Good Food for Thought: How We Slice Our Pie—Choosing Markets and Managing Revenue Streams

By Lauren Cox 

Lauren Cox is the Organic Procurement Coordinator at Georgia Organics

Aluma Farm’s very organized harvest board. Photo credit: Bailey Garrot.

Small farms operate much like other small entrepreneurial businesses. In addition to producing food, a farmer must also be a self-promoter, a marketer, their own research and development team, and very often juggle the wants and needs of a variety of customers. In the 6th installation of the Winter Webinar series, Farm to Restaurant’s Organic Procurement Coordinator leads a three-part webinar covering these activities: deciding on your basket of goods and services and creating a value statement, managing your weekly farm flow, and understanding how you divide up your farm based on your revenue streams.  

Whether you sell at the farmers market, to restaurants, wholesalers, or through a CSA program, you should aim to know your customer base and plan for moving product. Photo by Lauren Cox.

There are multiple ways for farmers to get food to their final customers. This ‘farmer to eater’ supply chain can include processors, wholesalers, restaurants, grocery stores, and retailers or simply go directly into the hands of an eater. Farmers can sell to each of these groups and should understand that each one of them has different wants and needs, including where they hold value and what they are looking for when buying from a farmer. 

This ‘basket of goods and services’ can also change over time depending on the farmer as well as the customer. While planning for the year ahead, ask yourself: What am I selling and why is it important to my customer? Remember, what is important to you isn’t necessarily going to be important to everyone else. Maybe your customer values being able to talk to you each week and ask questions about what they’re buying while you prioritize paying your employees fair wages and growing organically. One does not necessarily exclude the other but again, your customer’s values and where they’re prioritized might not be the same as your own. 

Thinking about a value statement or value proposition is also important. This can change with your customers and correlates to your basket of goods and services. If you can’t make money from your basket of ‘goods and services’ then don’t do it and always make sure you have a feedback loop to understand if your customer’s values are changing. Easy ways to do this include talking to your customers directly as well as conducting surveys to market-goers and CSA members. Also watching what sells quickly and what doesn’t is a non-verbal way to assess your markets. No matter what, having a feedback loop gives a farmer the advantage to help plan for growing any of their revenue streams. 

Planning for growth is important. Photo by Lauren Cox.

As you think about the year ahead and decide which customers and parts of your business will shift or grow, consider your current weekly farm schedule. Taking on more revenue streams could mean you take more time off the farm for market days. It could mean more time spent harvesting and delivering to wholesalers or restaurants. While planning, try this exercise: Make a column for each day of the week and then fill it with the general tasks you do consistently, for example, Monday’s are bookkeeping days, and Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday are workdays while Friday is a harvest day for Saturday market. Once this is done ask yourself, “Does my weekly flow feel well-paced? Is it packed in one part of the week and less busy in another? What if there were an emergency? Do I have enough time, in that case, to react? And finally, “Could I take on another sales channel?” Depending on your customer’s needs and values, you might be able to shift your schedule to take on new opportunities or give you that much-needed time on the farm you’ve been looking for.  

 Listing out your top sellers across your different markets can highlight your resiliency in withstands shifts in market demand. Photo by Lauren Cox.

How do we bring what we know about our customer base, our weekly bandwidth, and how we want to grow our business together to refine our systems and plan for the year ahead? First and foremost record-keeping is our biggest asset! Thinking about your ‘top sellers’ for each customer base and looking at your books to see if you’re making money on them can give you valuable insight (no pun intended) into whether or not you’re on the right track. Ideally, you should plan for growth and have multiple customers that are interested in the same thing in case one of them falls through. In addition to QuickBooks and surveys, keep a notebook with your weekly sales information. Walk around the first day of your workweek and write down what you need to sell, how much you have, and to whom you plan to sell it to (CSA, restaurants, markets, or otherwise).

