Tectonic shifts in the big picture of local, organic agriculture
Greetings CSA Members!
This is a very dynamic time here at FF, for reasons I will discuss in this newsletter and next week’s. There is much good news in all that follows, particularly from the point of view of the CSA program. But there are also tectonic shifts in the big picture of local, organic agriculture, which have caused me to reconsider some of my fundamental, decades’ old assumptions about what we do at Featherstone Farm, and why. The next two newsletters will be my introduction to these assumptions and shifts, and what they mean for the CSA program moving forward.
First, a note about the flour that some of you will be receiving in your box. We have grown hard red winter wheat for the past two seasons at FF, largely as an experiment in soil health and weed and plant disease suppression (2 season’s results are very encouraging!). But we have had to rely on others to harvest the grain (custom combine) and to clean, store and mill it.
Up to now, the flour you have received in your boxes has been milled and bagged at Meadowlark Organic Mill in Ridgeway Wisconsin. Meadowlark blends our hard wheat with other varieties (certified OG soft spring wheat from other WI growers) to produce an “all purpose” flour that works for multiple types of baking. Many of you have grown used to the particular baking characteristics of this flour.
But in our search for the very best milling relationship we can find in our area, we are also experimenting another relationship, this one with Great River Milling (much closer to FF, in Galesville WI). The flour in this week’s box will be the first of the Great River batch. It’s the same hard red winter grain from FF, but only our wheat. There is no soft wheat blended in, as with the Meadowlark blend you have received for the past 18 months. The nutritional profile of this wheat still falls within the UDSA’s definition of “all purpose” (and the bag label will say this). But please be advised that the flour itself will have slightly different baking characteristics, that you may notice.
We are very interested in your feedback about which you prefer, and why! As I wrote above, wheat flour (and potentially other small grains?) are an important part of our overall farm rotation. But they may also be a more important part of our CSA program in the future (see below). It will help us make good decisions in the future, if we understand just what you like to see in your box!
This is a good segue into the big picture strategic/ paradigm shift that we are contemplating this winter at Featherstone Farm. I will lay out the wide range of issues that this encompasses, briefly in this newsletter. Then write in more detail about some of the specific points next week.
Broadly speaking, all small and medium scale growers in the upper Midwest are facing a number of “industry headwinds” from inflation (costs of supplies and labor up double digits year on year) to competition from truly huge, deep pocketed competition (from Merced CA to Morris MN). Organic produce has “gone mainstream” and is available at low cost everywhere from Wal Mart to Aldi. Featherstone Farm’s 20+ year wholesale business with food co-ops and Whole Foods Markets throughout the upper Midwest has taken a big hit, no doubt about it.
I would never say that what we do at FF is so pure or so superior to other farm produce, that it automatically deserves a higher price than the competition at all times. None of us at FF wear halos around our heads! But we do have to pay the bills, and that means adjusting to these headwinds and adapting our farm strategy for the second 25 years moving forward.
The six members of the great farm leadership team at FF- Business Director Todd Bram, Operations Manager Nathan Manful, Field Production Co-ordinator Abby Benson, Warehouse Co-ordinator James Mabry, CSA and Wholesale Co-ordinator Patty Zansky Fisher and Financial Co-ordinator Tanya Betthauser- have all been on the job 7-10 years, and are well acquainted with all the challenges. We have been meeting since early winter to discuss ways of meeting them in the coming months and years. Here are a few of the ideas we have floated, and which I will write about more in the next newsletter:
Double down on improvements to the current CSA program, and add spring boxes as a pilot. A return to more diversity in what we grow for summer share boxes. More communication about box contents, particularly from me directly (a new hard copy “Jack’s Kitchen Journal” in boxes starting early summer?). Perhaps construction of a third large high tunnel, to produce crops for CSA boxes spring, fall and winter.
Experiment with additional value added processing for surplus vegetable crops (carrot juice? Cubed or puréed butternut squash? Even frozen pesto??). Perhaps even putting in a commercial, food safety certified kitchen on the farm at some point, producing new “crops” for CSA boxes.
Secure the farm’s future access to cropland by purchasing acres that we currently rent, that are zoned for commercial development. This might or might not involve putting a perpetual agricultural/ working lands easement on the fields in question, to protect them from development.
Make timely investments in farm employees beyond this year’s 12.8% across the board wage increases; everything from traditional benefits (retirement savings, healthcare?) to farm-sponsored applications for permanent resident alien status for key, long term employees from Mexico (pivot from temporary, guest worker visas to green cards…). Even sweat / new equity options for leadership team members. Much is on the table…
As I wrote to start this newsletter, it’s a very dynamic time this winter at FF. I am putting assumptions and strategies back on the table for discussion, some that go back to the very origins of the farm in 1994 (example: Featherstone will always be a farm and a farm only… not a “food service company”). And as I wrote above, I will be filling in details about some of these new ideas and directions, starting with next week’s newsletter.
Until then and as always, THANK YOU for your interest and support.
Featherstone Farm would not be here today without you!
Gratefully, Jack