To the farmers of Alabama.

Thank you so very much for all you do to support our schools in our state.

So to all our local farm, we like to say thank you for your hard work and for your hard dedication.

We want to thank all the farmers along the Gulf Coast state of Alabama, just for everything you've done for us.

The products you give us, the freshness of the products, and we hope you continue to strive with us for the next 10 20, 30 years.

Hey y'all.

I'm Chef David Bancroft from Acre Restaurant in Bow and Arrow in Auburn, Alabama.

And I wanted to say thank you to all the farmers, the fishermen, the oystermen, and everyone all across the Gulf Coast and all the family farms.

Thank you for what you do.

We all know that farming feeds Alabama.

We're all very grateful to our farmers.

I grew up on a farm, so I know the importance of farmers.

You know, we're all very thankful.

We hope to see farming rehabilitated in the state.

Thank you, Alabama farmers, for your serious commitment to the art that you do.

And it is an art.

And I think more than anything, it's one that we don't all know the hard work that goes into it.

It is money loss.

It is betting and gambling every season, and it's a lot of prayers and hope for rain, for lack of insects, for a lot of things that you have to just trust in God.

I would like to thank Alabama farmers for all of the hard work, the the intentionality of trying to do something really right for the environment, for health, for nutrition and for flavor.

So thank you, Alabama farmers.

In 1985, we decided to immigrate.

So me and my husband moved to Cottondale, Florida and had a partnership with a Dutch family to milk their cows.

And for that we could use 40 acres and their milking barn.

So we, we stayed on that farm for two years.

Then we moved to our own farm, and then we moved and bought this farm.

In 1991, we moved with 220 cows over here, and we grew to 950 cows and then had 16 people working for us and making not a lot of money, but a lot of hard work.

So I was a pastry chef at a restaurant in Atlanta, and the restaurant I worked at, we supplied 80% of our food came directly from farmers, and that is actually how I got introduced to my husband.

Because I'm a pastry chef, I need milk, I need cream.

So that's how we met and started working together.

And then I guess he convinced me to move to Dothan and here I am.

I say my husband's family started, they moved here, immigrated here in the 80s, and they've been dairy farming ever since then.

My husband and I started our own processing plant processing plant, where we buy the milk from his parents, and we sell it and distribute it all through Atlanta and Birmingham,.

Were the only certified organic, grass fed dairy in the southeast.

We process all our all our milk on the farm and we make all the cheese, cheese butter and we have beef, we have raw milk and pasteurized milk.

And we have a famous chocolate milk.

We, we're the only A2A2 dairy in the southeast certified.

It's just, people don't realize how much work goes into being animal welfare approved.

That's probably why the cows are so tame.

And you see them right behind us, you know, because they're so used to me being around.

They're just pets.

And it takes a lot more work than people think.

We start at 5:00 in the morning, and then, at the moment, I milk the cows with a Mexican lady.

And then from there, um, You keep on going till when it's dark again.

It's kind of sad because it's, the daylight savings time.

I don't like that.

You know, because it makes for longer days.

But, yeah, you at the moment, I don't make cheese cheese yet since yet it's really cheese making season is, end of March through the end of June, and I'll make a lot of cheese.

I make three batches of cheese, of cheese a week, so there's about 1000 1,100 pounds of cheese every week.

And then, and I make every other week, I make butter So I think one of the things that people don't understand about dairy farming is how, how much you have to focus on the grass.

So the grass is what feeds our cows.

Like I said, they're on grass 365 and so with that, you come, you have weather changes.

You have, you know, depending on what's going on, how the grass is growing.

You have to you have to water, feed and feed the grass just like you do the cow.

So so that's a big part of it that I don't think people understand.

Oh, this is a good example of how weather affects the quality of milk.

Um we work with a lot of coffee shops and we were having issues.

They were having issues with the milk steaming for, you know, lattes or coffee drinks.

And it was because our cows are on grass and it was during the snow storm.

So the cows were stressed during the last storm.

It caused their milk to that reflects it in the milk and then the quality.

And so we have to remind our customers sometimes, like, this is nature, we only have so much control.

And, you know, if you can just work with us, we're still going to provide the best product we can.

When it comes to dairy farming, this is something I would love for people to come and visit the farms.

So Working Cows Dairy, they're open, year round and they have a open door policy.

So you can just drive up, to see how cows are milked.

I think we come across a lot of kids who don't understand where milk comes from.

And just to be able to show that feels really important.

Okay, so we are here in Alpine.

We grow diversified vegetables.

Right now we're surrounded by some beautiful kale bok choy, chard, onions.

You know, we've got collards in the ground.

We're slowly getting our summer crops going and tomatoes and peppers and eggplant.

We use all natural growing methods.

So, you know, we follow the, organic guidelines.

But we've been here since 2016.

We, you know, we built out the greenhouses, the barn in 2017 and 2018.

We really got going with commercial sales and your markets and your restaurant.

So, this would be our seventh growing season.

You know, learning a little bit more every single day.

You know, that's what I love about the farm is like you, you'll you'll always be surprised at what what comes your way that day.

