Field Trips

This is a small to mid-size confined animal feeding operation (CAFO) dairy.  All of the commodity milk that you see in the grocery store comes from dairies like this (only they are much larger).  This has been a family-owned farm for 5 generations (with the 6th growing up on the farm now).  This style of agriculture is often referred to as "industrial" or "conventional".  This dairy collects its manure as a slurry in large open pits and then reapplies it on their own fields to grow grain and silage to be harvested and fed to the cows to fulfill a portion of their diets. Much of the labor on this dairy is done by H2A visa holders - folks from other countries here legally for a certain time to complete specific work - these visas are renewable.  Metzger's, like most dairies of there size, are having to cut costs and struggle given the sharply reducing demand for cow dairy products and the increased efficiency of mega-dairies.

Thad works a family farm with his mom, dad, and wife.  This few thousand acre farm would be considered "industrial" or "conventional".  Thad sells their grain (corn and soy) into the commodity market.  They try to buffer against price fluctuations in the commodity market by storing grain on their farm and selling it when prices are high.  It is notable that Thad and his father use no-till as part of their management.  While no-till has been commonly practiced since the 1980s it has yet to catch on broadly in our area of Indiana, though Hoosiers lead in both no-till and cover cropped acres.  This is your chance to really meet an industrial farmer in our area and learn what motivates him, how he makes conservation and management decisions, and what he sees as the way forward in the future.  

Miller poultry is a medium sized industrial chicken growing and processing operation.  Their chickens are raised in CAFOs and are all sent to a central facility to be slaughtered. We will visit different Miller Poultry facilities during our program.  For this field trip we will visit a contract grower.  These contract growers are individuals who are under contract by Miller Poultry to grow their birds.  The farmer owns the buildings and infrastructure while Miller owns the feed and the birds and provides the technical expertise.  The profitability and fairness of these contracts vary widely and some companies have come under scrutiny for exploitative practices.

• This farm is run by world-famous Goshen College alum Ben Hartman.  Ben is author of "The Lean Farm" and a field guide companion called "The Lean Farm Guide to Growing Vegetables" and is a sought-after speaker all over the world.  Ben is a pioneer in the area of Lean Farming (see his talk at the Oxford Real Food Conference or his talk on disruption for the Lean Institute) in which he tries to reduce waste whenever possible and maximize efficiency.  Ben is an extremely good resource for people looking to start a profitable vegetable farm with half an acre - and his system applies almost anywhere!  You can see Ben's products in restaurants around the area, at Maple City Market, and through his CSA (another type of economic approach to getting food from farm to table).  Ben takes a "layered" approach to markets - he sells all he can to his highest value markets but has 2nd and 3rd markets lined up so that he is able to sell all of his product.

• Sunrise Seeds is a feed, seed, and farm supply store located in the heart of Amish Country here in NE Indiana.  This store serves as a hub for Amish farmers practicing organic agriculture in the region.  We will meet with Amish farmers who have converted from conventional to organic agriculture and learn about their personal, economic, and communal reasons for doing so.  We will also explore how a shift to organic has allowed individuals to farm in a way that more closely aligns with their own spiritual and religious views.  Special emphasis is paid to the "Organic Valley producer co-op".  The Organic Valley producer co-op functions by individual farmers all agreeing to a special set of rules (organic, grassfed, etc.) and pooling their milk to be collectively marketed under the name Organic Valley.  This is in contrast to corporate models such as Horizon Dairy (who also operates in the area) in which milk is bought by the corporation and farmer input and co-ownership is not baked in.  How each of these models works to support farmers is very different.

This is the milk aggregator using a corporate model.

This is the milk aggregator using the producer co-op model.

This is a small producer's co-op comprising two farms.  A farm that supplies meat (Hopeful Farms) and a farm that supplies dairy (Spring River Dairy).  We will visit Spring River Dairy.  In addition to being a producer co-op Spring River Dairy utilizes something called a "herd share".  In this framework the members technically own the herd and the farmer is just milking out the cows for them.  This enables them to sell raw milk, cheeses, butter, etc. from their location.  They also have begun selling A2 milk in hopes of providing milk that does not as commonly lead to allergies.  Similarly animals at Hopeful Farms are not fed soy in their feed for those avoiding soy products.  These farms provide on-farm pickup as well as satellite order and pickup locations around Fort Wayne and Columbia City.  The farmer at Spring River Dairy was actually a member of Organic Valley previously but did not like the agreed upon collective rules.  The farmer feels that his product is superior health-wise and for the environment.  He specializes in 100% grass fed raw milk (unpasteurized) dairy from an A2 certified herd.

