NEWPORT, Va. – Farms across the country are closing at an alarming rate, with experts estimating that about 2,000 acres of farmland cease operations each year.
The Blue Horn, like many others in the region, is family-owned and striving to create a sustainable way of life.
“I joke I work full time to pay for my farming habit,” said Eric Canfield, the farm manager.
Owners Eric Canfield and Lauren Lovejoy have been farming for seven years.
Their main product is pork, but they said one of the hardest parts about farming is getting the product out in front of people to see.
“The market is hard for us to break into,” Canfield said. “You know it’s word of mouth; it’s me telling you, ‘Hey man, I have really good grass-fed pork, raised it on my pastures, do you want to pick some up?’”
For the folks at Blue Horn, they think they’ve come up with a way to help small farms all over.
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After struggling to find ways to broaden their customer base, Canfield and Lovejoy came up with the idea to start the Red Hen app.
“The basic premise was Airbnb for food,” Canfield said. “You can get on there, you can find small farms that have their own reputation. Maybe I bring it to you because we’re close, but maybe you live up in Richmond. I’ve got shipping options I can send you my pork.”
Lauren Lovejoy, who helped to create the app, said it should make the process of selling and finding locally sourced food easy for everyone.
“It’s fully customizable that it fits the farm and then for the customers,” Lovejoy said. “They don’t have to think about all of that. They just sort, ‘what do I want?’ Here is when it’s available, and they find it. It takes all of that confusion out of the connection between customers and farmers.”
She said when they tell other farmers about their idea, they are all for it.
“They have the same issues that we do,” Lovejoy said. “That they have worked all day, they are tired, they are exhausted, they’ve been up all night feeding animals, they don’t really want to sit at a farmers' market for 12 hours a day to sell some of their stock.”
They say the countdown is on—the free Red Hen app is set to launch sometime in April.