And, you know, it's it's exciting that to know that with a lifetime of farming, you'll never get it under your thumb.

Well, all the blood, sweat and tears like, I love how hard the job is, but what really makes it worth it is at the farmers market on Saturday.

When you're talking to people because you see the same, you know, you see the same people almost every week, and you sit there and they come up and they say oh my gosh I fed my family this.

And it's just it was so good.

And that's really what makes me never want to do anything ever again.

And that's what's so great about being a market farm is you're not just, you know, schlepping a truck to the Publix and then saying goodbye.

Like, I myself am going to Birmingham on Saturday mornings.

I'm talking to the hundreds of people that come.

And, you know, I consider many of them friends.

Now, you know, you've been feeding their families for six years.

You've been talking, you know, I talk to some market customers more than I talk to my best friend that lives out of state, you know, like, it's just one of those things that the.

And that's why they come to the farmers market to.

It's not about just healthy eating and, you know, a more satisfying meal.

It's about the personal connections you make because people want there's a disassociation with people and their food these days.

That's just really not okay.

There's a great Willie Nelson quote that's like bringing your kids to a farm so they know that food doesn't come out of a box.

For me, as a as as a chef, Alabama farmers are integral to our success.

For us to be able to cook with just picked produce with to to have just gathered farm eggs, there's just countless ways for me.

You know, as a cook, the inspiration comes from the quality of the ingredients, and that means local ingredients that are sourced from farmers who really care about what they're doing.

They care about the land.

You know, there's practice humane animal husbandry and the nutrition, you know, density of produce that is grown in healthy soil.

It's not only just the flavor, but it's just so good for you whenever we can.

I mean, I think about Trent Boyd in Cullman.

I think about Snow's Bend I think of Bell Meadow, Ireland Farms, these are farms that are within, 50 miles of here.

And if we can source potatoes, onions, sweet potatoes, corn, tomatoes, spinach, arugula.

And, and we are going to be able to cook with better flavor, with more, nutritional goodness.

And so that is just paramount.

I mean, it's just so, so important.

And Alabama has the reputation of of being a state that does care about the local farms.

So I think about my grandparents in Cullman and jersey cow and farming strawberries and having laying hens and, you know, apple orchard and all the, the ingredients in this, one of my favorite things in the world is a summer vegetable plate that is all from locally grown, vegetables and produce.

I try to encourage them to grow this type of this dark, curly leaf that is crinkly and intense, and it's just got this all of flavor and nutrition.

But I love this kind of spinach.

So I every year in January, I speak to the farmers at the Pepper Place Farmers market, and I have a wish list of the particular varieties of butter beans or the particular varieties of cherry tomatoes, or the hey, we never get enough onions and carrots and garlic and, how much I love the curly spinach and try to get a wish list for the farmers to get those seeds, to get those in the ground so that me and all the other consumers can take advantage of these varieties that really are are there because of their flavor, not because they're easy to pick or easy to ship, but because they have their own special personality.

And so that's where our farmers, that friendship and that relationship is so important and so satisfying.

I've been doing this since 1993, and it's not an easy job.

It's constant.

You know, you got to be on it every point.

I think it started when I was like ten years old in in the kitchen with my step mother and watching her and over the years picking up, you know, different things to do.

And I had a cook here that was a soulful cook, and I learned a lot from her, you know, she passed it on to me and with my passion, it grew.

You know, the farmers are very important to our business and our way of life, our true existence.

You can't exist without the farmers.

So, you know, we take it for granted when we go into the grocery store or we go to the farmers market, we don't think about how it got there, you know?

So, yes, the farmers are very important.

We wouldn't have this, you know, greens, peas, potatoes, the corn, all of that is from the farmers.

We need them.

You know, 17 years ago, we moved here from Laguna Beach, California.

And it was kind of funny because the main purpose was to come here and start a small restaurant that really used local ingredients.

And I laugh when I hear farm to table.

Everybodys using this, you know, moving from California, where you think you have all these farmers that identify with the state and all this, and you have to drive like 70 miles or go to the LA market, or go here or go there.

And don't get me wrong, it was fabulous.

But you moved to the small little town of Huntsville, and you drive down the street and you have a man that's growing these beautiful tomatoes and his two acres in his backyard who wasn't quite the farmer yet, but then developed into it.

And it was one of our premier focuses for my wife and I to come here and develop this restaurant focused on that.

It's not easy.

That's why most people don't do it.

It's easy to get on the phone and call and get a truckload of stuff delivered.

It's very hard to go to somebody and explain that you need a certain cut a certain way, or else you're not going to be able to use it.

And that's part of the whole identity with farmers, ranchers, growers.

You know, the whole thing was, oh, baby vegetables, baby vegetables.

Farmers don't like baby vegetables because they don't grow to their potential and don't have the flavor that they're talking about, you know, and you learn this from talking to them that that they don't want to do it, but they want to be able to supply the best flavor and best taste.

You can't get that picking up a phone.

You have to have that one on one connection that's valuable for your success.

A lot of people don't understand, I think, how hard farmers work.

That was a thing that I think our grandparents specifically grew up in, the generation where they knew where their food came from, and it was a lot more approachable in the sense that you saw where it came from, where now everything's bigger, better, I guess, if you will.

