Locally Grown

A mental picture of a shopper buying meat, veggies, fruit and breadstuffs at a physician's office is bizarre at best.

But it happens every Friday afternoon when Dr. Betsey Hendricks loans office space to Conway Locally Grown, an online farmers' market. Their customers have been showing up every week since May 2008 when the market began coordinating with local farmers to provide Conway people with food produced through environmentally responsible, ecologically beneficial, sustainable methods.

All the products sold at Conway Locally Grown are produced on farms within 150 miles of the city, and unlike other co-ops or buying clubs the buyer orders what he or she wants in the quantity wanted from ecologically sound farms.

Orders are placed on the Conway Locally Grown Web site after growers take a look at their gardens and pastures and estimate what they will have ready to harvest that week. The Web site is updated and an opening market e-mail goes out to customers who have created an account for $25 and are eligible to buy.

The market closes at 8 p.m. Tuesday. On Wednesday and Thursday, the growers get notification of the orders, move into a harvest mode and pack the orders

The bounty arrives at the physician's site at Ferris and Prince streets where customers pay for and pick up their orders. Pickups are made from 4 to 6 p.m.

One of the strongest links in this food movement is the Falling Sky Farm, operated by Cody Hopkins and Andrea Todt who direct a small farm outside of Marshall and who have been supplying a considerable amount of foodstuffs for Conway buyers.

In their third year of farming, the couple rely on direct marketing of their products, not unlike in another time when farmers sold their products from the back of pick-up trucks or on the town square or by simple delivery to customers' homes or businesses.

Hopkins believes that his presence at the Argenta Farmers' Market, along with deliveries in Conway and at restaurants in central Arkansas, clearly resemble early marketing practices.

"But today's direct marketing relies also on sales through their Web sites and through frequent buyers' clubs where customers can reserve a 'crackle pack' (or half pack) of chickens, eggs and a holiday turkey or a larger 'poultry lovers' package at discount prices," he said.

The former physics teacher who is a native of Van Buren, and his partner, whose family's place is "just down the road" from the farm, have high hopes for their small, sustainable family farm where, Hopkins says, the livestock has access to fresh air, sunlight, grass and water and space to move and interact with their herd or flock.

"And where our chickens scratch, pigs root and cows graze in a clean environment without antibiotics, growth hormones or herbicides" the entrepreneurial farmer points out.

The term pastured has come to mean food from animals that were raised outdoors or in grassy meadows, not crowded into feedlots or barns, not kept in cages and not treated with antibiotics or growth hormones.

It's where pigs live in the environment they like best and the same goes for cattle, lamb and chickens. Pastured meat is most easily found at farmers' markets, and some people buy it straight from the farms.

As a prelude to his announcement that Conway Locally Grown is beginning an association with the food pantry at St. Peter's Episcopal Church in Conway, Hopkins said, "Getting local, responsibly produced foods to people in the lower income brackets has long been one of the weakest links in the local food movement, and I think it is time that we looked for ways to bridge this gap. One of the ways is to partner with food pantries, such as church pantries, to get our local, nutritious food to people who are unable to afford it. "

The St. Peter's food pantry was chosen on the strength of its viability and the urging of Nancy Allen, a communicant who is a director of Conway Locally Grown, and a producer of a specialty dog food.

Hopkins said Conway Locally Grown will donate 10 percent of its membership fees to the St. Peters Church pantry. The pantry then will be able to use this money to purchase food from Conway Locally Grown each Friday and distribute it to those seeking food each Saturday from 9 a.m. to noon at the church located at Prince and Mitchell streets. In addition, the food pantry will also receive a percentage of each week's total sales to supply food for distribution to petitioning people, some 15 or more families on average who seek food each week.

The Rev. Teri Daily, vicar at St. Peter's Church, said, "We see the Kingdom of God in the work we do in our Food Pantry, the cans and boxes we bring blossoming into $30,000 worth of food given in the past year to those who need it, and we're reminded of the parable of the mustard seed."

Hopkins believes that "As we grow and increase the number of members we will be able to support more farmers and get more and more food to the less fortunate."

Running Falling Sky Farm is arduous work, "but we love it," Hopkins said, speaking for himself and his partner. "We love what we're doing and feel good about it. And we'd love to see others do what we're trying to do - make a living in a new old way."

More information about the Conway Locally Grown organization and how to participate in the program can be found at conway.locallygrown.net.