Small Farm, Big Dreams for Southern Utah Farmer

Enterprise, Utah – Nestled between the vast acreages of the southern states, sprawling ranches of the Midwest, the amber waves of grain in the plains, and plentiful orchards of the northwest are found many of the productive small farms and ranches that are the essence of America. While the size and growth of American agriculture are needed to feed our vast nation and others across the globe, the quintessential small farm remains a valued contributor to the fabulous food machine in America.

According to the USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS), family farms of various sizes and ownership structures accounted for nearly 98 percent of U.S. farms in 2018, but small family farms accounted for 90 percent of all U.S. farms. Even more telling is the fact that “slightly more than half of U.S. farms are very small, with annual farm sales under $10,000.” The ERS goes on to say that the households operating these farms typically rely on off-farm sources for the majority of their household income. This illustrates the difficulty and pressure facing small farms today, and yet the cumulative impacts of these dedicated families are impressive and speak to the love they have in growing food for us all.

Top left: Kyle Wilson & son Yeats in their fields in spring. Top right: Tomatoes grown by Eden Valley Produce Bottom right: Decorative corn Bottom left: Greeting visitors to the farm Opposite page: Shelley, Emerson, Kyle, Yeats, and Eden Wilson.

One such small farm making an impact is Eden Valley Produce, run by Kyle and Shelley Wilson of Enterprise, Utah. Kyle is a fourth-generation farmer, though the first to raise animals and grow crops in Utah. His family roots stretch back to Ramona, California, a small unincorporated community on the outskirts of San Diego, where Kyle grew up with his parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents all on the same plot of ground. “It was a unique place to grow up with all those generations around. I loved it,” Wilson said. “Our family raised poultry and grew produce, selling it at roadside stands. It is there that my love of agriculture started.”

Unfortunately for Wilson, the economics of the small farm were such that the family had to move on from the multi-generational haven in southern California, and the family farm no longer exists as it did. Kyle’s father embraced the life of an arborist, caring for trees for several municipalities and Kyle went to study business and applied economics, eventually becoming an engineering contractor. But that desire to grow and produce never left him.

“I think it’s just second-nature to most people,” Wilson said.

Wilson comes at this love differently than some. His philosophy for life and the farm is hard to pigeonhole. Wilson could be described as equal parts renaissance man, mad scientist, entrepreneur, everyday philosopher, and outdoors enthusiast. But above all, he’s dedicated to his craft and his family.

“I love agriculture because it is the economic bedrock of civilization. I wear as a badge of honor that two percent of the American population feeds the rest. It’s an incredible accomplishment, without a doubt,” Wilson said.

The opportunity to grow food presented itself for the Wilsons in 2009 after Kyle lost his job with a large real estate investment trust after the company went bankrupt.

“Having grown up in and around agriculture, my wife and I decided to dance with the one that brought us. On a single acre in my parents’ backyard, we planted a garden with them, and I also began a landscaping business. In the years since, we have grown the businesses to include 20 acres we own and another 70 that we lease to grow row crop vegetables and the remaining acreage for pasture,” Wilson said. “We also grow plant material for construction, landscaping, and mining mitigation.”

Over the years, the Eden Valley Produce has provided eggs, produce, lamb, and pork to individual customers as well as to a growing list of local restaurants, including Benja Thai & Sushi and the Painted Pony in St. George, and King’s Landing & Bistro H in Springdale.

During the fall, the Wilsons also invite families to their farm to take wagon rides, pick pumpkins, and enjoy the harvest atmosphere on their farm.

Wilson relishes the opportunities to interact with families, chefs, and schools, about his farm, he also recognizes the challenges small farms face. In addition to the need for income sources not tied to the farm, other barriers exist including access to capital, estate & farm planning, and more.

“It is hard to make a living on small scale agriculture,” Wilson said. “All of the issues that provide barriers to entry for new and beginning farmers, and the issues that prevent multi-generational transfer will continue to be an obstacle to the health of our industry. As a young farmer, I feel I need to beat the drum for the future of farming and ranching.”

Despite the barriers and challenges of farming small, Wilson remains transfixed on what got him hooked on working the land in the first place.

“Just like any successful athlete, I can’t only focus on the scoreboard when it comes to my farm,” Wilson said. “It can be frustrating and heart-wrenching, but also amazing. I have a vision board of things I hope come true – like being big enough to warrant certain types of equipment – but you have to enjoy just doing what we’re doing.”

