In Business, Creating Sustainable Enterprises & Communities

FOOD MARKET WITH BIG PROMISE

In Business, July-August, 2004, Vol. 26, No. 4, p. 14

The Floyd Boulevard Local Foods Market in Sioux City, Iowa features more than “Healthy, Humane Homegrown.” It also offers the promise of a healthy local economy - since sustainable economic development is a principal goal.

Chris Bedford

AT 8 a.m. on Saturday, May 15, 2004, Father Marvin Boes of Sioux City, Iowa rang a farm yard bell to signal the opening of a new kind of farmers' market in the U.S. Midwest - a market that intentionally only sells local food raised in a natural and humane manner. The market - called the Floyd Boulevard Local Foods Market - is a project of Sustainable Foods for Siouxland (SFFS, Inc.), a joint farmer and consumer effort to establish a humane and sustainable local food supply for the tristate (Nebraska, South Dakota, Iowa) region around Sioux City, Iowa known as Siouxland.
The market features more than just “Healthy, humane, homegrown” food; it also offers the promise of a healthy local economy, as well. For sustainable economic development is one of the project's principal goals.
“The quarter of a million people who live within 75 miles of Sioux City spend over 320 million dollars on food each year,” said Penny Fee, a caterer and a humane food activist. “Less than one percent of that money is spent on food raised locally. We want to change that. If every family in Siouxland spent just ten dollars a week on local food, that would mean over 30 million dollars for local farmers.“
In a time when net farm income per acre is rapidly diminishing because of competition from imports and agribusiness monopoly practices, local food production has the potential of producing real local economic growth. Right now, Midwest farmers are netting about $35/acre from subsidized industrial corn production. Organic heritage tomatoes can produce net income of $9,000/acre.
According to Agricultural Economist Dick Levin of Minnesota, every additional dollar of income in the hands of independent, family farmers can produce between two and eight times additional income for local businesses through the multiplier effect. The ten additional dollars a week spent on local food could produce between 60 million and 240 million dollars in new local economic activity for Siouxland.
This dramatic economic change depends on more than “just local”. The key is a concept called ValueS Added Agriculture, a term coined by the Care4Iowa Campaign of The Humane Society of the United States.
“We like to say that value-added agriculture's success depends on ValueS Added Agriculture,” explain staff at the National Grassroots Campaign for The Humane Society's Care4Iowa Campaign. “Consumers want food produced with values - organic, chemical and GMO-free, and humanely raised. That is how we attract consumers and farmers to participating in a profitable and growing local food system.”
The Floyd Boulevard Local Foods Market's Rules specify a set of standards for the raising of fruit and vegetables and meat products that exceed those of other stores and markets in the region. “The Floyd Boulevard market goes far beyond local. Our farmers only sell food and products they have grown themselves,” said Market Manager Michelle Oehlerking of Sioux City. “The products sold in our market must be grown naturally, without the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) or toxic substances. Animal products must be raised humanely. And we believe in transparency. Farmers allow the market and consumers, if they wish, to verify all statements about how their products are raised.”
The principal fiscal sponsor and technical advisor to the project is the Care4Iowa Campaign of The Humane Society of the United States - a campaign by the Farm Animals and Sustainable Agriculture Section to demonstrate humane, economically and environmentally sustainable alternatives to industrial animal and crop raising in Iowa - and by example, throughout the United States.

