For the past 80 years the Mitchell family has been growing blueberries on land that has been passed down through the generations. At one time in their part of Van Buren County, that wasn’t unusual. Today it is.
“So, the two (former) family farms,” Kyle Mitchell says, motioning to neighboring farms, “they’re both owned by big processors. And then the farm across the street, that was my best friend’s family’s farm that’s now owned by some people from Chicago, but it’s run by True Blue (True Blue Farms, one of the largest blueberry growers in America). And then the farm next door is still owned by our neighbor who was down there when we grew up, but that’s also managed by True Blue, so the big farms have just taken over a lot of the little ones.”
The Mitchells began their blueberry growing in the 1940s, when Kyle’s great-grandfather, Arthur B. Brown, bought a plot of land on County Road 380 in Bangor.
“We acquired this piece of property here in 1943 when my grandfather moved from Chicago for jobs, like a lot of people did,” says Larry Mitchell, Kyle’s father. Larry was born in 1945, right after the end of World War II, and his father decided to move to Michigan from Virginia to be closer to his family.
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© Encore Publications/Brian K. PowersOrganic blueberries growing at Mitchell’s Patch of Blue. “We lived here, my parents lived at this house until ’54,” says Larry. “In ’54, we bought a place a mile down the road, and in ’67 it caught on fire and burned down, so we ended up moving back to this piece of property here. And we’ve been here ever since.”
Like most farmers in the area at the time, the Mitchells chose to grow blueberries because of the plant’s hardiness. The Mitchells’ farm, which was named Mitchell’s Patch of Blue in 1956 by Larry’s and Craig’s parents, Grace and James Mitchell, is now 76 acres, 40 of which is undeveloped forest. Multiple generations and relations have worked on this farm, including wives, nephews and cousins. Now it is mostly Larry and his wife, Ginny; Larry’s brother Craig and his wife, Tina; and Kyle and his wife, Natalie. (Another Van Buren County organic blueberry farm is also owned by a Mitchell family, but they are not related to these Mitchells.)
The Mitchells talk about how neighbors and friends that lived in the area in the past helped one another, working together to do things that they couldn’t do alone. For example, the barn where they do the sorting and store the blueberries was originally in another location but was moved with the help of friends.
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Mitchell’s blueberries being processed“Half of that building was the garage at the other house (that burned). And before we actually sold the place, we needed a building,” Larry says, “so Dad got him and his friends and they jacked it up and put it on a truck. It’s a mile and a tenth from that house to here, and Dad sat up on the roof of the building and raised the electrical wires as he went under them, with a broom. And they drove down the road.”
Rise of the big processors
There are not many of those original families still around. As being a small farmer became harder and harder, large processors began purchasing farms when the owners could no longer make a profit.
“There were a lot of small farms,” Larry says, “but what happened was a lot of the small farms got bought out by other families because the price (of blueberries) was good. And then right after they bought ’em, the market dropped out and they couldn’t afford to pay for ’em (the farms) because (the price of blueberries) was now 30 cents a pound when it (had been) a dollar a pound. You got a big difference in price. And so a lot of these big suppliers, they sat around and they bought ’em up.”
The costs of doing business and the low profits make it difficult for small family farms to support themselves. Craig and Kyle talk of a fellow farmer who, rather than sell at a loss to suppliers, opted to dump his entire crop on his fields for fertilizer.
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© Encore Publications/Brian K. PowersKyle Mitchell sorting and cleaning berries.“They (suppliers) would come and actually harvest for you,” Craig says. “You’re getting 30 cents a pound, but they would charge you 10 to 12 cents (a pound) to pick them. So now you’re (making) 18 cents a pound. But then you take ’em over there and they go, ‘Well, I’m only gonna pay you 15 cents.’ So now you did all this for 3 cents. That’s why (Kyle’s) friend said, ‘I took ’em back and dumped ’em on the ground.’”
