On Lucky Dog Farm, up in the Catskills, the crew has been waiting on the warm weather to begin planting in the fields. While some farms have gotten an early start growng a selection of crops indoors in preparation for this season, their normal schedule for transplanting them into the field had been postponed. This spring has been taking it’s time, unlike last year when the warm weather arrived two weeks early.

Agriculture is a profession that is not known for it’s predictability. Last year’s growing season was tumultuous across all regions. A warm winter in the northeast didn’t allow for the ground to freeze, which normally provides a natural defense against pests. Then as soon as the weather began to warm up, they experienced extreme temperatures which left the fall apple harvest hard hit. This was followed up in the summer by wide spread droughts across most of the midwest.

After a long winter, and with a memory of snow still remaining in some areas upstate, farms are getting a late start north of the city this year. Over the last couple of weeks it has been visible at the farmers market with the tuber and root vegetable lined tables. But what’s not short of hopeful is a basket of spring garlic, preparing us for the procession of rhubarb, asparagus and peas that are soon to follow.

I’ll be darned if I get another plastic bin of anonymous spinach that’s a little sopped from its journeys. The more you think about it, the more you want greens that are full of life. And if you want lively greens, they’d better not spend very much time out of the field. 

So, go to Foragers Market, Greene Grape Provisions, and Rose Water this week to find crops that got to the city within hours of leaving the farms. Taste that Thai Basil for me, people.

Hydroponic Lettuce Mix, Thai basil, and sweet basil
Aqua Vita Farms - Sherrill, New York

Free range eggs
Fitzgerald Farms - Kerhonkson, New York

Onions, shallots, cippolinis
Glebocki Farms - Goshen, New York

Grassfed and finished beef brisket

Good Fence Farm - Fort Edward, New York

If you have any questions please get in touch with us at hello@plovgh.com. 

Ah, the food system. It’s a mess, huh? Seems like farms, trucking companies, commodity brokers, even retailers that get to gargantuan scale really muck things up for everyone else. That’s why we’re excited to bring small businesses like Matthew Clancy’s into the Plovgh network. Have a look at this local transporter who got your crops into your neighborhood this week.

Transporter’s name: Matthew J. Clancy, Clancy’s Transportation Solutions

Homebase: Rotterdam Junction, New York

Years in operation: We are a newly formed business.

What do you drive? 2010 Chevrolet Express van.

What do you do? We offer the best solution to people and businesses that need something moved across town or across country. We provide our clients with a low cost alternative to the big name companies (emphasis added) with the care only a family owned small business can offer!

Why did you start this business? What’s unique or compelling about how you operate? I started this business to find a more fulfilling way to provide for my family’s quality of life. After years of working for the State of New York as a manager, the time spent away from my wife and children coupled with the fact that I felt uninspired by my work led me to leave it behind in order to focus on making Clancy’s Transportation Solutions (CTS) a success. CTS is a family owned and operated small business aimed at helping our local community and beyond. We are focused on providing custom transportation solutions to our clients that result in the highest levels of customer satisfaction.

Welcome, Matthew! The maiden voyage was a success and we look forward to many more.

We’d like to extend a hearty welcome to Mark, who drives his first Plovgh route today, connecting farms’ harvest with New York City. We met Mark through Slow Food NYC and we’re excited to fuel the movement of harvest from source to city. 

Transporter’s name: Mark Jaffe, The Fresh Connection

Homebase: New York City

Years in operation: 1

What do you do? The Fresh Connection is an NYC-based company that provides transportation and logistics services for food producers who are independent, artisanal, and environmentally and economically sustainable. 

Why did you start this business? What’s unique or compelling about how you operate? Through talking to people and through my own previous experience in the local and sustainable food world I saw that the groundwork has been laid in New York City for a strong local food system with many small- to mid-size farmers producing high quality product and customers eager to receive these goods. There are also many groups and individuals working to build networks for the local food system. However, these networks often do not fully address the needs and challenges of actually transporting product from Point A to Point B (emphasis added). I started The Fresh Connection with the aim of creating an efficient model for product delivery in and around NYC and providing the local food system with an affordable transportation and delivery service.

