Tag: Floyd County

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HF Farms – Our Roots Run Deep (PART II)

CFA-Staff

by Sister Kathy Curtis

[This is Part Two of a three part series. Part One]

In the summer of 2010 Todd Howard of HF Farms sold produce at a Todd with high tunnelfarmers’ market sponsored by the City of Prestonburg. One of many people in eastern Kentucky laid off during the coal industry slump, Howard had turned his family garden into a greenhouse and farming enterprise with his business partner, David Fryman. That first year went well selling out every week.

Their second year, however, was not so great. Due in part to a change in location, business was terrible.

“I was done. We had no help. Nobody was listening,” said Howard.

Then Howard reconnected with Martin Richards of Community Farm Alliance whom he had met that spring at the Growing Appalachia Conference. Richards told him about the Southern Sustainable Agriculture Working Group (SSAWG) Conference being held that year in Little Rock, Arkansas.

“So,” Howard said, “I applied for a scholarship and got it.”

The conference “was an Ah-ha! moment” for Howard. He heard from people in Mississippi and rural Georgia who were farming in areas with similar economic demographics as eastern Kentucky – and making a living. Howard came back to Floyd County motivated and inspired.

At that same time Sister Kathleen Weigand of St. Vincent Mission held a town hall meeting focused on using agriculture as an economic incubator.

“It usually takes years for things to percolate to eastern Kentucky but here were a bunch of people excited to support local foods – people wanted to volunteer to take it to the next level.”

That year, 2012, the Floyd County Farmers’ Market with seven anchor vendors, civic and private sponsors, and lots of volunteers grossed $23,000 and it continues to grow.

“Local folks helping one another; I think that’s the key to success,” said Howard.

Howard is one of several people here in the region who thinks that one of eastern Kentucky’s biggest problems is that “We look to the outside to fix everything. If we can’t come together in our own neighborhoods, Frankfort, the Feds, they’re not going to help us.”

Howard and his wife recently made a list of all the people who they have been talking to about earning some income through agriculture.

Howard said, “Within a ten mile radius we came up with twenty people. Whether it’s pigs, chickens, planting a third of an acre to make a little extra cash, they all want to know, can you help me? Nobody’s gonna get rich but if you can make $1000 in twelve weeks, why not?”

These days Howard is branching out.

“The farmers’ market is a great place to start. It is critical to have that entry level place to cut your teeth,” explains Howard. But it has its drawbacks. Howard has three children who play ball and have other activities that take place on Saturday afternoons. Saturday is also a time when friends and family come help on the farm to get those labor-intensive chores, including harvesting for the community supported agriculture (CSA) shares, done.

The CSA model seems to be working. Howard said, “Last year was our first attempt at running a CSA. We sold about twelve shares for thirteen weeks. This year we are expanding to 30 members for 16 weeks. We are also looking to expand into institutional markets and restaurants.” Is this another Field of Dreams?

In part three Howard discusses the obstacles he must overcome and the allies he is developing in his effort to show agriculture is a viable option for economic development in eastern Kentucky.

Todd and shovel
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HF Farms – Our Roots Run Deep (PART I)

CFA-Staff

by Sister Kathy Curtis

[This is Part One of a three part series]

 

Shortly after the Revolutionary war, three brothers named Howard were given a land grant of several thousand acres in what is now south Magoffin County, Kentucky. “My dad still owns some of the original property. In fact, most of the original land grant is still in the heirs” said Floyd County farmer Todd Howard in a recent interview. “When people saw a Howard coming across the hill on horseback they’d say, ‘them Howards don’t get out of the holler much and when they do, watch out.’”

One day, Howard’s papaw, Tilden, rode his horse over the ridge into Floyd County and down what they called Brush Creek to the Old Regular Baptist Todd and shovelChurch where he met his wife-to-be, Effie Hicks, staying in Floyd County.