But at the same time, I think we're taught that we eat three meals a day and they come from farmers.

But if you think about it this way, every time you open a bag of chips, if you have any kind of snack, it had to be grown somewhere.

And I think that goes even further than that, than potatoes and peanuts and things that we usually think of as farmers.

Now we have oyster farmers, we have fish farmers, we have everything comes from a farm.

So to me, it's sort of impossible to separate food from farming at this point because everything is farmed in the world that we live in, the peanut farming, it's a it's one of the things about Dothan that definitely is reached.

Its all across the U.S., you can say where the peanut capital of the world.

So it's really cool.

And I think everyone in any town you're in, you should have that sense of pride of like, what is the town?

What's the heartbeat of the town?

Right.

What made the town stay on the map?

Literally.

What's the thing that kind of gives you the biggest drive?

And that's for Dothan.

It's the peanuts.

And it's not just Dothan.

It's all the surrounding counties.

It's.

It's all over.

And I think what a lot of people don't really think about is farming and successful farming and agriculture is how people have jobs.

It's how we produce money in our towns.

So it goes a lot further than just the peanut.

It goes into people flooding your town.

The more people that have jobs, more people live in your town.

The more people that live in your town, the more they support your businesses.

So it's really just what we want.

The South to be, which is a community and people helping each other and farming.

It's sort of, you know, the heartbeat and the glue of that.

For a restaurant like me, for example, we are very high volume, which is a lot of people these days.

The restaurant industry is very difficult.

So most of us are trying to do as high volume as we can to make money.

That's how it works.

So a lot of times you can't necessarily support the small local farmers, but that's okay in a lot of ways as well, because if you're supporting the small people in your area, if you're supporting a farm that even if it's, you know, a chain or if it's a factory, whatever it might be, those people are giving jobs to people in your area.

So no matter what, you are supporting your local community, no matter what way you slice it, if you're supporting any type of person that is farming your food, and I think for restaurant industry, it's the most important that you just look at who your food is coming from.

And have trusted people.

That will tell you the truth.

We have wonderful companies like Cisco now, and Cisco for me is been amazing.

US Foods is another one as well because they are sourcing local farmers.

They are literally in your area and they're kind of being I look at it as like having a real estate agent.

They're finding the people that you want, and then they're going to show you what the appeals just to you as a restaurant.

So it's honestly never been easier and more supported for you to be able to tap in to the local communities for where you are.

Because we have so many resources that we didn't used to have.

You're not literally going out there on the road looking to all these 17 people.

You can have one source that will help you kind of connect all the dots and be your hub, which is really wonderful.

We the way we started was that we took a lot of grandparents and great grandparents recipes for a modern spin on them, you know, Brussel sprouts were one of the first ones here to actually make them taste good.

So and that's been our top seller for ten years is our brussel sprouts.

And that's crazy when you think about it.

But when we were growing up they were boiled or put in the oven or you had to eat them.

So now they come with a nice sauce and some bacon in there and so forth.

But our biggest thing when we opened this was to have a place for tourists to go, a great place for locals of course to go and a place to take clients.

And I had traveled so many years that I wanted a place here to take clients that like the places I would, you know, go to around the country.

So so we kind of built it.

I was never in the restaurant business.

I just felt like we needed something here, you know, to, to showcase Mobil and the Gulf Coast to the restaurant industry down here.

Getting local sourced food is very important.

It helps out our farmers.

It helps out the labor that's there with the farmers.

And also it keeps the product home.

You know, you don't have to go across the United States or wherever you have to go to get products nowadays to get that locally sourced item.

So it's very important to us to get as much as we can locally.

It's very important cost wise, you know, because you're not shipping it in from other parts of the country, but also just having that unique flavor down here, you know, for the stuff made in our soil.

I'm the general manager here at, Vintage Year, making sure that we have high quality products to serve.

Our guests also help run our container farm, which we do have behind our restaurant, making sure that we do receive great quality products for our guests.

I really love my work.

I love my job.

Actually.

I've been here now for four years.

I've been in the restaurant business for over 25 years.

So this is a passion that I do have.

Being able to see people satisfied, highly satisfied with what we serve.

It's instant gratification.

So you really know what a guest really enjoys at night.

We believe in farm to table in what we do.

We believe in freshness.

So we can't have anything that's been packed forever, which means we have to use local farmers each and every time.

Who wants a salad that's wilted?

They want fresh lettuce, fresh greens, anything that's used.

Also our fruits, they have to be fresh.

They can only be a few days old.

Not just anything that we can just have frozen or anything from that, that point.

So that leads us to using only local farmers for what we use with the vertical farms that we do have here on site, it helps us provide a fresher green to our tables.

It also it shows you and it uses technology so we don't have to use a large footprint when we're farming it use a smaller footprint.

We have a container that is approximately an acre, but it grows about three acres of food.

But it's all technology driven.

So younger people, they come in, they see it, they love it.

Vertical farming will be a thing of the future.

It is actually a thing of the present right now because it has a smaller footprint.

