Today our travels took us to Table Top Farms in Nevada, Iowa. Not a far cry from the farmstead, we arrived at Table Top’s 30-acre vegetable farm. Table Top is a small scale farm devoted to local agriculture while focused on community involvement and sustainability. We met with the Grans and the Corbins, the two families that own and manage Table Top, and we spent a few hours with them talking about how they are managing their business. We actually spent a great deal of time speaking with them about their 5-year business plan, and their expectations for growth and expansion. Our past excursions have touched on the business side of things, but never focused on it so extensively. Hearing their expected setbacks and methods of recovery in their finances fleshed out the reality of the life of a farmer. Our group has discussed farmer subsidies and direct payments at length, so I had felt we had a firm grip on the financial aspect to farming. Yet, to hear their financial plan for now and for the near future truly cemented my understanding of the instability and insecurity of farming. The survival rate of any small business is low, but putting together a successful business plan for a small-scale sustainable, organic farm strikes me as particularly precarious.  As a non-farming consumer, especially one who is in college, I don’t always keep in mind that these small, organic, and sustainable farms are businesses, and have to make a profit to sustain themselves. There are so many moving parts for which these organic farmers must contend, and a small, but competitive, market in which they operate. Because their crops are so diverse and small-scale, some simply don’t have the finances or staff to expand and improve efficiency.

Their CSA is growing exponentially, they report, which is undoubtedly a sign they’re doing something right. Additionally, they participate in the Des Moines Farmers’ Market. Hearing about these things surely led to a local foods discussion, and Chris, one of the co-owners, explained his theory of regional foods, which was new to me. He claimed that “regional” foods, not “local,” were the most feasible way to provide people with food that also had a low carbon footprint, while still providing farms with an acceptable profit margin. These small-scale farms would send their food to regional “food hubs” that would hold the food until ready to be transported to consumers. This, he says, would allow the farmers to focus more on growing financially and productively. These hubs benefit both the producer and consumer in a symbiotic way. The small scale producer that would not ordinarily have access to traditional food wholesalers now could have a central outlet for their goods along with the infrastructure to get it there. The consumer would now have access to products typically not found in those traditional food wholesalers. Seeing as I had never heard of this method previous to our visit, despite all my research and interest in the local food movement, tells me that this concept has not been widely spread. Perhaps with more time, the concept will grow and more steps will be taken to enact it.