Howard says, “We are the third generation on this property in Hippo,” property that is now HF Farm and one of the several areas where Howard grows produce.

Howard denies being the first farmer in his family, explaining, “If anything, I am doing what we’ve probably known for a longtime. Being here in Appalachia, in a rural area, if you trace your roots back you’ll find you’ve had to live off the land, you’ve had to get dirt under your fingernails and understand what it’s like to take a seed and provide some sort of means for your family.”

He wasn’t always a farmer though. When he and his wife Vylinda were expecting their first child, he worked in the coal industry for his father’s engineering firm. “We were living in a five hundred square foot house with one closet. It was so small; you couldn’t walk through the kitchen with the oven door open.” They moved down the hill to the “old house” where there was more room, more closets and about a third of an acre of grass to cut.

“I hated cutting grass so we decided to put in a garden because it would be a whole lot easier.” The family had had a garden there before and even had peanuts down by the creek. The first year went pretty well and they grew a lot to eat and put up. All was well.

January 2010, David Fryman, a relative of Howard’s got his hands on a greenhouse and they decided raising plants to sell would be easy. “You put a seed in a container; add some water and a little fertilizer and people will buy ‘em.” So they grew about 8,000 plants but only sold about 1,000 of them.

HF Farm FieldThat April, Howard was laid off. He and Fryman decided to plant the several thousand plant starts they had left and soon had tomatoes, sweet potatoes, peppers and sweet corn planted with no idea how they were going to sell it all.

“We had the ‘Field of Dreams’ mentality. We figured that when people were heading out to the box stores to buy sweet corn they would get it in their heads to drive up Route 850 and buy their corn from us. We planted, but they didn’t come,” Howard said.

Then fate smiled in their direction when they found out the City of Prestonsburg was looking for fifteen to twenty vendors to start a farmers’ market. On opening day, Howard and Fryman were joined by Bev May who Howard had met at the Growing Appalachia conference that spring. Together, the three of them sold produce in a downtown parking lot. “It wasn’t too bad and we sold out every day.”

Howard was now (perhaps unintentionally) in the farming business. But the question is: Can a person earn a living farming in eastern Kentucky? We will answer that question in part two of this series.

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Local Women Grow the Market

CFA-Staff

By Sister Kathy Curtis

Becky and Jimmy loving the market“We always had a garden.”

According to two women from Prestonsburg, Kentucky, that was one of the benefits of growing up in the mountains of eastern Kentucky. Becky DeRossett and Bonnie Hale are board members of Appalachian Roots Inc., a local non-profit dedicated to “making healthy foods available to communities throughout Eastern Kentucky.” During a recent interview they shared why they are involved in the local foods movement through their volunteer work with Appalachian Roots’ Friends of the Floyd County Farmers’ Market group.

DeRossett can trace her Appalachian roots back to the 1700’s. She says mountain people were always self-reliant and put great value on the land. Growing up, her family had a garden, a cow, and chickens. They also owned a small country grocery that had “brought-on food”. She remembers as a child getting three eggs from the chicken coop and taking them into the store to trade for a candy bar. The problem now, she believes, is that people have abandoned that self-sufficient way of life and chase after more and more “brought-on” things.

Hale, whose family left eastern Kentucky when she was five for better opportunities in Estill County, including a collegeBecky with Brenda drawing winner education, returned to the mountains with her husband Durward to raise their family. “We traveled a lot when our kids were growing up so they could have different experiences,” Hale says. Although her adult children both live outside of Kentucky, Hale makes sure that her grandsons know about their Kentucky heritage. She wants them to know “the world is big. It’s a great big wonderful place. But what we have here is a great big wonderful place too.”

Both Hale and DeRossett say their work in the local foods movement is built on their sense of place. “We need to quit looking elsewhere for our help and realize what we have already,” says DeRossett.  As Friends of the Market, they help run Double Dollars, a program that helps food stamp and WIC families by doubling the amount of fresh food they can buy with their benefits. The majority of funding for Double Dollars Bonnie with reusable bag winnercomes from donations from the community itself.

