Farm-FED Co-op

This appeared in the August 26, 2021 edition of The Fish Wrap.

We talk a lot about the importance of whole foods and of local food. Farms like RLF try to fill the gap with Farmer’s Markets, but that’s not where most people get their food. There’s a huge need for fresh, whole food at grocery stores, hospitals, nursing homes and schools. We used to have this infrastructure, when there was a grocery, a butcher and baker in every little town, but we have lost it in exchange for convenience and low price. So how do we feed people where they are?

Supplying big institutions like schools or groceries takes reliable inventory, processing facilities, cold storage and refrigerated trucks, and small farms have challenges in scaling up to that level. Scaling by going big will get us back to food being shipped from out of state and an over-reliance on shelf-stable, unhealthy processed food. The key is to scale by duplication, not expansion. We need infrastructure in every small town.

Something cool is happening in Mt. Pulaski. With the help of a grant from the EPA, they opened Market on the Hill Grocery Co-op in 2020, a community-owned farm-fresh food grocery. In 2021, they are working on the Central Illinois Farm-Fresh Enterprise Development Cooperative, or Farm-FED Co-op. They are turning an old hardware store into a resource for local farmers that includes marketing, processing facilities and cold storage, bridging the gap between multiple small farms and the institutions where people get their food.

FarmFED will help farmers scale by processing bulk produce for sale to large buyers. And it will help community members more easily find and buy local food. The best part is that it’s a cooperative, which means it’s community-owned by people who care about local, whole food. Let’s be like Mt. Pulaski! We could do this in our community!