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Chuck Adamson
Senior Information Specialist
573-882-6843
adamsoncw@missouri.edu
Published: May 26, 2006
Story Source: Tricia Wagner, (314) 225-8348; Mary Hendrickson, (573) 882-7463
ability to buy local from farmers
ST. LOUIS, Mo. - A new Web site sponsored by the University of Missouri Extension will give St. Louis-area chefs weekly reports from area farmers on what’s for sale.
For restaurateur Andy Ayers an online, 24-hour accessible farmers’ market listing of available products and prices means an end to making and taking phone calls at inconvenient times.
Ayers changes his menu daily and prefers buying produce, meats, dairy products and eggs from local farmers because he likes to offer seasonal foods and ensure freshness and quality in taste.
"One of the biggest problems we have is that chefs and farmers have opposite schedules," said Ayers, owner and chef of Riddle’s Penultimate Café & Wine Bar. "In the past, the way it worked was that people called the chefs once a week and said ‘I have X pounds of this vegetable.’ They had to call the chefs at the exact right time and leave the fields to make the calls."
Now farmers won’t have to leave their fields. Chefs won't need to take calls during lunch and dinner rush hours, Ayers said.
The project is spearheaded by Tricia Wagner, MU Extension local foods specialist. She has been talking to farmers and chefs about their marketing and food needs for more than a year now. The resulting Web site, at http://extension.missouri.edu/jefferson, was launched in May and is part of Extension’s Show-Me Local Food Project.
The ultimate goals of Wagner and colleague Mary Hendrickson, MU assistant professor of rural sociology, are to get more Missouri farmers producing a larger variety of crops and food products in more environmentally friendly ways; and then get those foods onto Missourians’ dinner tables.
"Chefs can now access local food without having to go to a farmers’ market just to make new contacts," Wagner said. "I’m trying to help create marketing avenues that farmers can utilize so we can increase regional food production. The easier I make it for the farmers, the more we’ll be able to recruit local growers."
She has a dozen farmers and nine chefs participating so far.
A similar MU Extension-sponsored program connected Kansas City growers and consumers from 2002 to 2004. In that program, faxes were sent regularly to chefs with farmers’ available products and prices listed, Hendrickson said. The program stopped when funding ran out, but it created relationships between producers and buyers that continue today, she said.
Hendrickson hopes the St. Louis-focused Web site will be permanent.
"We’d like to develop it and let someone else take it over, maybe privatize it," Hendrickson said.
Dave Thies’ family has been in vegetable farming for 121 years in the St. Louis area. He went into business with brother Darrell in 1981 after graduating from the University of Missouri-Columbia with a degree in agricultural economics. Darrell graduated from Mizzou in 1977 with an agricultural engineering degree. Together they own Thies Farm and Greenhouses.
Theis said the farm, which grows 25 to 30 varieties of fruits and vegetables annually, has doubled its production in the last decade to about 200 acres. Previously, organic foods were a niche market, but now organics are moving into the mainstream food market, he said. The new niche is locally grown foods, Thies said.
"It seems like there is a lot of interest all of sudden from the local restaurants and chefs, that they want to be involved in getting homegrown, locally grown products," Thies said.
The Web site, which Thies plans to use, will continue that trend, he said.
"Any time you can help make a connection between a producer and a user, like a chef or a restaurant, that is a huge benefit," Thies said. "It’s hard to make those connections without using a huge amount time. Most farmers don’t have that type of time."
Ayers, who already buys from Thies, agreed.
"I think it is a wonderful idea and it’s moving in the right direction," Ayers said of the new Web site. "It may take a little time to get off the ground. Patience is required."
For growers and chefs wanting more information about the program, contact Tricia Wagner at (314) 225-8348.