By Lauren Cox 

Lauren Cox is the Director of Farmer Providers at Georgia Organics 

On February 26, 2024, Georgia Organics and the Georgia ACRE Collective hosted a Farmer Area Day at Love is Love Cooperative Farm in Mansfield, GA, in partnership with The Widespread Market Southeast and The Conservation Fund. The occasion targeted on post-harvest processing, meals security, and scaling for wholesale markets. Attendees toured the farm to see harvest, wash, and pack processes designed for diversified income streams. Rahul Anand of Snapfinger Farm shared environment friendly post-harvest practices and Invoice Inexperienced (Widespread Market Southeast) supplied key insights on meals security and necessities for promoting to establishments like faculties and hospitals. 

Love is Love Farm Enterprise Set Up 

Love is Love Cooperative Farm was the right backdrop for a farmer area day targeted on wholesale markets given the farm’s distinctive construction and development because it transitioned to a employee/proprietor cooperative mannequin in 2021. Previous to 2021, Joe Reynolds ran Love is Love Farm on a farm website in East Lake Commons (Gaia Gardens) with a reasonably small footprint (5ish acres) catering to a religious 160 member CSA and a handful of native eating places. Now, sitting on 70 acres in Mansfield, GA, with 4 further house owners in Judith Winfrey, Demetrius Milling, Monica Ponce, and Russell Hondard, the farm identification in its latest iteration is concentrated on wholesale and bigger numbers of retail clients.

It was necessary from the beginning for the group to have recognized their markets, or not less than the markets they needed to entry, and their marketing strategy mirrored that. The mannequin was based mostly on splitting 50% of gross sales on diversified crops going direct to customers with the opposite 50% going to giant crops in wholesale markets. With 6 acres in manufacturing, 6 excessive tunnels, and $6,000 in greenhouse house, there was loads of room to develop each markets. The most important issues concerned establishing the farm structure and methods to help each their new wholesale and bigger retail markets.

As a cooperative farm (and C-corp) there’s equal possession of the farm with 1 member getting 1 vote on any choice that must be made utilizing a consensus mannequin. Though this implies issues moved slower, the profit has been getting collective buy-in and fast motion after collective choices are made.

The house owners even have weekly enterprise conferences and are technically the board of the enterprise. Joe Reynolds and Demetrius Milling handle all of the fieldwork whereas Russell Honderd heads up the wash/pack space and Monica Ponce handles flowers and all issues “greenhouse”. Judith Winfrey handles communications, gross sales, and advertising together with grant administration as wanted.  

Trying again on beginning up the farm in its present iteration, one of many proprietor’s commented, “There was what we “needed to do” versus “what we did” however all in all, we just about knew what the plan was.” Joe Reynolds

Accessing Land, Targeted on Rising 

Accessing land is usually the largest problem for farmers seeking to scale up, and it was the identical for Love is Love previous to 2021. Enter the Working Farms Fund, a program inside the Conservation Fund that secures farmland on the sting of main metro areas and matches it to farmers who lease, steward, after which ultimately purchase the land from the Working Farms Fund as soon as it’s below an agricultural conservation easement. Principally, this system works to create a lease to personal contract coupled with placing land right into a conservation easement that drops the market worth by 50% thereby making it accessible to farmers for buy. The Love is Love crew linked with The Working Farms Fund and have been capable of finance the acquisition of the farm by means of this program like 10 different farmers in Georgia who additionally leased to personal below this system. Krisztian Varsa, Director of the Working Farms Fund recommends farmers join with Potlikker Capital and Foodshed Capital, each organizations that assist finance land in addition to enterprise purchases for farms seeking to scale up. 

Numerous rising house throughout the farm permits for rising issues for various clients. This varies throughout fruits, greens, perennial, and annual crops in addition to harvest durations. 