CONTRAST WITH INDUSTRIALIZED AGRICULTURE
“Iowa was the obvious place to begin this work,” said Robert Hadad, Farm Systems Director of The Humane Society of the United States. “Iowa is one of the most industrialized agricultural areas in the World.”
Fifteen million hogs are raised annually in the state; over 90 percent of them in crowded metal confinements known as hog factories. Thirty-seven million egg laying hens, the most in the U.S; are similarly confined in Iowa. Corn and soybeans, the mainstay of industrial crop production, cover 20 million acres of the state.
If a ValueS Added approach to food production could work in Iowa, it can work anywhere. Some people were skeptical about this approach, especially in an area as industrialized as Siouxland. After all, the campaign slogan 'Healthy. Humane. Homegrown. Local food you can trust.' isn't exactly uncritical of the dominant industrial paradigm. But even I, the campaign director, was surprised at the results.
The public response to the Floyd Boulevard Local Foods Market has been overwhelmingly positive. The number of farmers participating in the market has grown in two months of operation from six to over twenty. The crowds of Saturday customers now approach a thousand in number. The market has added a Wednesday evening (3-7pm) market to meet the growing consumer demand.
“The farmers are bringing more and more produce and meat,” said Jerry Rosman, a farmer and a consultant to the project. “And they sell out every market. If you come later than noon, you are often just out of luck. Everything is sold. All the farmers are going home smiling.”
The market's growing customer base includes representatives from all of the region's economic and ethnic groups. Eight of the market's farmers have qualified to accept WIC (special food program for Women, Infants and Children) checks, attracting young families and seniors of limited financial resources to the market. A state certified WIC market must have five vendors authorized to accept the WIC coupons.
IMMIGRANTS AND LAWYERS - SENSE OF COMMUNITY
“On a market day, you will see families of Central American and Southeast Asian immigrants shopping right next to lawyers and doctors,” said Cindy McClary, Chief Dietician for the Regional Cancer Center and Secretary of SFFS, Inc. “We have an area where shoppers can just sit, have a cup of coffee. I know people who come to the market to shop and then just hang around to talk with their friends. We are creating a new sense of community around healthy food. What could be better for our area's future?”
The Saturday market opens at 8am with a prominent political or commercial leader from Siouxland ringing the market bell. Since the market opened on May 15, 2004, leaders of all political stripes have rung the bell and addressed the assembled farmers and customers.
“This simple act of having them ring the bell to open the market,” said SFFS Inc. Board Member, Penny Fee, “has introduced the concept of sustainable food as economic development to a lot of movers and shakers. Right now, we have a waiting list of people who want to serve on our Board of Directors. It's amazing how politically potent fresh, delicious, healthy and humane food can be.”
The market is located at the corner of Fifth Street and Floyd Boulevard in Sioux City, next to the historic 4th Street neighborhood. The next step in the project is to convert the ten thousand square foot 1940s era truck terminal on the market site into a year-round market and sustainable food incubator. SFFS, Inc. has received an initial grant from the Iowa Department of Economic Development to help with this project. In
addition, the nonprofit corporation is working with the Woodbury County Board of Supervisors to help promote sustainable economic development
in the unincorporated areas of
the county.
The goal is to use this project to help farmers - particularly young farmers - who want to participate in the rapidly growing organic and humane food market, learn how to grow organically and raise animals humanely as well as develop new food products for customers. The campaign is working with other groups, notably the Iowa Farmers Union and the Iowa Network for Community Agriculture, to develop educational programs and technical assistance.
The year-round project has already received inquiries from health providers from chiropractors to massage therapists who want to have office space in or near the Fifth and Floyd Boulevard building. A wine store, a dairy store, a meat store, a café - all are part of the permanent market's plans. The renovated building will include a commercial kitchen, classrooms, offices, and a public meeting space as well as 40 stalls and stores for year-round vendors.
“Our market has music and massages and fresh flowers and crafts and lots of cool stuff,” said SFFS Board Member Penny Fee of Sioux City. “Kathy Hughes and I have dreamed of having a place where we could buy food raised locally in a way that respects our concern for health and the humane treatment of animals. The Floyd Boulevard Local Foods Market is that place.”
For more information about the Floyd Boulevard Local Foods Market, Sustainable Food for Siouxland, Inc. and the Care4Iowa Campaign of
The Humane Society of the United States, visit the project's website - www.siouxlandlocalfood.org.

Chris Bedford is the National Grassroots Campaign Director for The Humane Society's Care4Iowa project. He is also the producer-director of a film about William McDonough and Michael Braungart entitled, “The Next Industrial Revolution.” His email is cbedford@hsus.org.