Planting New Seeds: GrowFood Carolina
photo taken by Mary Bull
August 2021 Dear Friends, I hope you will join me in celebrating 10 years of GrowFood Carolina. The project was established by the Coastal Conservation League in 2011 to protect our state’s rapidly disappearing rural land by storing and distributing South Carolina-grown produce. GrowFood Carolina has become a national model for food hubs and a catalyst for community change. GrowFood is nimble and creative, and our programs have been a success. For 10 years we have supported: • conservation by keeping land in agricultural production; and • farmers through crop planning, storage, marketing, and distribution designed to keep them in business. During 2020, we turned crisis into opportunity by developing a direct-to-consumer food box program that supports our community by making fresh, local produce available to more people—especially those without reliable access to fresh, nutritious food. As our region recovers, GrowFood faces a new challenge. At our current facility, we lack the space and capacity to serve our farmers, the thriving local food market, and our local community at the same time. That’s why I’m proud to announce Planting New Seeds: GrowFood Carolina. The plan outlined in this document will allow us to relocate to a new warehouse, innovate and expand programs that support farmers and our community’s most vulnerable residents, and establish an endowment that will enable GrowFood to prosper long into the future. You can have a profound impact on the sustainability of farmers across the state, the conservation of rural land, and the health and resilience of our coastal residents. I invite you to become part of GrowFood Carolina’s next decade. Together we can sow seeds for an incredible harvest. Sincerely,
Laura Cantral Executive Director, Coastal Conservation League Planting New Seeds: GrowFood Carolina | 2
For the Love of South Carolina Grown Butterbeans On a lush field in Elloree, located in Orangeburg County about ten miles west of Lake Marion, Josh Johnson of Old Tyme Bean Company checks on his Jackson Wonders, the first of two butterbean varieties to mature this year. The wide range of beans Josh grows today is key to Old Tyme’s success and is a direct outcome of the crop planning GrowFood Carolina does with farmers at the start of every year. As a food hub, GrowFood understands the buyer and seller sides of the local food market. By helping our farmers plan ahead of time to meet buyers’ demands, GrowFood enables farmers to increase their revenue and stay in business. “If staff at GrowFood tell me they can move 1,500 pounds of Jackson Wonders, I can convert that into how many acres I need to plant,” Josh explains. And because each of Josh’s crops matures at a different point in the season—again part of that crop planning—GrowFood can ensure buyers receive a range and everchanging mixture of beans over the course of the season.
“The truth is I wouldn’t be in business without GrowFood.”
GrowFood Carolina’s highest priority is to help farmers like Josh Johnson stay competitive by providing comprehensive support throughout the entire crop lifecycle—from seed to sold.
GrowFood Carolina: Keeping Farmers Farming Since its founding in 2011, GrowFood has become vital to the Coastal Conservation League’s mission to conserve the coastal plain’s rural landscapes and agricultural heritage. We started with five farmers who worked on 35 acres within 120 miles of Charleston. Today, GrowFood works with 120 farmers across the state. These 120 farmers keep 3,000 acres in agricultural production and maintain an additional 15,000 acres in rural lands around their farms. GrowFood is for farmers. We create markets for their goods. We also store and distribute their crops to retailers, restaurants, and consumers so that they can focus on what they do best—farming. What distinguishes GrowFood is our relationships with farmers. GrowFood is about far more than transactions, and our efforts begin long before crops arrive at our warehouse. We collaborate with our farmers before seeds are in the ground to produce crop plans that reflect market demand—so that farmers are planting what buyers want. As a result, farmers can make the most of their acreage and maximize their revenue. They are economically viable today and sustainable in the future. When farmers can keep farming, we are not only protecting our land, waterways, and wildlife from threats of development, we are also protecting South Carolina’s rich agricultural heritage. Over the last ten years, GrowFood has recorded $9.67 million dollars in gross total sales. Over $8 million has gone right back to farmers and the rural communities they live in.