“Because they would not give him anything,” interjects Kyle, “so he said, ‘Well, I’m not gonna leave them here for you to profit off ’em. I’m gonna dump ’em back on my field as fertilizer.’”
At one time Michigan and New Jersey were the prime blueberry producers in the world. But with the market becoming flooded with new competitors, including Washington Oregon, Canada, Mexico, and Venezuela, and the rising costs of supplies, the Mitchells needed a new plan. And that plan was to go organic.
“The cost of chemicals was just starting to get crazy,” Craig says. “I kind of saw which way it was going, and we had two acres that were unfilled, so I bought some berries, and since they were new, I didn’t have to worry about putting any chemicals on ’em. So that was my first initial reason. Then he (Kyle) started taking over, and he understood it better than I did.”
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Courtesy photo provided to Encore Publications.From left, worker Carl Jackson, Grace Mitchell (on tractor), Craig Mitchell, and workers Charlie Brooks and Stevie Bryant during harvest in 1968.
Organically grown
The farm grows six organic heirloom varieties — Earliblue, Bluecrop, Pemberton, Blueray, Rubel and Jersey — in addition to the more readily found variety Duke.
Organic berries can fetch up to $5 a pound. But even with switching to growing organic blueberries, the family still needed a sustainable business plan. Through his connections as an agrifoods and culinary instructor at Kalamazoo Valley Community College, Kyle was able to find people to purchase their berries.
“My main class actually works out of Valley Hub,” Kyle says. “Valley Hub is a partner that works with local farmers within a 40-mile radius of the college to buy produce from the farmers and then offer it to a greater market. Some of my biggest buyers are Bronson Hospital, the YWCA, Kalamazoo Public Schools, South Haven Public Schools and Paw Paw Public Schools.”
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Courtesy photo provided to Encore Publications.James Mitchell holding his then-very young grandson KyleKyle is also a mentor working with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Transition to Organics Partnership Program (TOPPS) to help farmers transition to organic farming.
“I’ve got a farmer who has four acres over in Covert who’s one of my mentees. And then he actually works with another guy who has about 40 acres who runs that property for them. So I’m working with them ’cause they’re conventional. You know, they don’t know what products to use and how to do the paperwork and what records to keep,” says Kyle. “We work together on a multi-year partnership, and they come out to the farm every couple weeks and see what I’m doing, see what it looks like, especially since they have conventional and we have organic, so they can kind of see what the differences look like.”
The Mitchells are certified through the USDA’s Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) program, meaning that they follow good food safety standards in raising and processing their crops. Kyle says they are working on getting certified by the Real Organic Project, a farmer-led initiative to verify that crops are cultivated in the ground rather than grown hydroponically.
But wouldn’t it be easier just to sell out to the big suppliers? “The last offer I got was $67,000 for the whole farm,” says Kyle.
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Courtesy photo provided to Encore Publications.Grace and James Mitchell harvesting blueberries and loading them in their truck in 1978.Despite the challenges, the Mitchells say growing blueberries is more than a livelihood.
“To me it means freedom,” says Craig. “You have a bad day, you just take a walk out in the woods and know that you shouldn’t be running across anybody you don’t know. You just walk out and know that you’re looking at your stuff.”
Larry agrees. “It’s our legacy,” he says.
But he hopes to see the business leave another legacy by becoming a Michigan Centennial Farm, a designation recognizing farms that have remained in the same family for 100 years or more.
“I have an obligation that I put on Kyle that I would like and expect for him to hang onto this place through 2043, so that will make this a centennial farm.”
Kyle laughs and replies, “I don’t have plans to get rid of it.”
This story is part of Southwest Michigan Journalism Collaborative’s dedicated coverage of quality-of-life issues and equitable community development. SWMJC is a group of 12 regional organizations dedicated to strengthening local journalism. Visit swmichjournalism.com to learn more.
Pictures from Encore magazine are used with permission.
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© Encore Publications/Brian K. PowersOrganic blueberries growing at Mitchell’s Patch of Blue