Tim B. Slepicka is among the farmers
learning more about growing fruits and vegetables.
Nathan Weber for
The New York Times
John D. Jackson lives in the heart of the Corn Belt, where most
of the corn has nothing to do with sweet kernels on the cob. His
farm in Southern Illinois typically grows field corn, the
high-starch variety that is turned into ethanol and cattle feed.
He also works as a logistics manager for
Archer Daniels Midland, the agricultural giant that produces
the other big artifact of this crop: high fructose corn syrup.
But on 10 of his 700 acres, Mr. Jackson broke from this culture
of corn last fall by planting something people can sink their
teeth into. With a tractor and an auger, he drilled four-foot
holes in his soil, added fertilizer and put in 48 apple trees
bearing Gold Rush, Jonagold, Enterprise and the sweet-tart
blushing globe called the Crimson Crisp. This year he plans to
add more apple trees, blackberry bushes and possibly some
vegetables.
Mr. Jackson is part of a small but eager cadre of corn farmers
who are starting to switch sides, as it were, lured by a
little-appreciated fact of farm economics: There is vastly more
money to be made in growing other vegetables and fruits. While
an acre of corn is projected to net average farmers $284 this
year after expenses, and just $34 if they rent the land, as is
common, an apple orchard on that same acre will make $2,000 or
more,
according to crop analysts. A sophisticated vegetable
operation using the popular plastic covers called high tunnels,
which increase yields and extend the growing season, can push
that figure
as high as $100,000.
Until recently, farmers in the nation’s heartland could only
dream about such profits because there were so few ways to sell
their produce locally. California dominates vegetable
production, with a vast infrastructure of distribution and
transportation to stores coast to coast. But the rising demand
for fresh, indigenous produce has spawned new markets — from
grocers to restaurants to school cafeterias — that are making it
possible for more Midwestern farmers to give fruits and
vegetables a go.
The success of this movement, still in its toddler stage, could
affect more than just the farmers. Field corn, bolstered by
subsidies and corporate research, now dominates American
agriculture and constitutes much of what we eat in processed
foods. A turn toward locally grown produce would lessen the
dependency on California (now plagued by drought), slash carbon
emissions from trucking, make produce available to more people,
increase its appeal through freshness and perhaps even lower
prices.
Indeed, even as the federal government urges Americans to double
their consumption of produce for better health, the amount of
farmland devoted to it has slipped over the last decade, federal
statistics show — to about 1.8 million acres in 2012 for the top
25 vegetables, from 1.9 million acres in 2002, and to 2.8
million acres of main fruits including citrus in 2012, from 3.2
million in 2002.
By comparison, plantings of field corn surged to a record 97
million acres in 2012, from 79 million in 2002 — or roughly 20
times the amount of land given over to other vegetables and
fruits.
This imbalance could be in for a modest change. A glut in corn
has sent prices tumbling to near $4.50 a bushel, from $8 in
2012, and while farm economists are not expecting a torrent of
converts to produce, a wide variety of farmers are already
coping with tough economic times by hedging their bets with
berries and beets.
Throughout the Midwest, where dairy farmers face a host of
financial challenges, two dozen Organic Valley Co-op members now
grow fruits or vegetables or both on the side. In western North
Carolina, ending government support has led an estimated 200 to
300 tobacco growers to plant produce, says the Appalachian
Sustainable Agriculture Project. And in Iowa, a generation that
left the farm to pursue other careers is returning, but with its
own ideas.
“The children of corn farmers are coming back to the farm, and
carving out 5 or 10 acres to grow fruits and vegetables,” said
Craig A. Chase, the local food and farm coordinator at Iowa
State University. “They can easily make $30,000 to $40,000 a
year.” While their numbers are too small to be reflected yet in
farm data, this new passion for produce is evidence that
government and private efforts to nurture new markets in the
nation’s heartland are starting to pay off, federal officials
said.
“It’s really exciting to see farmers trying out these new
opportunities, and it’s rewarding to know the U.S.D.A. can
assist,” said Elanor Starmer, the Department of Agriculture’s
national coordinator for local and regional food systems.
Midwestern grocery chains have begun promoting the advantages of
local produce to shoppers, just as East and West Coast stores
have been doing for years, and are teaming up with farmers to
ensure a steady supply. These deals can include the occasional
truckload of cucumbers, or the one million pounds of tomatoes,
leafy greens and herbs that a Missouri-based chain,
Schnuck Markets, has
agreed to buy each year from a two-acre greenhouse under
construction in St. Louis. The builder,
BrightFarms, based in
New York City, has similar greenhouse-to-grocer projects
underway in Oklahoma City and St. Paul, and said it was striving
to hire local farmers.
