It's not often that the farmers of Jefferson County get to sit at a banquet of gourmet local food for $75 a plate.
In part, that's because there aren't many banquets made entirely of gourmet local food, though the Port Townsend Farmers Market third annual Harvest Dinner on Oct. 26 was certainly the exception.
But in part it's also because most farmers can't afford the $75. The growth of local farms and the ranks of farmers, marked by the rapid growth of the farmers market here, has not changed the economics of small farms. It's hard work through many hours through many cold months that produces a barely livable wage. That's the way it looks to longtime farmer Robert Greenway of Corona Farm.
"The success of the market truly rests on the farmers," he said, "and this is a raggedy, wily, persistent bunch, for the most part willing to work 60- to 70-hour weeks for a few bucks an hour." While many local farmers have been at it for years, others are new and bring new energy and skills to the fields. Among those new skills, said Greenway, are business models that "show them, rather harshly, just how hard they are working and how little they are compensated for it." There are exceptions, such as farms supported by family money or a strong legacy, he said.
"But there are dozens of young, starry-eyed market growers who eke out livings," he said. "Mates often have to work off the farm to support the farm. No health insurance, serious exhaustion. This is what the farmers market rests on. The people paying $75 a plate for a dinner, or the people gathering for cookies, conversation and cauliflower on Saturdays, often don't have a clue as to just how intensely demanding growing local food is." It's important, Greenway said, for farmers market shoppers to realize the high effort and low margins that bring all the locally grown fresh food to market every week.
Celebration
The hard work and sometimes-meager returns do not stop local farming, thankfully. The results are visible - and edible - every Saturday on Tyler Street until Nov. 22, when the market booths come down for the last time until spring.
It was a celebration of the farmers market and the farms that support it that drew a completely packed house of 160 people to an evening in the courtyard of the Bishop Victorian Hotel on Oct. 26. The round tables were peppered with some 20 farmers, many of whom contributed to the completely local gourmet dinner prepared under the supervision of Chef Arran Stark of Cultivated Palette. Stark worked for three days alongside Joann Saul and the staff of Dream City Catering to prepare the feast. It included salads of fresh greens, wheat berries and roasted parsnips; wild salmon from the Cape Cleare dressed with onions from Midori Farm and cider from Eaglemount Winery; and bread from Pane d'Amore - all followed by a dessert combination of rosemary-infused ice cream from Elevated Ice Cream and a pastry made with apples from Finnriver Farm.
The farmers, who were special guests at the fundraising dinner, were warmly applauded by the crowd and several of them spoke, including master of ceremonies Keith Kisler of Finnriver Farm.
In the course of the evening, about $20,000 was raised to support the market, including $7,500 for education and outreach. The event grossed more than twice as much as a series of smaller dinners last year.
Keynote speaker and noted author Michael Ableman of Foxglove Farm on Salt Spring Island, B.C., spoke of his years of farming and growing produce, and called for urban agriculture to become a new habit of millions of Americans. Only a tiny percentage of Americans actually grow food, he said, but active participation in growing food is an essential environmental and economic ethic of the future.
Asked if he'd consider joining a new president's administration in Washington, D.C., as secretary of agriculture, Ableman responded that he would come to Washington - but only as the White House farmer, entitled to grow crops on the lawn.
Rapid growth
Wendie Dyson, completing her first year as PT market manager, told the appreciative audience that the market is "growing by leaps and bounds." The Saturday market started in 1992 in downtown Port Townsend, but the growth has been tremendous in recent years. Partly the growth was attributed to the hard work of former market manager Harvindar Singh, who left two years ago.
In the past seven years:
• The number of vendors has tripled. Today the Saturday and Wednesday markets make way for 90 independent, local businesses, from farmers to artisans.
• Collective sales have increased six-fold, to $775,000 this season.
More than 40,000 people shopped at the market this year, averaging 1,700 shoppers each day.
In addition, Dyson said the market serves as an incubator for small businesses. Exciting additions to the market include the fresh beef from Walker Mountain Meadows, and booths that rotate among community groups promoting their services.
The growth has put pressures on the market, she said, including the need for a database and a website. Other outreach efforts are planned, such as a regular food column.
Other speakers included Lela Hilton of Cape Cleare Fisheries, who compared the act of farming to the act of writing poetry, Red Dog Farms' Karyn Williams, Pane d'Amore's Linda Yakush and the Bishop's Joe Finnie.
Unsold tomatoes
The warmth and success of the annual feast did not lessen, for Greenway, the challenge faced every day by local farmers. Greenway, who has been working Corona Farm for more than a decade, is now one of the senior farmers who bring produce to the farmers market. He also volunteered at the feast as a server.
Local farmers, he said, are competing with both the international farming economy that brings food to Safeway, and the more regional economy that brings food to The Food Co-op, he said.
"It's a serious double bind for the local grower," he said. "If he/she charges the real cost of production plus a tiny profit, people compare those costs with the Co-op and don't buy. Taking home 40 pounds of unsold tomatoes is en economic disaster for the small grower. So we lower prices, lower them again, try not to undersell each other ... stand there all day proudly with our produce, knowing that we'll be taking home what is, in essence, a few bucks an hour at best for the work."
Greenway noted "there are more former growers wandering around town, supporting themselves with other work, than there are current growers."
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