Five Questions With: Jesse Rye

MANAGING DIRECTOR of Farm Fresh Rhode Island Jesse Rye grew up in a Wisconsin agricultural community and is encouraged by what is happening in the Ocean State. / COURTESY JESSE RYE
MANAGING DIRECTOR of Farm Fresh Rhode Island Jesse Rye grew up in a Wisconsin agricultural community and is encouraged by what is happening in the Ocean State. / COURTESY JESSE RYE

Jesse Rye is managing director of Farm Fresh Rhode Island, a Pawtucket-based nonprofit that seeks to connect local consumers to locally grown and raised food.
Using 11 farmer’s markets across the state and a host of other entrepreneurial programs that deliver food from farms to schools and businesses, Farm Fresh hopes to make both Rhode Island eaters and the state’s farming and fishing industries healthier.

PBN: How did your upbringing in Wisconsin help determine your career path?

RYE: I’m from Algoma, a small town on Lake Michigan with a big focus on agriculture and fishing. Both of those industries were going through big changes while I was growing up, and many of the core industries in Algoma were closing shop, so our town looked very different to my generation than it did to my parents. I come from a family with a lot of small business owners, so the ideas of entrepreneurship and supporting local business are very much in my blood. I have been inspired by the opportunities that exist in my childhood community and my career to date has tried to focus on how places like Algoma can work to support themselves economically while preserving a unique sense of place, cultural traditions and environmental integrity.

PBN: How did you come to Farm Fresh RI and what attracted you to the opportunity?

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RYE: I moved to Rhode Island for two reasons: I was in love, and I wanted to change my career focus to sustainable agriculture and social enterprise development. My partner Emily was getting her master’s degree in design from RISD and after graduation planned on opening a business in Pawtucket. I was living in Baltimore working as a program officer for the state arts council and helping communities develop a robust arts and cultural infrastructure and support systems.

On paper my career felt right for my graduate degree – public policy and arts administration — but my heart kept coming back to the importance of food in building community. I couldn’t stop thinking about how something was missing, both in my life and work. So I quit my job, moved to Rhode Island and started freelancing. When the opportunity to work at Farm Fresh came up, it seemed like the perfect fit. It gave me the chance to get my hands dirty, use a lot of the experience I had already developed and also feel like I was making a difference. It’s the type of job that if you get things right you can really feel like you will be leaving a corner of the world better than you found it.

PBN: What is the biggest challenge Farm Fresh RI faces in its mission to connect farm fresh food with people who want and need it?

RYE: There is a lot of optimism and investment in developing local food systems right now. Consumers are very interested in where their food is coming from and how it is grown. Farmers need to capitalize on this goodwill and capital influx to build infrastructure and position their farms for the long term. In agriculture that can mean years of development, whether considering planting new crops or building structures that will extend the production calendar.

Local food isn’t a fad, but it isn’t always going to be on the front page of the dining section either. At Farm Fresh RI our Market Mobile, Veggie Box programs and farmer’s markets are helping farmers to reduce their business risk by diversifying their market mix. These programs help people and institutions engage with locally grown food. With Market Mobile, our transparent wholesale distribution system, farmers and chefs interact directly online. The farmer’s list their own prices, restaurants place their orders online, farmers make one delivery to our warehouse and we deliver the food on their behalf to over 100 customers in Rhode Island and Boston.

We’re trying something new with this program, and the challenge is to make sure that we are growing in a responsible way that honors the farmers, their customers and is logistically feasible and financially sustainable for our organization.

PBN: What is the state of the family farm in Rhode Island today? Is it better or worse than 10 years ago and what will it be like in another 10 years?

RYE: To put this in greater context, America once had thriving regional and local food systems that allowed more opportunities for small and mid-sized family farms. The change from that system to what it looked like 10 years ago was pretty drastic and took place over many decades. Ten years ago in Rhode Island specifically, a lot of the critical food infrastructure, like viable produce markets and slaughterhouses, had eroded or disappeared. Those losses made it very hard for small and mid-sized family farms to succeed. They needed more diverse selling mechanisms that respected and rewarded the scale they were working at the quality of the product they were growing.

Today there is a lot of interest in local food and supporting local farmers. At the same time small and mid-sized family farming is still very much a challenge in Rhode Island. However, you are starting to see a lot of success stories rooted in children of farmers developing the necessary business skills and creativity that make their farms viable for their families and future generations. Both Chris Clegg of Four Town Farm and Rich Schartner of Schartner Farms are great examples of stewards of family farms. We are also seeing new farmers in the state. Freedom Food Farm, founded in 2012 and located just miles from downtown Providence, has already become well-known for their organically grown produce.

The hope for 10 years from now is that farmers will have been able to capitalize on the visibility of the local food movement and turn that good will and support into investment in their operations. We estimate that just 1 percent of the food consumed in Rhode Island is locally grown or caught. What would that look like in 10 years if that number were 30 or 50 percent?

PBN: If we opened your refrigerator, what would we see?

RYE: Great question! Our refrigerator is a mix of items from Rhode Island and Massachusetts purchased at a farmer’s market or through the Market Mobile program. Here is what that looks like today: Allen Farm Pea Greens; Blue Skys Farm garlic chives, oregano and rosemary; Langwater Farm beets & kale; ground beef from New England Grassfed; pickled Four Town Farm rainbow carrots and onions; pickled Wishing Stone Farm cucumbers; pickled Baffoni’s eggs – a Wisconsin tradition with Rhode Island ingredients!

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