Our Town: The Farmers Next Door

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The Farmers Next Door

Farm town. For most of us, the term conjures images of single-crop fields tended by sun-weathered old men driving big tractors. At worst, it brings to mind isolated processing plants that folks point out from a distance while rolling up car windows.

Now shake that image of a crusty old farmhand out of your head, and picture instead your friendly local conservationist tending to the produce and proteins that are headed for your dinner table.

Because if you’ve ever shopped a local farmers’ market, you’ve likely met some of the people who are part of the growing movement to restore local control of our food supply. They are young and old. They live in town and on the outskirts. Some have been farming for decades, and others for only a few years. But they are all working diligently behind the scenes—both with their hands in the dirt and their heads in books—to turn the greater Greenville area into the kind of farm town folks flock to for fresh, often organic, always delicious fare all year long.

The really exciting part of the local-food initiative as it gains momentum is what it promises for our future. Proponents say that one day soon, our community could be a place where consumers don’t have to worry about epidemic recalls of salmonella-contaminated eggs or E. coli–tainted beef. Our food will be fresher, taste better, and have more vitamins and minerals than those imported domestically and abroad. And the farmland itself will not be abused as in years past, but rather protected in perpetuity against destructive farming practices that dump toxins and chemicals into the air and the earth.

Indeed, behind the frightening national headlines about the food that fuels us, the local news is good. Because farming in the Upstate is evolving into an environmentally friendly vocation. Instead of chemical fertilizers, cutting-edge greenhouses nurture new growth; instead of diesel-powered farm equipment, animals are doing the work of clearing land; and instead of harmful pesticides, wasps and other insects are being used to divert plant-eating pests.

Food for Thought

High Farms
Grass-fed, pastured, organic
Owners: Wayne Atkins and Emilie Frohlich
Niche: Heritage proteins
Good Eats: Heritage pork, chicken, and turkey
Farmstead: Landrum, S.C.
www.highfarmsllc.com
(864) 921-1999

When farmers, especially sustainable ones, get together, it’s one of the subjects that always seems to come up: “Is it possible to feed everybody by doing this?” as in, feed an entire community, says Emilie Frohlich, co-manager of High Farms in Landrum, an organic, sustainable farm that recently completed its second season of organic produce and heritage proteins—including poultry and pork.

For her part, Frohlich is simply happy to be part of the conversation. High Farms was founded by Frohlich’s family in the mid-1950s, but she and her husband, Wayne Atkins, have taken the 200-acre parcel (140 acres of which they’re actually farming) in a new, sustainable direction. Instead of bush-hogging brambles and forestland, they use heritage-breed Berkshire pigs to clear the property, which is good for the environment and good for the pigs, offering a clean, rich flavor thanks to their natural diets.

Heritage animals (unlike those typically held in captivity that are processed by the corporate food industry) are traditional breeds designed to live off the land, and the land alone. “They’re really good for the table and good for the land,” explains Frohlich. And good for us, too: The Omega-3 fats that come from pastured pigs offer the same health benefits as those found in fish or on health-store shelves.

Healthy living aside, Frohlich says the vision for her farm is simple: “We’re just trying to figure out how best to produce really great food and also improve the land, and to have a positive impact.”

And her vision for the future of sustainable farming in the Upstate?

“It would take a lot more farmers, but the idea is it’s changing a little bit, and people are seeing it as a way to live and live well,” she offers. “And someday, people will respect the occupation of the farmer as they would a doctor or a lawyer: that the person producing your food is playing an important role.”

Strength in Numbers

What would a self-sustaining food community look like here in the Upstate? Frohlich, among others, contends it would take many, many more farms. Just how many is a matter of much debate, however.

“You hear people say we can’t feed the world with small farming operations, but look at it: Even in urban areas, a small plot of land is producing vegetables,” says Geoff Zehnder, coordinator of the sustainable agriculture program at Clemson University. “I think you could meet the needs of people, particularly in local communities. That’s sort of my vision for how agriculture is going to go in South Carolina.”

Zehnder’s sustainable-ag program at Clemson serves small farming operations across the Upstate and beyond. A sizeable part of their program is being designed to help farmers secure funds and receive training so that they can improve their own practices and get government certification to distribute food to a broad consumer base, like in grocery stores or to public institutions such as schools.

