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It’s risky. It’s tedious. It’s oh so necessary.

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By Ashton Eley

SPRINGDALE––Level with the tarped mound of earth, the son-and-mother team move as a fluid machine behind the Kubota tractor, delicately grasping one cluster of strawberry roots with one hand while nestling another into a freshly-made, perfectly-sized pocket in the soil. Two down. Fifteen thousand to go.

It was the type of humid, balmy late-September day Arkansas is known for, and the Appel family decided to take a break, stretching their legs and checking the baby strawberry plants yet to be transplanted. Crates of peppers, green tomatoes, cantaloupe and other produce ready for the farmer’s market lined the shaded table where Travis, his wife Ashley—who manned the tractor—and mother Laverne refueled before getting back to work, their day far from finished.

Travis Appel did not grow up on a farm, though his parents kept a few cows and were fond of gardening, always keeping fresh fruit and vegetables on the family table. He was stationed with the Marine Corps in California when he decided, to come back home and earn a major in horticulture at the University of Arkansas with plans to become a golf course superintendent. But a class in fruit production changed set him on a different path.

On a snowy day in 2012, colder than usual for November, and Appel’s class visited a university research farm, which as sponsored by a Walmart grant to increase strawberry production in the area. After the class hour was over and they had picked their fill of strawberries, Appel lagged behind, interested in learning more. He spoke to his professor, who offered him a job on his personal farm. He worked, as an internship, tirelessly through the summer and into fall in 2013.

“I guess it was kind of an all of the sudden deal,” Appel said. “I just fell in love with it, I guess you’d say. It just seemed more of what I was interested in.”

Growth and Struggle of Small Farms

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It’s difficult work, sometimes monotonous and often unpredictable. Appel, now 32, belongs to the small group of young, full-time farmers in Northwest Arkansas. The average age of Northwest Arkansas farmers has risen, follow the national trend. While the next census will not be released until next year, the 2012 National Agriculture Statistics Service census from the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported that the average age for principal operators was 58.3 years old; it was about 59 in Benton County and in Washington County. One of the reasons for the increase age is price barriers.

Luckily for Appel, he is farming on the land he grew up on in Springdale. He spent his first two years growing the farm and diversity of produce and selling straight from the farm. Appel Farms grew in reputation for not only fresh, local produce, but for being a family-friendly environment. Customers flocked to Appel Farms for the experience.

“What a wonderful experience,” Rogers resident Elizabeth Burke said after taking her three young children strawberry picking at the farm. “The patch is perfectly maintained and is just the right size for families with small kids. After picking we were admiring the chickens and pigs. The staff member came over and fed the animals (so) my kids could get a closer look. It was such a wonderful experience for city kids.”

This year, his fourth of farming, Appel set up shop at the Springdale Market on Mill Street while still selling at the farm, especially for seasonal “agri-entertainment” like the pumpkin patch, which his community base. He keeps his loyal customers updated through the farm’s Facebook page, which has over 2,000 likes as of November.

“We have definitely seen the return customers every week,” he said. “There are enough people now who don’t want to grow it themselves, or don’t have the time to, that it’s become a big movement: local, fresh vegetables and fresh fruit. There’s definitely a demand for it.”

This demand follows a national trend and has driven what has been a rapid growth in farmers’ markets in the past 15 years. Arkansas has grown from about 15 markets in 2000 to more than 100 today, according to the USDA National Farmers’ Market Directory. While there is no solid statistical record, an informal phone call survey estimated about 20 farmers per market in Arkansas—Fayetteville Farmers’ Market being one of the oldest in Northwest Arkansas and larger in the state with up to 70 vendors. This would mean there are somewhere around 2,000 small-scale farmers in the state.

“That would be equivalent to the number of soybean and cotton farmers in the state. These markets in some estimates may contribute somewhere between $10-25 million to local Arkansas economy, possibly more,” said Curt R. Rom, associate dean for international education and Department of Horticulture professor at the University of Arkansas. “This is not inconsequential agriculture. However, there are no hard facts on this.”

During President Barack Obama’s first term, USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack introduced the “Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food Program” to stimulate small-scale farming and farmers’ markets. Rom cited this program as an important factor in the local movement. Appel said he sees people caring more about the actual benefits from buying from farms nearby.

