Blog for Rural America
Virtual Farmers Markets?
Fri, 07/30/2010 - 09:22 — Steph LarsenBy Steph Larsen
(Note: A similar post first appeared on Grist.org)
The trend towards local food can be a great opportunity for farmers - both new and experienced - to rediscover growing food that people eat. Farmers gain the largest share of the food dollar this way, but it also forces them to be marketers -- something they may not have the skills, let alone the time, to be successful. Farmers already have to put in the hard work to grow what people want to buy. Where will they find time to located customers too?
There is another way.
Nebraska, like several other states in the Midwest, has an online statewide farmers’ market modeled after the successful and innovative Oklahoma Food Co-op. Both create a central location for producers and consumers to find each other. The original idea was the brainchild of Robert Waldrop, who still serves as the president of the Oklahoma Food Co-op. From the looks of their website, they, like many food co-ops, rely on their board and volunteers to keep things running smoothly. Our Nebraska version, on the other hand, does employ at least one person part time.
Once or twice a month depending on the season, dozens of producer members of the Nebraska Food Co-op go online and list what products they have available and in what quantities. This time of year, it’s bursting with all the fresh veggies that make summer so grand. There’s always a wide variety of meat available, and you can find eggs, home-canned goods, natural beauty products, and honey year-round. There’s even an organic miller that provides me with breakfast cereal, whole-wheat flour, hulled barley, and other grain products I’ve never heard of.
I’ve been a member of the Nebraska Food Co-op for 2 years, so I’ve gotten to know the consumer side of the operation. The co-op allows me access to producers and products I wouldn’t have known about otherwise, with the convenient bonus of not having to travel to each one individually.
Consumer members, who pay an annual membership fee, have a set period of time to shop, selecting a “drop site” where they’ll pick up their order. The inventory decreases in real time, so when that last bunch of Swiss chard is gone, it’s gone. On the appointed day, producers relay their products in to a central location, via drop points, where orders are put together and sent back out to the drop points. When my order gets to me, every item has my name, the farm it came from, and what’s inside the brown paper or plastic package.
Our drop point is a small family farm about 7 miles from the CFRA office. They have freezer space for the meat we order, and I always have a nice chat with the farmers as I write out the check.
This method offers a lot of advantages for producers who are just getting started. The first is time: the producer don’t have to commit to being at a market stall several hours a week for the duration of the growing season, and thanks to the relayed distribution system, the drive is ideally less than it would be to Omaha or Lincoln. The second is scale -- because the entry cost is low, a producer can start with putting just a few items up to test the market and grow from there.
And of course, because someone else is responsible for the marketing, it leaves producers a lot more time to do things like contemplate a high tunnel to extend their growing season or figure out a more efficient watering system for their vegetables. The co-op prints and distributes promotional materials, plus members spread the word: based on the steadily increasing number of products in the last few years, it seems to be working. Consumers still can build a relationship with the producers they buy from by reading the profiles of each producer, which detail their individual practices and philosophy.
Other states and regions are starting to use similar online farmers market models, or create even bigger-scale ones like Ecotrust’s Foodhub. The Oklahoma Food Co-op does their best to help by providing their software free and sharing a long list of lessons they’ve learned.
The Nebraska Food Co-op gives producers an opportunity to experiment with things and expand production slowly, making the innovation the Midwest is known for a little less risky.
Are you eligible for a high risk insurance pool?
Mon, 07/19/2010 - 17:11 — Steph LarsenEarlier this month, several states started taking applications for a new high risk health insurance pool. These are insurance plans that cover people who have been without health insurance for at least six months and been denied coverage due to a pre-existing condition. The high risk pool serves as a bridge to the insurance exchanges that will be established in 2014. At that time, insurers will no longer be able to deny coverage or charge higher rates based on pre-existing conditions.
Please pass this information along to your friends and colleagues, post it in newsletters and letters to the editor, and raise awareness through community meetings and other summer events. We all benefit when health care works for all rural people.
Making a Living, Making a Life
Thu, 07/15/2010 - 15:14 — Steph LarsenBy Aubrey Streit Krug
As I intern at the Center for Rural Affairs, I’m learning about how the agricultural economy we have now is not inevitable. It can be changed.
Our ag economy is human-made. It’s been shaped by incentivizing and spurred by subsidies. It’s a sticky global system that often entangles the small and leaves loopholes for the large. It’s a way only a few people can make a living. For people in rural places--and for me, as a person with roots and family in a rural place--it’s at the root of dramatic conflicts.
Take these two scenarios:
- A rancher has been renting the same pasture for decades when her landlord dies, and the property goes to auction. She is outbid by a local incorporated operation, a pair of siblings. Afterwards the siblings explain to her that the land was simply too good an investment opportunity to pass up. The rancher tries to understand, because to hold a grudge would damage long-standing relationships in this small community.
