Growing fruit — and farmers — in Michigan

Empowering employees is a key goal at Lakeview Hill Farm near Traverse City, Michigan.

“We’re trying to break the stereotype that you’ve got to have your own farm to be a farmer,” said John Dindia, who owns the fruit and vegetable growing operation with his wife, Bailey Samp.

“We’re trying to create as much opportunity as we can for employees to provide serious input on the farm,” Dindia said. “We try to provide good opportunities for them to be farmers.”

Lakeview Hill Farm is located on Michigan’s Leelanau Peninsula and offers a glimpse of the 22-mile- long Lake Leelanau. The peninsula is the heart of Michigan’s tart cherry industry, with a terrain of short, steep hills. Large fields are few and far between. That meant the best fit for Lakeview Hill Farm was to be a mid-sized, diversified produce operation rather than a large-scale farm.

“A challenge has been adapting large equipment to a mid-sized farm,” Dindia said. “It’s about getting creative. You’ve got to be creative and be able to look forward to see how it will work and not focus on how it might not work.”

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Adaptability

Dindia advises against hesitation.

“I don’t hesitate to start cutting up a $20,000 piece of machinery when it first arrives at the farm,” Dindia said. “If the idea doesn’t work in the field, that doesn’t mean the idea is a failure. It means it has to be worked on some more. Some people are so hesitant to invest in equipment — and it is expensive, but we look at the cost and the payback. Financial risk is part of business.”

A horticulture degree from Michigan State University (MSU) with a concentration in sustainable and organic agriculture led to Dindia getting work experience on the MSU Student Organic Farm. That experience helped shaped his approach to crop management and led to the purchase of a vacant, fallow lot in 2017 that eventually became Lakeview Hill Farm. The lot’s absence of crop production meant it could immediately achieve organic certification.

Farm growth

Production started in 2018 with one greenhouse and no employees. Dindia and Samp handled all of the initial construction themselves. The operation has since grown to four acres of field production, including 1.25 acres in greenhouses.

The operation produces a large variety of crops for fresh market sales, including strawberries. About 70% of the business is salad greens, microgreens, tomatoes, cucumbers and cut flowers, all sold under the Lakeview Hill Farm label.

For tomatoes and cucumbers, Lakeview Hill Farm uses high-intensity greenhouse techniques. That intensive plant management approach means planting at a high density on trellises with a strong focus on individualized fertility, climate control and irrigation.

“It’s important to make science-based decisions,” Dindia said. “The tomato plants will be 30-feet long by the end of the season.”

Most of the covered production is heated for year-round use, with lettuce and spinach for salad mixes as the primary winter crops. The operation employs six year-round staff and 20 seasonal workers in the summer.

Retail focus

Salad greens, microgreens and herbs are specially packaged under the Lakeview Hill Farm label and supplied to grocery stores for retail sale. Supplying grocery stores is the primary business, with recent expansions into a farm market and agritourism.

“Grocers are reliable, consistent and predictable,” Dindia said.

Grocers also want reliability, consistency and predictability, as well as safe produce for their customers. A local brand with UPC codes (Universal Product Code) helps ensure both reliability and traceability.

Opening the market meant changes in production.

“We stopped growing some crops,” Dindia said, “and started buying from other farmers.”

The market also carries a diverse line of other agricultural products — from meat to grains to fresh fruit —all produced by other local farmers.

“There’s a team mentality within small-sized agriculture,” he said. “We’re competing with each other, but we can work together.”

Sharing information is a big part of marketing.

“I think competition is a good thing, but I’m an open book with other farmers,” Dindia said. “We host workshops on the farm to show growers what we’re doing and to learn from them.”

The area around the market has been developed into an agritourism site.

“We’re not trying to create your quintessential farm market, but rather capture agritourism dollars through displaying and demonstrating real agriculture,” he said.

Fruit and vegetables are grown at both the farm and the market to educate visitors about farming. Grassed walkways lead up to the vegetable production area, with walkways running through flower beds so people can get up close.

“We can be working in front of a crowd of individuals who’ve never seen a tractor before,” Dindia said. “That’s one of the best selling points — showing people how you farm.”

Contributing writer