On the first day of blueberry picking season, Vince and Toni Lovelace were not surprised to see a line of cars outside their farm in DeMossville, Kentucky.
For the last 15 years, the Lovelaces have run Bright Star Acres, a farm where consumers pick the crop themselves and pay by the pound. They've worked toward one mission: to be an educational, affordable space for families to get out of the city and learn where their food comes from. But that hasn’t been as easy lately.
Since the start of the U.S. and Israel war in Iran, the cost of production has risen across the board due to high fuel prices and already high inflation rates.
Many farm supply companies have been in debt for years, after taking out loans to weather the 2023 closure of the Strait of Hormuz — where 80% of the world’s oil supply travels — said agricultural economist and University of Kentucky associate professor Grant Gardner. The companies are still paying those off.
“Prices have recovered some, and I do think things still look better than last year,” Gardner said. “That said, I don't think there's going to be enough out there to dig them out of the debt that has grown over the last three years.”
The effects are felt by everyone down the line — including local farmers and consumers.
The Lovelaces have worked hard to keep their costs low. They stopped selling at farmer’s markets, didn’t hire any extra workers and focused on their primary crop: blueberries. They don’t work with wholesale distributors or resale — instead, they bring people directly to the farm.
“This is the first year we've ever had to consider raising our prices,” Toni Lovelace said. Now, blueberries are 50 cents more a pound than they were a year ago.
The Lovelaces aren’t the only local farmers trying to cut costs. Despite keeping their operation small and working on one acre of land, Sarah Finney of Finney Family Farms in Vevay, Indiana says she’s already paid more in production costs this year compared to last.
“We usually purchase garlic seed,” Finney said. “This year [the price] rose by over $100. That's a huge increase for the same amount of products in a one year jump.”
Finney has also seen a rise in packaging materials, tools and one essential product: soil. And she’s not the only one.
“Transportation costs are huge,” said Jim Lowenburg, a farmer in Mt. Healthy, Ohio. “The cost of fuel, of course, affects everything, because anything you have to bring in costs more.”
Working across state lines
To mitigate the costs of shipping, Lowenburg has organized a bulk soil order for about 12 years.
“It's a way for farms to work together, and by ordering together we can save on shipping costs, we get some bulk rate discounts rather than buying individual bags, we can get it by the pallet full.”
However, he doesn’t do any work to promote the collaboration. Instead, the order has grown to include up to 30 farmers from the three states by word-of-mouth; for a good reason.
“We want to keep it sustainable,” Lowenburg said. “We're not trying to grow it into 100 farms, because that would be a whole lot more work. We need to keep it manageable."
Katie Chase has also felt the same limitations. She is a specialized seed grower in Florence, Kentucky and organized an informational seed trading with farmers in the Greater Cincinnati area.
Seed growing is the process of cultivating seeds from your best crop to sell, preferably within your own climate region — where the seed is most adapted to.
Chase is in the process of transforming the seed trading into a business, but has had to keep it small. She already has eight farmers who will take part.
“There's so many more interested, but again, logistically it's hard to have too many all at once,” Chase said.
But even the informal system of seed trading was helpful to farmers. Finney learned how to save her own seeds from it.
“We saved a bunch of sweet potatoes from last year and started our own sweet potato slips, so that we essentially have a basically much less expensive crop,” Finney said. “It literally saved us like hundreds of dollars doing it that way.”
Despite the limitations, UK agricultural economist Gardner said because produce farmers run on a much smaller scale than the larger companies, all these efforts make a difference.
“We're not in a great spot in the farm economy, and so any support you can pick up is going to be beneficial,” Gardner said. “Anything you can do to cut costs, even a little bit, is going to help that bottom line.”
Finney sees a silver lining in the high costs: it’s brought them together more than before.
“I don't see prices going down on a lot of things anytime soon,” she said. “I do think it gives us a window of time to hopefully really cultivate really strong relationships with the people who are in our communities.”
‘People — they’ll show up and buy it’
Despite the looming costs of fuel for everyone, farmers have all noticed an increase in foot traffic this season compared to last. Lowenburg sells at the Northside and Hyde Park Farmer’s Markets in Cincinnati, and said every farmer he's talked to has noticed the increase from last season.
"In general there's more support for the local food economy,” he said.
Finney sells at the Covington Farmer’s Market, and said her farm has already doubled in farmer’s market sales compared to last year in just the first month. She doesn’t know why the support is high this year — but she can guess.
“If the produce is this expensive at Kroger, I might as well go and try to find it locally.” Finney said.
Families at the Bright Star Acres U-Pick opening day said the same about prices in their region — while enthusiastically filling their baskets with fresh blueberries.
“If you're doing a cost comparison, you might as well know where your food's coming from,” Olivia Porter said. She grew up in Northern Kentucky and has shopped directly from local farmers for years.
The Lovelaces were not surprised the grocery store’s high prices are turning people towards local farming.
“If you can raise produce and sell it at an affordable price, good clean produce, the people they'll show up and buy it,” Vince Lovelace said. “Whether it's down at the farmers market or direct sales off the farm.”
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