The Passing of Dorothy Pavolka and the Fate of the Farm

Pavolka Fruit Farm is located at the very northern tip of Indiana and was founded in 1920, growing old variety apples with names like transparent, snow, and northern spy.  Now, with the farm just six years shy of a century,  Dorothy Pavolka the lady who has run the farm for so many years, has passed away.

Let me start by saying that I never met the woman.  We had only heard about her and this farm from a friend.  We are looking for farmland and when we were asking around about on place in particular, we were gently nudged in the direction of Pavolka Fruit Farm.

The research that we have, if it can be called that, is very simple.  There were two obituaries written about her in the local papers.  It seems she ran the family farm all of her life.  She had three brothers and two sisters but she alone ran the farm. She has plenty of nieces and nephews. Visitors to the farm said that she knew the place like the back of her hand and she knew everything there was to know about each variety of fruit on the property.

Pavolka Fruit Farm was started at a time when and in
a place where there was not much recorded, written history.  1920 in that area in that time was a place where you were likely to find stills and moonshine runners in and amongst the fruit trees.  There is even a story about the previous owner's family cemetery being located behind one of the barns.  When someone passed back then, they laid them to rest where the family felt best.

The farm is as close as possible to organic without being certified as such.  This was not by some grand organic design based on marketing.  Mainly this is because she did things the
way they had always been done with improvements and modifications made only as she could no longer do them by hand and avoiding pesticides and chemicals where ever possible.  A lot of things were done by hand around the farm for as long as they could be done.  There are no websites, there are no Facebook pages or other social media accounts.  Signs were hand made and advertisements were word of mouth.

From what we understand there are no provisions for her passing.  It was not something that was taken into consideration even though she was 86 at the time of her passing.  At a time when the average age of the average farmer is 59 years old and rising and the family farm is giving way to the massive corporate farms, a lot of owners are seeing that they have no one to follow in their footsteps while simultaneously, it is beginning to make more economic sense for them to sell to or work for a major conglomerate.

On our plate are some rather large issues.  First, how do we encourage youth to get into farming?  Land and equipment are almost prohibitively expensive.  There are number of ideas on the table from providing more scholarships to work on farms to youth, to tenant farmer scenarios to encourage batches of youth to work land that is owned by someone else.  Though the sharecropper term has earned a bad reputation in the Jim Crow south, fairly done, it seems like a viable option for young farmers of today.

Secondly, is it possible to get corporate farms to act more responsibly and in a more environmentally and customer oriented fashion?  Monsanto draws a lot of heat for genetically modified foods, but there are many that would make the argument that they fill a void that is rather large in the world.  There are 7 billion people on the planet and they have to be fed.  Monsanto grows in mass amounts that keep food costs low for many and in their search for a lower bottom line, they have created food as a commodity regardless of its effect on the community.  It's a corporation.  It is doing what corporations do, which is act in in own interests for the sake of the stakeholders.  It does it well.

Third, making food affordable for many is a key and what part does the average person have in that equation?  We throw out, by some estimates, half of what we produce in this country.  Many would say the reason is that we are a wasteful society.  What personal choices should we be making to curb these losses.  Growing our own food and dealing with the political ramifications thereof is another subset of this problem.  A lot of local communities are battling with the idea of whether it is even legal to grow your own food (strange, I know).

Finally, we should return to Dorothy Pavolka.  Like I said at the beginning, I have never met the woman and our condolences go out to her family.  We are talking about a farm though that has been around for nearly 100 years owned by the same same family and meticulously worked mainly by one woman.  She has shown her commitment to the community and to the craft by dedicating her life to it, but what do WE owe HER?  How much of this farm does the community own? (with all due respect to the family we do realize that it is legally and emotionally zero.) Maybe not "ownership", but a responsibility to support it.

So this is not just about the state of the Pavolka Fruit Farm, but the state of the American farm in general. In the coming weeks we are going to explore this topic and what can be done.  How do we bring a farm into the 21st century?

Carol Jordan can be reached at 9of9productions@gmail.com
or on twitter at @9t9knives

The Chef and the Giving Heart, Thoughts on the new charity landscape.

Being a chef today means dealing with an unending flow of solicitations from charitable organizations which want fancy food for their parties; restaurant gift certificates for their auctions and cooking demonstrations for their benefit events. "The only group I've seen asked to do more is R.E.M," says Hugh Acheson, who in 2000 opened Five & Ten, his first restaurant, in Athens, Ga. Seattle Weekly, July 2012.


The man has a point. Chef Acheson, we are certain has a mailbox full of requests. Yet, let's look at the other side.  We are a giving bunch, but the chances that we have to work with charities and the costs associated with it can be rather taxing.  So Chef Acheson is right and you have to weigh your chances to do some good and choose your causes wisely.  Or do we?

There is a movement to shift the paradigm to giving in ways that are beneficial on a number of levels and not just single "silver bullet" events.  The problem is, as ever, the clock and the calendar.  Let's be honest, people give at holidays and special events and occasions.  Thus, charities run their fundraising schedules off of when people give.  Chefs and others are asked to give their time during their busiest times of year, personally and professionally.  I have yet to meet a chef that did not want to give, but still did not have to deal with produce deliveries and line cooks not showing up, etc.  Not to mention our own families and personal obligations. We are pulled in a number of different directions all at once like a tug of war. 

Enter Social Entrepeneurism.  Social entrepeneurism is a trend that is taking hold in a lot of places and gaining ground...thank goodness. The idea is simple: use the money being made to help other organizations year round.  Better yet, the trend seems to be for organizations to invest in their own concepts to earn their own income year round.   It is not unusual anymore to see a church running a coffee shop and often taking it further by hiring the people the proceeds are meant to help.

This is not a unique idea, but why is it getting so prolific now?  The main reason is that we are in a down economy.  We are beginning to see the top end of the giving nature and the proliferation of charitable practicality.  In short, people want and need more bang for their buck than the warm feeling they get from giving. So, if they are going to pay five dollars for a cup of coffee, why not one where the majority of the profit goes to charity?

Crowdsourcing has gained momentum lately as well.  The interesting thing about this is that as an idea, it begins to fall into the same traps that standard fundraising does with people wanting more for their dollar when a dollar has to be stretched all around.  The popularity of the idea has given way to people making premium decisions to market their idea.  So ostensibly, an idea that was supposed to level the playing field by giving means for the "little guy" is co-opted by groups that are able to field heavier marketing campaigns (videos, viral marketing campaigns, etc.).  Perks for donating and advertising have to be stronger and stronger to reach the numbers to make the idea viable.


The idea of social entrepeneurism is more and more attractive to charities and should be very freeing.  Done correctly, ideas like this take away from even having to hire someone to specifically raise funds.  Raising money independently like this frees them from special interest or having to in any way dilute what the whole mission is about for the sake of the highest donor.  People with the money for coffee or any other product has the same monetary vote and thus they can concentrate on achieving the nominal goal of the organization..

Needless to say the charity landscape has become an odd battleground and those who have a cause are going to have to find more and more creative ways to capture a dwindling dollar share.  Chefs are a creative bunch and the coming years are going to be pretty interesting as we see what we can come up with.  With pop-up dinners, food trucks, and more the options are widening and for those willing to chance it, the future looks bright.  

Carol Jordan is Editor in Chief of 99Knives, writer, and pastry chef in Columbia, SC and works with charities all across the country to create events that support good causes.  She can be contacted at 9of9productions@gmail.com with questions and comments and find us on twitter @9t9knives