This exercise will help you get better at understanding quantities of what you have to offer and how much space you are allocating on your farm for each sales outlet. As you think about the space on your farm and how it relates to your customer base ask yourself these questions: What isn’t selling to multiple customers? Are there other things I could use that farm space for? Are there other things I could sell to the same customers that also sell at other markets? Asking yourself these questions explicitly with give you a leg up in planning for growth and managing your revenue streams. 

This Good Food for Thought event was a workshop exclusive to Georgia Organics Farmer Members. Interested in becoming a farmer member for just $12 per year? Visit membership.georgiaorganics.org/farmer-membership. Join us for more Good Food for Thought by visiting gfft.georgiaorganics.org/virtual-events.

Meet Dan Glenn of Deep Grass Graziers, Ben Hill’s Soil Steward

Courtesy of Deep Grass Graziers

By Porter Mitchell

Dan Glenn's family farm is located in one of the country’s poorest counties, located right in the middle of South Georgia. Over one-third of people in Ben Hill County have lived below the poverty line for at least the past three decades. The sun is blazing hot, the humidity is intense, and the weeds grow so fast you can practically sit and watch them take over your fields in a single day. But the heavy rain and warm winters mean you can grow there year-round, and cattle can graze on pasture 365 days a year.   

The family farm, founded by Dan’s grandparents in the 1960s, is a powerful example of how a farm can nurture both people and the land. The farm provides jobs in one of the poorest counties in the country. It honors the skill of farming, providing seasoned hands a way to showcase their craft and new farmers a way to learn. The farm provides food. The farm nurtures ecosystems and even draws down carbon from the atmosphere.   

And it all starts with the soil.   

Ben Hill and Back   

Dan Glenn grew up on family land in Ben Hill County, about ninety minutes north of Valdosta. The farm belonged to his grandparents, conventional farmers who grew corn, soy, cotton, peanuts, tobacco, and raised some cattle on their 800 acres.    

Courtesy of Deep Grass Graziers

 Like many people who grew up in rural areas, Dan didn’t intend on staying there. In his early twenties, he developed a keen interest in permaculture and organic farming, and relocated to St. Croix to work on a sustainable farm. Eventually, he and some like-minded farmers founded the Virgin Islands Sustainable Farm Institute, a research and training farm. The institute not only taught new farmers but also fueled Dan’s passion for regenerative agriculture.   

Then Dan’s grandparents passed away. In 2009, Dan was called back home to help his mother manage the farm. “I had to square my interest and passions in soil health, permaculture, and organic farming with a very conventional operation,” explains Dan. The family farm was doing well. Transitioning away from conventional farming takes years and carries a hefty financial risk for the farmer. Dan knew he couldn’t take a gamble on his family’s farm, but he also knew that for the farm to survive long-term, they had to change. They couldn’t just keep doing what Dan’s grandparents had done. They had to start taking their soil seriously.    

Living Soil   

“I thought it was about the cow, but it was about the forages. I thought it was about the forages, but it was about the soil.” Dan Glenn   

Courtesy of Deep Grass Graziers

Like a coral reef or a rainforest, soil has its own diverse ecosystem. Healthy soil is full of microscopic organisms, different types of fungi, and invertebrates like earthworms. Like any other ecosystem, all the different components work together in harmony to benefit both the soil ecosystem and the plants growing in it. Healthy soil is better able to hold water, making it resistant to both drought and flooding. Healthy soil makes it easier for plant roots to absorb the nutrients they need. Healthy soil provides a habitat for organisms that keep plant diseases and pests in check. And healthy soil takes carbon from the atmosphere and changes it into a solid form stored in the ground. In fact, healthy soil can store between 25 and 50 tons of carbon per acre.* If you have seen healthy soil, you’ll see it’s very dark in color—this color comes from the carbon.  

