As we make our greetings and apologies, the coffee break ends and class resumes. It’s a marvel to behold: Some twenty students, residents from around the Wisconsin-Illinois Stateline, sit at a rectangle U of tables that open onto another table lined with three farmers and three end-user businesses. They are sharing their marketing and distribution strategies for the organic market. There’s a ten-speed hanging from one of the rafters, a wood stove to the back of the room, a work table adorned with necessary and unnecessary items, and a kitchenette. And then there’s this candid wish that fills the room: To learn about local, organic farming.

The class is part of Stateline Farm Beginnings™, an adaptation from a curriculum by the Land Stewardship Program that has grown out of CRAFT and Angelic Organics Learning Center, the non-profit arm of Angelic Organics (renowned for its real dirt farmer, John Peterson). The Beginnings curriculum is an educational training and support program designed to help people plan and begin sustainable farm practices. In its second year, this year’s program runs from October 2006 to October 2007 and is comprised of monthly strategic business planning classes and field day workshops. After March 2007, participants will pair up with mentor farmers to become either summer interns, employees, or recipients of one-on-one technical assistance for their own new farms.

Ask Your Farmer

The Coordinator, Parker Forsell, moderates class discussion by asking the panelists questions. With the farmers, he wants to know what has made their marketing plans successful, what they learned not to do in marketing, what has been the biggest challenge in running their business, and what advice they have for the students who will  be beginning their own farming businesses. The farm panelists are: Tracey Hall from Grace Note Farm in Whitewater, WI, a Farm Beginnings graduate that’s now a year-old farm specializing in goat milk soap; Jody Osmund from Cedar Valley Sustainable Farm in Ottawa, IL, a thirty acre, third-generation farm that is now being converted wholly into a sustainable farm practicing organic methods; and Noah Engle from Driftless Organics in Soldiers Grove, WI, a potato farm that grew, with his and his brothers budding ambitions, to include a wide number of sustainably grown, high-quality crops. All their answers are down to earth and practical, such as, know your unit cost and accept nothing less for its sell, be passionate about your product and its story and it will sell itself, pace yourself—pay attention to your physical and time limits.

Parker also alternates questions to the organic farmers with questions to the businesses that worked directly with farmers. Our General Manager, Warren King, and our Produce Buyer, Ben Perkins, answered Parker’s questions about the challenges we’ve experienced in working with farmers, the advice we have for farmers who want to work in a market like ours, and the opportunities we see for farmers in that. Also in attendance to answer these questions was Sunday Dinner Chicago chef, Christine Cikowski, whose background work specializes in local food and whose dinner club promotes a communal dining experience that focuses on seasonal, sustainable ingredients; and Irv Cernauskas of Irv & Shelly’s Fresh Picks, an organic and local food home delivery service based out of Niles, IL; Irv offered practical advice about working in a market like his that combines wholesale and direct marketing ideas. The answers from these panelists prove to be widespread, but they unanimously agree that current supply doesn’t meet demand, so anything’s possible; keep your product consistent and efficiently harvested, stored, and transported so its shelf life and quality creates a following; get out there, get online, let people know you’re out there.

Rollcall

For a three hour evening class, the students are attentive to the end, and it’s contagious. To find out bits of their stories is even more inspiring. David Zarante currently works as a book publisher but is renting land to develop a new chicken processing plant he recently heard about; he found out about Stateline Farm Beginnings™ from Rock Valley College and thought the class would be key. Susan Joseph is a family physician who, with her husband George, looks forward to a different lifestyle; their kids are leaving home and it’d be like, “A retirement…yeah right,” she says, chuckling, ”It’s more like a career change for us, a long-anticipated one.” Jenny Borchardt is from Chicago and currently works as a textbook publisher; her current work is with the Midwest Organic Farmers Cooperative. She hopes to advance the coop with the strategies she’s learning through the program and get products into Chicago through a CSA.

And the hosts whose ten-speed hangs high above us, Don and Tresea Larson, moved to this spot two years ago. Their chickens and eggs they’ve had for one year. The reason for chickens? “I didn’t want to fertilize all this land, grow grass, and have to mow it,” says Don with a smile, “So why not set chickens to graze it? The more I learned about how to do it, the more it seemed possible.” Don’s a reed-instrument musician, teaching classes at a local community college, and his wife Tresea is a nurse. “What I really want to do is have a garden—just last summer my small plot of land grew plum tomatoes that ended up in a fancy Chicago restaurant,” he says, flipping up his collar with jolly finesse, “I think that’s so cool. That’s what I really want to do and maybe one day my wife won’t have to work.” Tresea bats her eyes and smiles.

Of course, I couldn’t go home without some of these eggs, especially when chef Christine voices her praise with an absolute, “They are the BEST eggs.” All I have is a ten dollar bill to pay for a large dozen priced at three dollars. When Don doesn’t have small enough change, I decide to buy another. “Now that’s a good marketing strategy,” Ben jokes, “Don’t have enough change so they have to buy more.” Don chuckles at the coincidence and jokes in return, “Well, I guess I really did learn something from tonight.” Thankfully, it’s just that easy, to learn something new.

Mercedee Renz, Goodness Greeness