Nancy Tarnai
907-474-5042
12/6/11

Through tenant farming, Jennifer Becker found a way that a young person can launch an agricultural business without the ominous debt load typically associated with starting a farm.

In her second year of business, the ever-resourceful Becker supplied multiple families at Eielson Air Force Base and North Pole with a summer’s worth of locally-grown vegetables via her Pioneer Produce CSA (community supported agriculture) business.

Growing up in Rhode Island, Becker couldn’t have predicted a future in Alaska agriculture. While at the University of Maine earning a bachelor of science degree in forestry and parks and recreation, Becker’s interest in the outdoors piqued. Then she read “The Good Life: Helen and Scott Nearing’s Sixty Years of Self-Sufficient Living.”

Photos couresty of Pioneer Produce
Jennifer Becker uses a precision seeder at her farm in North Pole.

“Before reading that book it hadn’t hit me that you could live like that,” Becker said. “I realized it was something doable.”

At the age of 21, Becker came to Alaska to work on a Forest Service field crew in Juneau. Later she signed on with the Coastal Management Program, where she learned that an office setting was not to her liking. All the while she worked as a deckhand on a fishing boat and for KTOO public TV in Juneau, Becker had farming in the back of her mind.

In Juneau, the goal seemed insurmountable. “There was not a lot of community support for it,” Becker said. “People thought I was totally crazy and asked me why I would pick a life like that. Fairbanks is more supportive; it’s been proven time and again to be true.”

So Becker headed north and worked two seasons for Mike Emers at Rosie Creek Farm. She loved farming so much she became even more determined to start her own place. A fortuitous visit to Craigslist eventually connected Becker with North Pole hay farmers who were willing to lease some land. She first went to look at the property in March 2010. “It didn’t look like much,” Becker recalled. Adjacent to the Richardson Highway, it simply was not the dream Becker had envisioned but she decided to forge ahead. “It was a huge leap of faith,” she said.

After reading up on tenant farming, Becker settled into a wall tent on the land and got to work. She raises beets, carrots, turnips, rutabagas, potatoes, onions, lettuce, kale, chard, broccoli, cabbage and winter squash, which she sells to customers in North Pole and 38 CSA members at Eielson Air Force Base.

Photo courtesy of Pioneer Produce
Jennifer Becker pulls an early season radish from the ground at her farm.

Since she doesn’t have a greenhouse, she worked with Dart A&M Farms in Manley Hot Springs to get her plant starts.

She farms on a little more than two acres and has found fencing to be a major expense. Obtaining farm supplies has been a big challenge but she has gotten a lot of help from the land owners, who loan her their tractor and other equipment. Another obstacle can be the weather. “It’s not bugs or pests,” she said. “It’s that the weather can be too hot or too cold.” She lost a lot of transplants last year due to the extreme heat on planting day.

Other challenges include labor and weeds, but Becker finds farming rewarding because it allows her to be outside all day. She injured her back in the spring and had to learn not to lift large loads. “It solidified my idea that sustainable agriculture needs to be sustainable on your body,” she said.

Her goals are to continue the CSA at Eielson and expand in North Pole, get more land in production and improve the soil as much as she can with cover crops and manure application. Someday she’d like to raise chickens but is now making herself tackle one thing at a time. “I’ll concentrate on the veggies for now.”

A bonus from farming is that Becker can always count on having good food to eat. “My fridge is literally filled with vegetables.” She would like to encourage others in her age bracket to farm. “People are knocking down my door for vegetables,” she said. “It can seem daunting for somebody so young to get started but just ask around and make it happen. There’s a way.”

When she isn’t farming Becker enjoys live bluegrass music, dancing, reading, being with friends and traveling. “By a lot of people’s standards I’m not a success,” Becker said, “but I’m really proud of what I do. I work really hard and I’m not afraid to ask for help when I need it.

“I want to say I lucked out but it’s been a lot of planning and hard work,” Becker said.

