National Farmers Market Week 2021

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August 5, 2021

Like many of you, I was first introduced to Jake's Country Meats at a farmers market. At the time I was working with a vegetable farm just west of Chicago and my tent happened to be right next to those famous blue coolers. Through that connection, I ended up working next to Farmer Nate at the Downers Grove market for 4 years before joining the Jake's team full-time and moving to Michigan in 2016. Since then our family has grown, we've moved to South Bend, and I've continued working alongside the farm family to build the local food system through farmers markets, meat drops, and our wholesale partners. Below you can see my family enjoying our summer vacation to da UP. If you visit the Green City Market or Logan Square Market you will often see me with one of my oldest behind the coolers.

This week just happens to be National Farmers Market Week 2021 so I thought I'd take some time to explore markets and what makes them so important to the local food system. Having worked at farmers markets for over 10 years I'm still a market junkie and often try to visit a local market even when on vacation. There are very few other places where you have the opportunity to connect with the actual folks that produce something that you use every day. The ability to speak directly to local producers and learn about their life and their products is such a gift.

What you might not realize is the same is true for the producers and farmers like us at Jake's! Being able to connect directly with our customers has literally had an impact on how we raise animals and what products and cuts we produce. It was through talking with folks at the markets that helped us decide to go NON-GMO years ago. It's been those same interactions that we decided to add poultry and now beef & goat to the farm and our markets.

Over time the group of vendors at each market forms a bit of a community. These are small businesses in our same field (pun not intended...) and many of us experience the same struggles. Personally, for me I look forward to the start of every market season, one to get outside, but two so I can catch up with Pat from Iron Creek or Josh from Underground Meats. Then once the market opens I'm excited to chat with Douglas about his home renovation or Melissa whose husband is a doctor. The personal connections are one of the things that help me get up at 2:45 am every market day.

Now I realize not everyone has the same experience with or connection to farmers markets. While writing this I thought it would be interesting to get feedback from friends outside the market world about their experience, so I jumped on Facebook and, as one friend commented, Tom Sayered some folks into writing this for me...

The feedback I received was so thoughtful and insightful. There was some great interactions as we pushed into why some folks don't or can't attend markets on a regular basis. I was also energized to hear that many folks take time to get to the market to connect with local producers and have a direct impact on their community. Fresh food was obviously a big factor for many. Surprisingly a number of folks stay away because they don't feel they can trust the source of the vegetables sold.

"Fake farmers! So many vendors at our local market are re-selling wholesale produce & posing as a “local farmer”. I’m happy to pay more for a truly juicy homegrown/farm grown tomato, but not when it’s the same hard one I can buy at Jewel for lots less $."

My encouragement to avoid this is to ask questions and know your local growing season. Brussel Sprouts in the spring? Not around here.

"Our local market doesn’t have enough produce. Too many things besides food. Mlms. I’d like to be able to do more of my weekly grocery shopping there but at least half is non edibles."

I get that. I'm fortunate that the Green City Market is only food. Markets need those tent fees and to generate traffic, but there aren't enough local producers to fill all the markets. A suggestion is to find one produce vendor, one meat vendor, etc and just visit them each week, ideally early to avoid the mobs. Early shoppers are real shoppers.

Another friend wrote these words that sum up much of what I feel. "So as a shopper I love the seasonal variety-eating that can really only be found at your local Market. I love knowing I'm supporting a small enterprise, probably a family, as well as my community. I like that this way of shopping promotes cooking and gets family super excited to see what goodies have come home. When I shop a Market I can honestly say I have a huge smile on my face and can hardly wait to speak with the next producer and see what 'treasure' there will be."

Daryn Pobanz

You can follow me on IG @havemeatwilltravel or #havemeatwilltravel

What 7 generations of Farming Teaches Us...