“It seems to me that more people are caring about food miles—how far your food has traveled to where you eat it—but not only that; people are realizing that the fresher it is and the longer it can sit on the vine, the better it tastes,” he said. “The longer it can sit on there, the more nutritious it is going to be and the better it is going to taste. For me, I don’t think that is going out of style.”

While 25 percent of vendors derive their sole incomes from market sales, according to the U.S. Farmers Market Coalition, much of the younger farmers Appel sees at the markets are what he calls “weekend warriors,” who treat farming as a hobby rather than their job.

Along with the rapid growth of markets, small farms have also grown in number. In 2012, Benton and Washington counties alone held 3,733 farms under 180 acres with 2,011 being under 50 acres, making up 43 percent of farms. True, Rom said, many of those are recreational farms—people that have a few horses, or a cow, or a tractor and are really not producing farms—but “teased out in that (data) are that small farms are growing.”

While Appel has a few acres to work with and plans to expand, starting costs have still been steep. He found he was no different than the 78 percent of farmers who ranked “lack of capital” as a top challenge for beginners, according to a National Young Farmers Coalition nation-wide survey.

Arkansas is one of the few states where average per capita farm income exceeds non-farm per capita income, according to the Arkansas Farm Bureau, but it takes a while to get to that point and often the money is put right back into the farm, many farmers have said. With two young boys to support, Travis Appel said he would have not been able to start their farm without his wife Ashley’s financial help.

“She has allowed me to do this,” he said. “It takes several years. You’re not going to be able to go out in just one or two years and do this. You got to build your customer base.”

Also, under the Obama-Vilsack administration, the USDA started a new program, “New Farmers and Ranchers,” which has issued more than 138,000 direct and guaranteed farm operating and farm ownership loans to beginning farmers and ranchers from around the country since 2009. Many of these are successful at starting new farmers who will contribute to local, regional and national food systems; however, none have been given to Arkansas farmers.

Professor of horticulture Elena Garcia, who spent the last 11 years as an extension agent for the Division of Agriculture, said Arkansas is lacking compared to much of the country in its support and education of farmers.

“Anytime we work with farmers, younger or older, we say to start small because you don’t want to go too big,” Garcia said. “You have to know what you are doing, so start with a small plot of land and move up.”

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Photographs by Andrea Johnson

Learning The Trade

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FAYETTEVILLE––While the majority of college students were still deep in REM sleep, University of Arkansas senior Zachery Krug was filling up his truck’s tank at 8:30 a.m. on a Saturday at 16 General Store across from the Wedington Fire Department. While he sports his regular relaxed demeanor, he is worried about getting a late start at Ron Morrow’s farm.

Through they both laugh at the idea of having a “normal routine,” the main goal for this early October week was to plant cold-season grasses for the around 160 head of cattle and about that many sheep, all 100 percent grass fed throughout their lives.

Like Appel, Krug stumbled into farming while in college. Now a University of Arkansas senior animal science major, Krug joined Future Farmers of America his freshman year of high school in Siloam Springs. He wanted to be a veterinarian and began his college career holding onto that dream. But several classes in, mostly because of chemistry, he realized he didn’t want to be a vet. Morrow, a retired professor from the University of Missouri, took over a genetics course at the University of Arkansas for a friend that was ill and eventually passed away. Krug, as Morrow joked, “had the misfortune of being in it.” However, Krug remembers it as the change that saved his grade, and made him interested in cattle farming.

The farm looks a little run down near the road with damaged chicken coops and debris––still recovering from the Cincinnati tornado that swept through the area about five years back where Morrow’s neighbor, a 94-year-old woman, died, and as the story goes, “she died in a tornado and was born in a tornado”––but back a little further to where the cows and sheep grazed stand well-tended, minimalistic wire fences strategically placed to guide the animals to new grazing pastures.

“Come on. Here sheep,” Morrow said loudly as Krug and one of the several Great Pyrenees Mountain Dogs help guide the sheep into a larger, taller field of grass.

While the university departments like horticulture and animal science do not have standing internships with local farmers like they do with golf courses or bigger companies, said assistant professor Gary McDonald who oversees the seminar section of internships, some students sometimes find their own “one-off” internships or jobs.

