“Farm to Loaf: A Road Trip Through a Short Commodity Chain”

As reported by Eric Pallant in theperfectloaf.com, December 9, 2024:

“Maurizio’s Note: In this guest post, Eric Pallant tries to answer a question many of us home bakers have: how can I support local farmers and millers by buying local grain? As it turns out, the answer to “what is local” isn’t as cut and clean as we’d often like.

I admit that I am envious of bakers who make their loaves using fresh, locally raised grains. It sounds like the ideal—for flavor, for community, for the environment. But I am also a little skeptical. Is local flour really any better than flour made with grain from far away? What are my options if I want heirloom wheat or ancient grains to bake with and they aren’t grown anywhere near me? What if I want to buy organic grains but my local farmers say that organic certification is not worth the cost? Should I just trust their practices because I like them? Is it even worth the extra cost to pay for local or organic?

Obviously, I have a lot of questions. Enough questions that I am writing another book called Loaf: How Bread—And Maybe Everything Else—is Really Made (coming in 2026). But for The Perfect Loaf, I decided to hit the road. I went in search of a short commodity chain here in western Pennsylvania: local growers delivering freshly harvested grain to local millers; millers who supplied freshly milled flour or organic flour (not necessarily local) to artisan and home bakers; and finally, bakers using flour from locally grown or locally supplied grain. I wanted to visit people who live and breathe this every day, making a living along the commodity chain that begins with farmers and ends with us, consumers. I wanted to ask them about how they make decisions according to both their values and the realities of the market.

Growing and Milling

My first stop was southwest of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, at Weatherbury Farm. Clocking in at 130 miles from my home, it pushes the boundaries of what some people consider local, though there is no agreed upon radius in the food world. Some locavores stop at 100 miles; the USDA says 400 miles counts. Regardless of where you stand, Weatherbury comes awfully close to checking all the boxes a baker might hope for. The farm is certified organic, and Dale, Marcy, and their son Nigel Tudor ¹, the family farmers, are adamant about eschewing chemicals. They raise heirloom varieties of wheat, spelt, emmer, einkorn, rye, corn, and buckwheat.

You realize that healthy soil has a fresh, soul-rejoicing quality to it and that most of the rest of the soils you have ever smelled are as sterile as the plastic-wrapped breads in the grocery aisle.

As I began walking around the farm, I immediately noticed the wonderful smell of the earth itself. The aroma of their soil is sublime. The Tudors said that they have been working to enrich the quality of their soil for years. “The amount of carbon sequestered in our silt-loam soil has nearly tripled,” said Nigel. Inhaling the smell of excellent soil is analogous to breathing in the scent of freshly baked bread. You realize that healthy soil has a fresh, soul-rejoicing quality to it and that most of the rest of the soils you have ever smelled are as sterile as the plastic-wrapped breads in the grocery aisle.

I got to have a long discussion with the Tudors, and at one point I asked how they managed insect infestations and weeds without using any pesticides. “We rotate crops,” they said, “so no field sees the same set of plants from one season to the next.” That means an insect that specializes in bedeviling spelt, for example, is going to face a forest of clover as soon as the spelt is harvested. Spelt bugs, generally speaking, do not eat clover, so they starve or scram, leaving the land infestation-free.

“Also,” they added, “the dense canopy of clover crowds out weeds.” Marcy Tudor said, “Nigel and Dale use hand-held spreaders, so they walk about 40 miles when they plant clover. The clover imparts nitrogen fertilizer to the soil.” Since they harvest hay from their clover fields several times a season, the continual cutting makes it hard for any weed plants to grow tall enough to produce seeds.

Of great convenience to their consumers, they own a pair of Osttiroller stone mills to turn their harvests into flour. Once a month, bakers can drive to the farm to pick up freshly milled flour. Most exciting, and perhaps unique to Weatherbury, their website hosts a field-to-mill grain tracker. You can see when and how their grain was planted, watch it grow, observe the harvest, and marvel at the flour it has produced. For bakers too far away to drive, the Tudors will send this month’s flour to you in the mail. Which means that not everyone getting Weatherbury’s flour, was buying it because it was local.

As idyllic as the Weatherbury Farm may be, it is limited in what it can do. The 100 or so acres that the Tudors farm is hilly and some of their property is forested. That means that their fields have to be small–none is larger than five acres–which then means they cannot use large machines. With the property and manpower they have, they cannot increase production. At present, about 40 people or so show up for a monthly pick-up and another 20 get their flour in the mail.

Moreover, the quality of their flour, as well as the yield of a particular grain, varies from year to year. Some years the weather is dryer, wetter, colder, or hotter than it is in other years. The protein content in the same variety of wheat that you purchased last year might not be the same this year. For a home baker, that might not be a big deal, but to run a baking business, you can’t have that kind of inconsistency from bag to bag–not to mention the uncertainty of knowing there will be enough flour to buy. “Home bakers can cope with the annual variation in the quality of the flour,”said Nigel. “Some years a flour might be higher in protein than in other years. Commercial bakers really want consistency.”

…

Decisions, Decisions

After my travels I considered how I might prioritize purchasing flour for my bread. The wheat farmers most local to me are super friendly. I like them a lot. They are not the kinds of farmers you meet at the farmers market, but just like vendors at the farmers market, they invite me to visit their farms any time I’d like. They answer all my questions. They let me ride in their tractors. They are proponents of conventional, rather than organic, farming, and their products are unfailingly consistent and inexpensive.

I like the idea of buying flour from Weatherbury Farm, not least because of all the farmers I have met and spoken to, they are among the best at combating climate change. I baked with their flours and the flavor was incredible. Probably worth the price. But definitely not worth the two and a half hour drive, which leaves mail order as the best way to receive their products. Another mark-up, both for my bank account and the environment.”

1.  Originally read ” Nigel, Marcy, and their son Dale Tudor” corrected above.