Planting produce, reaping rewards
The next push for the “buy local” movement in South Carolina should be to actually keep everything local, according to dairy farmer Tom Trantham of Happy Cow Creamery in Pelzer.
“Right now the problem is these eggs and chicken and beef, we don’t have the processors,” said Trantham, a dairy farmer since 1968 who said the demand for locally sourced dairy products has maxed out the creamery’s capacity for the last few years. As it is, “You have to drive a couple of hundred miles to get all of your stuff processed, and that’s a huge expense.”
Not only does that mean extra expense for farmers, it can mean lost economic activity dollars – in jobs, investment, taxes and development – for the state, said S.C. Commissioner of Agriculture Hugh Weathers.
“About 90 percent of the value of this industry happens after something leaves the farm,” said Weathers, who said most of the 22,000 jobs added to the $41.7 billion impact agribusiness cluster since 2006 were non-farm positions.
“When you go and spend a dollar at a grocery store, about 17 cents gets back to the farmer,” he said. “The jobs are in processing.”
Recruiting processors and consumers
In the past several years, South Carolina’s agribusiness cluster – which includes agricultural products as well as forestry – has been on the upswing, said Weathers, but the state still wants to see 20 percent growth in economic impact by 2020.
Part of that, he said, will be leveraging the state’s economic development experience in recruiting processing companies to the state by offering incentives, tax credits and even making sure the state has a speculative food processing building available.
“We’re trying to learn from our commerce department and our local economic developers,” said Weathers, who said he observed the way economic development works for a decade on the S.C. Coordinating Council for Economic Development. “How do they find out who is looking to move? How do they find out what factors are going into the decision? We need to be ready for them to come and kick the tires.”
The other part, he said, is getting consumers themselves to prefer locally grown food. Several years ago, the department launched its “Certified S.C. Grown” campaign, which Weathers said makes consumers aware of the option to support local growers.
“The dollars are going to leave those pockets and go to somebody; we just want those pockets here in South Carolina,” he said. “If we bought from our farms at the same rate that Georgia and North Carolina did [in 2006], we would demand over $330 million more dollars of agricultural food products, and to grow it, process it, deliver it, it would take 10,000 more jobs for that extra economic activity in our state.”
Upstate momentum
And the momentum is building, according to Billy Ledford, owner of Beechwood Farms in Travelers Rest, who grows strawberries, cabbages, sweet corn, zucchini, half runners, eggplants and tomatoes throughout the year.
“A major change in the last 10 years is chain stores being willing to work with local farmers,” said Ledford, who employs 20 people per day in the spring and as many as 60 people a day at the height of production in early summer. Ledford said Beechwood products can be found in Ingles, BI-LO and Wal-Mart, and said others such as Whole Foods had expressed interest. Ledford – who owns and operates Beechwood with his wife Elizabeth Ledford and sister Judy Best – said kale might be an option considering its recent rise to popularity.
“We want to continually change and adjust production in response to demand,” he said.
While Ledford’s operation spans around 300 acres, producers as small as Tyger River Smart Farm’s 1,300-square-foot hydroponic farm are contributing to the move to local. Owner Ryan Oates’s nursery in Spartanburg produces 1,000 heads or bunches of lettuce a week, alongside various herbs and greens that he sells at farmers markets and to a handful of Upstate restaurants. The result is a win-win for everyone, he says.
“Just about all lettuce comes from California or Mexico,” said Oates. “That’s a long way for lettuce to go.”
Next year, he plans to expand using 30 acres he purchased last year. The first phase – a 13,000-square-foot greenhouse and nursery on 10 acres – will multiply his production capacity tenfold, he said.
Local food for local people
Another path to $50 billion for agribusiness is tourism, or revenue derived from farm tours and educational visits as well as special events. Just outside of Greenville, for example, 300-acre Greenbrier Farms leverages its quarter-century-old rustic barn as event space for weddings, corporate events and farm-to-table dinners that can cost from $30 to $300 a plate, said Roddy Pick of Greenbrier.
Greenbrier – like many producers close to metropolitan areas – also offers direct-to-consumer options called community supported agriculture (CSA). Consumers “subscribe” by paying in advance for produce and meats, which helps producers secure a stream of guaranteed buyers. The 150 families fed through Greenbrier’s CSA indicate strong community support and further increase the farm’s visibility in the area, said Pick.
Demand for high-quality, locally grown food pushed Greenbrier into the wholesale market several years ago, and the company sells to high-end restaurants all over the region, including Nose Dive and Roost in downtown Greenville, he said.
“People tell me it’s so expensive, and I ask, ‘Do you know how much cancer costs?’” said Pick, who operates Greenbrier with business partners Amy and Chad Bishop. “We’re trying to put local food in people’s mouths locally.”
