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Micro Eco-Farm Niche Themes
by Barbara Adams
As micro eco-farms grow in numbers and gain momentum, their ability to fulfill the specialized needs of their culture grows along with their culture's progress towards a healthier and more sustainable world.
Cater to the living foods (fermented) raw foods/juicing community: Many living/raw foods enthusiasts already eagerly seek out local eco-farms to supply their fresh produce. Crops grown on the farm are already quite raw! So, what's the point in a raw food emphasis? Some crops are especially desired in larger quantities by those on a raw food diet, and others typical of those wanting a cooking variety are of less importance. Farms that cater to this group can offer recipes and a sense of community, and truly listen to their customers as far as what crops to grow in the future. Also, the market is growing for live fermented products such as old-fashioned sauerkraut and healthfully cultured dairy. If you can plug into a large living/raw food community, see if they especially like larger quantities of particular juicing vegetables and fruits, need on-farm crafted fermented foods, or crops recently shown to be high in lutein or other carotenoids.
Newly discovered edibles: Have you heard of the taradi vine and its edible tubers? How about a delicious Shopova fruit? Did you know there's an exotic melon with flesh like lime Jell-O (only better)? Ever grown, seen, or baked with emmer, an ancient Egyptian grain with up to 30 protein with no pests or disease, that even inhibits its own weeds? Search out and supply new and unusual crops for your customers. There are an estimated 20,000 plants in the world that supply humans with food, about 2000 have been cultivated, and of these, only 150 are offered on a commercial scale. For example, the book, Melons for the Passionate Grower, describes dozens of incredible melons on the brink of extinction but with seeds available to the market grower. The world is amidst a renaissance to rediscover these and other lost or locally and naturally improved crops. Micro eco-farms are often the first to offer these new crops to an eager market happy to support a food supply free of GMOs (genetically modified organism created in labs where genes of species nature does not want to cross-breed are forced into the new organism). See Facts on Micro Eco-Farms for a greater description of how to introduce brand new crops while keeping your farm prosperous.
Create your own new crop varieties: John Yeoman reported in Heirloom Gardening Magazine that he once grew the heirloom Cherokee Trail of Tears bean, a delicious vegetable that produces black beans. Though chefs loved the flavor, the muddy looking beans and their equally muddy looking juice were visually unappealing. But he noticed the bean occasionally naturally mutated to white seeds which were just as delicious and healthy. Over time, he stabilized this mutation (meaning he eventually grew seeds that would consistently produce white beans, instead of occasionally only producing a few). Thus was born, Yeoman's White Seeded Cherokee. Books such as Seed Growing and Saving explain growing, choosing, saving and proliferating your own varieties that show up with unusual changes in your garden. Nature always experiments with occasional mutations which may include new colors, local climate adaptability, better flavor, earlier ripening or better disease resistance. Natural selection then allows gardeners and farmers to save seed from plants they grow in their own climate, and create their own one-of-a-kind varieties.
Set up a U-Hunt living Christmas tree plantation that looks like a natural wooded setting: Rather than a plantation of neat tree row crops, create wildlife nooks and natural habitat in pockets for customers to hunt through to find their tree. A carefully planned layout will allow you to grow the same amount of trees as a typically laid out tree farm, with the "wooded nooks" being planted with crops that supply greens for wreaths, swags and garlands. All trees are balled and burlapped because they are living trees, but when grown in a natural setting with wood chip or bark mulch covering the burlap ball, they look like forest trees growing in the ground, but waiting for customers to take them home, decorate them, then plant them in a their new location. It's a way for you and your customers to give back to the planet during the winter holidays, and for families to rekindle the satisfying but lost experience of foraging through wild woods in search of something very special. Demonstrate a bird-feeding outdoor Christmas tree decorated with feeders kids can make at home, or feeders you make and sell. Depending on your spiritual orientation, set up a living nativity, or a native European solstice ceremony, or other winter holiday celebrations in the woods to make your Christmas tree farm one they'll always remember.
Become the main farm for all local independent bed and breakfasts: And/or add a B&B element to your farm package. You don't have to own a restored Victorian for this. MaryJane's Farm owners in Idaho set up a few wall tents in their orchard to create a rustic B&B retreat, as they had no desire (or income) to upgrade their own home to B&B standards. Other farms supply crops to both their own B&B, plus exclusive crops for other non-farm B&Bs. A lavender farm in Washington State networks with other B&Bs to supply food-grade organic lavender to enhance their breakfasts, and shares tourist packages with the B&Bs, allowing B&B customers to buy a vacation package that includes a tour of the farm and the farm's gift shop. Eco-tourism is craving the local, rare, exotic and newly discovered ancient foods that can't be found in grocery stores, whether they are familiar foods such as eggs grown in ancient ways… hens that roam free in the sun with access to all of the trace minerals found in the jungle, to rare fruits (see below). The freshly picked and delivered breakfast crop possibilities are huge. Network with sources that report new discoveries about edible plants, and read gourmet magazines such as Saveur, to pick up ideas and trends such as cinnamon-basil flavored sugar, alder smoked sea salt, or rose water for cooking hot cereals.
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