gary guthrie: the carrot king - Edible Communities

gary guthrie:
the carrot king
by jay wagner
Consider the ordinary carrot. It’s a decent snack: crunchy, slighty
sweet, satisfying. I’ve been eating ‘em for years, often as an afternoon
snack.
But I had never truly experienced a carrot until I met Gary
Guthrie, a Nevada farmer. According to the USDA, carrots are
the fifth most consumed vegetable in the country; Americans eat
an average of 9.5 pounds each year. But in 2003, the year I sampled
my first Guthrie-grown carrot, my family consumed nearly 40
pounds of them in the span of three months. They are that good.
Here’s the thing about supermarket carrots: they are bred to
be mechanically harvested, withstand shipping across the country
(most carrots come from California, which produces 76 percent
of the nation’s carrots) and sit on the shelf at the grocery
store for weeks. The average carrot travels 1,700 miles from farm
to grocery store. And it tastes like it.
The first time I ate one of one of Guthrie’s
carrots at the Iowa Vegetable Growers conference
in Ames, I was so surprised by the flavor
that I giggled after my first bite. Then I looked
around to see if anyone was watching me and I
ate another. And then another. And another.
Guthrie says he never intended to be Iowa’s
carrot king. He started raising vegetables in
1997 and experimented with a number of heirloom
vegetables, including carrots. Gary farms
with his wife, Nancy, and son, Eric, on Growing
Harmony farm, located between Nevada
and Ames in central Iowa. He grew up here but
left Iowa to work in community development
in Central America for the Mennonite Central
Committee.
When he decided to try his hand at vegetable
production, he began a Community Supported
Agriculture system, in which consumers support
a local farm by paying in advance for agricultural
products. This reduces the financial risks for the
farmer because the costs of seeds and planting
crops are covered in advance by consumers.
Throughout the growing season, CSA members
receive a portion of the farm’s harvest each week.
If the crop fails, everyone loses; but when there’s
a bumper crop, everyone sees the benefits.
Guthrie was looking for a way to supplement
his CSA income and decided that carrots
make economic sense because of their long
shelf life. With carrots, he could market them
through the fall, maximizing sales potential.
That is, if carrot fans like me haven’t hoarded all
of Guthrie’s product we can get our hands on.
Guthrie experiments with a variety of carrot
varieties, but his most popular is the Bolero,
which does well in cool weather. Guthrie says
he realized how good the Bolero was when he
pulled some strays out of the ground after snow
had fallen in December, 1997. The taste, he says,
was unlike anything he had ever experienced.
10 SPRING 2007 EDIBLE IOWA RIVER VALLEY

Photo by Carole Topalian
During the next year, he began to research the best ways to
grow carrots and sought out studies comparing varietals. Bolero
constantly came out on top and he made it is trademark carrot.
Researchers found that unlike other vegetables, a tasty carrot will
taste the same regardless of where it’s grown. Intrigued, he increased
production.
Guthrie farms entirely by hand, a backbreaking enterprise for
a vegetable farm as large as his. He raises a half-dozen varieties of
carrots and is constantly trying out new types (his CSA customers
are sometimes invited to carrot tasting parties at his farm) but
the end of the season Bolero is his most popular. Other carrots
that he recommends include the mid-summer Nelson, the fall
Mokum, the Ithaca, and the Sugarsnax.
During 2006, Guthrie grew nearly 5,000 pounds of carrots
Carrot lovers can find Guthrie’s gems through other farmers operating
CSAs, a handful of retailers (like the Wheatsfield Co-op
in Ames), and some selected restaurants in the region. Consumers
on their own personal carrot hunt can also call Growing Harmony
Farm for direct sales.
Growing Harmony Farm
Gary Guthrie
58444 260th St
Nevada, Iowa 50201
515.382.3117
EDIBLE IOWA RIVER VALLEY SPRING 2007