Chatham produces food directory to help farmers

Tom Logan’s forefathers have been farming their land in Hempfield since Grover Cleveland was sitting in the White House during the last decade of the 19th century.

Now, 126 years later, Logan Family Farms LLC is getting a boost from modern technology in the form of Chatham University’s online Pennsylvania Farm Product Directory, a listing of about 45 farms from 13 counties in Western and Central Pennsylvania. The directory tells consumers where and when they can buy the farmer’s products, the precautions they take to keep the food supply safe, delivery options and their contact information.

“It’s great that they are doing something for the local farmers,” said Logan, who serves as a Hempfield Township supervisor when not tending to the 250 head of cattle and 90 sows he raises.

The beef and pork, along with sweet corn, are sold from their farm in a little wood-framed, no-frills store, about a quarter-mile from a new bridge that spans the Pennsylvania Turnpike.

Through the work of Chatham’s Center for Regional Agriculture, Food and Transformation, Logan Family Farms and other farmers listed in the directory will be able to spread the word to more people in an effort to boost their sales at this challenging times for agriculture. The list of locally produced food ranges from fresh or frozen beef, pork and poultry; produce; eggs; dairy products such as milk, cheese and cream; prepared foods; bakery items; maple syrup; and nonfood products such as yarn, beeswax, soap, seedlings and bone broth.

“We wanted to document the local food supply,” Cassandra Malis, food program director for Chatham’s CRAFT program in Richland, said of the directory compiled by students and staff.

The directory will help farmers at a time when the coronavirus-related shutdowns have closed off markets, such as restaurants, to local farmers who relied upon those sales, Malis said.

Farmers accustomed to selling their produce at many of the farmers markets that sprout up each spring and summer have lost a site for sales because of restrictions against large gatherings, said Jane Dillner of the Dillner Family Farm in West Deer.

“All of the farmers markets for April and May have been canceled. The earliest (still open) is in June,” said Dillner, whose husband’s family has been farming the land for three generations. They raise lambs and 24 to 30 head of cattle, as well as grow fruits and vegetables on 80 acres, with another 160 acres set aside for pasture. They usually sell their products at eight farmers markets.

Now, they are limiting sales to online orders on Fridays and Saturdays and curbside pickups, Dillner said.

With the Logans not selling their meat at farmers markets in the South Hills, Pat Folmar of Library drove all the way to the Hempfield site to get a box of meat.

“This meat is worth driving far,” Folmar said.

A Westmoreland County farmer on the list, Randy Morris, may reap the benefits this summer of being listed as a “pick your own” vegetables business on eight acres of his 22-acre Morris Organic Farm in Sewickley Township.

Morris, who has planted his organic seed, expects the crop will be ready for picking in June and July.

“We use nothing unnatural, no pesticides, no treated seeds, no GMOs (genetically modified organisms),” said Morris, who has been certified as an organic farmer since 1994.

Matt Carter, owner of a Penn Hills farm where he raises bees, has seen his business impacted by the panic buying at the beginning of the shutdowns.

When Gov. Wolf first announced plans to close nonessential businesses, Carter said there was a surge in buying his honey and elderberry syrup, to the point where he was sold out.

“We had to replenish the supply at local stores after the first week,” but since then it has been very slow, said Carter, who has a 13-acre farm near Brookville, Jefferson County.