35 Years on a Small Organic Farm
A slice of Edible Heaven
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Nowhere is this truer than on a small organic farm deep in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas. On Earth Day last week I craved a reality check, so I called my friends Rusty and Sue Nuffer, who have spent most of the past four decades with their hands deep in the dirt. When I called, Sue picked up the phone out in the packing shed. She was laughing watching Rusty across the field hefting irrigation pipes high against a tree to scare out any sleeping rodents about to be drowned. Sue had been planting rows of tomatoes in a new soil cocktail they’ve cooked up. Each year they grow an ever-changing and wide variety of exotic gourmet vegetables. It’s been over ten years since my last visit to their little slice of edible heaven, yet the picture they painted is just as I remembered it. Meanwhile the business of organic farming has changed dramatically over the years, with many of those changes – good and bad – coming recently and rapidly on the wings of technology. Sue and Rusty took some time out from under the spring sun to talk to me about the life of a small organic farmer in 2009.
“When we first started out, our goal was just self-sufficiency,” Rusty said. “We wanted to get out of the cities, live close to the earth.” Like so many others, they were burned-out on the 60’s and wanted to get off the grid, disengage from the system. “We were disgusted trying to do social change.” The back-to-land movement was happening all over the country and Rusty and Sue, from Michigan and Ohio, were part of a group that found cheap land in the remote Ozarks. “I paid ten grand for an old 80-acre hill farm that had been unused for years.” Rusty said. The beautiful spot is surrounded by State Forest and to this day is still 20 miles from the nearest blacktop. Sue and her family were on another farm a few miles away. “We all became expert in gardening because we were growing our own food. It was instinctual,” said Sue, “we didn’t think to grow to sell. Everything was barter.”
Over the next decade, some of the homesteaders drifted back to the ‘burbs, leaving devoted earthies like Rusty and Sue to hang in for the long haul. Famous back-to-land pioneers Helen and Scott Nearing once told them the two simple rules to succeed: Find good land and find a good partner. You can’t do it alone. Each previously married with kids, Rusty and Sue were a perfect match. “We’re so fortunate we work together so well.” And work they do: for much of the year, it’s sun up to sundown, 6 or 7 days a week. “Bug infestation on the potatoes. No rain. Broken machine. It’s always something and you never get ahead of it.” Sue adds: “It’s like having 10,000 children and they all want attention.”
Making a Living
Their first taste of wide distribution came with Sue’s blueberries. “At that time, if you had an organic product, you could sell it – as long as you could get it shipped,” she said. It was the early 80’s and organic distribution was still a quaint affair. “We organized 20 farms to sell together so we could get a truck to stop through Arkansas from one of the big national buyers.”
Then sometime in the late 80’s things began to change. The big boys saw mega green in their futures and started moving into organics. These corporate growers pushed for weak certification laws. In California, for example, a farmer at the time only needed to stop spraying chemicals for a single year in order to be certified organic. “One year we’re getting $18 for a box of green peppers. The next year they’re coming out of California at $6.” Said Rusty. “The box alone cost us a dollar! All the big growers were selling below cost to knock out all us small producers.” The little fish continued to struggle under the price-war tsunami throughout the nineties. Many went belly up. “That’s when we started going to the farmers market.”
By the late nineties, organics had tipped into the mainstream. A feedback loop escalated between public interest and business, with Whole Foods leading the way. The company was on a Pac-Man roll, gobbling up Mom&Pop stores across the country. But many of the most devoted customers missed the intimacy and transparency of the old ways. Farmers Markets sprang up across the country so people could shake their farmer’s hand. And for growers like Rusty and Sue, Farmers Markets became popular just in time. Most Saturdays for about ten years they got up at 3am and drove two hours to the River Market in Little Rock. “It was like a rock and roll tour. Except our curtain went up at sunrise,” says Rusty. “We kicked butt down there.” They hired extra help to deal with the crowds three and four deep at their long tables. “We had colors of things no one had ever seen. Five colors of carrots. People would take pictures” The duo became famous as ‘the potato people’ because of their exotic spuds – one year they grew 28 varieties. 
Some of the top restaurants in the area became devoted customers. They both speak fondly of their years at the market, and it’s about much more than money. “The people were just fantastic. We met so many good friends there. It was so satisfying to get the personal reaction when people love your food.”
But eventually the brutal schedule took a toll and Rusty and Sue had to fold up the tables and tent for good. “We weren’t much good on sundays, and we can’t afford to be dragging. We started burning out.”
Virtual Farmers Markets
In the handful of years since giving up the Farmer’s Markets, Rusty and Sue have had to innovate once again to reach customers. “We’re at a real disadvantage being so remote,” says Sue, “we’ve never been able to ship directly to customer and we can’t do the CSA thing.” Community Supported Agriculture is a big trend now. Customers are like shareholders. Paying a flat annual fee entitles them to drop by their farm each week and pick up a box of whatever happens to be harvesting. Despite their popularity, they aren’t ideal for consumer choice.