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photo of Watsonia Farms taken by Nancy Yanez
From Fields to Plates: Resilient Local Food Systems A local food system encapsulates the entire life cycle of food from its production (farms and farmers) to processing (e.g., freezing and packaging) to distribution (planes, trains, and automobiles) to consumption (eaters). A resilient local food system is able to withstand and recover from disruptions—think back to March of 2020 when you couldn’t find eggs or butter—so that a sufficient supply of acceptable food is accessible for everyone who needs it. Local food is fresher, our systems are more resilient, and it’s all better for our local economies and communities. Planting New Seeds: GrowFood Carolina | 6
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GrowFood helps farmers succeed each season and makes it possible for them to be successful in the long term. As a food hub, GrowFood unique because it works face-to-face with farmers, finding creative ways for farmers to produce crops that will meet industry demands while increasing their production and revenue. GrowFood’s commitment to farmers is unwavering.
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—Laura Kate McAllister, South Carolina Department of Agriculture
Positive Disruption: Better Food for the Food Insecure Like businesses across the state and nation, GrowFood was forced to pivot quickly when the pandemic struck. Overnight, over 70% of our restaurant business evaporated, leaving crops without buyers and putting farmers at risk of irrecoverable financial loss. In the midst of this crisis, we discovered a new missiondriven opportunity: GrowFood could support farmers and the conservation of agricultural land and improve the health and resilience of our entire Lowcountry community by getting our farmers’ harvests in hands of more local people. The GrowFood Carolina food box was born. • In 2020, GrowFood Carolina sold over 1,500 local food boxes directly to consumers, totaling over 30,000 pounds of local produce, maintaining and sometimes even increasing revenue for our farmers.
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GrowFood and the Lee Brothers “It just made so much sense,” says Ted Lee—noted food writer and co-author of celebrated cookbooks—about the moment he and his brother Matt first heard about GrowFood Carolina. “Farmers aren’t truckers. They’re not haulers. Anything that would keep them on their land doing what they do best was a good thing,” says Ted. Ted and Matt grew up in Charleston in the 1980s. They watched as the rural fabric started to disappear, as golf resorts and shopping centers started to pop up on what was once open land. “We were always on board with Coastal Conservation League’s mission. GrowFood happened to be a project right in our wheelhouse,” says Ted. What Ted couldn’t imagine back in 2011 was how essential GrowFood would become not only to growers but also to chefs, diners, and everyone who cares about preserving Lowcountry agriculture. “GrowFood became a catalyst to the entire food community and a crucible for new ideas around produce,” he explains. “GrowFood is creative and nimble. They are actively finding, and in some cases making, markets for produce. That intelligence has proven to be a win for chefs and farmers,” says Ted. “In the end,” he explains, “there aren’t that many people or organizations who see food systems holistically the way GrowFood does. I’m proud of what they’ve done over the last ten years, and I’m stoked about what they’ll make happen in the next ten years. I can’t imagine the Lowcountry food community without it.”
Planting New Seeds As we begin our second decade, GrowFood Carolina has identified the following strategic goals that build on our past successes and lessons learned: Enhancing Farmer Support: Farmers will always be at the heart of our work. In addition to helping farmers with crop planning, marketing, storage, and distribution, we will launch new programs designed to keep farmers on farms, increase their sales outlets, and improve their production. Furthering Agricultural Land Conservation in South Carolina: GrowFood makes farming economically viable, helps farmers stay on their land, and supports efforts to keep rural land rural. New outreach and education efforts will strengthen our relationships with farmers and increase the total acreage of farms that GrowFood supports. Strengthening the Resilience of our Community and Farmers through Increased Food Access: Nutritious food makes for healthier residents, and healthier residents make for stronger, more resilient communities. We are committed to expanding and diversifying the communities we work with to create more avenues for equitable access to fresh, local food.
photo taken by Katherine Wetherall
If we join together in building GrowFood’s capacity today, our impact on farmers, rural land, and communities will be even greater.
photo taken by Chuck Underhill
A $6 Million Fundraising Effort to Support GrowFood Carolina Your investment in this effort will transform GrowFood Carolina’s ability to support our farmers, conserve agricultural land across the state, and strengthen the resilience of our communities. Planting New Seeds: GrowFood Carolina | 12
Priority: A New GrowFood Carolina Warehouse With expanded reach and our farmers’ growth in mind, we have located a larger facility in Charleston less than two miles north of our current warehouse, with 12,000 square feet of warehouse space on a two acre lot. This property has the potential to increase commodity diversification and accommodate crops from twice the number of farmers we currently serve. An investment of $5 million will secure the property and upfit the building.
