Louisiana farmers: ‘farm-to-table’ is a buzzword, not a revenue stream

The growing farm-to-table movement seems like it would be a win-win for Louisiana. Farmers get to sell and spotlight their products on local restaurant menus. Chefs get to work with the freshest local ingredients. Customers get to support and learn more about local agriculture.

But the movement hasn’t given Louisiana farmers the financial backing they’d like.

They say farm-to-table is a buzzword that does little more than market their product. And in some cases, restaurant owners even falsely advertise they are serving goods from area farms the restaurants aren’t purchasing.

And they’re concerned with a part of the message that seems to favor small-batch farming over the kind of industrialized process responsible for the state of American farms and the feeding of millions around the world.

“It’s a great initiative because it is locally grown and healthy, but I don’t think you have to say just because it wasn’t grown here’s it’s less healthy,” said Steve Logan, owner of Logan Farms. “Don’t confuse buying sweet corn at the farmers market when it’s in season with feeding your family year round on locally grown produce.”

Logan grows soy beans, cotton and corn in fields across north Caddo Parish. His profit margins are small and require great efficiency to maintain from year to year, something modern techniques, fertilizers and machinery allow him. Farm-to-table isn’t a term with which he has great familiarity, but he’s noticed a call for “organic” produce and he isn’t impressed.

“It just makes them feel better,” Logan said. “Someone out there is working their tail off to get those foods into grocery stores.”

Logan and other Louisiana farmers want people to know where their food came from. They want them to know American farmers raise the healthiest and most abundant crops on the planet. They want them to be proud of their local growers.

They don’t want to be part of a fad.

Local in Acadiana

“How has the farm-to-table movement impacted us?” mused Acadiana farmer Brian Gotreaux. “I can’t say that it has a whole lot.”

Located in Scott just outside of Lafayette, Gotreaux Family Farms has grown during the past 15 years from a small operation meant to provide organic, nutrient-dense food for Gotreaux and his family into one that anchors the Hub City Farmers Market and provides fresh produce and meat to many in Acadiana.

Gotreaux grows 167 varieties of produce and is known for his grass-fed, pasture-raised chickens. He also produces tilapia, lamb, beef, goat, eggs and honey on the farm.

On a recent chilly Wednesday afternoon, he was preparing an order for Lafayette restaurant Dark Roux, which opened Dec. 29.

Restaurant owner Ryan Trahan recently picked up 120 pounds of chicken, 80 pounds of turkey, 40 tilapia filets, 20 dozen eggs and about 100 pounds of fresh winter produce — enough food to last the restaurant about two days.

“We’ve been seeing the Gotreauxs pretty much daily since we opened,” Trahan said.

Trahan uses Gotreaux and other local vendors to populate his always-changing menu, which consists wholly of local foods except for three items he hasn’t been able source locally: flour, onions and the heirloom corn used in the stone-ground grits.

Dark Roux is one of only a few truly farm-to-table restaurants in Acadiana, according to Gotreaux.

Gotreaux said there are many more restaurants that purchase a handful of veggies from a farmers market to use in a dinner special so they can increase their business through the buzzword “farm-to-table.” Other restaurants actually will use local producers’ names on menu items that are not coming from the sources cited.

“There’s a lot of chefs who say they’re using our products,” Gotreaux said. “There’s a lot of chefs just using the buzzword for market share.”

Farm-to-table isn’t even a description Gotreaux likes to use.

McDonald’s or Burger King could be considered farm-to-table restaurants, he reasons, because they source their food from some kind of a farm and it ends up on a table.

Trahan agrees.

“All food really comes from a farm, whether it be a commercial farm or a local farm or whatever,” Trahan said. “All food comes from a farm, and it all in some way ends up on a table. Everything can be farm-to-table.”

So if not farm-to-table, then what?

“We support local foods,” Trahan said. “We’re a community food-based restaurant.”

Movement growing in Northwest Louisiana

In North Louisiana, winters can be harsh and summers are always hot. Drought has sapped yields and profits both. Crops just aren’t available all year long, according to Logan.

“We have such severe seasons,” Logan said. “It’s not practical to serve a whole menu from local foods.”

For Jason Brady, owner of Wine Country Bistro in Shreveport, making partnerships with local farmers serves a twofold purpose — letting him shake the hands which feed his customers and ensuring as many dollars stay in the area as possible.

During the bountiful spring and summer seasons, Brady said as much as 80 percent of his menu is locally sourced. His menu will change as many as three times a year. When he can get local tomatoes, he does. When he can’t, he gets them from somewhere else.

“I’m fortunate in a way because Wine Country is based on a seasonal menu. We worked to be local. We worked to be regional. We worked to be seasonal,” he said. “At the end of the day it’s true food, healthier food and a more honest approach to the way we cook.”

Farm-to-table — and working with growers such as Princeton’s Mahaffey Farms — is a passion for Brady, but the area is a small market when compared to the food demands on New Orleans. If more restaurants put in the effort to source their food locally (he hopes to add more Ark-La-Tex protein to his menu in 2015) it might encourage more farmers to make the efforts necessary to sell directly to them.

