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FarmersFreshMarket.org

Farmer Calvin Freeman, left, shows Tim Will, executive director of Foothills Connect, a sample of the abundant crop that his farm in the Bill’s Creek area will offer for distribution, via the Internet, to upscale restaurants in Charlotte.

Web links local farms, distant chefs

By LARRY DALE
Daily Courier Staff Writer
RUTHERFORDTON – What do tractors and the Internet have in common? More than you might think. Both can help Rutherford County farmers make money. Foothills Connect is working to give farmers here a market in Charlotte for their products, via the Internet. Tim Will, executive director of Foothills Connect, realized that there is a natural connection between chefs in downtown Charlotte and county farmers. In talking with his cousin, a chef in Charlotte, Will came to see that the chefs need fresh foods and the farmers need to sell their produce at the best possible prices. The restaurant industry, Will said, is hamstrung by the transportation industry. Because a large proportion of the fruits and vegetables consumed travel an average of 1,500 miles to market, the definition of “fresh” was redefined to mean produce that may be two weeks old. That realization prompted Will, a self-described high-tech guy, to turn to the Internet for a way to link nearby urban Charlotte with rural Rutherford County.
The result is FarmersFreshMarket.org, a Web site whereby Charlotte chefs and Rutherford County farmers can communicate with each other with the goal of selling county produce. The Internet will provide the necessary connection for conducting transactions.
Foothills Connect would maintain the site and help with Paypal, credit card and bank transfers to make transactions possible. In fact, the link to Charlotte has definitely been established already. Will said a Charlotte establishment this week called in an order for farm-fresh produce and regional cheese for a convention of 1,600 people at the first of May.
Will said that selling to a ready-made downtown Charlotte market is a good deal now that promises to become much better in the near future.
Some 10,000 people dwell in downtown Charlotte now, Will said, with the prospect that 110,000 will reside downtown by 2012. Chefs say they can’t get enough fresh food now, Will noted, so the outlook is very bright for farmers who can tap into that market.
The effort to connect farmers and chefs is a natural for Foothills Connect, which is a major link in the effort to bring broadband Internet to Rutherford County. Foothills Connect stresses infrastructure for the future so that Rutherford County can be a part of the worldwide connected economy.
Foothills Connect also is a business incubator, and currently is home to a number of start-up businesses. The effort to link farmers with the restau­rant industry may boost business starts, too, by giving Rutherford County residents an opportunity to transport the food to Charlotte.
Will said that presently 80 percent of Rutherford County’s farming involves livestock, and there also will be a chance for the county’s livestock producers to reach that same Charlotte market. Rutherford County has a slaughterhouse, Will noted, so meeting United States Department of Agriculture standards need not be an issue. Again, transportation is the key. “Somebody needs to step up” and meet the trucking need, Will said.
Stepping up has been a large part of Will’s career. In addition to finding solutions for corporations trying to move into the Internet world, Will has experience as a Peace Corps worker, having gone to Fiji in the wake of Typhoon Meli, and as a teacher. He came to Rutherford County expecting to be a teacher. A job at Foothills Connect was intended to be a short-term stay until his return to teaching. But he realized he was “committed” to the Foothills Connect mission, and has stayed to help propel Rutherford County into the connected economy.
For more information about the agricultural endeavor, contact Will at 828-288-1650 or online at twill@FoothillsConnect.com.
Foothills Connect is located at 146 N. Main St. in Rutherfordton
Contact Dale at ldale@thedigital­courier.com