Vertical farming is very important to us because it uses no pesticides, which makes it healthier for each and every one of us that are that are eating.

Also, it is year round growth for anything that we want.

We're right here at the Edge Dining Hall, right in the center of campus.

This is, our busiest dining hall.

We serve between 4500 and 5000 students every single day.

It's a it's a vibrant place.

It's right here in the middle of campus where you can kind of see life go by.

We were very intentional about it, making sure we kept all the windows where the patrons can sit up next to them and watch life, here on campus.

So it's an exciting place to be.

We love the idea of being able to source locally.

I mean, to be connected, to be rooted in the state of Alabama right here.

At Auburn.

I think that's it's a critical connection.

I think that what we love about that is that the students could connect to their food in a different way.

Right.

I think so.

So it's so easy for us to walk into a grocery store or walk into a dining hall and see the food there and not have any idea of who produced it, how it got here, all of those things.

And so when we have an Alabama farm that we can highlight or or a partnership like that, it's so important so that students understand that there's a lot of work that went into this.

Right.

And that ultimately it was produced with love and care.

And then it got to them and then they got to eat it.

So I think that's a really critical piece of what we do.

Well, I'm the director of culinary here at the Schulze School of Hospitality Management.

So I teach classes, I design and work with the curriculum, I have administrative responsibilities.

And then I also conduct research here as well in the in the realm of food, there's there's a lot of a lot of work that goes into it.

First of all, I've got wonderful colleagues and, you know, faculty members here.

So getting support from them, getting their expertise.

But really it's all about speaking to the stakeholders, speaking to the industry.

So you know we have the industry really drive our curriculum.

So we have phenomenal people on our advisory board.

We have phenomenal relationships with different people across the industry.

So we're speaking to them.

We're we're consulting now.

We're they're helping us drive curriculum development.

So that's that's at the front end too.

So making sure that this curriculum is relevant, it's innovative, it's creative, but it provides the industry with the future leaders who are able to deal with the challenges and the opportunities and be innovators in the industry.

So there's an awful lot of work going and then collaborating with stakeholders across the food supply chain, making sure that we identify opportunities for, you know, elevated educational experiences for our students.

You know, it just takes a lot of collaboration, a lot of a lot of effort, a lot of people donating their time, a lot of people donating their product to us, too.

So we're just very grateful for that.

And I think it really, you know, the students benefit at the end based on us.

So yeah.

Yeah.

No, our students are super, super bright.

They're super, super enthusiastic.

They they they they come on board and you can see that they have an already an innate passion for and drive and motivation to learn about food.

You know, I come from, you know, from their backgrounds from when they grown up or whatnot.

You know, and when they come to the Horst Shchulze school, hospitality management on the culinary program and also in hospitality management program, as a, as a, as a whole, they're they're learning about the food life cycle, not just about preparing food.

So traditionally, you know, you would learn just about preparing and serving food, cooking the food, serving the food.

Well, we learn about the entire and we teach them about the entire food life cycle.

So also we incorporate growing food, procurement of food preparation, cooking, serving.

And then probably one of the most important parts is the disposal of food.

So you know, so they they they learn about all that and that's, that's in there that's woven in through the curriculum throughout various different laboratory classes and lecture classes.

You know, and it's it's introduced, it's reinforced.

It's emphasized.

We have our learning, our learning objectives, our student learning outcomes.

They, they are really built on that foundation of this entire food life cycle.

So for instance, we have growers come in.

We have like a local producer here.

These guys are 15 miles away of mushrooms at Nourish Farms.

Robert Griffin is a graduate of the university.

He comes in last week.

He does a lecture on on mushroom growing on whatnot.

He provides he donates products.

So students are utilizing each week this phenomenal product.

We have our rooftop, garden here managed by the horticulture department.

We have guest speakers from the horticulture department come in.

So our students are learning about the growing of food.

And so they have guest speakers.

They have product locally.

They they have field trips.

So so that's on the, on the on the front end.

They're learning about how food is produced.

And then then obviously we do culinary classes and whatnot on.

They're learning about the preparation and the service of food.

We have industry people come in and and and contribute to us.

And then also then on the food disposal side.

So we have a few different initiatives.

So first of all, with food waste, we're trying to mitigate food waste.

As I talked about, we have a massive issue with about 40% of food, 30 to 40% of the food is wasted across the supply chain.

And that is in, in in the restaurant industry too.

So our students are learning hands on in every single lab about how we can mitigate that.

So, for instance, our inedible food waste is collected in bowls on our counters.

Then at the end of the week, waste management is taking about 20 to 30 gallons of of food waste.

And it's ending up in the horticulture teaching gardens, gardens where they're composting and it's turned into nutritious soil, which is then used to produce food that then we use in class.

So that kind of close loop.

And then as I talked about the initiative with campus, with the Campus Kitchens project.

So anything that's edible then is collected and 2 or 3 times a week is then taken and repurpose and given to people who actually need food.

So the students are learning about the entire food lifecycle, not just from a lecture standpoint, but also hands on in the lab and said, we have field trips over in horticulture gardens where students are touching food, touching soil, seeing compost.