Many common agricultural practices harm the soil ecosystem and therefore the plants that the ecosystem supports. Tilling releases carbon stored into the soil into the atmosphere and exposes the soil organisms to heat and sunlight, killing them. Synthetic fertilizers create weak plant root systems that can’t take up nutrients well, meaning more and more fertilizer is needed. These weak root systems also create weak plants that are worse at fending off pests and disease, which means they require more pesticides, fungicides, and herbicides. Unhealthy soil is very different in physical structure to healthy soil and is poorly able to store water and nutrients, leading to the farmer using more water and more nutrients. It’s a vicious cycle that creates a heavy burden for both the farmer and the land.  

But rebuilding the soil takes years--too long to for a farmer to wait when bills come every month. Farming is notorious for its razor-thin profit margins and fluctuating markets. Add in the unpredictability of the weather, and you’ve got a business that can collapse after a few bad seasons. For farming families like Dan’s that depend on the farm, they literally can’t afford to wait until their soil is restored.   

To offset this risk, Dan made changes very slowly, weaning the depleted soil microbiome off of its dependence on conventional fertilizer, building the health of the land. Dan employed natural fertility practices like planting soil-building crops such as clover, peas, and buckwheat, known as cover cropping. Dan had to slowly change the attitudes of some people on the farm too. “I had to twist some arms for sure,” laughs Dan.  

Reviving an Old Practice for the New Millennium  

Dan became fascinated in how livestock can be used to nurture depleted soil back to health. Rotating livestock into crop fields is a very old practice found in agricultural traditions around the world. For example, in Ireland sheep, cows, and horses spend the winter in crop fields, readying the soil for spring planting. But this ancient practice had been forgotten by the average farmer in the United States. “We separated the animals from the farm here,” remarks Dan.  

Livestock, especially ruminating animals like cows and sheep, provide urine and manure that fertilizes the soil and nourishes its ecosystem. Grazing grass encourages roots to grow stronger and deeper into the soil, locking it in place. Livestock can clear what’s left over after harvest and they eat many invasive weeds, making room for native plants. And livestock can make money too, helping offset financial risk.   

Dan went to see Will Harris of White Oak Pastures, a cattle farmer using the animals to restore soil that had been reduced from a living ecosystem to dead dust by decades of abuse. White Oak is about as close to a household name as a farm can get, but Dan went to Will Harris long before he was on magazine covers and his expertise was sought after worldwide.   

He met Will in his small church-turned-office in the not-even-a-one-stoplight hamlet of Bluffton, Georgia. Dan was excited and full of energy. He had big plans for his family’s farm, incorporating not only cattle but chickens, sheep, goats, and a whole Noah’s Ark of animals.   

Will hit the brakes. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, boy! Just concentrate on one thing and do it well.” Dan took his advice to heart, focusing on cattle. He worked to develop a clear plan. He focused on finances to figure out how the cattle were going to restore the land and keep the family farm in business. And then Dan got to work.   

A Man and His Pivot  

Getting the right mix of grass and plant species at the right time is key to providing the cow with the nutrients they need. While pasture cattle ranchers in other areas of the country have a broad body of research and best practices to turn to, Dan found almost nothing for the specific climate, conditions, and plants of South Georgia.  

So he started conducting his own research.   

Dan set up a 90-acre center pivot irrigation system. Center pivots work like the hand on a clock. A center anchor holds a long arm that rotates in a circle, while a line of sprinklers along the arm provide water. If you’ve been on an airplane and seen perfect circles in cropland, that’s the work of a center pivot.   

Dan divided the area covered by the pivot into eight parts, fencing each of them in to create eight pastures. His cattle rotate around the pastures, moving to a new pasture almost every day. The cattle follow the irrigation arm so every time they go into a new pasture there’s well-watered and healthy forage for them.   

Dan uses the different pastures to conduct trials on different mixes of forage crops. He’s experimenting to try and find the perfect blend that provides nutrition to his cattle, requires little if any maintenance, and builds soil quickly.    

The Perfect Cow   

Not only did Dan have to find the right mix of forage for South Georgia, he had to find the right type of cow too. The most common breeds were adapted for a diet of corn, not a diet of grass and plants. Dan got to work, selectively breeding his herd to create the perfect cow for his farm.   

