Shenandoah Valley Produce Industry Booming

Farmers Diversify Income by Meeting Growing Consumer Demand for Fresh, Local Produce

Andrew Jenner
Virginia Correspondent

DAYTON, Va. — By mid-morning on market days, business is brisk at the Shenandoah Valley Produce Auction, where whatever is in season – July tomatoes have now given way to September pumpkins – rolls in by the tractor load. All of it sells just as quickly to a variety of wholesale buyers, including produce stands, grocery stores, restaurants and schools.

“Today, [customers] are … just looking for fresher food,” said Ray Kisamore, owner of a produce stand in Churchville, Va. “This is a very important part of my business.”

Kisamore has been buying at the Shenandoah Valley Produce Auction since it opened in 2005 – during which time his customer base has grown, along with demand for fresh, local produce.

That trend hasn’t been lost on local farmers, who’ve begun growing more and more produce over the past several years, said Eric Bendfeldt, a community viability specialist with Virginia Cooperative Extension. By selling that produce at the auction, Bendfeldt said, local farmers have been able to diversify and stabilize their incomes.

Though local farmers markets have grown rapidly in size and number, it isn’t always feasible for farmers already established in large-scale production agriculture to sell small retail volumes of produce. To create a convenient market for wholesale buyers and sellers of produce, a group of farmers, extension agents and others worked together to start the Shenandoah Valley Produce Auction in 2005.

Since then, said Auction Manager Dennis Showalter, the auction has grown rapidly. Now, between 400 and 500 registered growers sell produce to nearly 300 registered buyers from across the region, said Showalter, and several new buyers call or register each week.

In 2005, the produce auction’s first season, its gross sales were around $380,000. This year, Showalter said, the auction is on track to take in four times that amount. The marketing opportunity the auction has provided for wholesale produce over the past several years has contributed to rapid growth in that part of the local agricultural economy.

“Five years ago, we weren’t growing much produce [in Rockingham County],” Showalter said. “Since the auction’s started, it’s sparked a lot of interest in growing produce.”

The most common items sold there, Showalter said, are tomatoes, sweet corn, watermelons and cantaloupes – though depending on the season, nearly every sort of fruit or vegetable that can grow in the Shenandoah Valley is available, as are shrubs and flowers.

Like most farmers who sell produce at the auction, Kevin Showalter began growing tomatoes, squash, onions and pumpkins to diversify the income on his Montezuma, Va. dairy farm (other sellers at the auction are largely dependent on other large agricultural commodities like poultry). Kevin Showalter said that high land prices also play a role in fueling the region’s growing produce industry. As the price of land rises, he said, farmers will increasingly have to find ways to generate more income on less land. Growing produce is one good way to do that, he said, and doesn’t carry nearly the same startup costs as entering the dairy or poultry business.

Virginia Cooperative Extension places a priority on developing sustainable local food economies, Bendfeldt said, in large part due to numerous studies demonstrating the potential economic benefits to communities. Bendfeldt and an extension colleague, Matt Benson, found that $10 in weekly spending by every Virginia household on local foods would generate $1.65 billion in direct economic impact to farmers. Another recent study by Ken Meter of the Crossroads Resource Center in Minneapolis found that Virginians’ $14.8 billion total annual spending on food includes $8.9 billion spent on out-of-state food products – representing $8.9 billion in lost economic opportunity for Virginia’s farmers. Finally, a 2008 report by Terence Rephann at the University of Virginia’s Weldon Cooper Center showed that every agricultural job created in Virginia creates 1.5 additional jobs, while ever $1 spent on Virginia’s agricultural products creates $1.75 in value-added benefits for the state’s economy.

“Those are [more] reasons to encourage this local food and farm system,” said Bendfeldt, who described a thriving local food economy as a win-win for everyone – consumers looking for local produce, farmers looking for new sources of income and everyone else who benefit when the local economy grows.