They're in this state of the art, vertical gardens these days.

Container farms.

So learning, learning about like state of the art, relevant technology in horticulture in addition to the culinary arts.

So when you know where food comes from, that's really, really important.

If you want to then work with that food and produce something creative and innovative for the public to consume.

But also, I think it's really important to have a good appreciation of farmers and producers.

Really, they are the most important people in the entire food lifecycle and on the supply chain.

So making sure that we appreciate them, we understand the resources, the time, the energy, the nutrients, the money, everything that's invested into producing food, like so, you know, for instance, it's very easy to go to the store and purchase something like a tomato or whatnot placed in your fridge and forget about it and let it go off.

But when you've grown something, when you know what's been put into that, you're going to you're going to treat that with the respect that that it deserves.

So it is great for our students to understand that as business people, it's very important for them to understand that so they can engage with growers and they have more confidence and they understand that also from the culinary standpoint, too, it really sparks creativity and motivation and innovation, because again, when you've put a lot of effort into producing food and you get 50 pounds of peaches or 50 pounds of locally grown okra whatnot, and you're in a restaurant, you want to work hard to make sure that first of all, you're being creative and incorporating to your menu at different levels and into different dishes.

But also, how are you going to preserve that food?

You might not be able to use all that food in that week or in that day.

So how are you going to preserve that food so it can be utilized in different seasons?

Each day we have the privilege of, serving over 11,000 students and then more county schools, delicious and healthy meals.

We provide breakfast in all of our classrooms every single day, as well as lunch service and our cafeterias, and then provide, afterschool supper program as well.

Over the past eight years, I've been able to build relationships with farmers across the state to provide us with Alabama grown product, which is delicious, fresh product that comes from Alabama farms.

But we've been able to, you know, serve them in our meals, in significant numbers.

It's been, an improvement, an added benefit to, to our students in terms of the quality, of the meals.

And we've been able to expose our students to fresh fruits and vegetables, and Alabama, you know, grown product that they likely would not be exposed to otherwise.

With, with child nutrition.

One thing that we know through, you know, studies is that, number one, force feeding does not work.

But the more familiar children are with with food items, the more likely they are to accept them.

So the more often we're able to serve and expose them to foods, the more likely they are to start consuming them.

And so we feel like we've been very effective in doing that.

And it's something that can that's not just affecting what they're consuming on a daily basis, but their lifelong health.

In our county, we work to educate our students and help them to understand, that the food is grown locally.

Alabama Department of Energy and Industries, they've done a phenomenal job with their farm to school programs.

But their sweet grown Alabama programs, we try to utilize their programs as well.

The marketing that they use utilize, you know, that sweet grown Alabama for our students to see when we serve a product that that that's something that is grown in Alabama.

The the work that farmers do is, the benefits are immeasurable to our state, to the health of of the residents of Alabama, especially to our students, in Elmore County, the work they do has an impact every single day in terms of the nutrition and the health of our students, the relationships that we have built with farmers have allowed us to increase the not just, you know, the amount of fresh fruits and vegetables we're offering our students, but the quality and decrease the waste.

In the past, we were receiving, produce that was coming from across the country, and it would be weeks old by the time we receive it.

Now we're receiving product that is, you know, harvested, you know, the day that it is delivered to us, which is giving us a longer shelf life.

But the work they do is so significant in terms of the impact it's having on the health.

I'm not just for our students, but just, you know, of all ages.

I would like to say farmers, thank you.

Thank you for being willing to support our programs.

In times where, you know, we had access to to no other food, there are times that, during emergency situations that they've helped us get through those times.

But even outside of those situations, on a daily basis, they work with us.

They work to accommodate us, and provide our students with the best that we possibly can.

And and for that, I say, I thank you.

First of all, the freshness, the quality is, is unmatched.

So it's very important for us to support local farmers and the local farmers, support our businesses.

It help us grow and to stay in business and also helps them grow into stay in business.

So you kind of eliminate a lot of pesticides.

They also develop a relationship with the local farmers.

Jim has been in business for over maybe 40, 50 years.

So yeah, he's to develop a relationship with all the local farmers.

We got Cullman, Steel Alabama.

So therefore that's why we got a lot of our vegetable from carrots, collard greens, sweet potatoes and, tomatoes.

So, yeah, everybody comes in.

We want them to know where everything's coming from.

We want them to know that it's fresh and it's quality and it's safe for them to eat.

So we got, collard greens from Harvest Farm, Cullman Alabama.

We got the sweet potato from Cullman, Alabama.

Also, our coffee is local, so I'll just mention that.

And, we got our tomato from Steele, Alabama sometime we get them from Smith Tomatoes.

That's also located in Steele, Alabama.

The difference and Alabama cuisine or our ingredients, the things that we're growing, the things we're harvesting, the yields that were waiting and hoping that we can harvest all of this is in the southern black belt region.

The black belt region is known for the quality that we produce, the fertile soil, the nutrients coming out of the land.

Most of this land has been farmed generation after generation, the families and their legacies being good stewards of what they have and what they own and to me is stewardship.

To get out there and to to leave the land better than you found it.

