Even' Star Organic Farm - Invested in Sustainability
posted 2/20/09
Am I the only one in my group of friends who hasn’t worked at Even’ Star Organic Farm? Maybe not, but it sure feels like it. Located just a few minutes from the SMCM campus, this farm has employed more of my friends than I can count.
On their hundred or so acres, Even’ Star grows over 120 varieties of heirloom vegetables, herbs and fruits. They also do a summer and winter CSA, a subscription program where people can have a package of produce delivered to their home each week. They sell at a farmer’s market near DC and to restaurants and grocery stores in the area, as well as to a seed company.
Brett, the owner, and two other workers are working near the barn when we drive up. He smiles nice and big when he sees John, who worked there for a semester, while I was finishing up school. Brett is an extremely friendly and articulate man who seems to be very happy in his work and passionate about what he does.
While we visit with Brett, he is plucking chickens that have just been dispatched. Brett uses the chicken manure as fertilizer, sells their eggs, and their meat. The chickens themselves are not profitable and require constant maintenance; however, his sweet potato crop has been extremely profitable. He says that he will increase the sweet potato yield almost twofold next year and add new varieties to the crop. He intricately describes their colors and tastes. One is a purple Japanese variety, while the other, when cooked, produces a sweet syrupy liquid.
Like any business owner, he is keenly aware of the economy of his business. Every once in a while, he will refer to “the numbers.” Brett is thinking about not doing the chickens anymore. The chickens represent a set of tradeoffs that he has had to make and the numbers aren’t working out. The chickens drain man hours, require constant care, don’t net any kind of profit and cost a lot to take care of as they need to be fed expensive organic feed. On the other hand, they provide fertilizer and make his customer base happy. Even’ Star’s eggs are some of the best. Their shells are tough, their yolks are strong and resilient, and they taste great. Getting rid of them would save him hassle, but keeping them keeps his customers satisfied. The numbers are telling him one thing and his customer base another.
We leave Brett to plucking, while we wander around the farm. The greenhouse seems like a promising place in the bitter February cold, so we take refuge there. We meet Guy and another student worker as they are dressing the chickens. Music plays as they work. Greens grow in rows, alternating between lettuce and kale. Here you can see how Brett employs simple but innovative solutions to simple but annoying problems. Along the length of the greenhouse’s ceiling, there is a run system where a hose
hangs suspended from a rope that goes from one end of the greenhouse to another. This way, instead of dragging a hose along the ground and running the risk of damaging plants, it can be pulled along this run system to anywhere in the greenhouse. With this kind of system, the hose has no chance of raking across any crops and can easily reach any part of the greenhouse.
We meet Bonnie, one of Even’ Star’s employees, in one of the fields harvesting kale. It is a frigid day, but she works diligently and talks to us with a smile, her cheeks rosy from the winter wind. She is harvesting kale, picking it and cutting it apart the plants with scissors. She explains that this way it won’t cross pollinate with the bok choy. It is a slow process but necessary. We snap a few pictures of her and tell her what we’re doing. It still feels weird explaining it, even though we have already done it a few times now. Now it feels more official, now it’s serious.
Brett’s wife Chris pulls in the drive so we go and say hi to her. She, too, is surprised and pleased to see John. Brett and Chris invite us into their house. They catch us up on the goings on of the farm, while preparing lunch for the workers in the fields. Chris works as an advocate for local farms, working on campaigns to further their cause. Brett heats up heaping bowls of rice, beans and veggies and takes it out to the workers on the porch. Most, if not all, of the workers currently attend St. Mary’s. He pours some strawberry liquor for us that he made from his own strawberries. I sip mine. It is too strong for me so I pass it along to John and make a mental note to not let him drive back to campus.
Brett and Chris are invested in what they do. It is their livelihood. They want to be able to expand and improve the farm. They hope that Obama's stimulus package will enable them to use renewable energy, so they can run their farm on solar and wind. Brett also told us that the new packing room, which we had passed earlier in our visit, was constructed from materials all from within a mile of the farm. They employ student workers, sustaining the cause of the small and organic farm by passing along their knowledge and passion. They seem happy in what they do and that is something worth being invested in.