A women-led farm is growing food accessibility in New Richmond.
Big Table Farm Cooperative announced in late February its official formation as a producer co-op, a move designed to strengthen local agriculture through farm businesses banding together.
Founded by a group of three women farmers, the co-op aims to offer fresh, seasonal local produce to its Cincinnati area farm subscription members through a democratically run, producer-owned business model. Produce is available for pick up at three locations twice a week, in Hyde Park, Northside and Newport, Kentucky.
The three owners, Marykate Glenn, Lindsey Melling and Becky Richey have been working together collaboratively for three years under their own private companies, but now the farmers are living a goal long sought after.
“I wanted to collaborate with other local growers, and it’s really been Lindsay and Becky’s experience, their stick-to-itiveness and their willingness to deepen relationships over all of the years,” Glenn said.
The co-op, operates with unique pricing, allowing customers to pay what they can as opposed to a set price.
“There’s no checking of income or anything, it’s self selecting a price for the CSA that works for your budget,” Glenn said. “And we make a point of communicating every year that it’s not charity, it’s mutual aid.”
This strategy, distributed to about 200 customers throughout the Greater Cincinnati Region, allows for quality locally grown food to be eaten, and for the farmers to be supported.
“There’s something really beautiful about being able to literally eat the nature around you,” Richey said.” I think what’s great about growing food locally is also that there’s the local economy. We are keeping our money in our local community and investing in the skills of people around us to grow food, which is something we need.”
The produce is shared out in a market style.
Customers choose a large or small share of the crops, but Glenn said customers receive the same amount of value for their subscription.
“Whether they have paid at the high end or the low end, for that large share, we’re giving them the same big bag of vegetables, and it helps us to be able to know that the those carrots and lettuce and tomatoes will have a place to go within days of being harvested, as opposed to not knowing if you’ll be able to sell,” Glenn said. “So everyone’s getting the same dollar value [per share size]. That’s important to us.”
The newly acquired 25-acre land currently is growing their garlic and onions, but will soon hold all of their produce.
Greens like Collards, lettuce and arugula, will neighbor root vegetables like beets and radishes or potatoes and carrots. Big Table Farm will grow produce customers are used to, but the CSA members may be receiving veggies they aren’t familiar with as well.
“I love when what I think of as a familiar vegetables, others tell me that they’re trying it for the first time,” Glenn said. “I love that, and especially, I love when people’s kids love vegetables.”
The women have fun planting funky food, too.
“We try to have things that are familiar, that people recognize, but we’ll often try to grow a fun color variety that you won’t see in Kroger,” Richey said. “So you’re familiar with what to do with zucchini or summer squash, but this one is shaped like a flying saucer, and a fun color.”
Before Big Table, the three women, then independent farmers, leased their lands. The new co-op is an opportunity to own land and create farmland that works for them, equally.
The intent is to parcel and subdivide it so that the three have ownership on the land.
Because they own this acreage, they are leaving behind the scattered, short-term land agreements. No longer leasing land, as they each did separately means no more worrying about leases and the land owners changing the landscape.
“Moving from year-to-year agreements to now being able to have long-term access to the same piece of land is also bolstering our move to ‘Let’s form this co-op.’ We’re in this for the long haul,” Glenn said. “It is hard to know that you’re putting in all this time and energy into a piece of land that you’re going to have to let go of, or could get bulldozed, or so, sold to be developed.”
All three women said supporting their community was the back bone of their work.
“Our farm has always had a foundation of work,” Richey said. “A deep reason why we’re doing it this way is we want to share with our members, the people eating the food. We want to share this connection to the land, the stewardship of the land and help people experience the seasonality of the food that they’re eating, and the connection of the health of the land impacts the health of our bodies.”
This is the reason they named their farm Big Table, to invite all interested people to eat well and enjoy healthy food.
“The name is really inspired by the expression, ‘when you have more than you need, build a longer table, not a taller fence,” said Richey. “It also kind of echoes like big tent, where you just want to get a lot of people from different backgrounds, folks who might not have thought local food was within their reach, or people who are who are coming to it for different reasons. We just want to reach a lot of folks.”