County’s beef producers look for new markets

By PAM BUNCH  Daily Courier Staff Writer

SPINDALE — With recent events prompting more and more Americans to look for natural, locally grown meats and produce, area beef producers had an opportunity last week to learn about alternative beef production and marketing.
The workshop was held at the Rutherford County Cooperative Extension office and featured four speakers.  “Tonight, we’ve gotten together a group of folks who have some experience in this industry to talk to you,” said County Extension Director Steve Duckett. “It’s little bit of a new area for a lot of us, kind of a growing market.” Chase Hubbard, assistant farm manager for Warren Wilson College in Swannanoa Valley, talked about the history of the college and the importance of the farm to the college community. The 275-acre farm now produces beef and pork, marketed directly to cus­tomers.
“The foundation of our program is utilizing forage,” said Hubbard. “We consider ourselves grass farmers first and foremost. In other words we manage our farm for forages. We use cattle to harvest the forages, but we spend a lot of time developing a good healthy forage in our system so that the cattle really get an effective gain from them.”  Hubbard said he believes that utilizing forages on a farm is the very best way to increase the bottom line for beef producers, by drastically cutting the costs of buying feeds, producing hay and fuel. He also discussed the importance of genetics to good beef production.
Peter Marks, program coordinator for the Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project (ASAP), discussed local markets.  “We think that the number one way to still have a strong farm economy in western North Carolina is that there’s strong demand for local markets,” he said.  ASAP is a non-profit organization supporting farmers and rural communities in western N.C. and southern Appalachia by providing education, men­toring, promotion, web resources, and community and policy development. ASAP produces the Local Food Guide listing sources of fresh, locally grown produce and beef from area farms.  “We work on how do we create and sustain demand locally,” said Marks. “Our organization exists, in many ways, to give you time to make a living off of your farming by selling to local markets, and we have ways to help you.”
The Local Food Guide is just one way that ASAP is helping farmers to advertise their products locally. ASAP utilizes direct marketing of its member products at farmers’ markets, farm stores, to chefs and restaurants, and local grocers.
“Locally, there’s way more demand than supply,” said Marks. “We surveyed people and we found that beef is one of the top things that if you have people who are enthusiastic about buying from local farms.”  He added that consumers seem to be looking for good quality, clean, antibiotic and hormone-free beef. Grass-fed beef is also gaining importance to consumers according to Marks. However, he warned against jumping into this emerging market without crunching the numbers and being certain that they can make a success of it.  “We at ASAP can sit down with you and help you do that,” Marks said. “We can help you with marketing, get you in the Local Food Guide, help you pick out your packaging.”
Casey and Meredith McKissick are founding members of the Foothills Farmer’s Alliance and owners of Crooked Creek Farms in Old Fort.  Foothills Farmer’s Alliance is a non-profit farmer’s marketing and educational organization working to connect foothills area farmers with consumers across the region through direct marketing.  The alliance works as a marketing agent for farmers, allowing small farms to concentrate on production. They are also an educational organization to create more opportunities for peo­ple interested in local beef, as well as many other subjects.  “The third thing is to help cre­ate value-added opportunities for farmers,” said Casey. “We’re involved in a project now, just kind of on the edge of it, a poultry processing plant in McDowell County, a center pro­cessing facility that will be available for independent farmers.”  In addition, Foothills Farmers Alliance provides product liability insurance through membership in the organization.
Tim Will, executive director of Foothills Connect Business and Technology Center, talked about the Farm Fresh Store Initiative, which is an Internet website currently being developed to connect local farmers to chefs and restaurants in Charlotte who are looking for specific fresh produce and meats.  “According to the N.C. Department of Agriculture, every dollar brought into a farm economy by a small farm producer, it has an 8 to 1 multiplier,” said Will.  That means, with at least 4,000 head of beef in Rutherford County at an average of about 700 pounds each, there would be at least 2,800,000 pounds of local beef produced. Figuring about $2 per pound, that’s $5,600,000 made by local farmers, which could generate $44,800,000 for the local economy.  Will said The Farm Fresh Store will provide a direct connection between buyers and sellers.  “We’re going to make a marketplace, a brokerage I like to call it, that will put together 2,000 chefs in Charlotte with the food producers in Rutherford County, said Will” The project is still under construction and there are many details which have to be worked out, but Will encouraged local farmers to take advantage of the NC-Real program at ICC and to stop by Foothills Connect to talk about the project, and to use the technology and computers available there.
For more information on any of these projects or organiza­tions, contact the N.C.
Cooperative Extension Office in Rutherford County at 828-287- 6010.
Contact Bunch via e-mail at pbunch@thedigitalcourier.com