As board members of Appalachian Roots, both women are concerned about the health, wellness, and economic challenges of our region. To address the extremely high incidence of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease in eastern Kentucky, they believe a viable food system is crucial. Research has proven fresh whole food available at farmers’ markets and in home gardens provides proper nutrition, which can help diminish these health problems. Plus, food that is grown and sold locally retains its nutritional value but shipping costs are not an issue since the food is being shipped less than 100 miles in most instances. Recently Hale found onions in a local store that were grown in Peru. “What, we don’t grow onions in Kentucky?” she asks.

DeRossett and Hale agree that eastern Kentucky needs to be competitive if they want to keep young people in the region. “If my grandsons wanted to move here,” Hale says, “they should have the same opportunities in Kentucky as in Seattle: access to fresh food, jobs in chosen field of interest and better infrastructure for technology.” For her, working on food access issues is a start. They are also dedicated to exploring agriculture – food production, processing and marketing – as an economic development strategy. DeRossett asks, “Wouldn’t it be exciting to have a small scale food hub here in Floyd County?”

DeRossett and Hale both look forward to the Floyd County Farmers’ Market opening day. “It’s a social outlet for us,” they explain. They have found a fun and flavorful way to help grow the market too; they plan on applying for a sampling permit so they can offer samples of vendor’s goods to customers once a month.

These women show that even non-farmers can help grow a local food system. And have fun doing it.

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Double Dollars: One Family’s Experience

CFA-Staff

by Sister Kathy Curtis

The summer of 2014 saw a great opportunity for low income residents of Floyd County, Kentucky when Appalachian Roots became a SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) agent for the Floyd County Farmers’ Market. Due to a grant from Community Farm Alliance and matching funds donated by individuals and local businesses, families who received SNAP benefits were able to leverage their benefits with the Double Dollars program to buy fresh food.

James and JenCUR1130Aprintnifer Lowe were the first Floyd County Farmers’ Market customers to take advantage of this opportunity. I talked to them recently while they were visiting the monastery to celebrate their 14th wedding anniversary.

The Lowes live in a housing authority development in Prestonsburg. James worked full time delivering pizzas until he was diagnosed with LUPUS. When able, he does odd jobs to supplement his disability check. Jennifer is scheduled to start training as a housekeeper with vocational rehab in the spring. Already farmers’ market customers, they were very excited to be able to use their SNAP card and get a bonus. “It helps a lot.”

Using SNAP at the market was easy James said. “I scanned my card for what I wanted to spend and they gave me double. When I would spend $10 they would give me $20.” His favorite items to buy were corn and white half-runner beans but he also liked getting tomatoes and zucchini bread.CUR1130Bprint

I asked them if they grew anything at home and was told they couldn’t have a garden in their complex. James said that working a garden was hard work and he didn’t know that he could do it anymore, which was why he really liked going to the farmers market.

While talking with them, I realized the need for more public education. James said one time he went to the market to get “fresh lettuce to make some kilt lettuce and onions but they didn’t have any”. I explained how the farmers market was a vendors market selling produce that was grown locally and that lettuce didn’t grow well in our area in August. That led into a very good conversation about what the phrase “locally grown” meant and how some large companies have a different idea when they say it in their advertising.

James and Jennifer only used their SNAP benefits at the Floyd County Farmers’ Market this year but more than 146 families redeemed WIC vouchers they received from the health department at the Market which were doubled also. These SNAP and WIC sales represented $3585 worth of income that went directly to our vendors from clients that would not normally buy from a farmers market. And in the words of James Lowe, “It helpCUR1130Cprints a lot.”

Programs like Double Dollars help low income families purchase healthier meal options which in turn provide for a healthier populace. In a region where diabetes and obesity are epidemic, fresh, whole food not only tastes better, it can be life saving.