The following excerpt was copied from:
http://www.leopold.iastate.edu/pubs/nwl/2008/2008-4-leoletter/coop.html
"This small shop in Merle Hay Mall is open only one day a month but business is booming. Loads of food – such as home-grown potatoes, apples, honey and frozen meat – come into the store all morning long, to be assembled and re-packaged by volunteers, then stacked neatly on wire shelves and in coolers and freezers for customers to pick up during the rest of the day.
The thriving new business is the Iowa Food Cooperative, which opened November 20. Two years of groundwork for the venture was funded by a $47,600 competitive grant from the Leopold Center’s Marketing and Food Systems Initiative. The project also has received assistance from Blooming Prairie Foundation, Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship and a natural resource-based business opportunity grant. Merle Hay Mall has donated retail space for the cooperative’s first year of operation.
Here’s how the coop works: Farmer-members indicate what products are available and their prices, which are posted on a web site where members also place orders. Farmers bring their products to the Des Moines mall for pick-up by members one day each month. The first month’s pick-up had 44 orders totaling nearly $3,500, which included a 10 percent handling fee for the coop."
Read more at http://www.leopold.iastate.edu/pubs/nwl/2008/2008-4-leoletter/coop.html
The advantage enjoyed by the small farmer is quality. If the product is first class and in demand and you are a dependable supplier at reasonable cost there is never a problem finding customers. But it needs hard work and intelligence. When starting in the era of 'get big or get out' there were almost no models of commercially successful organic small farmers to provide inspiration and ideas and where they existed it was exhausting and neither cost effective nor efficient. But by seeking out the best from different parts of the world Coleman found the optimum to be about 2.5 acres per grower - enough to produce quality vegetables for 100 people. Produce from the school farm now set the quality standards for the area. He learned much from Helen and Scott Nearing - they were the most practically organized country people he has met - especially their skills in observation and planning. Coleman sets out the year's work on paper during the winter and has a notebook with sections for each crop. He rotates crops until he finds the optimum - the single most important practice in a multi-cropping program. "The 8-year rotation presented below is a good one to conclude with because it is the one I have followed since 1982. It has been well tested. I have thought about modifying it countless times but never have. Its virtues always seem to outweigh its defects, although that isn't to say it can't be improved. I'm sure it can. But it has been a dependable producer and I offer it here as a tried-and-true example of a successful rotational sequence that incorporates many crop benefits. The goal of this particular rotation is to grow 32 vegetable crops in adequate quantities to feed for a year the community of 60-some people who eat daily in the Mountain School dining hall. Since we have found that we can feed 40 people per acre, the rotation below represents 1.5 acres of land. The salad crops not included here are grown in a separate small salad garden close to the kitchen." However, the author points out that tomatoes do better being grown in the same place each year fertilized by their own waste.
Factors that affect plant growth - light, moisture, temperature, soil fertility, mineral balance, biotic life, weeds, pests, seeds, labor, planning and skill - need to be arranged to the plant's liking with the grower coordinating and combining them into a harmonious whole much like the conductor of an orchestra. Successful farmers understand that their role is to help the seed do what it is already determined to do. Good farming practices such as crop rotation, animal manures, green manures, cover crops, mixed cropping, mixed stocking, legumes, crop residues, and season extension have been used for generations, but removing the limiting factors to plant growth and generating a balanced soil fertility are ultimately the secret of success.
There are 22 chapters, each one dealing with an important element of success such as green manures, tillage, direct seeding, transplanting, weeds, pests, harvest, marketing, season extension. In addition there are three appendices on tools, the major vegetable crops and a one-page schematic outline of biological agriculture. If you plan to buy just one book on organic growing, you will find it difficult to beat this book."
http://www.amazon.com/New-Organic-Grower-Techniques-Gardeners/dp/093003175X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1231646025&sr=8-1
Iowa can grow many kinds of interesting fruit. Check out these online nurseries for all your prorogation needs.
