Producing Artisanal Products on Your Farm

Richard MoyerMoyer Family Farm

Castlewood, VAramoyer@gmail.com

Artisanal Farm Products as Risk Management

• “Divide your portion to 7 or even 8, for you do not know what calamity/misfortune/disaster may occur on the earth.” King Solomon

• Despite record heat, drought, rain, and cold, 2013 was our best market year of the last 6

• Value-added (crafted) farm products were a big reason.

• Some of these are our best earners, in terms of return on time invested.

• Customers keep visiting our market booth because we “have such interesting items”.

But we’re farmers, not artists!

• Artisan: A skilled manual worker, a craftsperson (thefreedictionary.com)

• Artisan: 1) A person skilled in an applied art, a craftsperson, or

• 2) a person or company that makes a high quality, distinctive product in small quantities, usually by hand and using traditional methods (dictionary.com)

• apprentice → journeyman → artisan

Artisanal Farms

• “The small family farm is one of the last places—where men and women (and girls and boys, too) can answer that call to be an artist, to learn to give love to the work of their hands.

• It is one of the last places where the maker —and some farmers still do talk about “making the crops” — is responsible, from start to finish, for the thing made. This certainly is a spiritual value, but it is not for that reason an impractical or uneconomic one.

• In fact, from the exercise of this responsibility, this giving of love to the work of the hands, the farmer, the farm, the consumer, and the nation all stand to gain in the most practical ways: They gain the means of life, the goodness of food, and the longevity and dependability of the sources of food, both natural and cultural. The proper answer to the spiritual calling becomes, in turn, the proper fulfillment of physical need…”

• Wendell Berry, Home Economics, 1987

Artisanal Foods

• Small scale, non-commercial production• Using traditional methods (“We only bought

coffee, spices and tea.”)• “a food artisan is someone who is completely

and wholly integrated into the creation of their product” (June Taylor)

• Think of 2-3 artisanal foods produced by your family or community

• Name them to someone beside you

Our Farm

• Southern Appalachian Highlands, SW VA• About 70 acres• ½ wooded• ½ pasture• 1.5 acres cultivated ground• Web Soil Survey helped us buy good soil

Our Farm Products• Local Sweeteners: Maple syrup, honey, molasses, fruit

butters, quince candy• Value added animal products: Homestead soaps,

pastured meats, beef sausages• Local, gluten-free, organic flours (limited)• Home use only: cheeses, butter, keifer, yogurt, sour

cream, etc.• Corn husk dolls, pine cone turkeys, other handcrafts• Edible flowers, wildcrafted roots, flowers, berries,

greens, mushrooms, etc• Why this freedom to create? Blessings only now being

realized.

Sources of inspiration, teaching a love of creativity, to meet local needs

• My father---seeing possibilities, freedom to try, fail, and try again

• Family reunions---we worked at ours, do yours?• Family stories---not only “present pleasure, but… in

this moment is life and food for future years”• Good literature:– Little House Series– Little Britches series (Ralph Moody)– Alex Stewart ‘Portrait of a Pioneer’– ‘Donald’s Duck’, ‘Oxcart Man’, ‘New Coat for Anna’

How do we inform our imagination, ‘furnish our minds’, realize possibilities

• Stories from our family and communities• What form do these stories take?• Apprentice → journeyman → artisan• Who are the master crafters in your family and

community? Who is honoring them, by learning well their craft?

• What I can share today is limited, what they can share is so much richer and deeper.– sharing possibilities, what works in your area

Local Sweeteners• Maple syrup, honey, molasses, fruit butters• What’s the pattern in that list?• Artisanal: “a high quality, distinctive product

in small quantities, usually by hand and using traditional methods”

• Anyone here doing any of these?• Who taught you?• Why did you bother to learn?• Who should you be teaching?

How we’re learning

• My parents gave permission to try, fail, learn through these, and try again

• Mentored by families improving their craft each year• Getting out of our comfort zone; asking or accepting

invites to see how others practice these skills• Every family/community has their own methods, hence

the local craft aspect.• Find people more interested in quality than quantity.• Choose from these, then do what works for you.• Learn/try one new skill a year?

