We’re going to pass the hat at Fair Food Fight Night tomorrow, to help Ames Farm Honey get through a rough time. They get whallopped by bad weather in the last week.
Here’s an email from BrianFredericksen, owner of Ames Farm:
Its pretty bad – apples and pears stripped from the trees. 3 orchards of 5 wiped out, a 4th damaged and the 5th orchard with a 400 bu potential is all that’s really left but we had
a 40% hail damage in June. That earlier hail damage may reheal some of itself and we hand thinned off some of it. So I’m hanging on to that for now but I also must pay a lot in rent at that orchard since its all honeycrisp.
I would estimate the damage to be 500 bu. worth of fruit and unknown for lost honey. Bees have nothing to do after all of their forage was wiped out by the hail. The devastation to ourfFarm is unprecedented in its breadth, but the honey is hard to estimate and could turn out not to be real bad. Depends on several variables. The hail damage is very erratic and it jumps from bad to none, in small distances.
I do fear being unable to repay my spring start up debt in fall so I would not turn down any donations at this point. The apple crop insurance subsidized by the USDA is bad ["small"] most of us run without it. They pay something like $14 a crate for apples and have no consideration
for honeycrisp, heirlooms, or retails sales potential. Its an irrelevant policy for the small fruit grower who does farmers markets.
So please bring check books to Fair Food Fight Night, and consider making a donation to Ames Farm, if you’ve enjoyed their honey and have a little to spare.
Brian’s right about the USDA crop insurance. Small apple growers can’t afford the commercial insurance but the USDA crop insurance really isn’t worth it. We’re required to have it as a condition of our farm loan but the problem is that the USDA really doesn’t understand non-commodity crops.
Gretchen
Sweetland Orchard
Yogagirl here, with an update from Ames Farm.(I live here) I can’t begin to tell you how difficult it has been to see the apples and pears on the ground this past week and know what a financial burden this is to Ames Farm. Farming is a risky business and this was a one in 100 year storm that wiped Brian out. It is heartbreaking. Here is a man who truly loves growing apples and keeping old and mostly forgotten varieties of apples going. And now in the wake of the carnage, he is considering getting out of the orchard business altogether. If you have ever had a taste of a fresh or dried Sweet Sixteen or baked a crisp or a pie with a Prairie Spy, then you know how important these heirloom varieties are. He is the only one I know of that cares enough to keep these more obscure apples going. Please consider a donation to Brian @Amesfarm.
And many thanks to El Dragon and also John Mesko for supporting Brian in his time of need!!