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2016 ACORN Guide to Local Food and Farms
Gevry…
and asked if he was interested in ramping up. “So I went full-time hog farming and got my first load of pigs, my first load of 200, in May of 2015.” Each farm that raises pigs for Black River is its own, independent entity; then Black River buys the pigs once they’re delivered to its processing plant. Gevry approached the U.S. Farm Service Agency and asked for a loan of over $100,000. Asked how an 18-year-old kid convinced the FSA to take such a risk, loan officer Jill Thomas of the FSA’s Middlebury office had a straightforward reply. “Well, we are the lender of first opportunity, and we are the risk taker for beginning farmers,” she said. “Ethan obviously fit the beginning farmer criteria. He definitely has farming in his blood and grew up in farming. He has very, very strong family support. And he has a strong work ethic. That’s a big part of it; you’ve got to be able to work hard. And he knew how to put together the numbers. It’s not only the brawn. You’ve got to have the brains, too, to make your plan work.” Thomas further noted that Gevry fit their criteria because he knew animal husbandry and passed their farm visit test by having good, healthy animals. He was able to provide a record of sales of the beef and pork he’d already produced. He knew how to set up things like a feed rationing schedule. And he had a ready market. Gevry used the loan to rent and outfit a nearby barn more suitable for larger-scale hog production and to buy pigs, grain, supplies and heavy equipment. Gevry was also supported by some equipment and resources from his family, said Thomas, and that was also important. HOW IT WORKS Gevry brings in 200 piglets a month, raises them for about 110 to 140 days until they reach a target weight of 280 pounds and then trucks them to Black River’s facility (run by Vermont Packinghouse). The pigs are a “heritage mix,” Gevry said, and come from what he describes as an antibiotic-free, humanely raised, out-of-state source (which he declined to disclose, saying only that they’re not from Pennsylvania). He feeds them on a mix of corn and soybeans he grinds himself, adding minerals. He buys his whole grains from Phoenix Feed and Nutrition in New Haven. Gevry said that the pigs get new bedding — he uses hay and straw — every other day. And once a week, he and his cousins run the skid steer, scrape out all the bedding, and apply all new bedding.
ETHAN GEVRY SCRATCHES a big, pink porker on his farm in Addison. Gevry’s Champlain Valley Farms is one of six producers for Black River’s heritage pork line of products.
Independent photo/Trent Campbell
Natural light pours into the barn. Gevry keeps the lights on at night so that his pigs will eat more and grow faster. He has adjustable tarps all around the barn so that he can adjust the flow of fresh air into the barn. The stainless steel waterers are heated, so that pigs have constant access to fresh water winter and summer. Once a week, Gevry weighs and sorts the animals to see who’s ready for the packing plant. Gevry plans to expand to 3,000 hogs per year by 2017 and will start building permanent hoop house structures at his grandfather’s farm this May. He plans to have all of his pigs in hoop houses — which he says will provide more space, more light and more fresh air, and give pigs a concrete paved area outside — by the start of 2018. MOVING AHEAD Last fall, Gevry and Black River won a Value Added Producer Grant to expand Black River’s line of cured meats. “I feel like our education system is less hands-on, is afraid of blue collar work, is afraid of agricultural work,” said Buchanan. “We want to white-collarize all these jobs. And I just don’t agree with that.” Buchanan continued, “And Ethan was one of those early on who just said, ‘I’m going to be a pork producer for you guys, this is what I want to do,’ and we said, ‘You know, let’s start off small. Let’s raise a handful of pigs and see if we can do it,’ and he’s just done it every step of the way. And I don’t think it’s an anomaly. I think there’s a lot of young kids who have great spirit and great desire to do incredible entrepreneurial things.”
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