- A landlord has two tenant farmers. One gets high yields off his land, and the other gets low. The landlord concludes that the low-yield farmer is lazy or is trying to cheat him. To make up the money, he decides to raise the price of renting his land. And, to be fair, the landlord raises the rates for both of his tenants. The high-yield farmer doesn’t protest this, because he doesn’t want his landlord to decide to rent to someone else.
In these stories, the rancher and the farmer both choose to keep silent about any outrage they might feel. They justify their choices with the reason that they don’t want to incite conflict.
One way to read their justifications is in cultural terms. The farmer and the rancher have been taught that the right action--for them and for their community--is to preserve the relationship. Their choices show that they believe it's best to stay on good terms with your new neighbors and your old landlord, even if you disagree with their actions.
Another way to read their justifications is in economic terms. The farmer and the rancher are still farming and ranching because they know how to navigate the business of acting in their own self-interest. Preserving relationships is a strategy that enables them to protect the opportunity to do future business with the siblings and the landlord.
Do the rancher and the farmer make the right choices? I don’t know.
What I do know is that though we might like to separate ranchers and farmers into categories like the “entrepreneur” (who cares about money, the economy) and the “yeoman” (who cares about traditions, the culture), these scenarios show that it’s more complicated than that. Culture and economy are cut from the same cloth. They’re different ways of looking at and talking about the same thing: the survival of a human community.
As Wendell Berry's work teaches us, an agricultural economy is both how we make a living and how we make a life. It's an agriculture, after all.
Our current system doesn’t have room or need for good neighbors or tenants. But by being those things--and by challenging the human-made policies that have written dramatic conflicts and injustices into the system--we can change it.
We have the power to make a better agricultural economy, one in which more than a few people can make a living and make a life in rural places.
<!--Session data-->Health reform good for small business
Mon, 07/12/2010 - 12:44 — Steph LarsenBy Kristina Hubbard
The flurry of misinformation around the new health care law is clouding the reality that reform is providing relief to many small business owners.
Health care costs for small businesses have risen 129% since 2000 and contribute significantly to the high rates of uninsured rural residents. Less than half of U.S. small businesses can afford to help their employees pay for health insurance.
So, just how does the new law impact small businesses?
For starters, small businesses with fewer than 50 employees are exempt from the 2014 mandate that requires businesses to offer employee insurance. That is, these businesses will not face a penalty if they don’t pay for their workers’ insurance.
Then how does the new law help small business employees?
The law provides an incentive for small businesses to offer employees insurance through tax credits that make coverage more affordable. Businesses are eligible if they have fewer than 25 employees and their median wage is under $50,000. This tax credit is worth up to 35% of small business’ premium costs in 2010. Starting in 2014, this rate increases to 50%. Firms can claim the credit for 2010 through 2013 and for any two years after that.
Here’s an example. Let’s say you own a hardware store and staff 10 employees, each receiving an annual wage equaling $25,000. Your employee health care costs are $70,000. In 2010, you are eligible as a small business owner to receive a $24,500 tax credit (35% of your employee health care costs). In 2014, you are eligible for a $35,000 tax credit (50% of your employee health care costs).
And when state insurance exchanges go into effect in 2014, small businesses will benefit from pooling and larger group coverage to provide comprehensive and continuous coverage for their employees. The take home message is this: small businesses (most businesses in the nation, in fact) are not required to pay for employee insurance. However, the new law provides tax credits to small businesses that provide coverage for their workers and for those businesses that initiate coverage this year. These credits make it more affordable for small businesses to offer employee coverage and help reduce the number of uninsured Americans.
Learn more by reading our May 2010 report (PDF) that debunks the myths of health care reform as they relate to small businesses. Share it with small business owners so they know how reform can benefit their bottom line and workers alike.
Out to Pasture
Tue, 06/22/2010 - 13:37 — Steph LarsenBy Elisha Greeley Smith
There is good news for farmers and ranchers wanting to participate in the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP). Thanks to the efforts of concerned farmers, the Center for Rural Affairs and National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, farmers who convert their cropland to grazing land will receive higher payment rates than before.
When conservation programs such as the CSP are in the thick of farmer sign-ups, the Center for Rural Affairs' Farm Bill Helpline is there to answer farmers' questions and learn from their experiences. Last year we learned that farmers who converted their cropland to grazing land were receiving half of the payment per acre compared to land maintained as cropland, in spite of the environmental benefits of grass.
We worked together and voiced our concern to the national Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) staff responsible for this provision, arguing that CSP should reward environmental benefits and consider income forgone in achieving those benefits.
Because of our persistence, progress was made and the rule was changed. The final rule re-establishes the "pastured cropland" category to provide higher payment rates than the regular pasture rate. This is a positive step forward for the CSP - one that will reward farmers who make investments that provide long-term conservation benefits and economic opportunity.
To get in on this year's ranking, apply with your local NRCS by June 25. Be sure and share your experience with our Helpline so we can continue to learn how the program is working. For more information, click here.