More than a Warehouse Just as GrowFood is more than a food hub, our new warehouse will be more than a warehouse. It will serve as a campus for the greater agricultural community. This is where our staff will host workshops for farmers and members of the community. This is where we will gather together with community partners, businesses, and donors to collaborate on new ways to support our farmers, further land conservation, and strengthen our communities.
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Priority: Continue & Grow Our Current Programming A new warehouse and an expanded footprint will allow GrowFood Carolina to reach more farmers, customers, and families than is possible today. Growing our current programming will: • bring three times more local food through our warehouse annually • return three times more revenue back to local family farmers • provide thousands more pounds of donated food to families in need • double the number of wholesale customers like grocery stores and restaurants, and reach 10 or more metro areas • increase the number of acres of land supported two-fold • increase farmers/partners by more than 50% $1 million is needed to continue and grow our current programs, including support for farmers; wholesale distribution to restaurants, grocery stores and other outlets; and distribution of food boxes to support families in need.
Food Boxes for Kids Our Lowcountry Community “Good nutrition is essential to learning,” explains Dena Davis, Head Start and Early Head Start Director for Charleston County School District. Head Start is a national program, holistic in nature, that brings teachers, doctors, dentists, and nutritionists together to work with young children and their families. “Nutrition is central to our program,” says Dena, “We have to make sure kids are in good health so they can learn. We’re literally feeding their brains,” Dena says. That’s exactly why Head Start and GrowFood Carolina are perfect partners. The two organizations first connected during the pandemic to teach families how to prepare healthy meals. As part of this initiative, GrowFood started supplying food boxes full of fresh South Carolina grown fruits and vegetables to Head Start families each week. “It was the perfect time for GrowFood and Head Start to collaborate,” says Dena. “People really needed to get food, and a lot of our families live in areas that would be considered food deserts. They didn’t have easy access to fresh produce.” By providing recipes and classes tied to the produce in the boxes each week, families gained confidence in preparing new foods. The food boxes also provided opportunities in Head Start classrooms. “Teachers can talk about where the food is grown and how it’s grown,” explains Dena. “That’s science young children can really relate to.”
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Priority: Establish an Endowment Establishing an endowment now is vital. The investments necessary to purchase and maintain a new warehouse and expand our programs to support the resilience of our farmers and our local community will result in increased annual expenses. Annual investment income from an endowment will provide operating funds to offset increased utility and maintenance costs while ensuring GrowFood Carolina can continue to innovate and advance its mission in the years ahead. That means your gift to the endowment will ensure the financial health and viability of GrowFood Carolina for years to come and allow you to express your most dearly held values about land conservation, our agricultural heritage, and the long-term health of the entire Lowcountry community. GrowFood Carolina will continue to reach new heights, even after Planting New Seeds: GrowFood Carolina has come to a conclusion.
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GrowFood’s Next Harvest GrowFood Carolina has had an amazing first decade and has become a model for food hubs across the nation. Today, you have the opportunity to invest in GrowFood’s future so we can continue to serve farmers, the rural land we love, and the people who live all around us. We invite you to make a gift to Planting New Seeds: GrowFood Carolina. Your donation today will have a transformative effect ON FARMERS by enabling us to implement programs designed to increase their production and revenue, ON LAND by training farmers in organic farming, keeping land in agricultural production, and placing more land under easement, and ON OUR COMMUNITY by establishing programs that not only make fresh, nutrient-dense produce available to everyone who lives here, but also prioritizing our region’s most vulnerable and food insecure. Your generosity will spark systemic community change in fields, in markets, and in neighborhoods across the Lowcountry and throughout South Carolina. With your gift, we’ll reap an incredible harvest.
photo taken by Cynthia Richardson
GrowFood Carolina is a program of the Coastal Conservation League.