Biewer Farms LLC

Biewer Farms is a Certified Naturally Grown farm specializing in vegetable produce located in Evening Shade Arkansas.

Address

275 BACKBONE Road
Evening Shade, AR
72532

Telephone

Website

http://www.biewerfarms.com/

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A Farmer from the beggining...

The story of our family farm started long ago. Dad and Mom always had a backyard farm spirit, whether it be chickens, rabbits, or a garden. As early as I can remember, I have memories of spending time in the garden, mostly munching on tomatoes while listening to my mom try to make dinner with a missing salt shaker. I spent most of my time outside and as the years passed I begin to start my own vegetable patches. My first “by myself garden” attempt was a potato patch. Very very small, but enough to feed our family in small red roasting potatoes for quite awhile. Picking green beans, tomatoes, and squash was just summertime! Even in high school I kept a garden, growing okra, cantaloupe, tomatoes, squash, and green beans. I have always loved to experiment and try new things, things that I have never done. After all if you are motivated, hardworking, and put your mind to something, there is little that you can’t accomplish. All of my experimental passions always focused around creating things though....

After I married my beautiful wife and high school sweetheart we moved off to the city to find work. Wait, did you think I stopped farming? I took urban farming to a new level. Try third story apartment with a 3 foot by 6 foot balcony. Did I grow bell peppers, tomatoes and herbs... YOU BET with just enough room to squeeze in a lounge chair to enjoy the garden. Thereafter we moved to the country again and commuted to the city. Here we really started trying new things. Picture this 3/4 acre lot with a house and shop on it, 9 goats, 8 chickens, 6 rabbits, a garden, apple trees, compost pile, and a donkey named Jeffery. (he was free and needed a good home!) I grew lettuce on the porch in containers, and bigger crops in the small garden. We even hayed the front yard once (what little was left) to help feed/bed animals. We were young and poor and I will say that there were many times when dinner was what came off the property. Here I fell in love for a second time in my life... with farming!

We moved home, Evening Shade that is, and carried on. Our family land is a rocky hillside that is FULL of rocks. Did I mention the rocks? We dedicated ourselves to learning skill sets that are just not present in society anymore. Gardening, raising livestock, sewing, cooking, canning, building etc... My degree in Imagineering really went to the grad school level over the next few years for sure.

The conversation that changed it all.

Son says, “We need to figure out how to do something really well on this property.” Dad says, “Sell Rocks.” Son dismissing dad says, “What is already here that we have to work with, what wants to grow here?” Dad says, “The only thing we have that closely numbers the amount of rocks, is blackberries. You can’t kill em.” Son has an idea and says, “Is there money in it?” Dad says, “Tons if you can make it happen.” Son is sold and says, “So all it is going to take is excruciating hard work and sacrifice for an indefinite period of time and maybe we achieve our goal? (without hesitation son continues) Done totally worth it!”

The next spring, blackberries were put in a test plot and did amazing! We attended the Univesity of Arkansas Blackberry School and learned enormous amounts. Dad and I were hooked. We then spent a few years testing varieties of blackberry, blueberry, muscadine, aronia berry and all kinds of stuff in our test plot and garden. Just before our first major production year I felt like we needed some diversity and really became inspired by small scale agriculture. I knew it was possible because I had fed my own family from it before but never guessed you could make a living as a “suped up gardener”. Well you can! As I researched blackberry production I began to run into the likes of J.M. Fortier, Charles Dowding, Eliot Coleman, and Curtis Stone. The more I dug, the more I learned not only was it possible but how great a need it was! I learned our agriculture system was truly in a downward spiral of sustainability and to top it off the average age of the farmers in America was 60 years old!

Who is going to feed our children?! Who is going to pass on these waning skill sets? Who is innovating in a sustainable direction? Who is willing to work extremely hard for relatively little money to pursue a passion? Who is going to stand up and help make our system sustainable again? Just as I answered the call to Christ, the answer was the same. Why not me? God made me for a reason, He gave me these desires and passions for a reason. He has molded and shaped me from a young boy for this. With His grace and mercy I am sustained and that gives me the ability to answer with ease the question, can we achieve the improbable or even the seemingly impossible? No, but HE can through me if I would only humble myself and commit to His calling on my life.

I may not be the best, brightest, or most successful rock... I mean vegetable farmer but I give it everything I have! We have since found such a heavy web of support from our family, friends, community, national and international organizations. There is much more to our story but I hope this helps any of you who take time to read it to see that it isn’t about the money, the achievements, the trendy “Organic” movement. It is about restoring to our lives the basic call on our lives to pursue what is good and to fight what is not! Will you stand up with us, despite our differences, as we can all be united by these passions that are within us.

This is our story and you are welcome to be a part of it. In our ministry work we have a saying, “lets do life together.”

God Bless!

Dave Biewer