Gov. Jay Inslee’s stay-at-home order recognized farmers markets and farm stands as essential services. While grocery stores are having trouble keeping staples on the shelves and controlling crowds, local farmers are exploring various methods — some new and innovative, some old-fashioned — to get locally grown food into the kitchens of Clark County residents.
A couple of local farms have old-school farm stands filled with vegetables, eggs, meat, and cheese. Red Truck Farm in Ridgefield has a fridge full of veggies, including lettuce mix, pea shoots, collard greens and potatoes. Botany Bay Farms in Brush Prairie has pork, chicken, beef and eggs.
The delayed opening of the Vancouver Farmers Market and a drop in business from local restaurants has inspired farmers to seek new ways to get their food to market. Many of them have turned to the internet.
Red Truck Farm recently had a farm box pop-up shop on its Facebook page. Customers sent a message to owner, Amber Baker, through Facebook Messenger and then paid through PayPal, Venmo, or a link sent by the farm to pay by Square. Boxes could be picked up at Red Truck Farm in Ridgefield or Rally Pizza at The Mill.
Kelly Peters and Patrick Dorris of Flat Tack Farm started a Community Supported Agriculture subscription this year. They set up a page on a host site called Harvie so that customers could join their CSA. Given the ease of using this platform, they decided to post some other vegetables for sale. Customers order and buy through the website and then pick up at their farm on the Heathen Estate in Brush Prairie or at a site in downtown Vancouver.
Reister Farms’ Facebook page lists cuts of lamb available for sale, including rack of lamb, kabobs and lamb pepperoni sticks. The farm also has eggs. Customers can order through email or the Facebook page, with weekly delivery or pickup in Esther Short Park.
Mark Lopez of Gather and Feast Farm is selling produce to the public for the first time. Under normal circumstances, most of what he grows on his farm in La Center would be used by his businesses Crave Catering or his farm dinners. He posted an online order form on Instagram and Facebook that includes eggs, spring salad mix, kale and kale raab. Orders can be picked up at Crave Catering in Southeast Portland or Gather and Feast Farm in La Center. Payments are though Paypal.
Farmers aren’t the only ones interested in creating virtual stores online. When its opening date was delayed, the Vancouver Farmers Market decided to put a virtual store for its vendors on its website. This spreadsheet is only a rough prototype of things to come.
The No. 1 priority for Vancouver Farmers Market is to get the market open, said its executive director, Jordan Boldt. The market, however, is actively exploring ways to host a more robust online store, he said.
The team at the Vancouver Farmers Market was originally looking into creating a shopping site that would assemble a traditional CSA box. In the COVID-19 crisis, market managers pivoted to create an easy, streamlined way to link all of the vendors with customers. Mangers began to wonder if there was a way to create an online shopping site where customers could bundle items from any farmers market vendor and pick up their purchases at the market.
“Right now, the customer has to do the hard work of contacting each vendor directly. We appreciate that, but we want to create a regular shopping experience,” Boldt said.
“This will pass,” he continued. “The goal is to emerge with a more well rounded suite of online services.”
