Farm to Table

We might be just tip-toeing into August but harvest season is completely upon us.  With a dryer growing season, the crops in the field have grown and matured a little more quickly to lend to an earlier harvest.  And now the fields are full of combines, grain carts, semis and tractors of all varieties bringing in the year’s work.  

We often watch the crops around us grow, be harvested, and hauled off from our front row seat, but we rarely get to see the aftermath of what happens to the gathered harvest.  Somehow those crops, everything from cereals and grains, potatoes and onions, make their way from the farm to our families.  Along the way they cleaned, prepared, and packaged to make them consumer ready.  Let’s take a journey along the stops a farmer’s crop takes before it lands at the table.

The initial phases after bringing the harvest in from the field can vary for farmers depending on their crops, their contracts, and storage situations, but it all begins on a long truck ride to some sort of storage.  For some producers with their own granaries, they might hold onto their grain, either until the market price finally sits right for their operation or until it’s time to fulfill their contract.  Producers of other commodities from apples to potatoes to sugar beets do the same, store their harvest in cellars or refrigerated warehouses until. 

There are some producers that are able to take their yields from the fields directly to the next phase of processing- the wholesale buyer.  This might look like wheat going straight to the elevator or tomatoes to the packing house where their product will be sold.  Regardless of the timing, whether right after harvest or after being in storage for some time, this is the next stop for all kinds of crops. 

Not only is this where farmers fulfill their contracts and get their payday, but it is also at this stage that the product is inspected, cleaned, and sorted for quality, size and ripeness before being processed and packaged.  

At packing houses, fruits and vegetables are prepped to help maintain freshness and prevent bruising with processes like waxing.  Depending on the final product, other fruits and vegetables will be blanched, frozen, canned, or dehydrated at the packing house to make them
consumer ready. 

Similarly, grains and cereals are graded and cleaned before they are sent to the mill to be processed for consumption.  Wheat is ground in a variety of flour: whole wheat, all-purpose, bread flour, etc.  Oats are prepared as quick oats, rolled oats, or steel cut.  Rye is ground and then separated into fractions like bran, germ, and endosperm, creating different types of flours ranging from light and refined to dark and whole grain.

There is a portion of grains, mainly corn, that is contracted as animal feed grade that will go to its own facility to be processed and mixed in preparation for livestock.

Once the crops have been processed and packaged, they are headed for retail.  It may sound like a simple step, but the logistics of this can actually be quite complicated.  Transporting goods across the country, let alone the world, requires a network of trucks, planes, or even ships.  Throughout their transportation, various products will require specialized equipment like refrigeration, humidity regulation, and
air circulation.

Retailers can range from big grocery chains like Costco and Walmart to more specialized stores like Whole Foods to small town grocers.  And while they are different on a number of different levels, all their goods started in a farmers field just the same.  

The process can vary how products find their way from the farm to your fork, it might be fast or it could be lengthy, involving a number of steps, or just a few.  On our journey from harvest to home, we’ve seen that each product, and its eventual goods, go along the same general path.  And regardless of these various steps, they never negate the hard work and effort you first saw in the field.

On the consumer end, we see an overwhelming jumble of products, how they’re marketed, where they are sold, and the like.  All of it makes us question whether we are buying the right product, supporting the right operations or getting the most good out of our dollar.  I can’t make that confusion go away but I can provide one comfort.  

Any food you buy for your family began with a farmer or rancher that wanted nothing but to grow, harvest and sell the very best products they could.  From small family farms to large scale operations, their goal is the same- to feed you and yours.