Daily devotion
February 2017
Five-generation farm family finds satisfaction in working together
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Jim and Evan Daily at the feed lot near Garden City.
By Barney Quick | Photos by marcia walker
Carol Daily displays some of the baked goods available at Daily’s Farm Market.
When your best friends are your family members, and they also happen to be co-workers with whom you share the vision and excitement of your enterprise, life is good. Such is the case with the Dailys, a Bartholomew County family that has been farming for five generations. The term “farming” applies to their operation in the most comprehensive sense. It encompasses the raising of vegetables, soybeans, wheat, red and black popcorn (for Black Jewell), seed wheat (for Beck’s and Pioneer), sweet corn, hay, beef and chickens, as well as an ear corn packaging business, a store on Jonathan Moore Pike, and booths at the Columbus and Carmel farmers markets. Jim and Carol are the current patriarch and matriarch. Sons Ben and Evan and Ben’s wife, Kristen, round out the team. Two other daughters are in other occupations. The base of operations is where Jim and Carol live, on North Road 1050E near Anderson Falls. They farm a few hundred acres there, and that’s where the high tunnels for the vegetables are. The rest of the land involved is pretty far-flung, totaling around 2,800 acres. “It goes pretty much from Interstate 65 to the BartholomewDecatur line,” says Ben, “with some fields in Jennings County and some around Columbus Municipal Airport.” The high tunnels, structures made of polyethylene that provide for extended growing seasons, are the source of the Dailys’ cucumbers, squash, tomatoes, lettuce, spinach and green beans. These crops are the core of what they sell at farmers markets. Ear corn packaging is done at the facility where Jim and Carol live. They shuck, sort and pack the corn for bird and squirrel feed. Marketing is done through distributors who sell it wholesale to various companies. “That corn can wind up anywhere in the United States and even parts of Canada,” says Ben. The Dailys raise about 80 head of cattle a year at a location near Garden City. The beef is packaged and
Fresh food, free education Winter farmers market connects shoppers with local growers
By Jennifer Willhite
When Sande Hummel launched the Columbus City Winter Farmers Market in Fair Oaks Mall last year, she didn’t anticipate how well it would be received by the public. Offering Columbus-area residents the opportunity to buy local meat and produce during the winter months is just one aspect. Educating the public about healthy eating and the importance of buying local is another essential element, she says. “I just wanted to carry over healthy eating into the winter season,” Hummel says. “I knew farmers with greenhouses and high tunnels from who I knew we could get cold crops.” The winter farmers market, open from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Saturdays, is designed to offer a place to purchase farm-to-table-fresh produce and meats, including mixed lettuces, Swiss chard, kale, pork, chicken and grass-fed beef. Now in its second year, Hummel says it offers customers more selection since the farmers had the chance to start planting in August. “But you have to keep in mind for this time of year, when temperatures go down, growing slows down,” Hummel says. “So
Farm Indiana is a monthly publication of AIM Media Indiana.
there may be a few weeks where there is less in abundance.” Unlike shopping at traditional groceries, attending the market allows customers to speak directly to the farmer, Hummel says. “Talking to the farmer is the key of education for the public,” she says. “I feel so strongly that there should be videos on healthy eating, farm demonstrations and farmers markets in doctors’ offices. Why are health care costs going up? People do not eat right. Everything is a trickledown effect.” Hummel, who is the owner and manager, says the market, which begins the first Saturday in December, averages 15 to 20 vendors who offer a variety of farm-fresh products in addition to specialty chocolates, coffees and high-end crafts made by local artisans. “I have home-based bakers who all sell something different so they aren’t competing,” she says. “I am happy for the people I have there that everything is being purchased.” As with any specialty market, foot traffic and crowds are dependent on weather conditions. During the holiday season, traffic averages up to 400 each weekend and goes back down to an estimated 150 to 200 during the remainder of the season, which runs through the third week of April. “We have consistent regulars who just love to come to the winter market,” Hummel says. “The importance of the market is that you can get more local, healthy food
