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Interest in organics increases selling opportunities for organic farmers
A Southwest Nebraska organic producer says rising consumer demand for organics is creating more market opportunities.
Becky Schwartz of Bertrand says the market grew by 20 percent in 2020 and 6 percent in 2021. “It just keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger. People want you are growing.”
Schwartz tells Brownfield working direct to consumers is improving her bottom line. “It’s going to them and asking them ‘what do you need from us? what would you like us to do,’” Schwartz says. “Being the kind of producer who is responsive to the needs of the end user is kind of I guess the golden ticket in everything that you would need to market.”
As an example, she says they worked with three Hy-Vee’s across Nebraska selling freshly grown organic produce. “Literally, all we did was called those Hy-Vee’s and we talked to them. Every single week I would send out an email to all of their produce managers. It’s just a lot of legwork.”
The family operates a high tunnel vegetable greenhouse and has a custom hay grinding business but, in the past, has raised cattle, honeybees, and industrial hemp.
