A Fresh Advantage
Co-op helps small farms market
produce to high-end restaurants
By Pamela J. Karg
Editor’s note: Karg is a Baraboo, Wis.-
based communicator who specializes in
agriculture and cooperatives. She also
serves as the Sauk County volunteer citizen
on the Southwest Badger Resource
Conservation & Development Council.
hile on a business trip
for her off-farm job,
Laurie Moore was
reading an airline magazine
when she came
upon a restaurant review of an eating
establishment back home. When she
returned home to Woodland, Ala.,
Moore stopped to see the chef and talk
some business. The meeting was the
start of a business relationship that
allows Moore and her husband, Will,
to sell fresh farm produce directly to
high-end restaurants, where chefs are
committed to “slow foods” cooked
from scratch with the freshest, locally
grown ingredients.
In fact, the Moores grew their business
to the point where Laurie quit her
off-farm job to work full-time on the
sixth-generation, 65-acre farm and cattle
operation that has three acres planted
to produce. By 2003, their income
had reached about $10,000 per acre for
that portion of the farm planted to
serve the specialty produce marketplace.
Production did not keep up with
demand, however. That’s when they
decided to form a cooperative —
Farmer’s Fresh Food Network — to
help small Alabama and Georgia farmers
tap into this growing, niche-marketing
trend.
Co-op spreads benefits
Proprietary businesses have their
advantages: no board; no bylaws. A
person can see a need and respond
quickly. Owners can retain earnings.
There are many other reasons the
Moores could have kept the business
for themselves.
“We’ve thought about the decision to form a cooperative
many times while developing bylaws, electing a board and
so on,” she says. “There are times when another [business]
option would have been personally easier for us. But I
think the cooperative was the right way to go because it
will benefit local farmers. What we’ve
gone through so far are just the initial
steps of putting everything together,
but once we’re through that, we think
it will prove to be a good move,” she
adds.
The Network is just one example of
farmer cooperatives forming across
America to meet the needs of small
farmers who want to serve specific market
niches. In fact, the Network itself
grew out of several local initiatives
specifically started to help the area’s
smaller farmers deliver their goods to
unique marketplaces.
Marketing bolsters
farmland preservation
In a region where agriculture is experiencing
pressure from urban encroachment,
higher property taxes and limited
marketing opportunities, there is a
trend of farmland loss, says Cindy
Haygood, executive director of Rolling
Hills Resource Conservation and Development
Council, which operates under USDA’s Natural
Resources Conservation Service. Farmers in
the area, especially those with small operations,
say they want to keep farming.
This trend resulted in the creation of a
locally led farmland preservation effort. It has
made great strides in preserving farms and educating
people on the importance of farmland
preservation.
“But once you preserve farmland, then
what?” asks Haygood. “The group decided it
also needed to create marketing opportunities
for local producers.”
That’s when they created Cotton Mill
Farmer’s Market, in Carrollton, Ga., which
today attracts hundreds of customers. With its
success came more discussions and brainstorming
ideas that led to the Moores cooperating
with other producers to create the
Network to serve their growing list of Atlantabased
chefs.
Through the Network, farmers pool products
to market to restaurants, as well as educational
and medical institutions. Farms eligible to
participate in the cooperative are located in and
around the Carroll County region, including
some counties just over the state line in Alabama.
Moore says the farmers involved tend to have between
three and five acres of produce crops in production. The
goal of the Network is to “keep it local,” she adds.
‘Smart farms’
Moore describes these
small farms as ‘smart
farms,’ and says they are
being operated by a new breed of
farmer. “We use technology that will
allow us to make a living from the
land, even when we get to be 70 and
older, without killing ourselves. On
our farm, for example, we literally have
no tractor. We use a mulch composting
system and have a very low impact
on the environment. That’s how many
of these farms are operating.”
Moore says members are reducing
their household living cost and simplifying
their lives. “We believe you cannot
just look at the land and the soil as
what it can do for you today without
putting anything back into it
for the future. So our overriding
goal with the Network
is to allow small, sustainable
farms to make a living by
supplying the community
with quality products.”
The farmers trade food to
feed their families. In addition,
they’re working with
human services departments
to allow low-income families
and the elderly to use existing
food stamp vouchers to purchase
fresh fruits and vegetables
through the farmers’
market or Network.
The Moores have also
joined the Pepper Place
Saturday Market in
Birmingham, Ala., a farmer’s
market which attracts up to
3,000 people weekly. That
gives Laurie 200 to 300 additional
customers per week.
Through the Network, the
Moores and other cooperative
members also continue to
participate in the Piedmont
Park Greenmarket in Atlanta.
USDA, other funds
bolster co-op
In early 2004, the Rolling
Hills RC&D acquired a
$2,500 grant from the West Georgia
Community Foundation to get the
Network started. In the fall of 2004,
Rolling Hills acquired a $105,000
grant from USDA’s Community
Foods Grant Program. The funding
helped meet start-up needs for the
Network for the first three years.
Purchases included a refrigerated
truck, walk-in coolers, a commercialgrade
salad spinner and other equipment.
The RC&D Council administers
the funds for the Network. In addition,
the Network uses the services of the
University of Georgia’s Center for
Agribusiness and Economic
Development to provide board training
to its directors.
Combined with the increasing number
of farmers’ markets in
the area, along with trading
between producers,
the Network has added a
community-supported
agriculture (CSA) component
to the mix to allow
some producers to extend
their seasons. Under the
CSA arrangement, customers
buy subscriptions
in the farms for fall or
winter; subscribers share
in the bounty as crops are
harvested.
Moore says the
Network has also attracted
a few farmers with pasture-
fed beef, eggs and
greenhouse operations.
These allow the Network
to market a greater variety
of products for a
longer timeframe
throughout the year.
In its first year of
operation, the Network
marketed some $30,000
in products. As the newly
hired project manager for
the Network, Moore
anticipates that figure
will grow to $100,000
this year.
