"We grow more than just fruits and vegetables in this industry. We grow Farmers."
And, just like that, Walt Dasher has given me the sustenance I need to launch into this story—with passion as an anchor and people as the purpose.
People like Walt are rare in the world, but standard-building in our industry. From the first time I spoke to him just a few years earlier to where we sit now, I have come to know Walt, G&R Farms’ Vice President, as a man with a fresh produce mythos that hums with the deep beliefs of our industry: connection, cultivation, and stewardship of both people and the land.
Like stewardship implies, Walt is very much an entrusted heir tending to today’s fresh faces. A way to draw a line of legacy into the future—and not just for G&R Farms, but for the next generation of farmers as a whole.
As we sit down to break bread and dig into G&R Farms’ annual program, Growing America’s Farmers (GAF), I can’t help but wonder how it all started and how Walt sees today’s dynamic conversation around our farmers laying a foundation for tomorrow.
Walt Dasher, Vice President, G&R Farms: We are a third-generation family farm and have been fortunate to have had sound generational transitional plans. But, I continued to see more and more family farms go away or pull out of the business because the next generation didn’t want to take the risk or couldn’t afford to gamble on the family farm. It shouldn’t have to be that kind of decision—that we can’t afford to farm or take a risk. If everyone made that decision, who would produce our food? Fewer and fewer people continue to produce the food we all consume, and it is estimated that we will need more than double the food produced today by the year 2050 due to the increasing global population.
Currently, only two percent of the entire United States population produces the food we all eat. Without food production, we have no security as a nation. We take for granted that here in the U.S. we have the safest, most affordable, and most abundant food supply in the world. As our food needs have grown with the increase in the global population, the pandemic also shined a light on the vulnerability of our food supply chains and how labor and logistics can not only delay, but completely cripple our access to food and even the farming inputs we use to grow that food.
The relationship is directly related: As inflation grows, so does the cost of inputs. If we don’t place a priority on the role of farmers and the importance of the people who grow and harvest our food, we are all at risk of facing food shortages or quickly understanding how privileged we are to have access to affordable food, which could make food insecurity an even more critical problem for larger swaths of the U.S. population.
The mission of our Growing America’s Farmers program is not only to build awareness for the people who grow our food now, but also those who will do so in the future—all while raising funds to support scholarships to advocate for students pursuing careers in production agriculture. That is it in a nutshell. But it is so much bigger than just these tenets.
WD: The key is production agriculture. It’s not that we don’t want to support all areas of agriculture, but there are not enough young people going into farming and ranching at the production level, as I mentioned before.
On the supply-side, we are rallying our brand and our resources to address the needs of today’s industry head-on. Additionally, we have built a robust partnership with retailers to help carry the message to today’s diverse demographics, age groups, and future farmers.
Through the program, a portion of the sales of designated products is donated to the National FFA Foundation, which designates those funds to local FFA programs of participating retailers’ choice. The money goes to supporting students that are pursuing careers in production agriculture. With the program, we have generated support from the seed to the retail front.
WD: We have always focused on kicking off the Growing America’s Farmers program in May and running it through June, so there are a full eight weeks of promotional in-store campaigns as well as fundraising for maximum awareness. With that said, there is certainly flexibility to move the timeline for different retailers if needed—including expanding the program to a longer period of time for greater impact.
This program started as a small internal passion project with a few key customers and has grown to multiple retailers throughout the U.S. We also tested participation with another commodity vendor last year and are now looking to include more brands and vendors in 2022 to help grow awareness and funding for student scholarships and grants.
"The mission of our Growing America's Farmers program is not only to build awareness for the people who grow our food now, but also those who will do so in the future—all while raising funds to support scholarships to advocate for students pursuing careers in production agriculture."
Walt Dasher, Vice President, G&R Farms
Each and every one of us in the food business—every grower, packer, and shipper—needs to think about who will take our seat in the tractor as the new torchbearer. Any grower/shippers interested in participating can contact us at [email protected] to learn more. The program includes public relations, social media, point-of-sale materials, and coordination with state and national FFA programs to amplify total reach.
WD: Retailers who want to participate can reach out to me and the team as well. It’s not just a grower/shipper issue. Retailers have been a huge contributor to supporting ag and the next generation on the supply-side.
The National FFA Foundation has sponsors in every step of the food supply chain, except retail. In our conversations with the FFA, they have asked us how we can better complete that last step—the step closest to the consumer and the true endpoint—to close the loop. I’d love to see every retailer—small, independent, regional, and national—support this program. Imagine the message we could send about the future of agriculture.
WD: We’ve already raised nearly $250,000 in scholarships for students pursuing careers in production agriculture. As more suppliers get involved, I’d love to see millions—even hundreds of millions—of dollars raised to support students pursuing careers in farming and ranching.
It’s expensive to get involved in production—from the cost of land and equipment to the risk/return equation of planting a crop and all of the inputs waiting for harvest and payment. Anything we can do to help make that entry point easier is critical for the next generation.
Enough cannot be stressed about the impact of today’s food production on the health of the present population and its viability in the future. There is no single individual who can piece together the puzzle of our predicament and make the health of the farmer whole again. Walt knows this. But, it has not and will not stop his drive to galvanize us. And when those individuals become many, and those many become a movement, we will look back and thank those like Walt. Those that grow more than produce, those who grow the heart of farming—the people. 