“There’s going to be more small, diversified farming operations that are making a profit, instead of larger farms that are just hanging on by a thread getting government subsidies,” Zehnder says. “That’s what we’re seeing.”

Spade Age or Space Age?

Hurricane Creek Farm
Naturally grown
Owner: Jesse Adkins
Niche: Hydroponics (soilless gardening)
Good Eats: Lettuce, tomatoes, cornmeal, and grits
Farmstead: Pelzer, S.C.
upstatesc.locallygrown.net/growers/show/196
(864) 933-1343

Jesse Adkins is a third-generation farmer who operates the Pelzer-area farmstead that originally belonged to his grandfather. Adkins, who was raised to eat what he could grow, continues to operate on that principle today—only these days, he does so by running one of the most cutting-edge farming operations in the state.

Today his hydroponic farm— sometimes referred to as “new-age” or “soilless” gardening—gives him the ability to grow produce all year long.

Plants are grown from seed, pruned twice weekly, and hand-pollinated within the comfort of sprawling greenhouses. Tomatoes are Adkins’s primary crop—Romas, cherry, and beefsteak—but he has steadily expanded his offerings to include a variety of lettuces (Bibb, Romaine, Lola Rosa, and a curly leaf), European cucumbers, bell peppers, and basil. At any given time, he has more than 2,000 plants growing—all at different stages of germination. On average, he will harvest about 200 plants a week, though he has the ability to increase production as demand rises.

Now that he’s gotten several seasons of hydroponic farming under his belt, Adkins is preparing to add a new, even more cutting-edge element to his greenhouse operation: aquaculture. This farming method, also called aquaponics, can be used to sustainably raise both fresh vegetables and freshwater fish. The fish—usually tilapia or sun perch—and plants share one, integrated soilless system; the fish waste provides a food source for the plants’ roots, while the plants provide a natural filter for the water beneath them. Both are edible, organic, and local. By this time next year, Adkins and his wife, Debbie, hope to be able to harvest a monthly population of fish, which he could then sell alongside his hydroponic produce.

Adkins likes to say he’ll never be big enough to ship his tomatoes and lettuce all over the world, and that’s just fine with him. “We grow it fresh and get it to the market fresh—that means we pick it and sell it within a couple of hours,” Adkins says. “The nutrients are going to be higher than something that has to be shipped a thousand miles, or even 300 miles.”

Some to Grow on

Bio-Way Farm
Certified organic
Owner: Chris Sermons
Niche: Permaculture and Forest Gardening
Good Eats: Asparagus, beets, and green onions
Farmstead: Ware Shoals, S.C.
www.biowayfarm.com
(864) 992-6987

A recent study of the Certified South Carolina Grown program by the University of South Carolina found that commercial and local agribusiness contributes more than $30 billion a year to the state’s economy. Not only that, but local food supports 188,000 jobs and counting.

Ware Shoals–based Bio-Way Farm is among those productive, profitable farms that have been contributing to the state economy for the past seven years. Best known for his organic asparagus, manager-owner Chris Sermons is now venturing into a form of farming that—while he questions whether it will ever yield food to commercial levels—is as innovative and impactful as anything happening in the Upstate.

Called edible-forest gardening, the technique hinges on the idea that food, herbs, and pharmaceuticals (think medicinal, immunity-building plants like Echinacea and nettle) can not only grow, but thrive, in a woodland environment. Considering that forests cover two-thirds of the total land area in South Carolina, forest gardening could have huge implications for low-maintenance, sustainable land management.

Behind Sermons’s home, adjacent to his other commercial-crop areas, he has spent the past five years planting and planning a forest garden that he envisions being around decades, if not a century, from now. That means blueberry bushes, pawpaw trees, persimmons, mulberries, gooseberries, currants, medicinals like black cohash and wild geranium, and household ingredients like lavender are growing there. And he’s inoculating tree stumps with shiitake mushroom spores.

In addition to being much more drought-tolerant than row cropping, and less time consuming and labor intensive, Sermons sees huge prospects for this gardening technique in all backyards—beyond azaleas and boxwoods. Much like a guild where different members contribute and cooperate to make it successful, the polyculture of a forest garden does that with plants.

“Our home landscapes are indicative of our disconnect from the natural world. They don’t really give much of a return as far as food-wise, anything utilitarian,” Sermons explains. “I’m just trying to open people’s eyes to the broader role that gardens can play. Because in this day, the most direct relationship people can get with the natural world is through gardening.”

