Small Farmers Band Together to Attract Big Business
A group of small farmers in Southside Virginia are plowing a path to success and cultivating new opportunities to expand their fruit and vegetable operations thanks to collaboration and support from Virginia State University (VSU).
The Southside Virginia Fruit and Vegetable Producers Association (SVFVPA) is a 501c3 nonprofit made up of farmers working together to promote and expand commercial vegetable and fruit production in rural areas of the Commonwealth.
“A lot of us guys in the association, we were already raising vegetables, and we had markets for the vegetables we were raising,” said Cornell “Brick” Goldman, SVFVPA president. “But we all wanted to grow and make our farms more profitable and sustainable.”
The association was formed in 2018 and is made up of growers from seven counties, Appomattox, Buckingham, Campbell, Charlotte, Halifax, Lunenburg and Prince Edward, who raise a variety of fruits and vegetables, including cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, watermelons, cantaloupes, green beans, okra, squash, lettuce, kale, cabbage, peas, collards, broccoli and Brussels sprouts. The diverse group of small farmers includes men and women, as well Amish and minority farmers, who range in age from 20 to 80.
“It’s a good coalition of people working for a common cause,” said Goldman, a Virginia Tech alumnus and former Extension agent, who has been farming for 40 years. “The thinking behind putting the association together was that if all of us small guys would pool our production together, we could attract bigger volume buyers, and we’ve done that.”
In 2019, the association’s first year of operation, it attracted orders from large buyers, like Food Lion and Produce Source Partners, a food distribution center in Ashland, to purchase its produce.
In addition to attracting major food buyers, the association is also growing produce for local school systems to help meet Gov. Ralph Northam’s Farm-to-School Initiative to supply fresh fruits and vegetables to school children. “All of this is working because we aggregated, pulled all of our production together, and we’ll bring it into one warehouse.”
VSU’s Small Farm Outreach Program (SFOP) director William Crutchfield said more small farmers need to consider working together to help their operations grow. “We’ve had a couple of grant opportunities, where, if we could build clusters of farmers, we could help them with a piece of machinery or whatever, but it’s been difficult to change the way farmers operate.”
The SVFVPA is an exception in leading the way to show small farmers how banding together can do great things, he said.
The association is open to all growers who want to join, and they are encouraged to be Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) certified because some larger buyers require the certification to sell products to them, Goldman said. But if farmers aren’t GAP certified, they can still join because not all of their buyers require the certification. Growers are charged 15 percent of the value of produce they sell through the association, which covers the cost to set up markets for the produce and deliver it directly to the buyers.
Last year’s order from Food Lion totaled more than $300,000 in vegetables. This year, Food Lion has increased its order for produce from the association, Goldman said, and farmers are set to provide locally grown produce to its stores, as well as schools, farmers markets and local food hubs.
Goldman said that VSU has been instrumental in the association’s success in many ways. In 2018, growers took a bus tour, sponsored by the SFOP, to visit a similar association in North Carolina to talk with farmers there and learn about their operations. “It was a great learning opportunity. We kind of modeled what we’re doing after what they were doing down there,” he said.
After the association organized, VSU held workshops for the farmers and a forum where growers could meet buyers, which led to connections with major food chains and distributors. And in February, VSU’s College of Agriculture donated $250,000 in equipment and facilities to the association.
“We’re excited about what we can do with that equipment, and our plans are to loan it out to our growers that need it to harvest, plant or process vegetables that they have. That’s going to be an asset in helping our growers continue to expand and grow more.”
The donation was made with the assistance of the Virginia Tobacco Region Revitalization Commission (TRRC), which, from 2013 until February, supported VSU in its work with farmers in Southside Virginia to promote production and marketing of vegetable soybean, commonly known as edamame. The project was led by the late Dr. Tadesse Mebrahtu, a soybean breeder at VSU who developed three edamame varieties. After Mebrahtu passed away in 2010, Dr. Laban Rutto, a plant and soil scientist at VSU, took over the project, and expanded the work to include string beans, lima beans and southern field peas.
The project was supported by three TRRC Agribusiness grants and involved more than 50 farmers from Southside Virginia. “It was the original intent of the project to establish or support a farmers’ association in Southside Virginia, and the transfer of equipment to the Southside Virginia Fruit and Vegetable Producers Association fully meets this objective,” Rutto said.
The resources transferred by VSU to the SVFVPA include two ASA-Lift GB1000 green bean harvesters and an assortment of other equipment, including a walk-behind edamame harvester, four stationery bean threshers, a produce sorting line, produce washer and produce dryer. Some of the equipment is housed at a produce processing facility in Prince Edward County, which was also part of the transfer.
“In transferring ownership of the equipment, VSU College of Agriculture is happy to acknowledge the enduring relationship between members of the association and the college,” Rutto said, adding that VSU will continue to assist the growers as needed.
The association has also received other federal and state assistance. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Rural Development gave the association a grant for $126,000 in August, which was used to buy a refrigerated delivery truck and cooler to transport and store produce. In January, the TRRC gave the association a grant for $176,000 that will be used to buy a 60’ x 100’ warehouse, especially designed to handle and store fresh produce.
Looking at the population base along the East Coast and the fact that people want more fresh produce could put economically depressed Southside Virginia on the map and help farmers expand and be more profitable, Goldman said. “We’re located in an area that has a great opportunity for growth and vegetable production, and we want to take advantage of this potential. We’re excited about how far we’ve come, and we’re excited about the potential for growth down the road.”
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