Island grown: You get what you pay for

Published 1:00 pm Wednesday, August 2, 2006

Local tomatoes from Butler Green Farms are a hot commodity.

● This is the second of three parts of the “Earth to Plate” series. Saturday: Butler Green Farms’ tomatoes travel from the marketplace to the consumer.

Even before Brian MacWhorter clangs his produce stand’s bell, customers have lined up and leaned in for the easy grab.

They graze with their eyes on the array of greens: kale, spinach, lettuce and chard.

They stake territory around bundles of beans, cartons of eggs, piles of cucumbers and glowing mounds of strawberries.

A few buyers form a conspicuous micro-mob near the narrow row of tomatoes. Gathered in just a few small cartons, the tomatoes are the first of the season and are in short supply. They will sell very fast.

It’s a typical Saturday in July at the Bainbridge Farmers Market, with the promise of MacWhorter’s produce spurring many islanders to hop out of bed and race downtown at hours when most are still resting up after a long workweek.

The early morning faithful are well-trained in the market’s customs. They know that MacWhorter’s bell, rung at 9 a.m. sharp, signals that his Butler Green Farms stand is open for business and that business is always brisk.

“Until the bell rings, you can’t pay,” said Bonny Lawrence, one of Butler Green’s regulars. “Some people are touching the tomatoes so they’re ready for when the bell goes. You’re only allowed one box because there’s just not enough to go around.

“Sometimes I send my husband back incognito to get another.”

The farmers market is just one way MacWhorter fetes the island’s growing hunger for island-grown produce. While nearly all of Butler Green’s field-raised food stays on the island, MacWhorter channels his harvest into four markets, including direct sales through a farm share-buying system, local restaurants and Town & Country Market.

Each market swallows about a quarter of Butler Green’s annual yield, according to MacWhorter’s estimates. It’s a broad-based but geographically limited business model that offers a direct connection to consumers while expanding his reach through local businesses

“There’s a resurgence happening with markets that want to give support to small farmers,” MacWhorter said.

That support doesn’t come cheap, with some of MacWhorter’s hefty heirlooms selling for more than $8 and his smaller varieties going for 50 cents a pop.

But you get what you pay for, according to MacWhorter.

“Americans spend the least amount of their income on food compared with people in the rest of the world,” he said. “They go for the lowest price and they get the lowest quality.”

It’s this bargain-shopping attitude, he says, that has given rise to consolidated, large-scale farming and all but killed off small farmers who once were the backbone of the U.S. economy.

“Spending the least amount of money on food is why farmers don’t make money anymore,” he said. “Why? It’s because we’ve become disassociated with food. We don’t know where it comes from or what’s in it.”

Farming man

MacWhorter never suffered from this disassociation.

Born in Dublin, Ireland, and orphaned at an early age, he grew up in rural Pennsylvania where he developed an early taste for fresh foods grown by the hands of family and neighbors.

MacWhorter doesn’t know much about his biological parents, but he guesses they farmed.

“It makes no sense to be a farmer,” he said. “It must be genetic.”

MacWhorter began his career as a commercial grower in Eugene, Ore., during the late 1970s.

He sold organic produce out of his truck in parking lots alongside other growers, who went on to form some of the nation’s largest organic agri-businesses.

But MacWhorter decided to remain small, preferring to keep his hands dirty as he made his living.

It was a road trip that brought him to Bainbridge and it was the island’s blend of rooted ruralism and nearby cosmopolitanism that convinced him to put down roots.

“I camped on the beach at Fay Bainbridge park and woke up to a view of Seattle,” he said. “I decided then that I’d stay here.”

Renting his first parcel of land over 23 years ago, MacWhorter tapped into the island’s rich tradition of commercial agriculture.

“It goes way back, longer than you may think,” said local historian Jerry Elfendahl. “The Suquamish were the first. They grew fern and berries but then they got potatoes from the Spanish, even before the first white settler came here.”

Those first potatoes became the island’s first cross-cultural commodity.