Linked Up!   First farm-to-chef shipment made

By LARRY DALE  Daily Courier Staff Writer
RUTHERFORDTON —  An effort to sell Rutherford County produce to the large Charlotte market is paying dividends.  Five gallons of strawberries were sent to Charlotte chefs on Friday.  And that is just the beginning.  Tim Will, executive director of Foothills Connect, realized that there is a large market for fresh farm products at Charlotte restaurants. So a Web site has been set up to allow county farmers and ranchers to communicate with would-be buyers in downtown Charlotte. The Web site is FarmersFreshMarket.org.  Richard and Deborah Davis, who have 2,000 strawberry plants at their Poors Ford Road home, used the Rutherford-Charlotte link to sell the berries.
They are organic farmers, so the berries do not have pesticides on them and are edible right out of the box. Will noted the Davises received a premium price for the berries.
The Davis strawberry crop was saved from a recent freeze when the plants were covered with hay.  Will says there is also a market for Rutherford County beef, as well as produce. At a recent meeting in Rutherfordton, area beef producers learned about the potential market.  Beef is four or five steps away from the market at present.  Now, he said, “they sell to a guy, and they sell to a guy, and they sell to a feed pen where the cattle are shot up with hormones and antibiotics and eat corn for two months, then to the slaughterhouse, and to the wholesaler,” before reaching a market where consumers can buy from their local stores.  Will plans to go to Charlotte next week to talk with chefs about how they buy meat.  Will said as a result of the meeting, “the ranchers want to get started.” He noted that since there is already a cattlemen’s association in the county, the ranchers are much better organized than the produce farmers. That lack, Will said, may lead to an effort to organize a truck farmers association.  Will noted earlier in April that transportation would be a key to selling Rutherford County produce and meat in Charlotte.  On Friday, he cited one example of someone stepping up to meet that need.
Carl Pratt, he said, has 25 years of experience in trucking and he has access to a 14-foot refrigerated truck that will help overcome the transportation obstacle.  Will noted that Pratt used to go to California, pull straight into the field, take on a load of tomatoes, then drive all the way back to sell them. And that long distance, he said, meant at least a two-week gap in getting the produce to market.  Will said he needs to get more farmers because he is getting more requests for food. For more information, contact Will at
288-1650 or twill@Foot­hillsConnect.com.
Contact Dale via e-mail at ldale@thedigitalcourier.com

Organic farmer
Rich Davis, left, hands Carl Pratt a basket of farm fresh strawberries that will be delivered to high-end restaurants in Charlotte. A total of five gallons of straw­berries were pur­chased by the restaurants from Davis’s farm “Always Somthin’ Farm” in Rutherfordton and will be transported by Pratt.
Garrett Byers/ Daily Courier

Shuler chairs rural Internet access hearing

 By SCOTT BAUGHMAN Daily Courier Staff Writer
 RUTHERFORDTON — Congressman Heath Shuler held a special sub-committee meeting on rural broadband connectivity Wednesday, and the topics discussed could have far-reaching implications for Rutherford County.
"Many rural communities across the country are struggling to remain competitive" said Shuler in his role as chairman of the House Small Business Subcommittee on Rural and Urban Entrepreneurship. "By harnessing new technologies, we can create new opportunities, improving the way businesses — especially farms — operate, and reverse this trend." The benefits of the connectivity for farmers in Western North Carolina can be substantial, with technology that not only helps keep costs down but also helps with remote temperature monitoring.
"We’re doing the right thing tying together the needs of the large metropolitan areas like Charlotte with the resources of rural areas like Rutherford County,” said Tim Will, executive director of Foothills Connect, an Internet business incubator. “Here, we have large areas of arable land, and in the cities they have a great demand for freshly grown food." The Internet can bring those two things together — if you can connect.”
Connectivity can also help to link together businesses in other industries.
'As today's economy changes, so do the needs of this nation's entrepreneurs,' Chairman Shuler said. 'Expanding the economic benefits of broadband is one way to help this nation's farmers and rural small businesses increase the efficiency of their operations and, in turn, support economic growth.' BalsamWest Fibernet was invited to testify before the Subcommittee due to their unique experience of successfully extending broadband access to the difficult terrain of Western North Carolina.
Brandon Stephens, Chairman of BalsamWest, testified, ' The work of this isolated remote mountain region is a perfect example of the entrepreneurial spirit that has spurred so much innovation in the U.S. By collaboration and pooling of capital, resources, and expertise, the isolated mountain communities of this region are networked together, and can network small business and entrepreneurs together on an ultra­high- speed superhighway of virtually unlimited capacity.' For Will, the ability to connect to the web at high speed is integral to growing new business in the county. “ The Internet does not com­pute, it communicates,” Will said. “And with high speed you can do so in a much more media rich environment.
“As a former teacher, I’ve realized that students, and people in general, learn more visually than they ever do orally. With this kind of presentation available, you can make all sorts of business deals happen. I am pleased that Congressman Shuler understands this importance,” Will added.
Shuler added, “ There are many debates going on right now about broadband policy.  We must ensure that the needs of rural small businesses are taken into account whenever local, state or federal govern­ments act to change the broad­band marketplace...I hope we will begin a dialogue that will help make sure this happens.”
 Contact Baughman via email at sbaughman@thedigitalcourier.com.

High-Tech Connection
  Rutherford produce speeds to Charlotte