The harvest period is a time that mixes enjoyment with frustration, from seeing families enjoy the pumpkins just grown to worrying the cows that got into the pumpkin patch will trample them all before the customers can even come. While growing food has ups and downs unique from any other industry, Wilson just adapts as his family has for generations – it’s just in his nature.

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PAYSON, Utah – Pressed next to the foothills east of Payson are about 600 acres of peaches, apples, and tart cherries grown by Allred Orchards. Now being managed by the fifth generation of fruit farmers, the family carries the tradition that has guided their farm for many years – Living to Farm, Farming to Live. While the farm now sits in the southern end of Utah County, which now has the lion’s share of fruit grown in Utah, the original farm Rey Allred grew up on was established in 1926 off University Avenue in Provo. Now full of apartment complexes, businesses, and within the shadows of Brigham Young University’s LaVell Edwards football stadium, only the original barn built in 1893 remains and serves as the family’s retail outlet. The parking lot where the football stadium now sits once held a productive pear orchard that Rey would work in his youth.

“I couldn’t play football in high school because we had all these pears to harvest,” said the late Rey Allred in an interview on Utah Valley orchards for Brigham Young University’s library in 2001 by Randy Astle. “That was the only thing

Top. Allred Orchards barn in Provo sells the family's fruit in the summer and fall. Left: Blair Ellsworth in the family's apple orchards in Payson. Right: Blake Ellsworth and his son Bryson at the barn in Provo.

that I didn’t like about the fruit business, missing out on high school football!

After completing his horticulture degree from Brigham Young University in 1957, Rey and his wife Mary Carol bought farm ground in Payson and worked both locations while the young trees in the new farm grew into maturity. Rey was anxious to begin farming in the new location because the trees in Provo were beginning to show their age in diminished production, but also because University expansion was imminent.

As land available to farming was disappearing in Provo, the family farm expanded in Payson and grew to include land further west in Payson near West Mountain and also in Genola. As the size of the farm was expanding, so was Rey’s family, which grew to include five children. The oldest two, Becky and Debbie are still involved in the farm today and have children working and managing the farm.

The family continues to grow tart cherries, apples, peaches, nectarines, and more on the farm in Payson. They sell their produce, along with dried cherries and apple juice, at their store in Provo, as well as to grocery stores.

Blake Ellsworth and his mother Becky visit with the late Rey Allred (facing) in their orchards in Payson.

Talking with the adult Allred children now, you can easily feel the love they have for the farm and the tradition they are proud to carry forward. But it wasn’t always that way. In what is probably typically youthful attitudes, three of Rey’s children – Debbie, Becky, and Brian – actually hated working on the farm and wanted nothing to do with it.

“Becky and I just hated it!” Debbie Cloward, Rey’s daughter shared. “But looking back now, I can see the value of it. I see how much my parents loved the farm and the lifestyle that came with it, and we came to love it too. It’s now having the same effect on our kids.”

Other experiences the family learned from help put a proper perspective on life and the challenges that come from growing food. Chief among them was the experience of another fruit farmer in Mapleton that had recently purchased equipment to help warm orchards against the threat of frost. Having misjudged what was needed to run the equipment properly and having lost fruit to an extreme spring frost, the farmer entered his home, had a heart attack, and died from stress. “I determined it was never going to stress me out that much,” Allred said. “We’ve had our share of the problems that fruit growers have with frost and hail… but those things have to me, become much less important.”

“My dad didn’t worry too much about things he had no control of,” Debbie said. “His mantra on it was, ‘We’ll do better next year.’ He didn’t let those things he couldn’t control affect his mood. I would be sick to my stomach and he would say it was going to be alright.”

Even with the great perspective working on the farm brought, the Allred family is like many other families that work together. At times, it could get heated.

“It’s not the same as a family reunion where you put your arms around everybody and say, ‘It’s nice to see you, see you again next year,’” Allred said. “We’re out there yelling at each other; mothers cussing at their kids, screaming because their kids won’t listen to them. I’d yell at the mothers and say, ‘You! Why can’t you control that kid? Make him do what I want him to do?’ [The mothers would respond] ‘You’re his grandpa, you tell him! He won’t listen to me!’ We [had] our share of that.”

Despite the typical challenges that come in working with family, Rey passed a legacy of loving the farm to his children and grandchildren.

“He truly loved working on the farm. It wasn’t really working to him, it was his joy,” Debbie said. “He taught each of us to treat our portion of this earth well and to find joy in working on the farm. I fear that as we lose family farms, that we lose some of the lessons that came from working together on the farm as well.”

While the fruit grown by the Allred family has a reputation for being top quality, the lessons learned from experience on the farm may be its true lasting legacy.

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