Earlier this month, we welcomed the Cass County Historical Society to our farm for their September event and meeting. We gathered together to talk about the history of our farm, seven generations of agriculture, and all the ways farming has changed along the way. Then we loaded everyone onto hay wagons and headed out to see what farming here looks like today. It was an evening about history, but the conversation felt just as relevant to the future. Because the story of how agriculture has changed is also part of the story of how we all buy food today. Walk through a grocery store and there are plenty of labels trying to help you decide what to buy. Natural. Local. Grass-fed. Pasture-raised. Sustainable. Premium. You can spend a lot of time reading packages and researching claims and still wonder what any of it actually looked like on the farm. That's one reason we believe knowing where your food comes from, and knowing the people who raised it, matters. Our Farm Changed, Too Generations ago, farms in this area were diversified because they needed to be. Livestock, crops, gardens and families existed together on the same piece of ground. Animals provided fertility for the soil, crops fed animals and people, and farms relied heavily on what they could produce themselves and on the communities surrounding them. As agriculture changed, farms became larger and more specialized. Livestock increasingly moved into confinement, and farmers became more dependent on commodity systems where they could be very efficient at raising something while having very little control over what they were paid for it. Our family lived that story. We raised hogs in confinement and sold into the commodity market. When hog prices collapsed in the late 1990s, our family had to take a hard look at whether that system could provide a future for our farm. Instead of getting bigger, we eventually chose a different direction: downsizing, diversifying and getting closer to the people actually eating the food we raised. Animals moved back outside. Pigs returned to pastures and woodlands. Cattle and sheep became part of our grazing system. Chickens and turkeys moved across pasture. We began thinking more intentionally about the relationship between soil, plants, animals and people, while building our own market to sell our food directly to you. What Does That Have to Do With Your Dinner? Quite a bit, actually. If you're trying to feed your family well, there's an overwhelming amount of information telling you what you should and shouldn't buy. One of the things a direct relationship with a farmer can offer is something much simpler: a source you can actually know. You can ask us what our pigs eat, how our cattle are raised, where our animals are processed or why we make a particular farming decision. You can visit the farm, see our animals and pastures, meet our family and employees, and follow along throughout the year. When you have questions, there's a real person on the other side of them. To us, that's one of the most valuable things about local food. "Local" shouldn't only mean that something traveled fewer miles. It can also mean accountability, transparency and a relationship with the people responsible for raising your food. We Aren't Trying to Farm in the Past After our talk, we headed outside to see some of these ideas in practice. We talked about grazing, livestock, soil and pasture, and we visited some baby pigs that held everyone's attention more than any story we could tell. Some of what we do today probably looks familiar to farmers from generations ago, but we're not trying to recreate the past. We use electric fencing, portable watering systems, tractors, refrigeration, USDA-inspected processing, delivery trucks, inventory software and online ordering. We're combining principles that have worked for generations with the tools and knowledge available to us today. That's part of agriculture. Farmers have to adapt. The question for us isn't how to make farming look like it did 100 years ago. It's how to take care of our land, raise animals well, produce really great food and build a farm economically strong enough to still be here 100 years from now. Strong Farms. Strong Communities. There's a lot of conversation about supporting the American farmer. When you choose to buy directly from us, you help create a market for farmers who want to do things differently. Those dollars help keep farmland in regenerative agriculture, employ local people, support processors and other small businesses. You help build strong communities, and maybe even more importantly with the average age of the American farmer on the rise each year, you give another generation a reason to believe farming can still provide a living. A Strong farm gives you an option. One that you trust to nourish you well. One that you trust to provide food that tastes incredible. One that you trust will consistently serve you. One that you trust to take care of the animals and land with respect. A strong farm gives its community a better way to feed itself, and a strong community gives its farms enough support to keep farming. Seven generations ago, our family couldn't have imagined what this farm would look like in 2026. We can't know what it will look like seven generations from now either. But we hope the people living here will still have the choice to know where some of their food comes from, to ask questions about how it was raised, and to know the farmer responsible for raising it. Thank you to the Cass County Historical Society for giving us an opportunity to look back at where agriculture has been and think about where it's headed. And thank you to every one of you who chooses to be part of what comes next. Strong Farms. Strong Communities.Real Food. Rooted Living. Renee & the Jake's Country Meats family

Beef In The News

There has been a lot of beef in the news lately. Beef prices are high, cattle numbers are low, and now there is talk about bringing in more imported beef at a discount to help combat prices for consumers. Then, almost in the same breath, there are announcements aimed at helping American farmers and ranchers by addressing some of the processing and market-access challenges we face. Despite what feels like whiplash, anything in the news today - will take it's effect on American farmers overtime, and the outcomes of these decisions will all be determined in due time. So what do these current events mean for our small family farm? And what can you actually do to help American farmers?

Create Your Own Job...

That’s exactly what my parents instilled in us kids growing up on the farm, among many other things. But this one…this one really stuck with me. And I bought into it a little too far, I’ll admit some days, and created a job with responsibility much bigger than I ever dreamed.

National Farmers Market Week 2021

More from the blog

What 7 generations of Farming Teaches Us...

Beef In The News

Create Your Own Job...

Jake's Country Meats