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1. How is your produce grown?
Organic produce is typically the crème de la crème of crops, but becoming a “certified organic” grower is an expensive process, and it’s not always required. Growers selling less than $5,000 a year can legally market themselves as organic without certification. On the flip side, vendors selling more than $5,000 should have a certified organic certificate, but they may choose instead to follow organic principles without the certification. If a farmer claims organic, ask about his or her soil and where and what is sprayed.
2. Are your animals pasture-raised? Raised from birth?
Not all livestock farmers raise their animals from birth. If they do, most are willing and excited to share their journey. “They should want to pull out their phone and start showing pics of their adorable baby animals,” says Tanya Cauthen, owner of Belmont Butchery in Richmond. If they don’t, it’s nearly impossible to determine what the animals were fed or their quality of life before the farmer got them, and this can affect the quality of the meat. Pasture-raised animals can move freely, following their natural tendencies.
3. Where do you process your livestock?
If a farm claims to sell five lambs a week, their farm should raise around 250 lambs a year. Clay Trainum, owner of Autumn Olive Farms in the Shenandoah Valley, says the amount of livestock a farmer processes, or kills, should make sense, and if it doesn’t, the farmer may not have raised the animals. Packages of meat from small markets have USDA barcode numbers that can be searched to show where the meat was processed. If it’s processed across the country, that’s a warning sign.
4. Do you grow all the produce you sell?
This seems like a no-brainer, but it’s not safe to assume a farmer is growing everything they offer. Outsourcing from large distributors or grocery stores does happen. Most farmers markets require vendors to sign paperwork stating market officials can visit the farm, but audits rarely occur.
5. How do you prepare or use the produce?
From seedlings to the harvest, a farmer and their crops have an almost parental relationship. They know their product, and they also know some of the best ways to prepare it in order to cherish the flavors. “I always tell [customers], ask the farmer if they don’t know how to fix something,” says Amy Hicks of Amy’s Garden, an organic farm in Charles City. “It also puts you in tune with what’s in season."