And that is what is so prized and precious about Alabama produce.

All of the groceries we're putting out.

I mean, the even all the way to the fish and the crabs and things coming out of the Gulf Coast, from shrimpers and fishermen to, sweet potato farmers to cotton and peanut.

You know, my Grandpa Kennedy was a farmer.

So this is very near and dear to my heart that, you know, seeing the the traditions in my family, my Grandpa Kennedy, farming every inch of the soil that he had from raising catfish, cattle, cotton pines, peanuts, chickens.

I always watched my grandfather Kennedy and our family utilize the land and value it, but also share it with the community, trading groceries like a a true co-op with other families.

I always wondered where we got year round zipper peas because they were put up and frozen.

I wonder where mama Gene always had the best of the best corn meal from Pollard, Pollard's farm.

And because all of that was traded and they would trade with my grandfather, he'd give them catfish, he'd give them beef, they would give him cornmeal, grits, peas, whatever they wanted or whatever they farmed or harvested.

They share like a true community.

And that's why southern food is so fresh, because it has so much sentimental value and true stewardship behind it.

When you look at the origin of of Auburn, Alabama, and our local food scene, it's pretty obvious how important the role of the farmers play and the fact that, you know, when I first started cooking in this area, there wasn't that connection, the farm to table connection and the relationships to farmers, because there wasn't an avenue, there wasn't dialog.

There wasn't, the road map for them to get to the restaurants.

And so it was very important that there's inspiration out there, like chefs, Frank Stitt, Chris Hastings, that really, really created that road map of how to go through and and start creating relationships with local farmers.

And I remember the very first time I went and visited a local farm up, I didn't know who to call, how to do it.

I got the old yellow pages out, and I found Randall Farms, and I called the Shepherd, Mr. Frank.

Frank Randall and I called him on the phone and said, what?

What do you have for sale?

And he said, well, I've got lambs and blueberries.

I was like, well, that that's what I want.

Oh, lambs and blueberries.

So I remember driving out to get to the first farm to meet the very first farmer in this area, and I remember pulling just out of town outside of Auburn, and then all of a sudden, green, rolling pastures, lambs grazing in the field, sun was coming up over the edge.

It's unbelievable.

Literally, literally five minutes on the outside of Auburn, you have a college football town and right here is all of these farmers surrounding it.

And so for Auburn, for the for our food scene now, and what people, consider to be a bustling food scene, is truly just the chef's ability to go out.

And not just ability, but willingness to go out and source from these farmers and, basically, support our local community, but also our neighbors.

And that food coming in without all of the travel in it and all of the deliveries and the excess days traveling to get to our restaurants.

We're talking about an immediate connection to your food source, the flavor, the profile, the freshness, the quality.

It's absolutely unbelievable.

There's nothing like it.

So many times people always ask the chefs, why is this food so good?

Why are your grits better than my grits?

And why does this taste better at the restaurant than my house?

I've.

You know, I'm.

I'm following your recipe.

Well, the most important thing is ours is as fresh as it can possibly be.

We literally went and picked ours yesterday.

Or the farmer went and harvested that yesterday.

So the quality of our food is already better.

That's the most important part, to get the flavors and get the the dishes that you want and, and the nutrients and the value for your family.

All of this has an origin, and it doesn't have to be traveling across the country.

It does have to arrive in an 18 Wheeler.

You don't have to wait for it to land on the shelf at the grocery store.

You can get these items literally right outside of your neighborhood, right down the road.

You need the guy that works on your cell phone.

You need to go keep your air conditioner running.

But yeah, you depend on a farmer 2 to 3 times a day and probably you depend on multiple farmers to know what is growing everything on that plate.

And so I thought we just got to make people realize that.

I think people want to you just have to remind them.

And that's really what the genesis of this whole thing, we just sort of plant that bug in people's mind.

And we just released an economic study that Auburn did for us.

And we realized it's a $77.3 billion industry in Alabama.

And so I think it affects one out of every ten jobs.

And so as much as I know they love to run out and announce a new car plan or we got this or that, but, I mean, you might have an impact on 4 or 5 counties with those kind of things.

I mean, farmers in every county in the state of Alabama, there's no other industry that I'm aware of, of the government that's in every county in the state of Alabama.

And so many of Alabama's counties are still rural And so really, in those counties in particular, you know, it really holds those communities together.

Hold that drug store, they hold that bank there, holds the school there because the farmers are there.

So yeah.

So we decided to make an attempt in 2025.

We're going to try to bring some acknowledgment of farmer's role in our lives and in this country, and see what we can do.

We know fully grown have we have made an impact there.

We know the farm school program mades an impact.

And this is so to to not just get people to buy local, but to realize theres a family there, a man and woman children and, and, and they're part of their communities.

And farmers are so important to so many of our counties.

So many of this.

I mean, you think about the school systems, you think about all of the different people that we, you know, eat every day.

This is Maslow's hierarchy.

None of us are around very long if nobody's farming anymore.

Right.

So we've got to have farmers and farms.

And when you think of the idea of food security, I think we think about insecurity.

But security, the ability to produce food right here in our state, if you know, things go wrong.