Contemplating Wholesale Markets 

All through the Farmer Area Day and farm tour, the audio system weaved in issues and ideas about scaling up. A type of themes was that wholesaling can embody lots. Typically even packaging for retail is concerned (for instance, if a product is offered to a grocery retailer whose final buyer is a retail buyer, a farm would promote one thing at wholesale price however be required to bundle the product for retail). Wholesale markets additionally embody eating halls and establishments like hospitals and faculties. Invoice Inexperienced, from Widespread Market Southeast, instructed attendees on the Farmer Area Day that he sees a development in “commitments” to buying domestically and values-based procurement. “Wholesale clients need what each different buyer desires”, Invoice defined, “high quality, consistency, dependability, and a very good value however they’re additionally transferring in the direction of spending cash that align with their values” He additionally talked about that GAP certification is usually required when supplying meals for weak populations like kids or seniors however stated that farmers ought to determine first in the event that they wish to break into wholesale earlier than getting GAP licensed.  

Area Area Allocation and Environment friendly Implements 

One other matter coated throughout the Area Day was farm structure, which is tantamount to a well-functioning and environment friendly farm system. With wholesale buying in thoughts and the rising scale it requires, the house owners of Love is Love envisioned from the onset a extremely mechanized operation. That meant much less passes with a tractor or on foot, season extension infrastructure like excessive tunnels, and planting produce that requires minimal processing like storage crops that could possibly be offered in bulk throughout the slower winter months. The excessive tunnels maintain herbs, minimize flowers, Asian combine, and early spring stuff. The open fields are the place the bigger primary season crops develop, together with brassicas (cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, and so forth) and issues which might be extremely fascinating in retail (like tomatoes).  

As present because the Farmer Area Day, Love is Love remains to be beta testing which crops work finest for wholesale markets as they proceed to navigate a yearly footprint enlargement and placing extra acreage into manufacturing. In that sense, they count on their crop rotation to shift a bit yearly based mostly on what works, what sells, and the way a lot land they’re rising on. Living proof, in 2021 they began on 2 acres which elevated to six acres in 2022 then in 2023 moved as much as 6 acres in manufacturing at their primary website and a couple of acres on different properties close to the farm.  

Figs, asparagus, muscadines, and berries have been included into the areas for perennial manufacturing. These add worth to their CSA shares and fill a distinct segment marketplace for smaller restaurant clients however aren’t for his or her wholesale clients. To develop this stuff for wholesale, Love is Love must put money into extremely specialised tools. As a substitute, they determined to put money into different environment friendly on-farm tools like a no-till seed drill, a water wheel transplanter, and a small tractor used for mechanized cultivation. At present, Love is Love now grows 60% for CSA markets (400 households throughout the primary season), 20% wholesale (or pallet-scale) to Contemporary Harvest and Widespread Market, and the remaining goes to eating places.  

Rahul Anand, from Snapfinger Farm, talked about that the power to challenge yields is essential for wholesaling, particularly since many wholesale buyer accounts are based mostly on contracts for the season. He beneficial eager about and discussing the pack measurement, bunch depend, pricing, and # of weeks of availability with the wholesale buyer earlier than you even put one thing within the floor. It goes with out saying, this additionally signifies that you must take into account what you need your workforce to appear to be and take into consideration the rhythm of the season because it pertains to the labor wanted to get a product from door to door. Instance: having a contract for 200lbs. of tomatoes each week for 2 months in the summertime means you’re obligated to have the labor pressure to select and ship every week.  

What different gadgets do you could ship, and is there sufficient room in your supply car, or will it’s important to take one other journey?  

Is there anything that you possibly can fill the van with for that very same buyer, saving you a visit and making extra gross sales?  

Asking your self issues like that may assist shore up potential positive factors within the area together with inefficiency as soon as issues are harvested. Invoice Inexperienced from Widespread Market Southeast recommends all the time being slightly conservative together with your estimates till you get a very good deal with on manufacturing.

