Agriculture is a major economic driver in Arkansas. According to the Arkansas Farm Bureau, it’s the state’s largest industry, adding around $16 billion to the state’s economy annually, and just 16% of Arkansas’ farms account for a whopping 92% of production. So what does this mean for small-scale farmers, and how do they find resources to keep their business afloat? Ozarks at Large’s Andreah Gratol has the story.
Clear Water Farms is a Native-owned farm operated by Troy Coleman. However, Coleman isn’t your typical farmer. He’s a first-generation farmer who grew up in Oklahoma. His dad was in the Army, and his mom gardened and canned as a way to feed her family. It took him years of different career choices and insights before realizing that he wanted to be a farmer.
Coleman studied landscape design and urban horticulture at the University of Arkansas and pursued a career in landscaping for 12 years. Coleman knew he was missing the community aspect of his work.
"I’m not sure what the calling was, but at some point in my landscaping career, I would do design and we’d go back in and put in the irrigation and woody plants and maintain them with bedding plants and whatnot. And I just had this epiphany that this wasn’t doing the general public any good.
"So I started having these epiphanies of what if we could incorporate vegetable plants in your landscaping, and would that be a more economically sustainable way of life. And I think I was kind of daydreaming at the time. Also, at that time, I was hitting the 12-year mark in landscaping, and this area was going through a funny transition.
"It was just starting to grow but not starting to grow. So that business had hit a plateau where it wasn’t doing anything. So I was starting to shift gears in my head."
From there, Coleman left his landscaping career and jumped into real estate for nearly a decade. Coleman says he did well at it, but still felt like his time flew by too fast. And even though real estate felt like more of a service to his community, he still felt like something greater was missing.
"Again, after nine years, I started having this strange epiphany come and haunt me again. And one of the strangest things actually happened when I was doing that. One of my old professors had come into the office, and I recognized him right away.
"So I went out and introduced myself. And it was so funny because he actually went back and looked at my records, and he remembered me. So he came back and said, 'Man, you’re one of my best students ever.' Which for me, that was a real honor. I’ve always struggled in school, so it was actually a compliment.
"But I had told him, 'I think I’m going to retire in real estate.' And he said, 'Well, you never know.' And it was the second time somebody told me, you never know. And I had a complete change of careers after that. So be careful when people tell you, you never know. It can jinx you. You can end up doing something."
Toward the end of his time in real estate, he came across Curtis Stone’s YouTube channel about urban farming.
"He was actually taking suburban homes and taking out the lawn and all the woody plants and transforming them into a garden situation. And what he would do is he would give the homeowner a share of the proceeds of the vegetables, and then he would sell the rest so he could make an income at it.
"And it was so funny because I was like, I’m not the only one having these weird epiphanies of wanting to make the world better, make it more sustainable in some way. So anyhow, I had already gotten out of my landscaping thing, but I did follow him for a long time and everything he said I agreed with. And it was just an interesting process from there.
"So about a year and a half before I got out of real estate, I started the business. I started seeing what I needed to do to farm part-time. And then that finally led to me retiring from real estate and getting into farming full time."
Another unique advantage Coleman had was inheriting 16 acres of land from his childhood home.
"When you have property like that, you want to utilize it. So I had this property at my usage to do whatever I wanted to with. So I finally figured out what I wanted to do and took advantage of it. And because I understand how hard it is for a beginning farmer to find land. So getting that over the hurdle is really a godsend."
Coleman is finally at a place where he has fulfilling work, but he acknowledges that it’s hard and not everyone has had the same advantages as him.
According to the Arkansas Farm Bureau, 97% of Arkansas farms are family-owned. For Coleman, he doesn’t have to support a traditional family with his work, which is an immense pressure on many other farmers. For him, farming is a career of chance.
This spring, there was a hailstorm that heavily impacted a lot of his infrastructure for his plants.
"Crushed one of my high tunnels. First time in seven and a half years that happened. If that would have happened on year one, I might have backed out and never done it again. It scared me so bad.
"So anyhow, I think timing has a lot to do with when things happen, how you deal with it. I just have to take it as it comes now. Because I’m into it. I can’t get out of it. Or I’m sure I could, but I don’t want to. It’s what I love. And some of those hardships aren’t as difficult now where I’m at."
Those hardships might look different for every farmer, but they are definitely present.
Deacue Fields is the vice president for agriculture within the University of Arkansas System. In a meeting with the university’s Board of Trustees, he said that the agriculture economy right now is probably in one of the most depressing states he’s seen in his career. With skyrocketing costs due to tariffs and plummeting crop prices, farmers need more help than ever.
However, local initiatives are coming together to do what they can with the current state of agriculture.
Pam Nelson is the Northwest Arkansas program manager for the Farms Fund. The program works to provide farm expansion for production and access to land. After farmers apply and are accepted, the program works with the individual farmer’s needs. They enter a three- to five-year flexible lease while the program continues to support the farmer through whatever they might need.