Community Harvest Food Bank (CHFB) is a large organization that handles Food Bank responsibilities for the greater Fort Wayne area (including Noble County).  It is the regional food bank for northeast Indiana, serving the counties of Adams, Allen, DeKalb, Huntington, LaGrange, Noble, Steuben, Wells, and Whitley. After more than 36 years of operation, Community Harvest has grown to become a nationally recognized regional food bank within the Feeding America network.  Rejected produce from stores such as Walmart and food that would otherwise go to waste is trucked from the serviced counties to the central food bank. Here it is housed and redistributed through its on-site grocery store-like distribution center - the community cupboard, mobile farm wagons carrying perishable foods to drop off locations throughout the service area, a no-questions-asked food giveaway every Saturday, and other programs for seniors and children.  Notably this food bank also has its own working farm where it grows fresh produce for distribution as well as a gleaning program to collect donated food from farmers' fields.  When fresh vegetable supply exceeds demand the remainder can be preserved in their on-site produce preservation center.  The preservation center also acts as an incubator providing certified commercial kitchen space to local food entrepreneurs.  You should also be aware of government programs that shift excess commodity foods from the for-profit sector to the food bank.  These government programs that use tax payer money to buy American overproduction to redistribute to food banks are The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) and the Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP). Both of these programs saw increased funding and usage during COVID both because demand increased but also - due to the shutting down of restaurants, school meals, etc. - there was a glut of meat, milk, and produce on the market.  The USDA Farmers-to-Families Foodbox program is another example of COVID-era attempts by the government to buy surplus production and redistribute it.  In fact, the food bank system as a whole has been instituted to preserve corporate profits, ensure manufactured food scarcity, and stabilize commodity prices in times of surplus production (and here).

Now inflation coupled with wage stagnation is sending more folks to the foodbank.  

This facility is also rented out to local entrepreneurs who need a commercial kitchen in order to offer their food products for sale.  CHFB has a variety of programs on offer including (i) Farm Wagon, (ii) Saturday Helping Hands, and (iii) Community Cupboard - please check out all of their programs with the link provided above.  

This is an excellent example of a community garden.  Individuals from all walks of life in the community garden here to produce culturally relevant food for themselves and their family members.  This is also a drop off location for the CHFB Market Wagon.

You folks know about this already - but I wanted to list this here as another organization focusing on food literacy

Our local food pantry!  We provide fresh food here.

https://www.gunthorpfarms.com/

This family-run and owned farm specializes in pasture-raised chicken, pork, turkey, and duck. They have one of the largest pastured poultry operations in the country. Gunthorp farms in its current form was started by Greg Gunthorp.  Greg began his career raising pigs conventionally for the commodity market.  During the 1980s farm crisis Greg learned that he could not count on the commodity market to provide him an adequate price for his product.  That is when he decided to take a different approach to the process and business of agriculture and vertically integrate his business.  Instead of raising hogs in confinement Greg spread them out among the ample woodland on his property.  Corn and soybean fields became pastures for his pasture-raised chicken and turkey operation.  Rather than depend on outside slaughterhouses Greg built, staffed. and operated his own USDA certified processing facility.  Greg marketed to resturants and, following the emergence of COVID-19, started a new direct-to-consumer operation.  The farm also focuses on value-added products such as fine aged hams.  Greg is a board member of the American Grassfed Association and has spoken on pasture pig production as well as how to operate a very small processing plant and ecological waste treatment at most of the major small farm and sustainable ag conferences across the country.  Their operation has hosted visitors from all over the world. He is a past board member of the American Pastured Poultry Producers Association.  He served on Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman’s Small Farm Commission as well as serving on a small farm advisory panel to President Clinton and currently serves on the Pew/Meridian Meat and Poultry Inspection Dialogue. Recently he has been appointed by the Secretary of Agriculture for a two year term to the USDA Food Saftey Inspection Service Advisory Committee for Meat and Poultry Inspection.  Greg is also passionate about finding solutions to corporate control of the US food system.

Miller poultry is a medium sized industrial chicken growing and processing operation.  Their chickens are raised in CAFOs and are all sent to a central facility to be slaughtered. We will visit different Miller Poultry facilities during our program.  For this field trip we will visit the central processing plant.  While we are here pay special attention to the process, what is automated vs. what is done by hand, the folks who are doing the work, the marketing and packaging, where the various products and wastes go, etc.