I mean, obviously we've already seen supply chain issues, things like that.

Our farmers right here in the state of Alabama are critical to us having a rich food system that is not dependent on someplace that's outside of us.

Right.

So, I mean, I think having a really good farm ecosystem is, is part of that food security.

It is critical for, for, you know, for chefs, for people in the public to appreciate that the local farmer, they are critical.

Without them, we don't have any food.

So having locally grown food, food that is in-season food, so it has got the highest amount of nutrients.

And for the chef we want that flavor.

So and this is what the public want to eat.

They want to eat local food.

Supporting your local economy to supporting your local farmers is just absolutely critical.

So you know, and that's what we're teaching our students.

And we have industry chefs come in to speak to our students about that, about the financial benefits of that, about the culinary benefits of that, in terms of sparking creativity and and innovation and whatnot.

So it is just it is just critical that we support our farmers, said these farmers are the most important part of the food supply chain.

Well, I mean, a perfect example is, of what we're discussing about how you identify the taste from out of the field to your restaurant or to my house, where my family and I share a great meal, go to the farmers market, whether was Birmingham, whether it was Huntsville.

And this truckload of corn is sitting there and you start to talk and, and, and get to know this person.

And I go, so when did you pick this?

He goes, oh, we got up this morning and we loaded this truck full of corn.

And you go and you and he says it's best.

It's great.

You know, you just got gotta boil it for just a minute, you know, or most people are cooking it and cooking it and develop the sugar from the starch and get the sweetness and and you concern yourself with that.

And you say, God, the guy has taught me something that I didn't know.

And I've been doing this for over 30 years, and I convey this to people when I see them, and I talk to them, and then you taste it and you identify like God here's a family that got uo pre-dawn worked in the field, brings it here, and they make $2 for six ears of corn.

And you're like, yeah, that one is unbelievable.

Hard work, passion and legacy.

And we don't have that anymore.

We're we're losing out on that.

And that's why I, I congratulate them and I hope this lasts forever because you see certain farmers giving up and the next thing you know, they're getting out of the business because, you know, the father son combination, the son doesn't want to do it because he can do better, you know, than $2 for six years of corn.

You see the farms leaving down here, residences going up, new neighborhoods, over in Loxley theyre putting big warehouses up now and taking all the farmland and and that's sad.

But you see, a lot of the younger generation that don't have the same work ethic they wanted.

They wanted to do something different.

They're more tech savvy where we were more hands on everything and and I see it both ways.

But I wish a lot of these farms that are so great would stay in the families and and just help produce for our local grocers, our local restaurants, just our local families without local farmers be very difficult for us to stay in business and to provide the freshness and the great quality that we have to get more people, well, younger people interested in farming.

I think they should actually see what a farmer does from day to day.

It does involve quite a bit of technology, more than you really would understand.

Most of the people wouldn't understand.

I mean, it goes by weather forecast, it goes by GPS, anything.

Everything goes through technology and it's all electronic.

There's very few vacations you go into where you invest the kind amount of money that's invested in a crop and not having any really, I guess, my dear, but not really knowing what you go get on the other end.

You know, I tell people, you know, if you wake up tomorrow and you've got plenty to eat, you got a lot of problems.

You got a problem with maybe your spouse, maybe children, maybe about maybe car.

Lots of problems.

Electrical bill.

You wake up tomorrow and you aint got nothing to eat,you got one problem.

And that's what am I going to eat today?

And until you answer that question you ain't worried about, your house, the kids, nothing else.

Last six years I've been on Auburn University, I've learned an awful lot.

You know, again, about growing food.

So, you know, most of my life I've been focused on the preparation and serving of food, you know, and food is my life, you know.

So now, to have a greater appreciation of both, both ends of, of of, of the food lifecycle, learning about how it's grown, but also learning about how it's the and closing that loop has been great for me.

It's given me a greater appreciation of food itself, of of how food is produced.

It's exposed me to, to different foods, foods that I'm not familiar with from I'm not from this part of the world.

So, you know, for instance, okra, I've never really experienced over until I came here.

And now I have a great appreciation of okra.

I've had a lifelong hatred of peanuts from my time.

I hated peanuts until I came here.

I went down to Dothan with the with the Alabama Peanut Association or Peanut Growers Association, and I took part in a harvest.

I tried some boiled peanuts and my my palate was just blown.

So I absolutely love Alabama grown boiled peanuts is just really phenomenal.

But I, I add my house, I grow, I've got 12 beds, I grow absolutely everything all year round.

I'm right now I'm covered in and bites and scratches because I've been spending the last week or two in the garden, getting all getting all my vegetables ready.

I've got two chickens at home, waiting for eggs.

So really this is just a it's just give me a deeper appreciation of of food itself.

It's it's hard for us, any sort of small business to survive in this economy.

You know, you're dealing with, you know, staffing, taxes, insurance, all that stuff.

And then out here we're dealing with all that same stuff.

We're also fighting Mother Nature.

We're fighting the fact that all it takes is one, you know, one deer to hop the fence and eat thousands of dollars worth of products.

You know, it's you talking about, one bug infestation ruining this entire thing.

