By Greg Booth

Long Prairie, Minn. — Faced with dwindling farm profits, more and more producers are skipping right past food processors and retailers and selling directly to consumers. Where are they finding their best customers? In church, for starters.

Whole Farm Cooperative farmers, for example, are learning that marketing directly to the faithful is a perfect outlet for their production. About 30 central Minnesota farmer-members are growing and marketing beef, chicken, cheese, vegetables, eggs and other farm products to Judson Baptist Church members in south Minneapolis.

The farmers are getting the middleman’s profit, and the buyers know they’re getting good food grown on a sustainable farm.

“In a church, you don’t have to make the justice argument,” says Judson member Beth Waterhouse. “We’re a group … willing to talk about social issues. We know what a pickle farmers are in. Getting more food dollars into the hands of farmers is very important.”

The relationship is working. Waterhouse says when she brings food order blanks to church, “people swarm.”

“I’m happy,” says Phil Arnold, Whole Farm’s treasurer. Arnold raises Galloways — cattle similar to Scottish Highlanders — in rural Long Prairie. “The regular system discounts quite heavily for animals that look different,” Arnold says. His cows are “grass fed, lean, no grain. I’m getting pretty good reviews on (my beef). I’m doing a lot better this way than through the regular market.”

The co-op’s delivery system is also working, although not without some logistical headaches and growing pains. The drawback, Arnold admits, is the time spent doing things other than farming and ranching. “The co-op means a lot of hours, a lot of time,” he says. In addition to serving as treasurer, he drives the delivery truck, coordinates schedules and attends meetings.

City church meets country co-op

With a USDA Sustainable Research and Education grant, Whole Farm Cooperative began working with Judson Baptist in August 1998. Church members studied food production and learned about farmers. Consequently, the farmers had a ready market, full of people wanting quality food and knowing where it came from. “Some people even took their kids to the farm,” Waterhouse says. “It really connects the eater to the farmer.”

Since then, the cooperative has expanded to other Twin City churches, and is busy looking for more.

“We get an invitation, let them see who we are, try to work with a contact person or committee, get some orders started, and use (the church) as a drop point,” Arnold says. The farmers also have been selling products through the Community Food Project, a state-funded food voucher program that gets Minnesota-grown food to low-income families.

“Whole Farm Cooperative is unique in the way that they are marketing,” says Jody Koubsky of AURI’s Morris office, who is assisting the cooperative along with other staff. AURI and the Minnesota Department of Agriculture are helping the group develop marketing materials such as brochures, logos and labels.

Direct and diversified

Whole Farm’s members belong to the Sustainable Farming Association, an organization stressing land stewardship, family farms and diversified agriculture. As a co-op, they can offer a wider range of produce than a single farmer could.

Near Randall, Minn., Marcia Rappatz and husband Greg Nolan run a diversified farm that includes vegetables and forest products. Rappatz stores onions, beets, carrots and garlic in a root cellar for fall and winter orders. The organic root-cellar crops bring a premium price, she says. “I’ve been able to move everything.”

Other co-op members market beef, pork, cheese, chicken, eggs, lamb, flours and grains, cookies and bread. Arnold says the co-op’s charter allows “marketing anything our members produced on the farm.”

The concept works because church customers “spiritually believe in the family farm,” Rappatz says.

Customers know which farmers produced specific items, as the farmer’s name is stamped on the labels.

The cooperative is developing a profile for each farmer, so customers can read about producers’ beliefs and growing methods. That way, consumers can “pick out products that most match their values,” Arnold says.

“You can ask questions; you can visit the farm and see how it’s raised … you can meet the farmer.”

Say cheese, but be natural

With AURI’s help, the co-op is processing “grazer’s cheese” for members who milk pastured dairy cows. Co-op member and cheese expert Herman Hendrickson of Sauk Center works with the co-op’s contracted processor, River Valley Cheese of Lanesboro, to make sure the co-op cheese is “really good stuff,” Arnold says. A vacuum packaging machine on loan from AURI packages the cheese, and AURI’s Todd Sisson contributes technical help.

Milk from cows on grass pasture lends the co-op’s cheese a distinctive regional taste with possible added health benefits. “Cornell University studies have shown that the conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) content of milk from grazing Holstein cows was 237 percent higher than milk from cows fed stored forage and grain,” Arnold says. “There is evidence that CLA has anti-carcinogenic properties.”

The Minnesota Department of Agriculture helped Whole Farm with a marketing study, which showed that while there are few small-scale cheese processors in Minnesota for a farm co-op to work with, there is a market for regional cheese.

Directly by themselves

Direct marketing also works on an individual farm basis, says Audrey Arner, head of the Land Stewardship Project office in Montevideo, Minn. Arner and her husband, Richard Handeen, operate Moonstone Farm and sell natural beef directly to customers.

Through a Web site and word-of-mouth, Arner and Handeen sell all the beef they can raise on their small farm. “In the early ’90s, we decided to diversify (from a family crop farm),” Arner says. “We saw the necessary role of animals in sustainable agriculture. We put a value on nutrient cycling and making the most we can out of fewer acres.” Moonstone Farm contracts with a local meat processor and concentrates on producing “as flavorful and tender a product on grass as we’re able,” she says.

Arner thrives on the marketing aspect of her business, but admits it doesn’t work for all farmers. “My husband and I tend to be social beings,” she says. ”It’s kind of a natural extension of our community life.”

Yet for farmers willing to break from the traditional markets, Arner says the time and effort involved in direct marketing can be rewarding both financially and socially. Arner and Handeen do public marketing, handing out brochures and free samples. “It’s enjoyable because it’s so different from the production end. For Richard, who’s a full-time farmer, (marketing) brings out a different aspect of his personality.”

Arner says the co-op has the right idea in offering a range of products: “I do think there’s a great potential for collectives and cooperatives on the scale of the Whole Farm Cooperative.”

“People love to have options and choices — and a personal relationship with the people growing their food. They like a face associated with the product.”