The for-profit sector can have a lot of leverage in the food system.  Local food is becoming more and more part of the marketing strategy for local restaurants and breweries. From their website:  "All of the ingredients we use here at Crossroads Kombucha are pure and real, no added anything.  As much as possible, we use locally sourced fruits & herbs from farmers near us; we can literally walk the grounds and see how they produce the fruits and herbs that we will be using to craft your Kombucha.  We take quality seriously as it is our number one goal."

John Sherck specializes in growing landrace strains of many common grains (wheat, oats, einkorn, triticale, rye, upland rice, spelt, buckwheat, barley, millet, sorghum, quinoa) some pulses (lentils, beans) and a few other interesting plants (tomatoes, banana, fig, peanuts, etc.).  See the full list here.  "Landrace" means that he continually selects the best candidates from the plants he has grown and grows these the following year.  By doing this John is endeavoring to grow strains of these plants that are adapted to our climate here in Northeastern Indiana.  John intentionally includes diversity in his selections so that his strains contain the resilience of genetic diversity (and hence expressed traits) to deal with the weather of any given year given our regional climate.  

This is a Michigan-based potato farm with satellite farms all over the United States.  Their accounts include giants like Frito-Lay.  By their nature potatoes are clonal (seeds do not produce reliable results) so an entire field is genetically identical.  Read more in their "about" section.

The conglomerate DowDupont once owned the Agscience conglomerate Corteva (it is now an independent spin-off company).  The big seed operation within Corteva is Pioneer Seed.  Many hybrid and GM seeds are produced by Corteva - as well as agrochemicals.  Seed genetics are precisely honed to get very repeatable results and maximize yield within the industrial agricultural system.

This is an Amish fully integrated aquaponics operation.  Also - this farm is on an Amish agritourism stop is this is what they have to say:

“Quite possibly the most mind-blowing Amish encounter you will ever have!”

Here is a tour that is truly unique . – No horses, no tractors, no soil… no kidding! Visit an Amish farmer who grows lettuce in the air and a dairy farmer with “Amish electricity.”

A “futuristic farmer” who happens to be Amish is your host. In his greenhouse, see Boston Bibb Lettuce growing “in the air” on tall revolving towers producing over 2,500 heads a week. It’s an amazing story your group hears visiting this unique location on this private tour, exclusive to the Amish Experience.

Rose Avenue Education Farm is an incubator farm for the sizable Burmese refugee population in Fort Wayne.  Many of the Burmese have gardening knowledge but do not know how to grow at scale or how to work within the US system of regulation, etc. (FSMA, GAP, etc.).  Rose Avenue Farm is a resource to help these farmers grow culturally relevant food for their own community (food 

Seven sons is a very successful family farming operation that emphasizes regenerative agriculture and diverse systems that integrate natural systems into the farming system.  That being said they are also very cognizant of "death by diversity" and make sure that they are running a tight enough operation to make money and avoid burnout.  Click here if you want to know more about their central tenets regarding farming.  They direct sale their own product but also other farms' products (for example, they sell Gunthorp products at mark-up).

Andy is a large acreage organic farmer who farms corn, beans, wheat, barley, some other small grains...and worms for worm castings.  Andy is also an Iroquois Valley Board Member, on the SWCD Board, and part of the Organic Valley Grower Pool.

A great family farm that specializes in organic hay.  They also supply beef to many local restaurants and run their own food truck so they can direct market their products to customers in a restaurant-like setting. They have also run into issues since the organic ground they were leasing from the airport got turned into an Amazon fulfillment center!

https://fiberarts.visitjaycounty.com/class_teachers/julie-davidson/

Fiber arts are often overlooked because it is not food. Julie will bring the students full circle by shearing, spinnings, creating, and discussing how can this be a viable business. We'll even look for examples of regenerative fiber - Towards a climate beneficial wardrobe

Native food ways, connecting to the land, shifting perspectives on how to listen to plants, herbalism, foraging, just lots of good info here and happy to work with us

Her efforts center on growing Central and South American corn varieties in the Michiana region. During this workshop hosted in Zuleyja’s garden, we will explore topics ranging from how to grow the varieties, their traditional uses in Latin American cultures, corn’s sacred dimensions, and the fundamental role of the plant to indigenous cultures throughout the Americas. 

LOCAL policy, grassroots, connects with MANY organizations, a good guide-on-the-side to help students figure out how they could start to engage in their local communities.  Learn more about her here.

https://stewardsofheartlandcommunities.wordpress.com/plowshares-cooperative-food-hub/