Morrow has been working with university students on his farm for about four years now, he said while opening the gate to a pasture of mother cows and their calves. He grew up farming with his dad on the same farm he lives on now and worked on a dairy farm in the ’50s. He graduated from the University of Arkansas in ’68 before being drafted to Vietnam, but continued his education in farming practices at the University of Tennessee where he earned his master’s degree. Since then, he has spent his life educating people on better practices. He believes it is up to those who have been involved to “show people how they ought to be managing their farms,” Morrow said. He educates these students on low stress handling and management of animals.

“I worked at a vet clinic for three years and, working with cows and all kinds of large animals with other people, I thought it was normal to be kind of leery of large animals,” Krug said, “but coming out here, they’re like pets. They are so calm.”

This is important both for the animal’s quality of life and for the quality of the beef, Morrow said. Ozark Pasture Beef sells its harvest directly to restaurants or farmers market settings. They are making a good profit on it, Krug said.

As far as those Morrow sees as he goes around with different organization––such as the Grass Roots Grazing group that he is president of––he still sees more a retired people who may have grown up on farms but sought different careers and are coming back to farming than he sees new, younger farmers getting into the game.

As a farmer, you always have to have a plan B, he said. People who get into the business have to look at how the technology has developed and not how farmers did it 40 years ago.

“One of the things that I think is that people have to really get into the farm and understand the soils and the plants and the animals and they have to understand what technology they can use,” Morrow said. “I get a little frustrated with farmers because they spend so much time say moving so many sheep around instead of stopping to understand what they are doing.”

Joining the Family Business

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LINCOLN––Curtis Moore, 27, unlike the traditional image of farmers, is not a morning person. He wakes up, rolls over and checks on his chickens on his smartphone or iPad. It alerts him if there are any issues and often, if it’s no big deal, he can adjust levels of static pressure, feed and heat and then roll back over to get a few more Zzzs.

The Moore family started their farm in the ’50s. Curtis Moore’s father, Ralph Moore, began farming the land in 1974 and built his first hen house in 1977. His brother Allen, 40, works mostly with the crops, including soybeans and wheat. After high school, Curtis Moore did not think he wanted to go into the family business and worked as a real estate agent in town for a while. But eventually, he became sick of the 8-to-5 job routine and the land called him back home, he said.

It always amazes his Granny, who is 90 years old, how many birds they are not able to take care of compared to what she had to do, manually feeding and adjusting fans, Curtis Moore said.

“She worked her butt off in the chicken houses,” he said. “Now, it is kind of easier, casual. We don’t have to stay home 100 percent. When they (the chickens) are smaller, we aren’t necessarily always around.”

As one of the youngest chicken farmers in the area, Moore said capital is the biggest issue facing young farmers. With his bank requiring 25 percent down, he could not have bought his over a $1 million chicken houses without the help of his parents. Moore knows the value of a dollar and where each dollar goes in his farm.

“They call me ‘the bean counter’ because I always want to know exactly where the money is,” he said, driving up to one of his chicken house. “A lot of people think of farming as a lifestyle and it is to an extent, but it’s a business. You have to make a profit or you’re out.”

It was the end of September and the chickens were at a preteen age, 17 days old. Inside the large climate-controlled house, the lights are dim because, as the chicks get older, they are more sensitive to light and movement and more likely to become spooked and injury themselves if it’s bright. The 28,000 little chickens meander around the feeders, moving as one away from the visitors.

His family owns 110 acres. They lease another 200 acres next to their property and almost 500 more that are not connected, Moore said. He would like to expand and not rent, as it is throwing away money, but land is hard to come by, he said. With the growing urbanization of Northwest Arkansas, farmers are selling their land and it is converted into houses, Garcia said. This drives up prices and makes it very difficult to buy land as a beginning farmer and even as more established farmers like the Moores.

Moores’ chickens are grown now. Krug and Morrow are weaning the calves from their mothers. Appel’s strawberry plants are fully red, as of Thanksgiving, ready for locals to enjoy their fill. These are some of the beautiful, cliché, life-goes-on moment seen on “the farm.” But it’s the type of moment that none who reap the benefits should take for granted.

Have some thoughts? Discuss them here!

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Let Your Children Grow Up to Be Farmers

It’s risky. It’s tedious. It’s oh so necessary.

By Ashton Eley

Growth and Struggle of Small Farms

Photographs by Andrea Johnson

Learning The Trade

Joining the Family Business

Have some thoughts? Discuss them here!