Nelson says at the end of their lease period, they are guaranteed a purchase option.
"So they can step into ownership. But the key to this program and making the farmland affordable is that before they purchase the property, we actually put a conservation easement on the property to permanently protect it, which reduces the land’s cost to agricultural value for the farmer. And it’s creating this mechanism where they can purchase land that would otherwise be unaffordable for their business."
The Conservation Fund program works with local partners and local land trusts to put a conservation easement on the farm property. Once the easement is in place, the land trust ensures that the land stays farmland forever.
Nelson says that nationally, America is losing 40 acres of farmland an hour.
"I mean, it’s staggering. In northwest Arkansas, in Benton and Washington counties, in the last five years, we’ve lost about 41,000 acres. And at the same time, farmers are aging out, so they need to sell or transition.
"So we have this problem where land is expensive, land is ready to change hands, and then we have a cohort of new and beginning farmers who are passionate and innovative and ready to take on that challenge, but they just don’t have the capital to jump right into it."
She says this program is a unique opportunity to support local growers who are capable.
"And just bridge that land access barrier and give them time that they might not have otherwise to put their money into other aspects of business growth that are also expensive, like fencing and irrigation.
"And, you know, the access to land is a big piece of the struggle to get into it, and it’s just compounded by the amount of capital that’s needed to start up a farm, in any situation."
Having access to more land means equity, and the Conservation Fund is working to provide farmers with a head start so they can focus on what really matters, their produce.
In downtown Springdale, Spring Creek Food Hub works to increase the overall supply of goods or services through partnerships with local producers to improve and expand their production. Spring Creek provides expertise and education for growers designed to increase capacity to reach these communities.
Nena Hammer is the director of operations and farmer relations at Spring Creek Food Hub. She says the food hub has been open for about two and a half years.
"I’ve been with the organization since January of 24, so a little bit into the start of the organization. However, it really came from that effort to regionalize local food and seeing this need that there were schools and larger institutional markets interested in purchasing local, but couldn’t quite get the relationships with the farmers solidified.
"And vice versa, farmers wanted to sell into these new outlets that were having difficulty kind of solidifying. So really seeing the need for a food hub to connect the dots along those lines and open new markets was kind of what led to the creation of Spring Creek."
Spring Creek provides many resources to help out local farmers. Things like equipping a wholesale packaging room at a reduced cost for individual coolers that are climate-controlled, and an area where farmers can wash and package their produce and get it ready to be purchased.
"Which serves a couple of purposes. This is a space that we can train growers on produce safety and what it looks like to wash and pack produce in a safe manner. And then once they are trained on this space and have that food safety certification, they can rent the wash pack by the hour.
"So for farmers who don’t have wash pack facilities on site or who are scaling up and need access to some bigger equipment, that can be pretty hard and expensive to source on their own. They can come in here, rent it by the hour, and then we’ll spray down and sanitize the room after each use."
Spring Creek also provides rented pallet space for farmers
"When they outgrow their cold storage on their farm and need additional space, or if they don’t have cold storage on their farm to begin with. We will rent them pallet space here in our coolers, and one of the farms that we worked with had the biggest apple crop he’s had in years. It was fabulous, so wonderful.
"But then he had this struggle to face of having too many apples for his fridge. So he overgrew his cold storage. But by being able to offer the cold storage here, we saved, I think at one point, like 15 to 20 pallets of his apples that he wouldn’t have had a home for otherwise and likely would have had to throw out or dispose of."
She says it’s encouraging to see organizations that are in place to provide resources to make farming easier. However, it’s a matter of the accessibility of the resources that are available.
Andreah Gratol: Have you had to reach out to local resources like that, or do you know any other farmers that have had to do that?
"I think all of us would if we knew they were available and who to reach out to. The NRCS program with the USDA that I’ve reached out to for financial help."
Coleman says he also reached out to other organizations looking for part-time seasonal help.
"You know, 'Hey, do you guys have anybody you can send me?' That kind of thing. But I think any resource is a benefit to farmers because we’re so isolated right now. And especially things going on with the government, it’s so scary. But just economics in general.
"It’s scary being a farmer. You’re relying on what you grow to make a living, and that’s nerve-wracking. The fact is I have to plant today what I make in six weeks. You know, you’re always thinking ahead of time."
Being a farmer comes with its struggles. It takes land, money, and the proper access to resources to really succeed. For Coleman, helping people makes it all worth it.
"There’s a lot of self-satisfaction out of giving good vegetables to people that appreciate it. I didn’t receive that when I was a realtor, and it was just the opposite.
"And it’s so funny because I feel like the same people that were sometimes horrible clients in real estate are great clients when they love your food. You know, it’s a good feeling when you make people feel good, when you get compliments from your food."
Farmers are a big contributor to our local community, and local initiatives are in place to help farmers. The trick seems to be bridging the gap between the two.
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