Schools, nudged by new federal rules that require healthier
snacks and lunches, are seeking more local produce, and the
Pentagon has stepped in to help, using the same logistics that
supply its military bases. The system, called
DoD Fresh, uses distributors who connect schools to farms;
up to one-fifth of the $100 million in produce that traveled
through this system last year was locally grown, according to
the Department of Agriculture, which oversees this effort as
part of its budding farm-to-school program.
Seven school districts in Chicago, Detroit and other Midwestern
cities have also united to increase their purchasing power,
organized by a New York City-based group called School Food
Focus that aims to tap the production of midsize local farms.
The smallest farmers are also getting new help in selling crops
to restaurants. Starting last year, a food advocacy group, the
Illinois Stewardship
Alliance, held seven “farmer mixers” in the state; growers,
typically modest men of few words, found themselves pursued by
chefs craving microgreens and other fresh fare.
“It’s the speed dating of farm to fork,” said Thad Morrow, the
owner and chef of Bacaro
in Champaign, Ill., who scored a steady supply of Thumbelinas
and other unusual carrots at one such event by wooing the
grower. “You have to extract information from these guys. He was
sitting next to me, and was growing the carrots as something of
an experiment, and he said, ‘You mean you might want these?’ ”
To sell his apples, Mr. Jackson plans to tap into one of the
more unusual new outlets: the corporate C.S.A., or
community-supported agriculture. Many of his colleagues at the
Archer Daniels Midland plant and headquarters in Decatur, Ill.,
200 miles from his farm in Galatia, were already ordering sweet
corn delivered to their parking lot when he began asking them
about apples. He found huge interest. “One man said to me, ‘Here
is an apple my wife bought at a store, for $1 apiece, and they
taste terrible,’ ” Mr. Jackson said. “I can beat that price,
with great taste.”
Growing that kind of produce has its disadvantages. It requires
far more work than growing corn, which is usually managed with
farm machinery and requires little planning, marketing or even
irrigation. So last year, Mr. Jackson attended a new
series of classes
aimed at teaching the ins and outs of fruits and vegetables.
Organized by
Richard
Weinzierl, a crop sciences professor at the University of
Illinois, the Saturday classes are held in three locations
around the state, with topics like pesticide drift, pathogen
control and high tunnel construction, and had about 90 students
in all.
“I would say they’re most surprised by the range of varieties of
the crops they might grow,” Mr. Weinzierl said in an interview.
“And that when it comes to marketing, a tomato is not a tomato
is not a tomato. Heirlooms are priced higher but harder to grow,
and the people taking these classes are interested in helping
poorer folks eat better, too, so they might want to look at
lower-priced hybrids for that reason, too.”
The classes, which began anew in December, are drawing a wide
variety of would-be produce farmers, including people with large
gardens; 1 in 10 students is a farmer who now grows corn or the
other common field crop, soybeans.
Corn farmers who have made the switch say that for all the added
work, growing fruits and vegetables is incredibly rewarding in
ways other than profits. Tim B. Slepicka, who attended the
classes, slid into the booth of a diner last summer in St.
Charles, Ill., about an hour’s drive west of Chicago, to talk
about his budding conversion from corn. But first he plunked his
day’s pickings on the table with a huge grin. “Just taste this
cucumber,” he said, gnawing one in his other hand.
To these he added tomatoes, a variety called Mountain Fresh, and
some just-picked ears of raw sweet corn for eating, which he
did, right there in the booth. To Mr. Slepicka, perhaps the
biggest benefit of seeing more local produce being grown by
farmers like himself is the prospect of offering shoppers not
only higher quality food, but perhaps even lower prices through
direct marketing. A
2009 survey in Iowa found that the mean price for a pound of
vegetables at farmers’ markets was comparable to that of
nonlocal produce sold by grocery stores. With organic produce,
informal surveys have found that farmers’ markets and C.S.A.’s
can even beat store prices.
“It’s a good feeling,” he said. “Especially knowing that one in
six people are using food stamps. They’re looking for the least
expensive calorie possible, and why should a pound of tomatoes —
which are basically seed, dirt and water — have to cost as much
or more than a frozen meal?”