Issues → September/October 2007 → Feature Stories →
(Tod) Murphy's Law: Buy Local, Eat Local, and Prosper
(page 4 of 4)
Even if Murphy can get the scale right for his operation, though, it's not clear he can make it mesh with the scale of the local farmers he set out to try to help. Consider, for instance, the pig.
When the first Farmers Diner opened in Barre, it needed bacon -- you can't have a diner without bacon. The problem was that no one was producing pork commercially in Vermont. Fifty years ago, sure -- every farm had a few hogs growing fat on leftover milk from the dairy herd. But as agriculture became a commodity business -- as dairy producers concentrated on cows, and pork producers on pigs -- that changed. Vermont dairies became fewer in number and much, much bigger, and in other parts of the nation the same thing happened with hogs.
According to Brian Halweil in his book Eat Here, for instance, there's a hog farm in Utah with 1.5 million pigs. That's absurd -- they produce more solid waste each day than the entire city of Los Angeles. It's also cheap -- so cheap that it sets the psychological price for a pound of bacon pretty low.
So when Murphy wanted to buy pigs for his bacon and sausage business, a Diner sideline called Vermont Smoke and Cure, he approached a few farmers to see whether they were interested. One was Maple Wind Farm, a breeder in Huntington raising 50 hogs a year, mostly to sell at farmers' markets. They're fed on grass and organic grains -- the pork tastes absolutely incredible -- and they fetch good money.
"We get $7.50 a pound for bacon at the farmers' market, and $8.50 a pound for pork chops," says Beth Whiting, who runs the farm with her husband, Bruce Hennessey. So when Murphy asked them if they could raise him some pigs at 89 cents a pound, "we had to bury our laughter."
And yet, 89 cents a pound is more than upscale national pork producer Niman Ranch pays its contract pig farmers.
In essence, it's a Goldilocks problem: Somehow Murphy has to find just the right size. What his operation really requires is not huge commodity producers or small, incredibly wonderful gourmet farms.
"What I need are 1950s-size farms," he says. Not a million hogs, but not 50, either -- maybe three or four hundred, say. Not organic operations necessarily, just family farms. Precisely, in other words, the kinds of farms that have almost all gone out of business in recent decades.
Murphy can still find vegetable growers to fit his needs; he's found someone to plant five acres of cucumbers this season, for instance, enough to fill his pickle needs. But to help rebuild the supply of meat and chicken farmers, he's launching a nonprofit foundation. Named for a character in one of Wendell Berry's novels, the Jack Beecham Foundation will help growers with business plans and marketing strategies.
If all goes according to plan, it will let small farmers grow just big enough to make it in the food economy Murphy is trying to create.
All this to make a smoked-turkey club. Or, to read from today's specials menu, some poached Vermont eggs with Cabot cheddar cream sauce. Or some maple-butternut squash. Or some Cortland apple cobbler topped with local granola, and a scoop of that Strafford ice cream. With some Grace Potter wailing from the jukebox.
For change back from a $10 bill, it doesn't get much sweeter than this. It should work.
Farmers Diner
Quechee Gorge Village, 5573 Woodstock Rd. (Route 4), Quechee, VT
802-295-4600; farmersdiner.com
Vermont Smoke and Cure, 509 S. Barre Rd., South Barre, VT
802-476-4666; farmersdiner.com
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