Wholesale Concerns as It Pertains to Farm Methods 

A lot of the cash spent at Love is Love goes to labor and packaging. As a result of packaging and the prices related to it are arduous to regulate or change, labor then turns into the focus of reducing prices. The primary strategy to minimize labor, all of the Love is Love house owners agreed, was in diminished “touches” and lowering “steps” or “passes” between getting a plant harvested, out of the sector, packaged, and right into a cooler. Fascinated by placing wheels on every part you’ll be able to saves your again but additionally strikes issues alongside faster and its not essential to have an enormous processing facility, only one that’s environment friendly and has good ‘stream’.

Attendees have been reminded that they need to be considerably versatile across the processing course of for gadgets that come into the wash-pack constructing, particularly in the event that they’re straddling each a wholesale and retail market. Love is Love labored with the College of Vermont Extension workplace to construct their wash-pack constructing aimed toward sustaining a clear and environment friendly house. The walk-in cooler door measurement was an enormous consideration since letting chilly air out is vitality inefficient however with the ability to put pallets by means of a door saves plenty of time for wholesale post-harvest dealing with. Utilizing a Coolbot system and going to a used cooler seller in Cartersville, GA helped save on the preliminary arrange. In addition they invested $16,000 in an AZS Rinse Conveyer which looks like some huge cash but it surely has the power to scrub bins along with root greens and different hearty produce that must be washed. The post-harvest gadgets which have been probably the most time saving are:  

• Velocity Queen, augmented garments washer (for salad and loose-leaf greens) 

• AZS Rinse Conveyer (for roots and bins) 

• Barrel Washer (for topped root greens)  

• Wheels on tables and putting bins on carts that may roll instantly into the cooler 

Rahul Anand, from Snapfinger Farm, additionally spoke about his wholesale packing home. Snapfinger Farm has gone full-on wholesale bringing pallets into the sector carried by tractors and packing gadgets like bunched collards and kale and heads of cabbage instantly into containers and driving them into the coolers. “There are some issues that really don’t must be washed for wholesale”, Rahul notes. Rahul prompt doing what he did to supply his bigger walk-in coolers…. wanting on-line to see if any grocery shops have been closing down. He purchased his coolers from a Kroger that was going out of enterprise however makes use of a Coolbot, like Love is Love, to chill the house.  

The place to Begin 

All of the audio system for the sector day shared recommendation on breaking into wholesale. Joe Reynolds prompt speaking to people you wish to promote to first and step by step constructing the connection. Rahul emphasised the necessity for plans. “Have them! And discover capital since you’ll have to depend on scaling sooner or later to fulfill the demand. Additionally determine on the horizon time for the place you ‘wish to be’.” Krisztian Varsa emphasised the necessity to funds and preserve good data regardless of how huge or small your farm is. Monetary data are equally necessary within the combine. And Invoice Inexperienced seconded Joe’s recommendation including that wholesale markets aren’t for everybody however that there’s a market of individuals on the market shopping for wholesale which might be prepared and dedicated to supporting native farms if a farmer is severely excited about going into wholesale.  

This area day was a part of the Farmer Providers 2024 Winter Farmer Collection. This collection was created to make sure that farmers have been nonetheless capable of entry precious assets and persevering with schooling alternatives throughout the slower winter season in lieu of a 2024 Georgia Organics convention. 

Thanks to Love is Love Cooperative Farm to your hospitality, insights, and precious time on this superior area day! 

To be taught extra about Love is Love Cooperative Farm, go to https://www.loveislovefarm.com/

To be taught extra about The Widespread Market Southeast, go to https://www.thecommonmarket.org/areas/the-common-market-georgia

To be taught extra about The Working Farms Fund, go to https://www.conservationfund.org/focus-areas/working-lands/working-farms/

To be taught extra about Georgia Organics go to georgiaorganics.org or observe us on Fb, Instagram, X, LinkedIn, and YouTube.   

To be taught extra about our Georgia Organics Farmer Providers programming, take a look at our web site farmerservices.georgiaorganics.org.  

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This work is supported by the BFRD program from the USDA Nationwide Institute of Meals and Agriculture and the ACRE Collective. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or suggestions expressed on this publication are these of the creator(s) and don’t essentially mirror the view of the U.S. Division of Agriculture