Written by Pete Kerns of Turkey River Farm on behalf of Practical Farmers of Iowa
This project began with a simple belief: Iowa needs more local food production.
I am a fruit and vegetable farmer in Iowa, and I believe our communities would benefit from more farmers growing more food for Iowa consumers through institutions like schools and hospitals, and through other wholesale buyers like restaurants and grocery stores. In 2001, the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture published a landmark study – “Food, Fuel, and Freeways: An Iowa Perspective on How Far Food Travels, Fuel Usage, and Greenhouse Gas
Emissions” – that found Iowa imports most of the food we eat from out of state. I want to help food producers in Iowa expand production and feed more Iowans.
In 2015, my wife and I moved to Iowa to start a vegetable farm, and we quickly became connected to Practical Farmers of Iowa and the resources and community that have grown around it. Our farm business has changed a great deal over the years. We started out producing maple syrup and raising pigs on pasture, and those enterprises
are no longer part of the business at all. In part because of PFI programs like the Savings Incentive Program and the Farm Business Coaching program, we have adjusted our business many times. We are still driven by our mission to provide excellent food to our community. We are also driven by the need to achieve financial sustainability as a farm business.
I have been learning about and working to develop local food systems since I was a student at Carleton College in Minnesota. There, I worked with fellow students to push for greater collaboration with the campus food service management company. We also sought to increase purchases from producers who were local or community-based, fair agricultural employers, ecologically responsible and humane in their treatment of livestock.
After college, while serving with FoodCorps in Montana, I helped develop the local procurement program at Missoula County Public Schools Food and Nutrition Services. I developed recipes and helped source local wheat flour, dry pinto beans, honey, butternut squash, broccoli and onions for the schools.
I have worked in institutional kitchens, restaurants and bakeries. And I have worked on a dairy farm, a vegetable farm and a fishing boat. I have been on both sides of the relationship between local food farmers and wholesale food buyers. I am motivated to help farmers build sustainable businesses and to help consumers eat better food.
So, when Practical Farmers of Iowa asked if I would be willing to interview farmers and other local-food stakeholders about the challenges and successful strategies for increasing sales of local food, I was both excited and prepared to work with them on the project.
How can more Iowa food farmers succeed in wholesale markets, and what kinds of support would help them do it? To explore that question, I drew from my own experience as a farmer, along with conversations with 14 food farmers and five stakeholders working in Iowa’s local food system.
There are many great ways for Iowans to buy local food directly: through farmers markets, farm stands, community supported agriculture shares and other direct-to-consumer channels. But fewer food farmers are selling to wholesale buyers. That matters because wholesale buyers like schools, hospitals, grocery stores and restaurants serve a much larger segment of the population than direct-to-consumer markets do. These buyers can purchase and move food in larger volumes, and for some farmers they can offer a path to meaningful business growth.
This is not just a business question. It is also a question of scale and of who gets to eat local food. One producer I interviewed said she continues to pursue wholesale markets – even when the prices are lower and the challenges are greater – because so much food moves through Iowa that’s grown and produced elsewhere, and she believes more of it should come from here. Another producer told me that, growing up, her parents would never have
shopped at a farmers market or bought directly from a farm. She wants her products to reach people like her parents too.
That idea came up repeatedly in my conversations. For many producers, access to wholesale outlets is not only about increasing sales. It’s also about reaching more people with local food. It’s about making local food available in places where people already eat and shop, not only in places where they have to seek it out.
This is part of why the Local Food Purchasing Assistance Program and the Local Food for Schools Program were such remarkable opportunities before they were defunded in early 2025. Those programs helped farmers receive fair prices, and they helped direct local food grown by Iowa farmers to low-income Iowans and public school students who would not typically have access to it. These federally funded programs were designed to help local
governments purchase local food and strengthen local food systems.
They did help build those connections. Many farmers were in the middle of investing in their businesses, buying walk-in coolers and vegetable washing lines to meet the demand created by the programs, when the funding was suddenly cut. The defunding came quickly, and for many Iowa food farmers it was destabilizing and deeply disappointing.
In 2012, Practical Farmers of Iowa interviewed farmers and wholesale buyers about how they buy and sell local food. In “Scaling Up,” the report PFI published based on those interviews, authors Sally Worley and Mark Stobbe identified many of the same barriers that still exist today, including challenges with pricing, volume, infrastructure and buyer expectations.
Supporting more farmers to engage successfully in wholesale marketing would strengthen Iowa’s local food system.
It would help build local production capacity, support farm business growth and make a positive impact on the local economy.