School Days

Furman Farm
Naturally grown
Manager: Bruce Adams
Niche: Student-run farm and composting program
Good Eats: Array of produce
Farmstead: Furman University
www.furman.edu/sustain
(864) 294-3655

At Furman University, a quarter-acre plot called the Furman Farm serves as a starting place for cultivating precisely the kind of appreciation and understanding of our natural environment of which Sermons speaks. Hundreds of pounds of produce are harvested from the college’s on-campus farm each summer, all grown without traditional pesticides and fertilized with mulch made from vegetation and food scraps recycled from the dining hall and the PalaDen food court.

Sustainability has been part of a campus-wide conversation at Furman for more than fifteen years. And in 2007, the farm was established to promote sustainable agricultural practices and provide even more ways for Furman students to connect with nature and with the community. More than 1,200 visitors a year step foot on the Furman Farm, and even more people are impacted by Furman-sponsored student outreach programs, which focus on sustainability: Small-scale food operations have been started up at two local facilities serving senior citizens, and the St. Francis Community Garden was founded by Furman students in a largely underserved part of the Greenville community, just beyond downtown.

What students learn through their sustainability lessons, explains Dr. Angela Halfacre, director of the Shi Center for Sustainability at Furman, is that thinking about sustainable agriculture is not simply about using less pesticides and fewer resources. “Our view as a center is that sustainability involves resource conservation, but it also involves the community, and it means having an impact,” Halfacre says. Right now, one recent Furman graduate is in the middle of a yearlong fellowship, where he’s using the sustainability ethics gleaned at Furman to work with several Guatemalan communities on ways to stabilize their farmland, prevent hill erosion, and maximize soil nutrients by preserving trees and other natural resources.

The Birds & The Bees

Parson Organics
Naturally grown
Owner: Daniel Parson
Niche: Beneficial attractors
Good Eats: Greens, eggplant, peppers, and potatoes
Farmstead: Clinton, S.C.
www.parsonorganics.com
(864) 833-4742

Clinton-based organic farmer Daniel Parson, while earning his master’s degree at Clemson, discovered that his love of the land was best put to use by farming it. Today, his two-acre Laurens County operation yields hundreds of pounds of produce, much of which is of the heirloom variety—eggplant, squash, tomatoes, beans, lettuce, broccoli, beets, potatoes, cabbage, garlic, onion, okra, cucumbers, and fennel, among others.

When Parson was managing the student organic farm at Clemson, he was faced with the challenge of making sure the operation—which was divided into four, quarter-acre blocks—was seamless for multiple operators. “I had to have it down on paper so anyone could show up and know what was happening when,” he says. Now, Parson Organics, which consists of eight, quarter-acre plots, shares a similar design to that early system developed during his student years.

In addition to precisely tracking what he grows, Parson works with cover crops to improve his soil conditions. He’s also learning how to use those cover crops to correct pests, thanks to a USDA grant he received to study beneficial insects. He shares those findings not only with the government but also with other local growers, discussing things like how buckwheat lures pollinating honey bees, bumble bees, and wasps to his fields. And thanks to his cover-crop system, which incorporates plantings of rye, Austrian peas, and more, he is able to use these beneficial insects to encourage growth and divert pests, versus chemical fertilizers and pesticides.

“There’s a bunch of organic pesticides I could be using, but I choose not to. It’s a whole different mindset for me,” says Parson. “For conventional growers it’s hard to switch over. For me, it’s easier to just come from that. I just never had those tools in my tool kit.”

The Future is Now

What could an Upstate farming community look and feel like? The answer is beautiful and diverse, with farms and neighborhoods thriving side-by-side. Where the smallest plots of land could net hundreds of pounds of food in a single season.

That the Upstate could be a self-sustaining, food producing community is, right now, just a vision—one that even the farmers themselves question the plausibility of. The idea that Upstate farms could produce enough food to fill the pantries, fridges, and freezers of every local family is, at the very least, an intimidating prospect. Enough local food to stock the kitchens of public-school cafeterias and college campus dining halls sounds downright crazy.

But experts agree the path is being laid, and it bodes well for the long-term health of our community—both as individual households and as a state economy. And the truth is we’re closer than we think.