Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Cobblestone Farm seeks to ease food insecurity in NWA
If you don’t know what to look for, you might miss Cobblestone Farm all together: On busy Wedington Road in Fayetteville, a simple, small sign marks the turnoff to a winding, gravel drive through the 20 acres that make up the nonprofit farm. Travel that gravel road for even a few feet, and you feel miles removed from any urban environment. You’re surrounded by rows and rows of crops waiting to be harvested, and the chicken coop, housing around 50 hens, completes the rural atmosphere.
On a recent visit, farm manager Adrian Leffingwell and U.S. Navy veteran Joe Bullard are hard at work in the field. A light rain — almost always a welcome development for farmers — falls on the tin roof that shelters the area used to harvest and box up crops for the Bentonville Farmers Market, where a portion of Cobblestone Farm’s produce is sold to provide income to keep the farm going. It’s also the place where the Community Supported Agriculture subscriptions — ready-made bundles of flowers, 10 pounds of produce and a dozen eggs that subscribers can pick up once a week — are packed.
The majority of the harvest, however, is given to hunger relief agencies to distribute around the Northwest Arkansas area, says Cobblestone’s community outreach director Olivia Adams-Davis.
“We’re really trying to grow as much produce to fill dietary needs in the community,” she says. “What we’re trying to see is what people aren’t getting and how we can fill that.” Adams-Davis and Leffingwell are the organization’s only two full-time paid employees.
Cobblestone Farm’s mission is not just to provide produce for the hungry, but to provide that harvest in a way that’s meaningful to the recipients.
“When we donate our food, we’re really trying to think about a complete meal for somebody as
opposed to just offering fresh food,” explains Adams-Davis. “How can they integrate this fresh produce in their diet? Because if you don’t give people the tools to understand what they’re lacking in nutrients, then what good is a cabbage, if they don’t know how to use it?” An example: in the past, Cobblestone Farm has given local food pantries tomatoes, garlic and herbs, a good start for spaghetti sauce. Other canned and boxed products needed to complete the recipe, like tomato paste and pasta, are then provided by the food pantries.
They’ve also partnered with local organizations to provide cooking instruction, so that people know how to prepare the fresh produce they’re receiving.
“We worked with Apple Seeds, and we did a whole cooking class with them,” Adams-Davis says. “Then they worked with the kids from Lifesource over the summer and kind of taught them how to cook a meal. We provided the produce, and they provided some of the other boxed stuff that Lifesource gets [through donations]. Then they all went to the pantry and made the meal for everybody as they were coming in to get food. [The kids] offered little samples, so they could say, ‘Here’s the recipe card, here’s the fresh produce that we used, here’s the canned and boxed food that you need, and here’s the meal we made! Sample it!’
“Really, it’s about building a meal for the community.”
The Cobblestone Project, parent to the Cobblestone Farm, was founded in 2008 by a group of area families whose goal, according to the website, was to “work toward ‘a community without need.’” Originally, the project was “an umbrella kind of organization,” according to Adams-Davis.
“We had all these other initiatives — Laundry Love, Sheer Kindness, Three Bags Two Days — up until last year, when we realized the farm was getting a little bit of neglect because all of these other initiatives were taking up all of this time. It was kind of overload.”
So at the beginning of 2016, the organization split: Those side initiatives became Serve NWA, while Cobblestone Farm reconfigured to concentrate solely on its goal of feeding the hungry.
“Northwest Arkansas consistently ranks at the top for food insecurity, and our state ranks in the top three in the nation, every single year,” says Adams-Davis. “The reality is that one in five families go hungry every day in Northwest Arkansas.”
In addition to Apple Seeds, the organization has donated their produce to the Northwest Arkansas Food Bank, Feed Communities and Samaritan House, among others. It has even forged a partnership with the Veterans Health Care System of the Ozarks.
“We have veterans come in, and we give them an hourly wage,” Adams-Davis explains. “We have a fourmonth curriculum, and they learn about sustainable agriculture techniques, they learn small construction things, [and] kind of different job skills they can take to seek more enriching employment. It’s kind of a temporary thing, to try and get our veterans back in the workforce.
“We are very proud of our veteran program and the relationship with the VA. If it wasn’t for the work therapy program there would be no way Adrian, or Cobblestone for that matter, could have accomplished the level of production we’ve seen this year. We are so thankful to them.”
Mindi Littleton, the local recovery coordinator at the VA, says that the partnership with Cobblestone Farm is “very beneficial for the veterans we serve.
“One example of how beneficial it has been is that one of our veterans had limited knowledge about farming, got engaged in the program, and found so much purpose in … life,” Littleton says. “The veteran has a variety of plants at home and has also adopted our on-site garden at the VA. [The veteran is] also finally ready to complete some of the therapeutic programming here and get back out into the community.”
Perhaps one of the most important partnerships the farm has is with its volunteers, who help Leffingwell harvest the bountiful crops. Cobblestone Farm endeavors to educate its volunteers in exchange for their labor.
“We have a Farm Partners Program, where anybody in the community can come out and work for a few hours on the farm, or just volunteer their time in any capacity,” says Adams-Davis. “And if there’s somebody who wants to take home some produce at the end of their work session, they absolutely can. We really try to encourage that education part — ‘this is how we grow things’ — and we talk about smallscale farming and farming sustainability. We don’t want to just send someone home with a plant and not tell them how to keep it up.”
Adams-Davis says she’s always in need of volunteers because there’s always
something ripe and in need of harvest.
“We have corporate groups that come out and do work days — Johnson & Johnson, J.B. Hunt, Walmart. Corporations use it as team building. Some of them come every single year because they started one year and they just loved it. We also host just families.”
Back at the farm, Leffingwell’s voice is raised over the din of what has now become a downpour on the metal roof. He explains that guests at the organization’s annual Harvest Party on Sept. 16 will get an opportunity to have dinner right in the middle of the field, under the stars.
“All of the produce we use will be from the farm,” he says.
“It’s always a really, really fun time,” adds Adams-Davis. “This year’s hosts are Slim Chicken’s owners Leslie and Greg Smart and Tom and Leslie Gordon. We do live music [and] a wine pull.
“Luke Wetzel, owner and chef at Oven and Tap, planned the full menu this year, and he really wanted to emphasize the farmto-table atmosphere. So we’re just going to throw out some big, long tables. Everyone is going to sit together and pass the plates down — we’re doing it farmhouse style!
“You’re just down Wedington and feeling as though you’re miles away … you wonder, ‘How did I lose myself in the middle of town?’”