Farmer Lenny Burger says he does gymnastics to get to the back row of the cooler on his fifth-generation farm.
“We're not even on the weekend yet here, and you can't move. And it's not even August when produce piles up,” he said inside the cold storage on a hot summer Thursday in mid-July. “The back row gets filled to the top, and then you're trying to crawl over stuff … it works, but it's not working efficiently.”
Burger is one of five local farmers to receive funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Resilient Food Systems Infrastructure grant. With the funding, the farm will expand their current cold storage situation, so Berger can retire from gymnastics and prolong the quality and shelf life of his farm’s produce.
It’s an investment for the future of the farm in Drums.
"Three generations used the cooler that we're already on, and who knows what they're going to need in three more," he said. "So if I build it to last, and build it oversized at the moment — and like I said, it's just, it is preparing for the future — it's going to be ample space at the moment for us.”
Local nonprofit Food Dignity applied for the USDA funding on the farms’ behalf.
"We knew our farmers might not be applying, and so we gave them the opportunity to apply with all of us together,” said Amanda Gordineer, Director of Operations for the nonprofit.
The federal grants are administered through the state. The funding totals over $21 million and will go to 77 farms and food manufacturers in Pennsylvania. The state says the grants will "increase capacity, drive growth, and provide opportunity throughout Pennsylvania’s food supply chain."
Food Dignity is expected to receive $723,839 to distribute to five farmers. They will also use part of the funding to purchase a refrigerated van for the nonprofit.
"We really want to do anything possible to support the people who are growing nutritious food right here, close to us in Pennsylvania," Gordineer said. “And so it definitely corresponds with our mission, not only to purchase produce from local farms and use it in our programming, but also to be in touch with what the needs of our farmers are and what could help to further their goals.”
Food Dignity is waiting on the contract for the grant, Gordineer said. They've advised the farms to wait until the paperwork is signed before beginning their projects.
Better temperatures, better quality
Burger's farm has been in operation in Luzerne County since 1889.
His grandfather built their current cold storage facility in the 1960s. It still works but the farm has outgrown it.
Sweet corn is the their biggest crop. They grow other produce and sell produce, meats and cheeses from local farms at a farm market on their property.
Cold storage prolongs the quality and shelf life of produce.
"Ultimately, the colder (it's kept) … the higher the quality you're going to have, which you could pass on to the customer, then they could have a longer shelf life for them as well," Burger said. "You pick a head of lettuce on a day like today, and if you leave it out a mere day, it's going to look like noodles."
It's not just the summer heat that impacts produce.
"You have to maintain a certain temperature, even in the winter months. So this ought to help our storage crops … This is like squash, potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots,” he said.
‘Like having a car without a transmission’
The Lands at Hillside Farms is a small dairy operation in Luzerne County's Back Mountain. With the grant funding, the farm will purchase a new milk separator, which their operation is dependent on.
For the Shavertown farm, not having a milk separator would be “like having a car without a transmission,” said Chet Mozloom, executive director.
The machine separates the butter fat from the milk.
“That's how you get skim milk, or 1%, 2%, but that butter fat is the most valuable part of the milk," he said. "So it's very important to us. We wouldn't be able to function without it. We'd only have whole milk. That would be the only product we would have."
No ice cream either, he added.
On a hot Thursday afternoon, the parking lot was packed at the farm. A steady stream of people walked into the retail area with empty glass bottles and walked out with full bottles of milk. A small line formed outside the ice cream stand.
The current milk separator is from the 1960s. Dairy equipment lasts a long time but that can also be a problem, Mozloom said.
“The big issue with it is that parts fail, and when they fail, you have to be able to replace them, and the parts are no longer available for the one we had,” he said.
The new milk separator they're buying is from the 1980s. It looks like R2D2 from "Star Wars," he said, and is much larger than what they’re currently using. That type of machine is still frequently used in mid-size and small-dairies but most importantly, parts are still available for it.
"I'm hoping that we get another 30 or 40 years out of this new one, really,” Mozloom said.
He said the Lands at Hillside Farms would not have been able to afford the milk separator without the grant.
"You wonder, how would this place continue to exist without the blessing of grants, without Food Dignity helping us? And I don't know what the answer is, because you would just have a massive amount of debt on equipment, and you would not be able to service the debt,” he said.
From wasting time to streamlined
Jay Jadick and his partner, Jordan Delzell, farm around 20 acres of land at Twofold Farm and Studio in Tunkhannock.
Their portion of the grant will help the farm build a produce wash station.
"Right now we have a rudimentary wash station that isn't really cutting it. We're wasting time and resources because we're not able to streamline everything,” Jadick said.
The new design will help the farm save water and get their produce from the fields and into storage quicker, he said.
The new station would not be possible without the grant.
“It's one of those things that we are just kind of making do with what we have. And the grant has sort of like supercharged us in a way that we can do something that will just only elevate our ability to be more efficient and sustainable,” he said.
The farm is located in the shadow of Miller Mountain in Wyoming County, about 2 miles outside of Tunkhannock. Jadick is a fourth generation farmer. The farm has been in his family since the early 1900s. Jadick and Delzell, who also grew up farming, are artists who moved from New York City back to the area.
Twofold sells their produce through Food Dignity in Duryea and at the Tunkhannock Farmers Market at Creekside Gardens. Food Dignity makes sure they are paid a fair wage for their farming, Jadick said.
"It's rare that farmers are able to get the sort of outreach that Food Dignity allows us, and they are also very considerate of our time and our efforts,” he said.
Fresh food at a fair price
Food Dignity formed in 2020. Founder Clancy Harrison saw a need in the area to get nutritious food to people while supporting small farms.
"We saw this opportunity to kind of bridge the gap between food that is grown here locally and the people that are local that need it,” Gordineer said.
While the organization supports local farms in a variety of ways, one of their big missions is to support them financially, and not just through including them in grant applications.
“We know how much work and effort and cost it takes to grow fruits and vegetables, and we don't ask for donations. We don't ask for discounts. We purchase food from local farmers at their market rate so that they can stay in business and continue to grow this wonderful, nutritious, high quality food for all of us for years to come,” she said.
Gordineer said Harrison promotes the idea that everyone should have access to nutritious food.
"No matter what our background is or our wallet decides, there's more than enough food in this country for us to make systems that get healthy food to everyone, and we want to do that in a way that's dignified for everyone,” she said.
Endless Roots Farm, in Waverly Twp., and
Rowlands Pennsylvania Produce, in Falls, also received grant funding to create cold storage.
