Debbie and Duwayne Bearden believe everyone has a touch of farmer in them. And they’d like to help bring it out.
The Beardens are this year’s marshals for Farm-City Days, representing the ag side of the equation.
Today they raise cattle and poultry on their 80-acre farm one mile east of Allen County Airport, as well as 100 acres they lease from Barbara Diehl east of LaHarpe. They also are the “face” of Allen County’s Farmers Market, reborn after a lapse of several years.
The Beardens are strong advocates of the farm-to-table movement, where consumers take an interest in how the food they eat is grown or raised.
“If you have a policy of you eat what you grow, then those principles will likely change how you grow food,” Duwayne said. “We’re certainly not going to sell something we wouldn’t eat ourselves.”
The Beardens manage a heard of 25 Angus cows and 300 chickens. They sell the beef and broilers from their home. Bolling’s Meat Market stocks their eggs, averaging 20-30 dozen a week.
The cattle are grass-fed with the addition of minerals and vitamins but minus hormones or antibiotics. The chickens roam around a spacious coop, producing about 100 eggs a day. They are fed only grains with no additives.
Large-scale poultry producers add ground up feathers, “feather mill,” and bones from the poultry they have slaughtered to their chicken feed, Duwayne said with a disgusted look.
Before Cara Bolling opened up her meat market and deli in Iola, Debbie drove to Wichita each Saturday morning to sell their eggs there.
“It went against our idea of local food for local people,” she said. “I also was wasting all that fossil fuel to drive to Wichita, which didn’t feel good.”
THE FARMERS Market re-opened in 2009 due to the efforts of Debbie and her position as county coordinator at the Allen County Farm Bureau Association. The market had ceased when vendors objected to the Kansas Department of Revenue insisting they include and report sales tax receipts.
Today, the practice is not a problem, she said. Most vendors report their sales quarterly and are charged a 8.55 percent tax.
The market on the west side of the Iola square is on Thursday evenings from 5:30 to 7 p.m. Last Thursday was the last for the season.
Good weather helped sales and attendance this year. Statistics gathered by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment showed an evening in July tallied 38 vendors catering to more than 1,000 shoppers and their families.
“That’s not only good for vendors but for all of the Iola merchants that extend their Thursday night hours, especially those around the square,” Debbie said.
Duwayne espouses the other benefits of the market.