Maple Syrup

• Ain’t that a Yankee thang?• Philip Campbell—my teacher• Winter farm income• Great cure for ‘cabin fever’• Incentive to care for my wooded land, to realize

income there• “Used to think it was expensive, then I made

some”• Season 4-6 weeks, sometime Jan-March

Maple Syrup• Leaves are solar collectors; summer sun turned to

winter sugar (stored energy like a battery)• So tap trees with the most limbs and twigs• All maples have sweet sap, so any could make

quality syrup; much depends on your love of craft• Beyond sugar maple, Box elder also very

widespread, as are red maples—we’ve used them• Molasses pans already in your community• Need to find taps and buckets• Taps available used (even borrowed) or new• Food-grade buckets often free for asking

Maple syrup• Tap with care, so the tree can yield for the

next 100 years• Very good how-to resources online• We start tapping at 10 inch trees, chest high• May add one more tap every 5” diameter• Two or three taps per tree may not double or

triple sap gathered per tree, better to tap more trees if limited in taps or buckets

• But a tree to be cut down can have many taps• Use clean tools & methods for longer sap runs

Maple syrup• ~50 gallons sap boiled down to one gal syrup• Filter sap going into pan, then filter syrup

coming out of pan• Done when boiling at 7 degrees above water

boiling beside it• Or a hydrometer scaled at proper density• Can finish on stove top in large pot• Settlings on bottom of pot also tasty; these

crystals are called ‘sugar sand’.• Hot syrup burns badly; be careful!!!

Maple Syrup vs. Molasses• Sap doesn’t spoil as fast (it’s winter!)• Doesn’t need to be skimmed like molasses• Can keep adding more sap as you cook it

down (over days) before finishing the syrup• Feels GOOD to stand around a fire in winter• Final product thinner, so less likely to stick• Sells for a higher price (up to $100/gal), and

offers a unique product at market• Questions?

Molasses aka Sorghum Syrup

• Traditional southern sweetener; ready market.• Sorghum cane is different than sugar cane.• Traditional (local) varieties, as well as newer

ones that lodge less, with disease resistance.• A dryland crop, so more forgiving/reliable

than corn• Crop ready when seeds are mature

Molasses or Sorghum Syrup—Now the WORK begins

• Once mature, need to strip leaves, then top (remove) seedheads. Volunteer to help.

• Ask locals what tools they use. We pull leaves off by hand, cut off seedheads with pruners.

• The leaves are a high quality food for livestock, but don’t feed wilted leaves.

• Cut off stalks with a corn or tobacco knife.• “Any job is easier with the right tools.”

Sorghum Flour• Seedhead often discarded• Seeds are a high quality feed for poultry• Can often gather for the asking, offer to help

harvest.• Easily dried, easily threshed, no hulling• Easily ground into pancake flour.• Can be a gluten-free, local, even organic flour• Seedheads also work for decoration, pet bird

food, etc. Edible decorations.

Molasses---Learning How• Dangerous work; how to learn to do it safely?• Jordan Fisher-Smith: You're a grandfather now. Can you tell me

something about what you feel the obligations of the older man are towards the younger?

• Wendell Berry: The obligation is very great and moves two ways. The old have an obligation to be exemplary, if they can--and since nobody can be completely exemplary, they also have an obligation to be intelligent about their failings. They're going to be remembered in one way or another, so they have an obligation to see that they're remembered not as a liability or a great burden, but as a help. And of course the young, the inheritors, have an obligation to remember these people and live up to them--be worthy of them. So it's an obligation that goes both ways, and it's inescapable. Once you become involved in this sequence of lives, there is no way to escape the responsibility. You inherit, and in turn you bequeath an inheritance of some kind.

Molasses or Sorghum Syrup—Now the WORK begins

• Once you’ve cut enough stalks to fill your pan with juice…

• Need to use a mill (grinder like a wringer washer), to crush stalks and collect the juice.

• Many used mills and pans around, often easier to take your cane to a mill, until you buy one.

• Often easier to borrow than buy a cane mill and pan, once you’ve learned proper, careful use.

Molasses---Learning Safely• Many older folks are worried about liability.• Realistically, worried about children who don’t

respect boundaries/limits set by adults• The cane mill can crush hands, rip off arms.

Tractor PTO can grab clothes, hair.• Seek to understand the boundaries and limits

of those your learn from. Also the free space to explore within those boundaries.

• Ask if you don’t understand. Learn how they communicate. Who are they honoring?

• Say thank you, often, and mean it.

Molasses or Sorghum Syrup—Now the WORK begins

• What’s the right way to skim a pan of molasses?

• Right way to stir?• How much fire and when?• How thick when done?• When to take off the fire and how?• Often, there will be one in charge.• Or sit back and enjoy the show if no one is.• Questions?