So, you know, it's it's a struggle.

The margins for farming have always been bad.

That's why so many of the bigger farms are reliant on subsidies.

But, you know, we're we're in this thing where we're not quite big enough for those, but we're a little bit too big for some of the smaller ones.

So it's like, you know, we, you know, it's it's every day is a battle.

But I'm of the opinion that it's a meaningful and important one.

So it's, you know, it doesn't get much more rewarding than feeding your community.

I think, you know, I, you know, everyone talks about your your doctors and nurses and your staff.

It's like they do important work.

But, you know, I love the quote.

It's like, you know, you thank the doctor once a year if you're lucky.

You know, you have to never have to thank a lawyer.

It's like you got to thank a farmer three times a day every.

I mean, the state's doing a lot now.

princapalies has a program that try to promote people to buy rather than ordering off the internet.

Buy in your town, obviously grocers have got to buy Alabama best.

The Commerce Department got their made in Alabama program.

But grow in Alabama as much is is it has to be grown here.

This is not a bringing in to Alabama and process it.

This is grow it here.

And we've actually, have just in the last two months taken over the Alabama Gulf Seafood Program from Department Conservation and Resources.

And so we're having lots of challenges along the coast with, foreign shrimp and crab meat and fish coming into the country.

And and they're not branding it.

Right.

And so, anyway, it's just an attempt to make people think about look on the back, look at what's in there.

And and buy as local as you can.

The most important thing that we can do as chefs and also as a community, the communities that rally around these local restaurants that support the local food scene.

It is vital that everyone go out and support these local farmers.

These these farms are supporting and growing for our our community, our children, the next generation.

They're going through and supporting the legacies of their families.

But this is our culture.

This is the southern melting pot.

This is the South.

All of these families are creating the flavors and the profiles that we deem our our food style.

The the Southern food ways.

So to get out there and support these families, to create revenues for them, but also to continue telling their stories, to continue their legacies, it is absolutely crucial that everyone buy in, not just the local restaurants, but also your neighbors and your neighborhood.

We all love Piggly Wiggly in the South, and I cannot tell you how much I love Piggly Wiggly as a home shopper.

And if you ever notice when you're in your Piggly Wiggly all over the South, it's local products.

It's literally honey from Hartford, Alabama.

And they do a really great job of getting local produce and local products that they specifically shop in the Piggly Wiggly that you can shop for.

That's one great place you can kind of go to.

And then your farmers markets, it would be a horrible place in general, I say this, it will be the saddest day and I hope it never happens.

If the South stops having our beloved farm stands, there's nothing more beautiful and to me, more quintessential of the South.

Then you're on the way to the beach.

You are driving through the country.

You're driving through your town, and you see a watermelon stand, a peach stand.

Depending on the season, you're going to see a stand, or it might be someone in the back of their truck Stop and buy it.

Don't sit there and say, do I need the watermelon?

buy the watermelon.

Figure out what to do with it.

And I think that that's the really the best way that we can all be supportive is literally be supportive.

Don't question it.

There's things that we spend money on without thinking about it.

We'll press the Amazon button over and over again every 10s, but we'll stop and and consider stopping on the side of the road.

So I would urge everyone to flip that, never not stop and maybe consider pressing the button.

Well, farmers are right in our communities where we live.

It's usually easy to find them, purchase their products, visit farmers market, farmers markets.

Typically you can visit their farms and, develop relationships and acquire produce, you know, directly from, from their farms.

Once you start using a local product, you understand how much, in terms of quality, the benefits are to receiving that product locally.

And it's and it's very easy to build relationships with them because they are part of our communities.

So just reach out, look for a farmer.

They're in every single community.

Support them, support all that they do because they're supporting us in every community.

Try to search out that farmer's market so that you can develop a friendship, a relationship, a knowledge of those local farmers that you can support every week during growing season.

And often, you know, people forget that in the in the winter months, you know, the Greens are better, the collards, the kale, the lettuces.

And so so it's not just a summertime event, but to have that relationship with your farmers.

And typically that means being able to know them from your farmers market, I think is is most important.

And you're right to try to encourage the next generations to stay with farming is so important.

If we are going to have a sustainable local, local food sources.

And you know, for me, I'm all about regenerative agriculture, which really has to do with farming the soil so that you have soil that is alive and so that the produce can even have more personality and flavor.

First off, thank you.

You've made me successful throughout my career and I solely owe most of it to them.

I think one thing that people don't realize is that when somebody hands you your produce, that there is a body behind that.

When somebody brings in a basket of beautiful peaches and they hand them to you and everybody sees that and admires it and they taste it and it's beautiful.

They're going to think twice before they let it sit and go to fallow, go to waste.

And I think that's got to be part of the process moving forward, that there's no waste, you know, farm to table.

That's a given.

What you know, what is it up truck to table I mean, come on.

There's always part of that, don't get me wrong.

But I think when you, you see these chefs that have farms, you see these farmers that bring us these great, little treats that they've nourished from seedling to whatever could be, you know, I think it's important that we we instill this in our, our chefs or cooks or people in our industry that take pride in using it.

Thank you Alabama farmers.