Contact: Jennifer Becker

This column is provided as a service by the UAF School of Natural Resources and Agricultural Sciences and the Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station.

Nancy Tarnai
907-474-5042
11/24/11

When it comes to finding ways to support local agriculture, Jessica Aldabe takes the cake, or literally, the bread.

Aldabe, proprietor of the Sourdough Take-Home Chef, proclaims, “My mission with food is to know where your food comes from and to make great tasting products without chemicals.”

Growing up in the Florida Keys and then North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains, Aldabe was immersed in the restaurant world, starting out as a busgirl at the tender age of 11. “I would watch the guys in the kitchen and I aspired to be like them,” she said. She even created a nacho dish that the chefs added to the late night menu.

Photo by Nancy Tarnai
Jessica Aldabe prepares to sell freshly baked breads.

As a child in Florida she observed fishermen hauling in fresh fish at the docks and inquired of restaurant chefs how to best prepare the catch of the day. “Being around fresh ingredients and people who really knew how to cook them inspired me,” she said. “Food is the only career I’ve ever known my whole life,” she said. “I completely fell in love with it.”

She earned an associate’s degree in culinary arts at Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College in North Carolina. Her first job after that was in Denali National Park, where she spent four years before transferring to Girdwood. She and her husband John have lived in North Pole six years at their Forgotten Acres Farm, where they are raising two little boys and a teenage girl.

“One of the best things is doing the business in front of our children,” Aldabe said. “It’s an excellent example for them and I hope someday to pass this on to the kids.”

Aldabe said she had tried little businesses here and there but nothing ever worked out till she met John, who also had a restaurant background. “With his support and help we’ve been able to do this,” she said. Sourdough Take-Home Chef has been at the Tanana Valley Farmers’ Market for four years and opened Oct. 1 inside Homegrown Market. Homemade breads, soups, sandwiches, salads and desserts are available for customers to take home or back to the office.

“I want to prepare nutritional foods,” Aldabe said. “I want to let the food be the star of the dish.”

Aldabe also offers catering services and is equipped to do camp-style catering without electricity.

Being successful at this type of work takes “a lot of guts and no glory,” Aldabe said. “We wake up every morning and go for it. We love to be together as a family and we love to be entrepreneurs.”

And she believes strongly in supporting the Alaska Grown movement not only with local products but also by hiring local employees. She buys local barley and grinds it to make bread. At the family farm the Aldabes harvest crops to feed the family and use in the business, including potatoes, rhubarb, honey, chickens, eggs, berries. She buys locally-grown meat and is delighted to have her shop located inside a butcher shop where it is easy to get quality meats.

John, who has a degree in forestry, is the family beekeeper. While he used to run 100 hives in California, he is down to four or five. Unlike most Interior beekeepers, he over-winters his bees. The Aldabes sell pure wildflower honey at the farmers’ market at Sourdough Take-Home Chef.

A typical day for Aldabe involves rising at 2:30 a.m. to bake bread and desserts and create soups from scratch in her commercial kitchen at the farm, then she hauls everything to town. In the afternoon John comes on duty and she goes home to be with the children.

The secret to her delicious breads is baking with lots of love, Aldabe said. “It’s good to think outside the box and be creative. I like artisan breads, not regular white bread or wheat bread and I like to use what is available.”

Her goals are to make the business sustainable, to learn to be a better manager and to keep the Alaska Grown motion alive.

“I want to connect the farmer with the consumer,” she said.

The small shop is definitely a keeper for Aldabe, who also plans to keep a presence at the farmers’ market. She enjoys the market so much she serves on its board of directors. “I love free enterprise,” she said.

“I love the fact you can be your own boss and make money off of it. I never knew it could happen. I watched other people’s success and now we figured out ours. It’s nice.”

Contact information:

Sourdough Take-Home Chef
3658 Geraghty Ave.
Email: Jessica Aldabe
Facebook: Sourdough Take Home Chef
(907)750-5574