08/22/11

Build It and They Will Come, A story by Jim Pfitzer

A year-and-a-half ago Benwood Foundation, through its newly formed Gaining Ground project, awarded a number of grants to local farms, farmers, and market as a first step in supporting local food economy. One of the grant recipients was a newly-formed cooperative hoping to find ways they could share resources to meet needs too great for one small farm alone. One of the issues on the table then and now, is the need for a local USDA processing facility for poultry. This week I sat down with Dave Waters of River Ridge Farm to find out how he manages to provide chicken at local markets in spite of this great need.

Build It and They Will Come

When Dave Waters of River Ridge Farm in Ten Mile, Tennessee needed to process some chickens recently, he rose at three o-clock in the morning and drove nearly 200 miles to Bowling Green, Kentucky. When he arrived at the USDA approved, family-owned facility he assisted in the work, and by the time the chickens were processed and packaged, Waters had been working for twenty hours with a return drive still ahead. When he finally made it to bed in the wee hours of the morning, he could only sleep three hours before getting up to milk the cows. He drives that far because there is no USDA inspected chicken processing plant any closer.

Dave and Verlinda Waters With a Few of Their Laying Hens

I asked Waters why he would put up with such grueling hours every few weeks. After all, he doesn’t depend on the few chickens he raises to make his living. “I’m crazy,” he said at first, only half jokingly, before following up with, “I want to get clean food to people, and some folks want chickens.”

When Waters speaks of “clean” chickens, he means not only birds raised on organic feed, but pastured birds that are able to forage and hunt insects, birds that aren’t raised in packed warehouses like the organic chicken you find at “health food” stores like Whole Foods and Earth Faire.

Federal laws allow for farms processing fewer than 10,000 birds a year to slaughter and package them on the farm for sale to restaurants and individuals, but Waters questions what farmers have the time and resources to undertake such an endeavor, not to mention that some folks simply get squeamish about that kind of work. Plus, it would take him about a half hour to take one bird from pasture to refrigerator doing it himself and he raises around 350 birds at a time. Pretty easy math puts that total process at about 175 man-hours not including the setup and clean up involved. So Waters makes the eight-hour round trip drive with twelve hours of hard slaughterhouse work in between.

Pitching in saves Waters a little money, keeping the added transportation cost down to two dollars per bird passed on to consumers. Of course the man who does this “to bring clean food to people” does not pass on the cost of his own labor.

He is convinced, however, that if there were a local USDA facility, then more farmers and homesteaders would raise broiler chickens. He believes that the demand is there, that if folks could raise chickens the way they want to and have a place nearby where they can drop them off alive one day, and pick them up the next ready for the market, they would.

With a local processor says Waters, “We could get local chicken in Earth Faire, Whole Foods, and other markets” that currently truck in less responsibly raised chickens from around the country, and bring better food to more people.

Waters says that when he first started making the run to Bowling Green, he thought that eventually things might get easier, that maybe someone nearby would step up to open a USDA certified plant. Waters’ hopes haven’t panned out yet, but he hasn’t given up hope and for now he keeps on plugging along.

I also chatted with Butch Tolley of the Cooperative of Chattanooga Area Sustainable Farmers. Until recently, the farmers co-op was open only to farmers for membership, but according to Tolley, they are now asking non-farmers to join as supporting members. Memberships are inexpensive and support the efforts of these local farms as they work to better serve our community. If you are interested in becoming a member, or are simply curious about what they are up to, please visit their new web site at: www.chattanoogasustainablefarmers.com. You can also contact Butch directly at butch@cloverwreath.com.