Tompkins grown: Farmer Grown Flour Farmers reinvent local grain-
growing, milling to create artisan flours
By Aaron Munzer •Correspondent • February 22, 2010, 6:50 pm
http://www.theithacajournal.com/article/20100222/NEWS01/2220326/Tompkins+grown++Farmer+Grown+Flour
TRUMANSBURG -- Back in the 1800s, it wouldn't be at all unusual for
Tompkins County to have a new flour mill.
"This was the grain belt," said Thor Oechsner, an organic grain grower
who cultivates about 500 acres of wheat and corn in Newfield, which
used to be a center for wheat farming. Even now, remnants of old grist
mills dot the area.
But, he said, farmers gradually depleted the soil by using poor
methods, and the wheat eventually moved west where the topsoil was
measured in feet, not inches. And with them went the mills, until
almost all that was left here were farmers growing grain to feed
livestock.
Now there's a new mill in town, in a historic mill building in
Trumansburg. As the popularity of local organic foods grew, Oechsner
and his farming partners Erick Smith and Dan Lathwell at Cayuga Pure
Organics in Brooktondale saw a chance to bring local grains back into
style.
They started Farmer Ground Flour in 2009 to sell their locally grown
and milled flour to customers who value their methods and their
quality products.
"What we're trying to do is shorten the loop between the consumer and
the farmer," Oechsner said. "The more local food gets, less (energy)
goes into the product in terms of transport."
The result: fresh, gourmet wheat, buckwheat and spelt flours, as well
as corn meal and polenta. What's more, Oechsner and company are
working with Cornell University to debut heirloom wheat varieties with
great flavor, nutrient density and adaptability that has been lost in
the modern quest for super-sized yields.
Farmer Ground Flour was a recipient of one of Sustainable Tompkins'
2009 Signs of Sustainability Awards.
Unlike big milling operations, which process with metal mills in about
six hours what FGF does in a month, it's all ground in the traditional
style, with a Carolina granite millstone that no self-respecting
pioneer flour mill would have been without.
It's that same grindstone that Greg Mol, the mill's manager and a
partner in the venture, has been putting his nose to in order to get
the business up and running. Mol, who seems to live in a pair of taped-
up coveralls rimed with flour, has the dubious distinction of being
the guy who gets to haul to the hopper every speck of the 10,000
pounds of grains a month that will become the flour shipped to New
York City farmers' markets. Once there, it will command a premium
price from the city fooderati, whose zeal for a regional diet is vast.
The flour is also available at the Greenstar Natural Foods Market in
Ithaca, and Regional Access and Garden Gate Delivery offer it as well.
Flours come in 2-pound bag and range in price from $3 for whole wheat
to $4.75 for spelt flour.
"It's exciting to see how into it people are," Mol said. "People
really want to know how it's grown, and how it all works, how we're
rebuilding the food system."
There's also a tacit sense from these farmers that they're filling a
niche in the local foods market that has been largely overlooked,
while local vegetable operations, which have smaller start-up costs
and relatively fewer risks, have flourished in the area.
"Vegetables have been local, but no one's tried to bring this type of
quality wheat back," Oechsner said. "People need their bread -- it's a
big deal."
But, just so no one forgets it, it's a risky business to be in, said
Tycho Dan, the group's marketing guru and New York distributor and
salesman, who's got a green tongue like some people have a green
thumb. He said going up against the titans of monoculture requires a
completely different business model which relies on customers who
purchase based on their values and the exacting level of quality in
the product.
"If you're in the (food) industry, the level of scale for the people
who run this on a national and global scale, you can't even wrap your
head around the number and the scale of this all," he said.
So Dan's most important job is to educate the flour-buying public, the
artisan bakers, and the gourmet bread-lovers how important local and
organic products are in the long run. And, because of their freshness
-- their flours are usually less than two weeks old -- and flavor, why
they're important in the short term. It's also about returning some
equity to a system that he sees as having too many middlemen and too
many compromises on quality.
"We're the farmers, the millers, and we're distributing and marketing,
all in one organization," he said. "It's about paying a living wage,
incentive-izing other farmers to do what we're doing, and there're so
many other trickle-down effects of this."
It's certainly given enthusiasm to some already. At a tour of the mill
several weeks ago, Katie Quinn-Jacobs, a leader of IthaCan, a recently
formed home-preserving group, was excited about the existence of a new
local food processor in the area to supplement her group's local foods
training.
"The way we're looking at it, we need to rework the whole (local) food
shed, and we're sort of missing the middle, the processors," she said.
"As times get tougher, we think more and more people are going to go
that route."
She said processing and preserving for winter are big hurdles not only
for home gardeners like herself, but for the area's farmers.
"You know, after you've got it, what are you going to do with it?" she
said.
Strangely, the most satisfying thing for everyone involved might just
be praise for the product that comes their way. There never really was
much in the way of a customer approval survey for Oechsner when all
his crops went to feed cattle.
"Cows don't give good feedback," he said, "but people talk about its
great flavor, how it's great in baking. I'm learning so much about
milling and baking, and I'm meeting so many interesting people, and
teaching so many about the crops."
http://www.theithacajournal.com/article/20100222/NEWS01/2220326/Tompkins+grown++Farmer+Grown+Flour
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