Last week our Jako Farm Community showed up for us. Big time.
I asked for help getting a semi load of field peas hauled to our farm from North Dakota. Within a few hours, I received over 50 emails from you all offering phone numbers of trucking companies, private truckers, prayers, or words of support.
I cannot tell you how supported we felt.
Prior to asking for your help we had already reached out to a dozen trucking companies, all of which were dead ends. After your overwhelming response, I had a lot more leads! By the end of that day we had found a trucking company in North Dakota that was able to do the haul for us.
Actually finding the peas also feels a divine intervention.
Deanna Lozenskey and her husband, Kelly, are regenerative grain farmers in North Dakota. They grew peas last summer and have been holding them in their grain bins ever since. Last week Kelly told Deanna, “You’ve got to find a place for those peas.”
THAT DAY I emailed her and said, “Any chance you have regenerative, chemical free peas??”
Pretty amazing, huh?
Deanna and I spent over an hour on the phone talking about nutrient dense food. She is a Jako Farm kindred spirit who markets her grains to consumers. I eventually gave her a price we could offer for the peas. She said she and Kelly would talk about it. Later that evening she texted me and said, “We can sell it for less. That will help you with freight, plus we really like to know where our grains are going and that they’re feeding people.”
Daniel and I were pretty blown away. Grain prices have increased about 30% in the last year, so that was a very generous offer that will help keep our price increases a little lower.
The peas left Minot, North Dakota Tuesday morning and we’re happy to report they were delivered yesterday morning!!
While we’re not thrilled to be in the middle of a terrible drought that caused us to look beyond our community for grains, we feel so much gratitude for this experience.
- We’ve always felt supported by our Jako Farm members, but we felt SO much support from you last week.
- I developed a new farmer friend in North Dakota. I think it’s pretty fantastic that two female farmers negotiated the transaction!
- We did not need to use a broker for this grain. Once again we were able to work farmer to farmer.
- Our pigs, chickens, and turkeys have a secure food source through the winter.
A bonus for you is that Deanna has an online store where she sells regeneratively grown ancient grains including einkorn wheat, heirloom barley and others, PLUS pasta. You can find all of these at Guardian Grains. Our family started buying from her last winter and can attest to how delicious it is!
The details of this story really are amazing. It’s almost hard to believe! There truly was a divine presence in all of this, using different people at the right time to meet this need.
Thank you for being part of a community that trusts and supports one another.
You are so valued.
Here’s to the beauty of the direct connection between farmers and consumers and the ability to help each other out!