“They grew those potatoes and sold them to the British of the Hudson Bay Company, who then sold them to the Russians up in Alaska. So, it was a crop brought by the Spanish, grown by the Suquamish, bought and sold by the British, and eaten by the Russians.”

European settlers planted subsistence gardens in the late 1800s and some of the lumber mills managed large farms producing vegetables, milk and meat for workers.

The island’s berry growers – many of whom came from Japan and the Philippines – brought the island to its food-growing height. Over 225 acres were under strawberry cultivation in 1953, according to the state Department of Agriculture, making the island the sixth-largest producer in Washington.

MacWhorter’s arrival in the early 1980s came decades after the island had reached it’s farming prime.

“The Agate Pass bridge changed everything for farmers,” said Elfendahl. “The island wasn’t so isolated. Land values went up and people found easier ways of making a living.”

Only a handful of full-time farm families remain on the island. The new island farmer, MacWhorter says, survives by avoiding the demands of the general market.

“You have to find your niche,” he said. “You might do goat cheese, or do wine. Or you grow heirloom tomatoes like I do.”

MacWhorter and other island growers rely on word-of-mouth referrals to promote their goods.

High-tech means of promotion are also becoming key. MacWhorter launched Butler Green Farm’s Website last year, serving as an introduction to his organic farming methods, produce selection and his business’ history. The venture has drawn more customers toward his farm-share program, which is MacWhorter’s preferred method of reaching new buyers.

The program, also classified as a “community supported agriculture,” or a “CSA,” allows customers to buy a “share” of the farm’s harvest. A $500 share buys a substantial selection of Butler Green’s fruits, vegetables and eggs that customers pick up from the farm each week for 25 weeks.

Because the consumer comes to him, MacWhorter also saves on packing and transportation costs.

“It’s cheaper for me that way,” he said. “It also gives people a chance to see where what they’re eating comes from. It gives them a greater appreciation for the food and I get some feedback, too.”

Many of the 130 families who bought shares this year learned about the program through the farmers market, which gives Butler Green a regular public presence.

“People want farming on Bainbridge,” said Bainbridge Farmers Market manager Devon Sampson. “Farming creates the rural landscape we want and gives us fresher produce closer to home. It helps make all this economically possible.”

Buying in

Islanders are buying in, with the farmers market enjoying nearly 30 percent growth in vendor revenue last year.

Growing support for farmers markets is a national trend as well. The number of markets nearly tripled between 1994 and 2004, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

While more islanders are spending money at the farmers market, growers are becoming increasingly rare while the number of artisans and concessionaires are on the rise.

The Bainbridge farmers market became the only one in the state facing a declining number of growers. Three local growers left last year, citing struggles with property taxes or balancing the demands of farm and family.

While the farmers market can do little to alleviate these pressures, Sampson believes the market’s farmer-friendly structure can keep growers above water.

“I think part of the point is definitely to cut out the ‘middle man’ so producers get a higher price,” he said. “They sell direct and keep more of the profits.”

But sometimes doing a little business with a “middleman” can help broaden a farm’s revenue stream.

Mac­Whor­­ter has enjoyed an over 20-year relationship with Town & Country Market, which prominently features Butler Green’s cucumbers, fennel, chard, lettuce and tomatoes.

“At most stores, if I walk in the back room, the produce guys are dealing with thousands of cartons of blueberries or whatever,” MacWhorter said. “And then I walk in with my box of zucchinis and am asking them to pay me now. I’m just a pain in the (rear end) to them. But at T&C, I get great support and great feedback.”

The store is expecting its first delivery of tomatoes today. Produce manager Bob Luttrell estimates he’ll sell about 40 pounds the tomatoes a day.

“Whatever (MacWhorter) has that he can give us, I buy because I know it’s top quality,” Luttrell said. “We want to keep a link with the island’s growers. It’s more than that, though. It’s also that people pay attention to the fact that it’s from Bainbridge. I put a sign out that says ‘Island Grown.’ It’s more expensive than the ones packed in from somewhere – could be Arizona, could be Mexico. I also let people know they’re organic. Our customers love that kind of stuff.

“But, you know, the tomatoes are beautiful, so people know what they’re going to get when they see them.”