Enter the internet. Until last month, Armstead Mountain Farm was tethered to the brave new world by a raggedy dial-up connection that worked sporadically at best. They used it mostly to email their grown kids scattered across the globe. The Nuffers are not exactly techies anyway. Until a few years ago, Rusty loved plowing with his prized draft horses, even as a tractor sat nearby. They’d rather have the glow of sun on their faces than a flickering screen. But even this down-to-earth duo has found salvation in the web. They splurged on a satellite dish last month and it’s opened up a new world for their business.
Several years ago, a farmer and techno geek in Athens, Georgia put up a community site called locallygrown.net to help farmers and customers connect. In a short time it has grown to over serve 800 growers in 50 networks nationwide, with many more coming online this season. Last year Rusty and Sue gave it a try and helped create their local network. They also joined two other smaller online networks. “We love it. It’s perfect for us,” says Sue. “On Sunday night we post what we’ll have for the week. Buyers log on Monday through Wednesday and place orders.” Late in the week, they drive their orders to drop-off points manned by volunteers. “We pay a 10% fee to help maintain the network, but compared to the cost of gas and renting the booth at the real Farmer’s Market, it’s a bargain.” One familiar casualty of this virtual market, however, is the personal touch. “We really do miss the one-on-one connection. We get feedback through the volunteers, but it’s not the same as seeing the smile on their face.” Rusty and Sue feel better knowing that their carbon footprint has been drastically reduced now that they’re not driving all the way to Little Rock.
Staying Alive
I asked if it’s easier or harder to get into this game now compared to when they started. Rusty said, “It was actually much more possible in the early days because things were cheap. Nowadays about the only way for young people to get started is to inherit some land.” While Rusty and Sue are too busy to follow every detail of the politics and policy of food, they do stay well-informed and activist. They use the internet more and more to stay up to date. “The upcoming regulations are a little scary. It depends how it’s enforced,” says Rusty, “the most important thing to keep in mind is scalability.” Indeed, what works for the little guy is not the same as what works for the big guy, and small farmers are carefully watching the legislation for signs of big-business power.
After the USDA took over the organic certification process, many small farmers, including Rusty and Sue, just couldn’t afford to use the label. “You have to keep so many records for every crop. That’s fine for the guy with one crop on two hundred acres. It’s a killer for us with fifty crops on four acres.” Of the dozen or so farmers in their locallygrown.net network, only one carries the USDA Organic seal – even though Rusty and Sue have actually always far surpassed the standards. “It didn’t make a bit of difference at the Farmer’s Market because everyone knew us. Now, with the online thing, it would probably help to get certified again.”
There are other roadblocks. The Whole Foods in Little Rock won’t buy from local farmers unless they have a one million dollar liability insurance policy. “I guess that’s in case somebody chokes on our carrot,” said Sue. And so, not surprisingly, big trucks with California license plates dominate the store’s loading docks.
But despite the challenges, Rusty and Sue remain optimistic. “It depends which pages of the newspaper you read. There’s plenty of good news in between plenty of bad news.” They’re very encouraged to see so many people interested in their way of life and the role of food in caring about the planet. The Obama’s vegetable garden was something they never thought they’d see, and Sue was delighted that the White House involved local school kids. “Right now the average age for a farmer is 51.” But she’s seeing a whole new wave of enthusiastic, idealistic young people that reminds her of their early days all over again. Rusty’s daughter Rose is following in his footsteps, working on farms across England for an organization called WWOOF, World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms.
Rusty and Sue have been living sustainably since long before terms like carbon footprint, localvore, and slow food became bandwagon buzzwords. But they’re not the least bit tempted to gloat now that the rest of the world has caught up on the path they’ve blazed by gut intuition for years. In an era when green-washing threatens to consumerize and water down the movement, the simplicity and beauty of the Nuffer’s daily lives are a rich reality check. “This year we’re excited about a new potato we’re trying. It’s called ‘purple majesty’ and it tests higher than any other food ever for one important anti-oxidant,” says Sue. Their world centers around the soil. They’re forever experimenting with new methods to enrich and re-mineralize mother earth. Lately Rusty’s been exploring an ancient Amazonian technique known as Terra Preta, where high-potency charcoal is carefully introduced over many years.
“We’re just pretty dang lucky, that’s all,” says Rusty. It’s their favorite thing to say when you praise them too much. “The perks are that you work in the freshest restaurant in the world!” Sue said, “and just being close to nature all the time – taking care of the planet is spiritual.”
So before I went back to my keyboard and they to their dirt, I asked what they did for Earth Day. They nearly forgot the date. “Every day is Earth Day,” said Rusty, “Earth Month. Earth Year…. It’s an Earth Life, I guess. That’s what it needs to be. Keep that awareness all the time.”
Further Reading:
Locally Grown.net
WWOOF
Helen and Scott Nearing
Terra Preta
Sue’s recommended gardening book:
John Jeavons’ How to Grow More Vegetables and Fruits (and Fruits, Nuts, Berries, Grains, and Other Crops) Than You Ever Thought Possible on Less Land Than You Can Imagine
