Locals grow all-natural produce for community

As the spring season continues to bring new life into trees and flowers on campus, local farmers are hoping the warm weather draws students from their dorms out to the farm.

Mitchel Morse and Sam Heikes, both longtime residents of Vermillion, are in the farming business. They have a particular interest in providing the community with fresh, local produce and greens.

“My great grandfather left a potato farm in 1870s, met my great grandmother, and they started a vegetable business,” Morse said. “It’s the only thing I knew. I’m the fifth generation now.”

Morse’s history of life on the farm dates back to when he was a child, but he said he’s been in the business of produce since about the 1960s.

Similarly, Heikes has been farming the same soil his parents worked over when they obtained the land in 1946.

“I’ve been farming my whole life,” Heikes said. “I love playing in the soil. It means a lot to maintain to my ability what my grandfather lost in (the Depression).”

Both farmers have a passion for growing and providing food to the community, but there’s one aspect of their businesses that set them apart from the average farm in Clay County.

Heikes and Morse don’t farm hundreds of acres of land, and they don’t grow a large crop of soybeans or corn. Instead, they’re scaling their operations down and focusing on what they love most — growing natural, healthy produce the community can purchase at a farmers stand or through Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) shares.

Heikes farms 12.5 acres of land, growing produce such as potatoes, onions and lettuce. He also has a small fruit orchard. He sells the produce from his labors through CSA shares — a business method he said he’s seen a lot of interest in within the community.

“The way people lived back then is the way people want to go in the future with their food production,” he said. “I have a passion for going back to the future. I’m an analog guy in a digital world.”

When he began selling shares four years ago, Heikes said he sold about 40 of them. Today, that number has grown to about 130 shares.

Heidi Heikes, Sam’s daughter and business partner at Heikes Family Farm, said a new strategy they’ve implemented this year is a deal on shares for college students to encourage them to buy local produce and eat healthier.

“We thought since college students are only here (in Vermillion) part of the time, they’d maybe be interested in (a monthly share),” she said.

Morse said he’s also seen more of an interest over the years for buying and eating local produce. Morse’s farm business is a little different from Heikes’. Morse is a wholesaler, and he said he purchases most of his produce from other local farmers in the surrounding area. Common produce he sells includes potatoes, cucumbers and tomatoes. He also sells a variety of vegetable seeds.

But there’s one aspect of Morse’s Farm Market that sets him a part from his competitors.

“My mother got me into the flower thing,” Morse said. “Our flower business got going good in the 1960s, (and) we were basically the only one in Vermillion for about 30 years.”

Morse said he prides his flower selection and quality over everything else at his market. For both Morse and Heikes, making connections with people and sharing their knowledge about farming is the best part about their job.

“This is our mission in life — to help people become more healthy by the food they eat,” Heikes said.

(Photo: Heidi Heikes, a partner in Heikes Family Farms, checks for weeds among lettuce rows in the farm’s greenhouse April 18. Trent Opstedahl / The Volante)