than 10 percent of the farm's income, he said.
Windridge Farm could not support all four brothers and their families 10 years ago. Their options were to grow more crops or sell existing produce for more money.
“You can't farm on just the subsidies alone,” Mr. Butz said.
Three years ago, the Butz brothers, among them marketing, mechanical engineering and economics experts, started growing food-grade soybeans for tofu. They sell those beans for more than the genetically modified soybeans used for animal feed.
They also add value to soybeans by roasting them and they hope to start crushing soybeans soon. Roasted and crushed soybeans are a more expensive animal feed, which Mr. Butz said has more protein than corn.
Crushing soybeans also allows farmers to extract oil for another potentially lucrative business — biodiesel production.
After half a year of planning, a grant from the Maryland Grain Producers Association and a $75,000 loan, the brothers have a plan to open a commercial-grade biodiesel refinery in Baltimore.
“You have 700 million gallons of diesel consumed in the state of Maryland every year,” Mr. Butz said. “We hope to capture a piece of that market, because nobody likes paying $3 a gallon for fuel.”
The turn to value-added crops comes, in part, because many risks in farming are beyond farmers' control, Mr. Butz said. Weather and pests are just two unpredictable factors that can affect a farmer's bottom line.
The other thing that changes every year is the price the federal government sets for each crop. The prices are set so that groceries will remain affordable to U.S. consumers.
“Imagine you went into the office and told the managers at an auto plant your costs are the same, but you're going to produce only half as many cars,” Mr. Butz said. “They'd all laugh, but that's what we contend with every year.”
Sally Voris of White Rose Farm in Carroll County applies the concept of value-added enterprise to her entire farm.
The former Baltimore Sun reporter and nonprofit grant writer tired of the fast pace and grit of the big city. Pollution aggravated her 16 year-old son's asthma, and she longed for a peaceful, pastoral place.
Two years ago, she started a community farm in Taneytown.
“It's like a swimming club, but it's a farm,” she said. “They can swing in a hammock, paint pictures, work in the garden or pick their own food.”
White Rose Farms gives people who are not accustomed to the farm life a chance to connect with the cycles of the Earth, she said.
Guests pay a yearly fee to enjoy the farm retreat and are allowed to pick as much food as they want. She said she plants about seven times more produce than she can pick.
“I've had 60-year-olds who have never picked their own corn, kids who have never dug their own carrots,” she said. “I dreamed of a place that was quiet and dark at night, and now I get to share it with people.”