“I want a cow that doesn’t need a diet of corn to fill out. I want healthy cows, ones that are resilient and don’t need a lot of inputs. I want a mama cow that has a healthy calf every year for a long time. These are the traits that produce a profit,” explains Dan.   

Georgia’s Newest Cash Crop   

Dan, along with his business partner, has begun growing hemp and building out the infrastructure to dry and process it. They recently purchased an old sewing factory in Ben Hill Country that they’re converting to a CBD processing facility, bringing both jobs and outside investment to the county. Dan’s hemp business will be vertically integrated from growing the hemp transplants to processing the plants into CBD oil. Dan is a huge proponent of vertical integration and advises other farmers to follow his lead. “It’s been the difference between breaking even and making money for me,” he explains.   

Dan’s venture into hemp and CBD also serves to create a more sustainable business. “My grandpa had cattle, row crops, and a tractor dealership. Because he diversified his income sources, he was less vulnerable.”    

But Dan cautions against taking on too many ventures at once. “Don’t bite off a big bite and try to do too many things. Add more enterprises as your other enterprises become successful.” 

Courtesy of Deep Grass Graziers

Dan’s Vision 

Dan’s vision for his farm is one in which the forages, the crops, and the cattle all work together to create a system that benefits the environment and is financially sustainable. “I want to have good genetics and create perennial and polyculture (meaning many different species) systems that work to produce cattle that are efficient and hands-off.”   

Dan’s reconciled with his home too. He’s no longer the twenty-something trying to get as far away from rural Georgia as he could. “Growing up and coming home here, I know it in my bones. I know the people. I’m in my community here”   

Dan Glenn is the incoming president of the Georgia Forage and Grassland Association and is a member of the following organization’s Board of Directors: American Forage and Grassland Committee, National Grazing Land Coalition, and Southern SARE. (SSARE). Dan is also part of our inaugural Farmer Accelerator Program cohort. You can learn more about the program here.   

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Porter Mitchell is a Farmer Services Coordinator at Georgia Organics. To learn more about Georgia Organics, visit www.georgiaorganics.org and follow us on Instagram@GeorgiaOrganics, Twitter @GeorgiaOrganics, and at www.Facebook.com/GeorgiaOrganics. 

Georgia Organics Kicks Off First of Its Kind Farmer Accelerator Program

Tianna Neal of Starlit Roots Farm (Photo courtesy of National Young Farmers Coalition).

By Porter Mitchell

Beginning farmers come in our doors eager to learn and to make a career from agriculture. They want to feed their neighbors, continue a family tradition of farming, steward the land, and care for their rural communities. We’ve seen many of these farmers succeed, but we’ve seen hundreds begin farming only to quit after a few years. Why?  

Farmers reach a point in which they need real investment to move their business from day-to-day survival mode to true sustainability. They need personalized services, investment in infrastructure, personalized education to develop a business or marketing plan, and training to access new markets—not the one-size-fits-all approach that is the current norm. 

Sed Rowe of Rowe Organic Farm (Photo Credit Southern Styles and Steeds)

Jenny of Jenny Jack Farm harvests onions (photo courtesy of Jenny Jack Farm)

These critical services are out of reach for many smaller growers. They may not qualify for FSA loans, they may not have the credit to access a small business loan, they may not have family or personal wealth or property to use as collateral. Black growers specifically face an uphill battle due to decades of discrimination from banks and the USDA. Or many beginning farmers, often already saddled with student loan debt, may simply not want to take on debt in a profession not known to be particularly lucrative.

The Georgia Organics Farmer Accelerator Program is the first of its kind to fill these resource gaps. Ten farmers enter a yearlong cohort and each receives nearly $10,000 in on-farm infrastructure investment and labor stipends, plus an additional $3,000 in professional consulting from experts. Farmers also receive coaching on food safety and organic certification from the Farmer Services team.

