'Attainable, achievable and affordable': Farm-R-Que marks 15th anniversary of Forsyth Farmers' Market

Gift-giving tradition holds that all things crystal mark a fifteen anniversary. No thanks. Give me a plate piled high with barbecue and all the fixin’s.

For the last decade and a half, the mission of the Forsyth Farmers’ Market has been “supporting local farmers, strengthening Savannah’s food system, and expanding access to fresh, locally grown food,” all of which was celebrated this past Sunday evening at Farm-R-Que, the organization’s annual spring picnic.

The event was rebranded, in part, “to highlight how farmers are the backbone of our food system,” according to executive director Deidre Grim, the first BIPOC to hold this position for the FFM.

On a bright and sunny Sunday evening arrayed with wispy clouds and just enough of a breeze to keep the bugs at bay, A Nickel Bag of Funk did their soundcheck with “She's a Bad Mama Jama,” a great start to any event.

Add to that Bootleg Farms’ baby goats, and you have got yourself a farm picnic.

Held at Roberds Old Dairy Farm, the family-friendly fête welcomed the public and featured grilled barbecue and bountiful sides in a delicious display that showcased the city’s culinary community serving Greater Savannah’s flourishing and cooperative agricultural community.

More than a dozen local hotels, restaurants, and catering chefs donated long buffets befit for both omnivores and herbivores, and onsite, meats from nearby Berry Family Farms (Ludowici), Hunter Cattle Company (Brooklet), and 920 Cattle (Millen) were prepared by Taylor and Curtis Washington, the eponymous wife-and-husband who are 2 Chefs Gullah Geechee Soul Food.

The opening address by Dr. Amir Jamal Toure was fittingly more history lesson than blessing, directly tracing southern farming and the specific dishes on the Farm-R-Q tables along their Black diaspora foodways and back to their African culinary ancestors.

Proceeds from the evening picnic, which included presales of more than a hundred tickets and virtual silent auction donations, will entirely benefit local farmers and fund the FFM’s comprehensive outreach.

Old ways in new times

“I believe that we do ourselves a disservice when we don’t know what’s in our food,” Grim said to the attendees before anyone filled a plate and gathered in camp chairs under the tent and on blankets spread around the grassy yard.

“Over food, you build relationships and bonds that are unforgettable,” she added.

Appointed the FFM’s executive director in September 2022, she happily shared statistics from this past year, including sales of over $200,000’s worth of produce from the Farm Truck 912 alone, paying their cooperating farmers market rate, putting more than $1.5 million “back into our local agriculture system,” and providing more than 5,000 hours of nutrition education to the community.

In addition, the Family Farm Share pilot program positively impacted children aged up to 5 years who otherwise would have been food insecure otherwise by providing more than 300 boxes for only $10 a piece, more than an eighty-percent savings for low-wealth families.

“This is what your dollars do when you come here and support this work, and I am so grateful that you continue to partner alongside us,” said Grim before praising her staff who set up and served food throughout the evening.

The FFM’s roster numbers 80 vendors ― 48 of whom are farmer-agriculture producers and 30% represent BIPOC communities. For Grim, the symbiosis between purveyor and customer is unequivocal.

“Our work directly supports local farmers while ensuring that our community has better access to nutrient-dense foods, regardless of their socioeconomic status, zip code, and how much money they’ve got in the bank,” she said.

Grim suggested a return to the “old ways,” a time when her grandmother jarred and canned food that “would keep seemingly forever, but they were fresh when you opened them.”

She invited everyone to dig in and asked attendees to think about how critical our local farmers are to our food system.

“As the quote goes: no farms, no food,” said Grim, whose own upbringing in the Gullah Geechee corridor saw her helping her mother harvest in the fields.

Grim was clear that Farm-R-Que’s purpose was not about the FFM but about the community as a whole.

“COVID showed us very clearly that we can’t always depend on chain grocers,” she asserted. “In order to have a stronger food system, we need to ensure that we buy local and keep those dollars within our community.

“Eating healthy is attainable, achievable and affordable,” Grim assured.

Fourth-generation farmers

“That’s three of my grandfather’s sons and Cedric,” said Tony Berry of the priceless photo on the Berry Family Farms website, a shot taken on their grandfather’s 92nd birthday.

“I wasn’t there that day,” he added with a chuckle.

No matter: he and his cousin are the fourth-generation scions of the family farm in Ludowici that began with their great-grandfather, Fairbanks Berry, and is in its second year with the Forsyth Farmers’ Market. At the Farm-R-Que, the sliders starred Berry ground beef.

Tony Berry noted “the satisfaction” he feels “of being able to feed people in my community the vegetables that I helped grow and the beef that we help produce.”

He added, “Just learning, for me, and creating that bond with people from all different walks of life, and it all is around food and health and good clean living.”

Cedric Berry echoed his cousin’s sentiments, saying, “Being able to meet different people and provide what they’re looking for. Being able to fill that void and put smiles on people’s faces. They look forward to us bringing our products and having that outlet to purchase them as well.”

Between owning, leasing, and managing, the Berrys farm nearly 700 acres, raising BQA-certified Black Angus cattle that is pasture-raised, grass-fed, and lightly finished on grain and growing a variety of vegetables and hay. In the last year, their land yielded bumper crops of blueberries, bell peppers, broccoli, and all kinds of greens.

The majority of Berry Family Farms produce is sold wholesale, and this past winter, they participated with the Southeast branch of The Common Market, a nonprofit regional food distributor whose mission is “to connect urban communities with local food from sustainable family farms”

The cousins said that they are new to “the retail side of things,” having begun online sales not yet a year ago. Incredibly, they deliver orders themselves, within a hundred-mile radius.

“That’s about to change really soon,” Tony Berry said with a chuckle.

“We wanted to see if the practices we’ve learned over the years actually paid off in good quality taste in our beef, and it did,” he explained.

Even though there are only twenty-four hours in a day, both Berrys work other full-time jobs: Cedric does electrical maintenance at Fort Stewart, and Tony is terminal site manager at the Port of Savannah. Respectively, Tony and Cedric serve as President and Vice President of the South Georgia Black Cattlemen’s Association, founded in 2022 and now forty members strong.

Oh, and they both have young children.

All of this makes one wonder when and if they sleep or eat, though Cedric’s father, Aubrey, and Uncle Lamar Berry co-farm in their retirement, as if any kind of farming could ever be called ‘retirement’.

With opposing day-shift night-shift workadays, the cousins do their farming primarily on weekends as well as weekday late afternoons for Cedric and mornings for Tony.

“When I get in in the evenings, I pick up where they left off,” Cedric said of his dad and Uncle Lamar. “When Tony comes out, I jump in. We come together and get it done the best we can.”

Because wholesale works best for Berry Family Farms right now, their products are not yet in the mainstream of Savannah restaurants, but something says that is on the near horizon.

“We’re really interested in that avenue,” said Tony Berry. “We’re really new, so we haven’t marketed to the local restaurants, but we are up for it. We’re definitely looking forward to that.”

“While we’ve been on the phone, I was delivering ground beef to the Forsyth Farmers’ Market freezer,” said Tony Berry.

Maybe there are more hours in their days.

This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Farm-R-Que marks 15th anniversary of Forsyth Farmers' Market