MAY 21, 2009 ISSUE
Keep On GROWING
New River Organic Growers Embraces Busiest Summer Season Yet
Thanks to grant funding, new farmers, a new refrigerated truck (pictured) participation in the High Country Community Supported Agriculture group and a new website, local farming coop New River Organic Growers is preparing for its busiest summer season to date.
Thanks to a new truck, a new website, new grant funding and several new growers, New River Organic Growers is gearing up for what promises to be its best growing season to date. Formed in 2000, the New River Organic Growers (NROG) are a group of dedicated family farmers in the High Country who employ organic farming methods that preserve farmland and cultivate healthy soils. The coop’s 18 member farms are located throughout Ashe, Watauga, Alleghany, Wilkes and Yancey counties.
According to NROG Marketer Angie Pate, several thousand dollars worth of recently acquired grant funding has been key to the coop’s recent growth spurt. Also crucial to the coop’s growth has been Pate’s growing role in the day-to-day operation as marketer; a position that allows her to interact with growers and customers all over the High Country.
“We’re really excited. We’re just growing by leaps and bounds every year,” said Pate. “The marketer salary was fully funded last year and is partly funded this year. It allows me to build up the business and make my position sustainable through sales.”
Arguably the most exciting addition to the NROG’s operation was the recent acquisition of a refrigerated truck, which Pate uses to collect produce from throughout the growing area for delivery to local stores and restaurants.
“It’s wonderful. We’re just tickled pink with it,” said Pate. “The refrigerated truck allows us to deliver a lot of produce to a lot of different places while maintaining the quality. It allows us some much-needed infrastructure to provide the consistency of supply.”
NROG is also excited to welcome farmers from around our region into its growing cooperative who will help NROG provide its customers with an array of fruits and vegetables from a variety of microclimates in the area, allowing the coop to extend its season and keep up with demand. New members include A Berry Patch Farm (Wayne and Jeanne Berry), Big Horse Creek Farm (Ron and Suzanne Joyner), Old Orchard Creek Farm (Johnny Burleson and Walter Clark), Lively Up Farm (Matt and Natalie Cooper), AB Farm (Andy Bryant), Tumbling Shoals Farm (Shiloh Avery and Jason Roehrig), Weibe Farmin’ (Ryan and Anna Weibe) and Hunting Creek Farm (Doug Adell).
Through both local and national efforts, the local food movement is seeing significant growth, both for home and restaurant consumption. Pate and the coop members couldn’t be happier.
“We’re finding a really huge response from the rest of the community and local health food stores,” said Pate. “Their customers are demanding local food and they want to provide local food because it tastes better. You get that warm, fuzzy feeling of supporting your local community.”
Recently, NROG joined the ranks of the High Country Community Supported Agriculture group. Founded by Maverick Farms in Valle Crucis, the HCCSA partners with 50 local shareholders to provide each of them a box of produce each week for 20 weeks at an average value of $25 per week. The HCCSA’s motto is: Share the bounty—share the risk. According to Pate, NROG’s participation in the HCCSA has been extremely important in providing a market for its smaller growers.
“It’s a way for farmers to share the risk with their consumers and it’s a way for the consumers to develop personal relationships with the people growing their food,” said Pate, adding that the HCCSA hopes to double the number of shareholders by next year.
Crops aren’t the only things growing for NROG. The coop’s online presence also got a major boost with the recent addition of a new website. According to Pate, the site will eventually allow customers to connect directly with farmers to order food and provide information about what crops are in season and much more.
“We’re trying to make it an interactive website for buyers sot that they’ll be able to go online and place orders,” said Pate.
An online calendar will also allow growers to connect with each other by coordinating equipment sharing and more.
Fore more information on New River Organic Growers, click to www.NewRiverOrganicGrowers.org.
Grants Help New River Organic Growers Expand Operation
Through a series of grants, New River Organic Growers have been able to purchase equipment and more effectively market its growing operation throughout the High Country. Recent grants have included:
-A $3,000 NC Specialty Crops grant obtained through a partnership between New River Community Partners and NC Cooperative Extension allowed NROG to design a logo and establish a website that soon will be used by the growers to list their availability and by their customers to see what is available and place orders.
-A marketing grant of $4,500 from the Conservation Fund’s Resourceful Communities Program’s Creative New Economies Fund (CNEF) administered by New River Community Partners was used to place the logo on the refrigerated truck and to update NROG’s brochure and print stick-on labels of their logo to be put on their produce boxes.
-A grant from North Carolina Agricultural Development & Farmland Preservation Trust Fund of $20,020 was used to purchase equipment for organic growers to help reduce labor and make it easier to increase production. The pieces of equipment include a mulch/tunnel layer, a potato digger, a potato washer, two trailers to haul the equipment and a pallet jack to be used with the refrigerated truck.
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