Seeding farm innovation in Frederick County

Key Takeaways

In Frederick County, Md., the Agriculture Innovation Grant Program is helping local farmers expand and diversify their business operations with the aim of strengthening the county’s agricultural economy.

Frederick County leads Maryland in dairy production, and helping agricultural businesses and farms diversify is a priority for the county, noted Becca Tucker, senior business development manager for Frederick County’s Office of Agriculture.

“We’re helping these farms diversify into new marketing outlets to help our farms remain profitable,” Tucker said. “… The committee is really looking at that value-added agriculture space, so taking overall agricultural product and producing that into something else — think of apples and fruits and turning those into jams.”

One of the program’s grant recipients is Stone Pillar Farm, a 20-acre regenerative farm operated by first-generation farmers with a focus on fresh produce and pasture-raised meats and eggs. It’s run by the Fahrner family: Abby and Mike Fahrner, their children and Mike’s parents.

When the Fahrners bought the farm, none of them had any experience farming. Abby and Mike’s oldest child has autoimmune and digestive issues. Frustrated that they couldn’t find fresh food her body could process, the family dove into books on farming and YouTube videos on homesteading until they decided to make the jump themselves during the pandemic.

“Make what you can’t find,” Abby said.

The Fahrners sell their products directly from their farm, at farmers markets, in grocery stores and through a community-supported agriculture program where people sign up to get fresh vegetables and meat.

They started with laying hens in 2021 and have added an enterprise to the farm each year since, with help from Frederick County’s Agriculture Innovation Grant Program. Stone Pillar Farm’s most recent addition is pigs.

“We take a year to get something started, get it off the ground, and there’s always startup costs with that, and there’s a learning curve with it,” Mike said. “So, we get a handle on what we’re doing and then are able to add something after that.

“The temptation with having a farm and having land is just ‘Old MacDonald’ and have everything on your farm and really get it rolling, but it’s really easy for startup costs to get away from you, and also to just kind of drown in the work and the busyness of it all.”

The Agriculture Innovation Grant Program, which awards $250,000 a year across two grant cycles, provides upfront funding to its recipients, which is “so important” to farmers, Mike noted. Some grant programs in the agricultural space reimburse farmers for costs after a project is completed, but many farmers don’t have the capital to get projects done on their own, so the program’s flexibility and funding structure is a game changer, he said.

Since it launched in 2021, the program has awarded more than $1.86 million to 82 agricultural projects across the county.

Stone Pillar Farm has received three grants through the program, which has enabled them to upgrade equipment and build infrastructure for poultry processing, cold storage and a wash and pack station for vegetables. The farm’s biggest obstacle is profitability, so having the ability to be more self-sufficient is key, according to Mike.

“Rather than taking your chickens to a processor, if you can process them yourself, then you get to keep all of that processing money,” Mike said. “So, that’s what we’re trying to do, and that’s what the [agriculture] grants have helped out with is giving us the infrastructure we need to do as much on the farm here as we can.”

Frederick County’s Office of Agriculture is conducting a feasibility study exploring the possibility of creating a Center for Farm Retail Innovation, which would act as a “one-stop hub” for farmers with the potential for processing capabilities, shared-use kitchen space and education.

You can’t preserve farms without preserving farmers, according to Katie Stevens, Frederick County’s director of agriculture. And that’s why Frederick County is investing in its agricultural community, Tucker noted.

“Farming is challenging, and [agriculture] is growing and changing faster than government can keep up with it — than anything can keep up with it,” Tucker said. “So, having that avenue for farmers to be able to look outside of the box and diversify — whether that’s marketing outlets, whether that’s by developing new products — that’s what that program has really helped develop, to really keep [agriculture] as a viable and strong, economically sound industry in Frederick County.”