“Within a couple of years, I see the most popular steaks, lamb chops and pork chops coming from within 30 miles of Shreveport,” Brady said.

Mchaffey Farms is a small vegetables and pastured meats operation, according to owner Evan McCommon. He considers his farm a craft operation, one bent on helping local chefs — professional and amateur — discover a flavor that could define this area’s food.

The idea “farm-to-table” is a dishonest term doesn’t sit well with him.

“I wouldn’t call it a buzzword. It’s more of a trend or a movement that starts small and grows,” McCommon said. “We’re just seeing the beginning of this.”

The number of restaurants buying his produce and the pork, beef and chicken that are the bulk of his business has increased strikingly over the last year, McCommon said. He said he’ll keep raising and growing the food if local chefs keep trying to raise the bar in their homes and restaurants.

“We can’t be farm-to-table without chefs,” McCommon said. “They’re the ones who have to let me in the door and buy from me.

Not enough where it counts

No matter how it’s phrased, the business farmers such as Gotreaux now receive from restaurants focusing on local foods isn’t enough to really impact earnings.

“I can’t say one way or another that it would make or break us,” Gotreaux said. “It’s a small movement here in Lafayette. A lot of people think it’s bigger than it really is.”

Farmers in other parts of the state are saying the same.

“To me, ‘buy local’ means bought from the individual who grew it or raised it; that you didn’t just walk into Walmart,” said Caddo cattleman Marty Wooldridge. “Is it a trend? It’s trendy, but I think it’s here to stay.”

Five years ago, Wooldridge might’ve had just five cows set aside and “on feed” for individuals looking for fresh, homegrown beef. This year he’s got 20, but that prospect, an effort to clear the legal hurdles to selling his own branded beef products at farmers markets and a new interest in hogs are only a small part of his overall business.

“It’s about diversification for us. It won’t be 100 percent of our business, it won’t be 50 percent, but it’s growing,” Wooldridge said. “Yes, it’s probably a hot topic right now, but people are becoming more aware of where their food is coming from.”

Based in Farmerville, Anthony Yakaboski grows a few hundred acres of peaches, purple hull peas, melons, okra and other local produce on his farm. He got into the business about 18 years ago because of his love for growing.

Although his customer base has grown through the years, he doesn’t see any real difference in business from the local foods movement.

“Everybody says local, fresh is the way to go,” Yakaboski says, “but they don’t really practice what they preach.”

What Yakaboski is seeing is individual customers and restaurants seeking convenience above all else. Customers used to pick their own fruits and vegetables from his farm, but now they want it washed and packaged at farmers markets. Most restaurants have moved from working with a handful of local vendors to using large supply companies where they can be guaranteed to get the products they want.

Even so, everybody wants a piece of that local foods market share.

“If you’re not careful, you’ll find a lot of people who will actually lie to you and try to say that they are but they’re not actually promoting fresh, local stuff,” Yakaboski said.

Again and again that is the story farmers are telling in Louisiana. Many promote local, but few actually purchase local.

Marguerite Constantine, who owns WesMar Family Farms in Moreauville, echoes the sentiment. Sitting on only about two acres of land, her farm consists primarily of goats — about 70 dairy and meat — but also includes seasonal produce.

“We’ve been very disappointed in some of the restaurants that we thought would embrace the ability to purchase locally,” Constantine said.

Like Gotreaux and Yakaboski, Constantine didn’t inherit her farm but instead began raising goats about 15 years ago because she could not find sources for the goat milk and cheese she grew to love during her time spent traveling abroad.

Part of her mission with the farm has been not only to make ends meet but to educate people, including her children and grandchildren, on where food comes from. The farm is certified as a zoo just so she can allow the public to tour the farm.

“I want the restaurant owners and their staff to come visit, come taste, come see, come pet the goats,” Constantine said. “And it’s amazing they have.”

Constantine has seen a slow-and-steady increase in business through the years, although she said the farm-to-table movement isn’t necessarily why.

More than a steady revenue stream, the restaurants have provided an awareness about local foods.

“Louisiana is starting to get it,” Constantine said. “Our business has gotten stronger because of that awareness.”

Consumers getting smarter about their food is a good thing, Wooldridge said, and so is an interest in supporting local producers. People want to shake their farmers’ hands and meet their beef.

“I would love for them to,” Wooldridge said. “When I sell it to them, I tell them it was born here and raised here. They like to hear that. I even tell them it’s been raised mostly on locally grown grain. They even like to hear that.”

What exactly is farm-to-table, anyway?

Farm-to-table is a movement concerned with producing food locally and delivering it directly to local consumers. It is closely linked to the local food movement and is promoted by those in the agriculture, food service and restaurant communities who are concerned with sustainable agriculture. According to Google Trends, the term farm-to-table first trended in 2006 and has seen slow but steady growth ever since, seeing record use in August 2014. The term is forecast to become even more popular this year.