The Fresh Connection is unique in that we combine practical knowledge of the food distribution industry and the logistics surrounding it with an ideological belief that we must create a food system that supports independent producers whose products are environmentally and economically sustainable, with an emphasis on locally produced goods. We offer a flexible model and are not looking to simply replicate the traditional distributor model but to help in creating a new distribution system that addresses the needs of a local and sustainable food system.

Say hello to Mark when you see him along his route. This kind of collaboration is the beginning of the change we want to see. To get your farm on one of the Plovgh routes, or to order from the farms on Plovgh, get in touch here!

Last week the Plovgh team reconvened in Downtown Las Vegas. Aside from time spent brainstorming and strategizing, we had a chance to check out all of the projects and businesses that are beginning to grow and reshape the culture in the neighborhood. There is a unique energy there and the innovative community of folks who are taking part in the transformation are cultivating a more vibrant and sustainable vision for a part of the city that has long been neglected.

We found ourselves on a rainy Friday morning at the Downtown Third farmers market, drawn by the promise of a solid cup of coffee as well as to meet some of the regional producers responsible for growing food for the downtown community.

Growers from Nevada, California, and Arizona made up the handful of stands and the diversity of products, at a market in the desert no less, was remarkable. Pyramids of root vegetables, alongside colorful cauliflower and young asparagus filled the room. The varieties of citrus – limequats, kishu tangerines, blood oranges - were a refreshing addition compared to the bins upon bins of apples we’ve grown accustomed to at the east coast markets all winter. The highlight of our visit that day was chatting with Rosalind and Randy of Bloomin’ Desert Herb Farm about raising culinary and medicinal herbs. We learned about their farm-grown, freshly dried herbal teas and collection of seasonings, including one made with Mexican Hatch Chiles – XHot with Habanero pepper is where it’s at.

It was a great visit and one that only made us more excited to start exploring the Southwest and meeting producers there that we can start connecting with the Vegas community.

One reason we are building Plovgh is to re-connect people with the source of their food. Drawing on the relationships that once linked producers and consumers, we are leveraging technology to shift the current agricultural transaction and change how the supply chain operates.

The soil food web outlined above with the help of Dr. Elaine Ingham and the folks behind the Lexicon of Sustainability is a natural example of sustainable connectivity. It shows how ecosystems work to maintain balance and manage the interconnectedness of organisms that provide healthy soil necessary for growing food. It’s interesting to think of Plovgh in this perspective, coordinating all of the people that make up a supply chain to develop a more efficient and reliable way through which they can engage with one another. It is an alternative take on an outdated system, and one that aims to foster an approach that is more healthy and sustainable.

pluralistfarmer:

A young farmer adapts a yoke to bring in a fine pair of new born lambs from a distant field in Cleeve, Gloucestershire. 11th February 1936

Re-thinking tools.

We’re psyched to be part of a growing group of companies who are rethinking traditional systems and developing better ways of doing business. It’s encouraging to see the response we’ve gotten from people all over the country who are ready for change and want to participate. Dwolla is shifting perceptions of how money can be exchanged and we plan to do the same for how food moves directly from the hands of producers to people.

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Reblogged from Dwolla:

Plovgh: Revolutionizing Agriculture

This post is part of our series, Favorite Stories. Think of it as a collection of entrepreneurs, products, and ideas that are inspiring Dwolla everyday. Want more? Find this story and others on Dwolla’s Pinterest board. Enjoy!

When we pay for food from the grocery store, many of us may think that we are paying the farmer for their wares. However, only about $0.16 from every dollar spent on a food product reaches the farmer. The other $0.84 goes to the diesel in the truck that is transporting the food, the cost of storing until sold, the people who sell it to grocers, the chef that prepares your meal, the satellites and databases that track shipments, the workers and forklifts in the warehouses.

