Apr 7, 2007

Texas Produce Industry Small But Vital

Texans are proud of their history. A stroll through the well-lit, well-kept Capitol building in Austin was enough to convince me of that. I might have been even more impressed by The Alamo, that most reverential piece of Texas history, but I didn’t have time to walk through it.

I visited Austin and San Antonio in January, during the annual conference of the North American Farmers’ Direct Marketing Association. Hundreds of people from around the country gathered to learn how they do farm marketing in Texas.

The activities started in San Antonio with three days of bus tours. I was on the farmers’ market tour. Having been on similar trips, I had a general idea what to expect, but not being too familiar with Texas I wasn’t sure what kind of farms we would be visiting.

The word “big” might have just popped into your head. After all, everything is supposed to be bigger in Texas, right?

Not exactly. There are plenty of big steers, open views and wide streets, but the trees – numerous as they are – aren’t as tall as they are in Michigan. There’s a lot of grass, too, but the color green seems to be in short supply.

Big produce farms seem to be in short supply as well, at least from what I saw. My bus made plenty of stops, but I didn’t see more than a few acres of fruits and vegetables. Of course, it was January, and the places we visited were mostly family-owned, retail-oriented operations, so perhaps we missed the big guys. However, according to the Texas Department of Agriculture’s Web site, fruits and veggies constitute only a small percentage of the state’s agricultural output.

What’s in place, however, is impressive. I’ve never seen anything quite like Boggy Creek Farm, nestled comfortably in the middle of an Austin neighborhood. The place has a vibe about it – call it alternative, counterculture, hippy, whatever – that I didn’t expect to find in Texas. Our tour group sure liked it. The neighbors seem to like it, too.

Another thing that surprised me about Texas: The accents weren’t that strong. Maybe one or two people I talked to had a healthy Southern drawl, but the rest could have passed for plain old Midwesterners. And where were all the cowboy hats? I get the feeling there are a lot of transplants in the Longhorn State.

Two of the places we visited, Fredericksburg Herb Farm and Eastside Café, had small vegetable plots used to supply their on-site restaurants. Both places were neat, tidy, compact operations, and I had no complaints about the food.

We also stopped at Arnosky Family Farms and Amador Farms, small operations that specialize in cut flowers and hydroponic produce. Torre Di Pietra, a winery and vineyard, showed off its recent improvements, and the variety at Whole Foods Market’s flagship store in Austin was dizzying. If you ever want advice about the advantages of adding coffee to your list of services, just talk to Roger Chbeir, owner of San Antonio Coffee Roasters.

We also stopped at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum in Austin. It was pretty good, as far as presidential museums go. It did a nice job of highlighting the man’s successes and failures and of encapsulating a turbulent time in American history.

Speaking of history, let’s talk about Washington, D.C. I flew there a few weeks ago for another annual conference. This time it was the National Council of Agricultural Employers. There were some heavyweight speakers there, including USDA Secretary Mike Johanns, White House deputy Barry Jackson and Senator Ken Salazar, a Democrat from Colorado.

All three men talked about immigration reform, an issue that bedevils both political parties. Getting perspectives on reform efforts from the executive and legislative branches of government was educational, though perhaps not in the way the speakers intended. Salazar said that in order to create a successful guest worker program, President Bush has to lead the way. Johanns and Jackson, however, said it’s up to Congress to take the initiative.

I think we’ve found the real problem.