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sold at their store. It’s hormone- and antibiotic-free. “In addition to package quantities, we sell quarters, halves and whole cows,” says Kristen, who, along with Carol, focuses on running the west-side retail outlet. Their chickens are for eggs. They raise about 400 a year at Ben’s home. The Dailys’ soybean productivity has earned them nationwide recognition. “We were the first farm in the Midwest to meet the BASF 100-Bushel Bean Challenge,” says Jim. “We raised 102 bushels per acre. They had a camera crew and a drone document it for marketing purposes.” They have good relations with a number of area grain elevators. According to Jim, “it depends on where you can capture the best basis,” which is the difference between the Chicago Board of Trade price and the cash price for a given grain. How do they sort out who is going to do what? “We each have areas we mainly take care of,” says Ben, “but we can all take care of anything that needs attention.” With such a diverse array of business activities, switching gears as warranted is key. “You establish your priorities at the beginning of the day, but you have to be flex-
ible enough to take care of stuff as it arises,” says Ben. Carol takes a bounty of offerings to the Carmel farmers market, which runs all year, every Saturday. Kristen runs a booth at the Columbus market during the warm weather months. The entire presence of a farmers market in Columbus has its roots in the Columbus East High School senior project of another Daily daughter, Kristin, some years ago. “She did research indicating people were in town on Thursdays, for events like Neighborfest,” says Jim, “so she started a market on Jackson Street by the courthouse. Columbus in Bloom eventually went with it, and now you have today’s farmers market activity here.” The family established its store on Jonathan Moore Pike, called Daily’s Farm Market, in 2010. In addition to the vegetables, beef and eggs they produce, they sell lamb and pork produced by other area operations. Fromscratch pies, homemade chicken salad and take-home dinners are also big sellers. Their deli section offers meats such as roast beef, pastrami, ham and turkey breast as well as a wide assortment of cheeses. The clientele includes people coming off the inter-
that isn’t handled by 29 people, coughed and sneezed on. It is gathered by one or two people, washed and cared for, brought to the market, and you come choose it.” Growing the market not only brings more traffic into the mall, but it also builds community and awareness about the importance of healthy eating and supporting local businesses. Mackenzey Shatto, of Poseys and Pumpkins in North Vernon, says she has participated in the winter market since its inception. As a matter of fact, she was the one who originally pitched the idea, she says. “I thought Columbus needed a winter market because after the spring and summer markets, there wasn’t anything for the customers in Columbus to go to,” Shatto says. “I threw the idea out there, and she [Hummel] went for it.” Shatto’s family business, which launched in 1998, offers a variety of greens, such as kale, lettuce and spinach, as well as many other vegetables during the winter season. Customers may also purchase meats, including lamb, chicken and pork, and eggs. Like Hummel, Shatto sees the importance of community and supporting local farming. For her, participating in the Columbus area markets is a way to build rapport with customers and help familiarize them with why it is so significant to
state, but also a strong core of regulars. “You get to know your customers well,” says Kristen. “Some almost become part of your family. One couple that Ben and I met here came to our wedding.” That kind of bond extends to actually being a team member. Carol’s helpers at the Carmel booth are longstanding customers. Kristen didn’t come from a farm background. She took to that way of life as part of the family cohesion that so greatly impressed her when she started dating Ben in high school. For the past two years, she has compiled handsomely bound albums of the family’s life and work by uploading photos to Shutterfly. In addition to well-chosen shots of crops in sunlight and frolicking livestock, her photos document family milestones such as multigenerational gatherings and new additions. She even devotes a page to “I-thought-I-could-make-it” pictures of equipment bogged down in soggy ground and other such attempts at agricultural heroics. So there’s a lot of esprit de corps in what they do. Kristen characterizes her gratification as being around her favorite people all day. Jim says, “We have fun while we’re working.”
buy locally. Doing so offers customers the chance to actually get to know where their food comes from and the farmers who grew and raised it, she says. Seymour resident Jon Claycamp says he discovered the winter market via word-ofmouth last summer. Seeking a place to sell his dairy products during the off season while he works to launch a small farm store at his Lot Hill Dairy Farm, Claycamp took advantage of the opportunity to grow his customer base in Columbus. “I am surprised with the foot traffic,” he says. “I am not sure if we are helping the mall out or if the mall is helping us.” Primarily specializing in cheese and butter, Claycamp says buying locally is important to not only the farmer, but to the community as well. “When you buy local, you can come to my farm, check it out and if you have questions just ask,” he says. “I think the local label is more important than the organic label. It is just a matter of educating people.”
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