“We’ve got the best coaches in the country for this program,” says Farmer Services Director Michael Wall who has spent the past year securing these consultants. “By going deep with these coaches, these farmers can really strengthen their operations.”

About sixty farmers applied for the ten spots available. Choosing which farmers would receive support and which ones wouldn’t was incredibly difficult. Kayla Williams, Farmer Services Coordinator at Georgia Organics, led efforts to build a complex application scoring system. 

“When deciding how to choose Accelerator cohort members, we wanted to recognize the fact that race and place are two very real factors that can and do affect a farmers’ ability to succeed. By giving extra points to and prioritizing our farmers of color and rural farmers, it holds us accountable to our mission of ‘Good Food for All’” she explains. At least five of the Accelerator spots are reserved for BIPOC farmers and at least five spots are reserved for rural farmers

 After lengthy inner dialogue and presenting the list of finalists to a panel of farmers and outside experts, the Farmer Services team chose ten farmers from across the state. They range from fourteen years of farming experience to three, from large scale row crop and commodity production to small market vegetable farms, from chicken and cattle to flowers and fruit, from several hundred acres to three acres. In other words, the 2020 class of Accelerator farmers represent the diversity of Georgia’s agriculture. The inaugural Accelerator class is:

• Deep Grass Graziers, Fitzgerald (www.deepgrassgraziers.com/) – Beef cattle

• Hearts of Harvest Farm, Arnoldsville (www.heartsofharvestfarm.com) - Mixed fruit and vegetables, flowers

• Four Bellies Farm, Bowdon (http://fourbelliesfarm.com/) - Beef, rabbit, chicken, lamb

• Jenny Jack Farm, Pine Mountain (https://www.jennyjackfarm.com/) - Mixed fruit, vegetables

• Narrow Way Farm, McDonough (https://narrowwayfarm.com/) – Vegetables, berries, fruit

  New Eden Ecosystems, West Point (www.facebook.com/westgeorgiafarmerscooperative/) - Fruit, vegetables, livestock

• Rag and Frass Farm (Jeffersonville) - Mixed fruit and vegetables, flowers https://www.ragandfrassfarm.com/ 

• Rolling Branch Farm, Naylor (www.rollingbranchfarms.com/) - Pecans flowers

• Rowe Organic Farm, Albany (ga.foodmarketmaker.com/business/4914917-rowe-organic-farm) - Peanuts, sunflowers, melons

• Starlit Roots Farm, Keysville ( www.Instagram.com/starlitroots) - Vegetables

After an intense intake process that gathered extensive data on the farm and farmer, the Farmer Services team collectively drafted plans for each farmer for coaching and infrastructure spending. These plans were based on priorities listed by the farmer, a SWOT analysis (strengths, weakness, opportunities, threats), a formal business analysis, and lengthy conversations with the farmers. Each plan is wholly unlike the other ones, just as each farmer is different. For the next nine months, the farmers will work closely with a Farmer Services staff member as their case manager. “The success of our Accelerator farmers is our number one priority,” explains Michael Wall. 

Dan Glenn of Deep Grass Graziers (Courtesy of Deep Grass Graziers)

Eric Simpson of New Eden Ecosystems (Courtesy of Black Farmers Network)

Georgia Organics hopes that this program will not only help these farmers grow and strengthen their businesses and their skillsets but can also be used as a model to replicate across the country. 

Interested in learning more about these farmers and keeping up with their progress? Keep checking in for extended profiles and interviews on The Dirt!

Check out where our Accelerator farmers are on the map!

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Click to view Accelerator Program farms around the state.

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Porter Mitchell, Farmer Services Coordinator at Georgia Organics. To learn more about Georgia Organics, visit www.georgiaorganics.org and follow us on Instagram @GeorgiaOrganics, Twitter @GeorgiaOrganics, and at www.Facebook.com/GeorgiaOrganics.