Fruit Butters

• Concentrates natural sugars, so can limit added sugar.

• There is demand for less sugar spreads.• Price must be higher because white sugar is

cheap. Customers can understand and reward this.

• My goal is pure fruit, no added sugar.• Pear butters, crabapple butters, blends, etc.

Marketing Your Sweeteners• Customers can choose among lowest price,

best quality, and/or building a relationship with the artisan who produced it.

• Artisans can’t be the best at all three.• Which choices best honor the ones who

taught you, and best honor your customer base?

• Remember local sweeteners are much more than pleasant food.– What else does syrup or honey communicate

when tasting it, whether eaten or as a gift?

Marketing Your Sweeteners• Avoid the temptation to cut corners in product

quality. Word gets around.• Many customers grew up on these products, and

know quality.• Samples are important to establish and maintain your

reputation. Helps customers take the plunge, helps minimize their risks.

• Samples display seasonal variants, such as light vs. dark honey or maple syrup, etc.

• Molasses/sorghum syrup has the worst reputation for adulterants and other tricks.

• Once folks tasted the quality of local maple syrup, we’ve a waiting list for all we produce.

Marketing Your Sweeteners---Price• I’ve yet to find a jar size of honey too small, or

a price for these too high.• Honey is often taken as medicine, so therefore

is perceived as a bargain.• Small sizes work well as gifts.• Small sizes minimize the risk, in case your

product “isn’t right”.• Meet your customer expectations on size and

price, not yours. (What will the market bear?)

Marketing—I’m Jealous for local dollars

• Many grew up with locally-made foods, that choice is often lacking today

• I want to meet that demand, in its various forms.

• In the words of Joel Salatin, to “fill up their market basket”

• Marketing questions?

Honey

• Of each local sweetener, honey has the best network, in local beekeeping clubs.

• Many states are interested in encouraging beekeeping.

• Valuable pollination service on your farm.• Hence can invite others to place hives on your

land, for a share of the honey.• Offer to help monitor hives, and to help work

the bees.

Honey• Viewed as a medicinal, past and present• Local is widely recognized as best, for treating

certain allergies.• Hence a product that cannot be mass

produced.• Again, yet to find a price where honey will not

sell.• Seasonal variation allows artisanal products:– Locust, clover, sourwood, wildflower, etc

• Questions?

Soaps• Melt and pour is an option, but usually not

local ingredients.• Once lye soap learned, can supply a family for

a year, with a few hours of work.• One of our highest returns on time invested,

even with a low price per bar.• Local tallow and lard often available for low

cost, and can make high quality soaps.• Hand-made soaps can be more moisturizing;

we have many return customers.

Soaps

• My wife relies on good books, online tools and online communities

• Much of the ingredient cost is in fragrances, especially if using essential oils.

• Can hold ingredient cost down by shopping wisely; buying in bulk.

• Milk soaps offer a good outlet (one of few) for an artisanal dairy product.

• Questions?

Beef Sausages

• We started with poultry sausages: duck, goose, turkey

• Moved into beef sausages to expand our beef sales, to give us a unique product

• A number of good recipes online.• Samples are must; I sell what I offer that day.• Questions?

Other value-added enterprises

• Mushrooms—portable, works in shade, high yields in small space, high return for time spent.

• Handcrafted items: visit county fairs, craft shows, historical re-enactments, historic farms, etc., for ideas.

• Corn husk dolls, pine cone turkeys, wreaths, etc.

Food Safety• New federal rules are coming, now is time for

public comment.• States vary widely in rules and how enforced.• Develop and maintain good relationships with

food safety personnel: show honor and respect to whom it is due.

• Realize that inspectors may apply a one-sized fits all approach, on certain issues. So ask about options.

• Community kitchens invaluable; keep these open and funded with your support.

Food Safety• Know the state and federal rules, and

exceptions, that apply to your products.• In many cases, better to do your research,

before expending time, effort and money.• Follow the rules, or work to change them.• Cottage food exemptions available in some

states.• Know your farmers market rules. Follow them

individually and together, or change them.• Questions?

Why artisanal foods?• To increase income, diversify risk.• To honor those before us, whether individuals

or the craft itself.• To maintain vibrant, local foodways.• To meet consumer demand for authenticity.• To give children the chance to create with

their hearts, hands and minds; to continue, recover, or establish family traditions.

• As sources of unique local gifts.