Across this magnificent country of ours, millions of farmers are doing their best to make a living at what they love most. Sadly though the distance between the ends that must meet in order to survive has been expanding. Reason being...too many of us are trying to do it all by ourselves.
The solution may very well be in the formation of groups such as The Stewards of The Land. located in Fairbury, Illinois. http://www.thestewardsoftheland.com/index.htm Founded years ago by Marty Travis and his wife Kris, the group's main focus was in their own words
To create, maintain, and support the family farm, to help them become and remain sustainable and profitable, and to provide the same opportunity for future generations.
To provide fresh, healthy, chemical-free foods of the highest quality - directly to the tables of those who have a deep sense of appreciation for the connection to the land. We are committed to a sustainable future for our families, our land and our communities.
The group's first membership consisted of just 3 farmers and they sold their wares that first year to one local grocery store. Over the last decade the group has grown to 25 farm families who last year sold 1.2 MILLION dollars worth of fresh produce, meat, flour and grain to 130 restaurants in the Chicago area, an active summer farmers market as well as the one original local grocery store.
But the 1.2 million sold is only part of what is amazing about this group. In order to set and reach such lofty goals you need hard working folks with hoes and shovels bigger than their own egos. Folks who are mutually committed to raising good food and then making it easily available and affordable to a multitude of chefs in a very large urban jungle. Chefs who in the past were restricted to buying generic food from the large conglomerates, meaning that much of the food served had traveled on average 1500 miles before being presented in your favorite dining establishment.
But when the founding members contacted a few chefs years ago they were delighted to discover that the chefs craved decent food to serve as much as the farmers wanted to grow honest chemical free food and history was made. At this moment the entire group is ramping up (literally as one farm grows hundreds of pounds of ramps every year to meet the chefs needs) for the spring growing season.
Chefs are included in this planning and given a "wish book" containing seed catalogs where they can choose the variety of vegetables they desire. From there the group will discuss which farm will be growing which item on that wish list. Once the vegetables are ready for the season to begin, a list of items available is faxed to 130 restaurants every Friday. The chefs respond by Sunday, the farm members are notified and frantic picking and packing occurs on Monday and Tuesday. From a 50 mile radius farmers then migrate to Spence Farm where all the produce is accounted for, tagged,packed, invoiced and placed in a large cooler overnight.
The next morning, Wednesday of each week, a large Van is crammed to the ceiling with boxes of freshly picked tomatoes, cucumbers, corn etc...and the groups two founders, now turned advisory board members, drive to Chicago and personally deliver the restaurants extremely tasty produce to their back door.
It's an exhausting process for all the farmers involved of which we are one, but so worth the benefits returned. Relationships have been built between farmers and chefs and their families which have lasted for years. Farm children have learned how to take a garden from seed to plant to fair market price. Chefs have left the security of their businesses, traveled to our farms and learned first hand the effort it takes to grow and harvest wheat which is made into the flour from which they make tortillas for their cafe. The learning curve has been immense for all parties.
In our group many of our members must work with limited time, acreage and resources. Several have young families and off the farm jobs. On their own it would have been nearly impossible to accomplish all that has been mastered as a group, a farmer run group which is proud to be known as The Stewards of The Land.