Plovgh is a marketplace and distribution network for independent farmers, fishers, and food artisans that improves producers’ profitability by providing customers with a connection to directly sourced goods. They have a long-term vision of transforming agriculture in a way that gives the power back to the growers, and cuts away at the costs imposed by the middlemen – the wholesalers, distributors and retailers. They do this by connecting you with producers near you.

I was lucky enough to be able to pose a few questions to the founder,Elizabeth Greene, about what inspired her along her journey to start Plovgh, and how she got the business up and running.

What inspired you to start Plovgh? 

I grew up around people who live and breathe agriculture. My granddad ran Cargill when I was a kid and our family is also in the cattle business, so corn prices, weather, and exchange rates were dinner table conversation. After spending two summers in India working on initiatives to incorporate very small cotton growers into international supply chains, I realized how inefficient (and, in many cases, corrupt) the entities are that have traditionally mediated the relationship between producers and their customers. I was studying at MIT at the time, so I was surrounded by technologists and strategists who were thinking really creatively about how technology could shift whole sectors of the economy. That no one else was attempting a major revision of the agricultural sector seemed to me a huge opportunity both because of the global need for better outcomes for farmers and people, but also because of the magnitude of the challenge of reinventing a system that everyone relies on.

How did you get started with your business?

Plovgh is organized around routes that connect farms with their customers – it’s like a roving warehouse which means that we can significantly reduce the time from harvest to consumption, which not even Whole Foods can do. We found out pretty quickly that distribution is a major factor for independent farms, and that without a logistics component no online tool will successfully market food and agricultural products because timing is so sensitive for many products. Right now we’re initiating routes both with our own network of farms, but also through relationships with organizations like Slow Food NYC, which has done great work identifying and supporting farms that produce high-quality products and manage their farms conscientiously. We’re always looking for more farms to join the network though!

Can you share one of your favorite stories or experiences?

Last summer, one of my favorite farms offered mixed greens by the pound. The farm announced the harvest, customers ordered on Plovgh, and the farmers harvested the greens at 6 am the day of the delivery. Needless to say, the greens were phenomenal. Out of curiosity, I checked what organic mixed greens were going for at an online grocer, and what I found made me very happy: the prices from the farm on Plovgh were 20% lower than the prices for mass-produced, over-packaged, harvested-a-week-ago greens sitting in a warehouse.

Through Plovgh, the farm made far more than it would have selling to a store that would have marked up the product (farms typically get $0.19 on the retail dollar when they sell wholesale). Meanwhile, Plovgh customers paid less for a higher quality product. That shift in how value is distributed among the most essential participants in a food economy is at the core of this company, and it was inspiring to see the transformation in action.

Where do you look to find inspiration in your job?

I take great inspiration from my peers who are forging conscientious commerce. Luckily, my founding team fits that description! Our brainstorm sessions can get intense but we are dead set on making farmers’ jobs easier and getting higher quality food into communities around the globe, so there’s a lot of material to work with. The best part of a brainstorm is to then take the ideas out into the world and talk with producers and customers about how Plovgh can serve them best. The exchange of ideas keeps me going day in and day out.

What is one important lesson you’ve learned from your journey into building your own business? 

Perhaps the most lasting lesson I’ve learned is the need to balance a very big picture (I dream of the day when Plovgh provides access to capital, crop insurance, and production planning tools to farmers around the world) while implementing methodically. I’m a futurist who is trying very hard to live and work in the present. Holding a view of what Plovgh could be with what Plovgh is today, and where it needs to get tomorrow in order to deliver that long-range vision, is the hardest part of my job, and a skill I’m still honing.

How do you use Dwolla in your business? 

Plovgh supports people, groups, companies, and movements that take bold steps toward making commerce more meaningful. We are very excited to take Dwolla payments on Plovgh because our companies are very well aligned – both take out inefficient intermediaries. Now when you place an order on Plovgh you see two prices – the standard price and the Dwolla price that benefits both customer and producer. Both companies also focus on activating a network of local buyers and sellers so Plovgh was pleased to join up.

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