Image by Evelyn England

The media gives the impression that every vacant tract of land west of I-75 has been gobbled up by developers, but nestled between residential neighborhoods less than a mile north of Route 70 is a 104-acre ranch reminiscent of old Florida where generations of the same family lived and raised their families. The King Ranch, with one mile of frontage on the Braden River, is home to the 40-acre King Family Farm owned by Shelby and Ben King. They also own the 255-acre King Farm Myakka which they purchased in 2004.

With a puppy chewing on her sandals and her three children and a niece skidding to a halt on a golf cart and bikes, Shelby talks about her commitment and dedication to the ground as an organism to be nurtured. “Our growing methods replace nutrients in a natural way with compost. We use drip irrigation instead of flooding the fields. We are not certified organic, but we use safe and sustainable methods that are labor-intensive. We manually pull up weeds instead of using pesticides. We grow vegetables next to each other for a symbiotic relationship.” Her farm grows vegetables such as purple carrots, fennel, eggplant, peppers, heirloom tomatoes, celery, herbs, greens, beets, kohlrabi, and cabbage. In addition they have 20 acres of blueberries and 10 acres of peaches along with livestock, sheep, and horses.

Every Saturday a spring seasonal “U-pick” market with blueberries and peaches is open from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the farm on Caruso Road in southern Manatee County. The market also sells fruits and vegetables from the King farm and local growers along with products such as King’s blueberry blossom honey. On Wednesday nights through June 5, Shelby and her partner from The Loft 5 in Anna Maria host the spring “Table to Farm” dinners—a seasonal outdoor farm dining experience, hosted at diverse locations on the farm. Dinners feature ingredients fresh from the farm or from local producers—beef, fruit, and vegetables from the farm; fish from Cortez fishers; and locally-raised pork and chicken. Live music adds to the elegant meal for a beautiful evening under the stars. Fall harvest, winter, and spring dinners resume later this year and dates and menus are posted at www.kingfamilyfarmandmarket.com. The farm also accommodates weddings, corporate events, and fund-raisers for non-profit organizations for up to 500 people at two riverside locations, or the orchard, garden, oak hammock, and barn.

With the increasing visibility of fresh, seasonal, locally and safely grown fruits and vegetables on hotel and restaurant menus, the farm sells to chefs and through a food distributor that searches out small farms to bring fresh food to local eating establishments. Chef Gaetano “Guy” Cannata of Ortygia, a Sicilian-French fusion restaurant in Bradenton, says, “Shelby is awesome. Her vegetables are far superior to any others. I like that it’s family-operated. As a chef, I like to buy local. I personally pick out all the vegetables I use at the restaurant. I love to cook with fennel. I call Shelby about 15 minutes before I plan to arrive at the farm. When I get there the dirt is on the fennel—you can’t get any fresher than that. When Shelby doesn’t have fennel, I take it off the menu. They are not certified organic, but they plant organically. It’s as organic as you’re going to get. I love the farm. Florida is the largest exporter of tomatoes, but they don’t have any flavor. I buy cases of pear tomatoes from them to roast as a side dish.”

The hotel chain Hyatt lives by its motto: Food. Thoughtfully Sourced. Carefully Served. Executive Chef Leo Gianulis of the Hyatt Regency Sarasota explains his philosophy, “In providing the most flavorful and nutritious dining options, we select ingredients that are from local, sustainable, and organic producers. We partner with farmers and farms who share our view of quality as well as our responsibility to the environment, to our community, and to our customers. King Farm has organic practices while producing a variety of citrus, tomatoes, herbs, sweet corn and heirloom carrots. When available, I try to provide my guests with products from King Farm because I believe in their practices.”

Besides handling sales, marketing, and tending the farm, Shelby’s interest and passion is educating people about their relationship with food—something she learned as a teenager when she developed Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. She says, “I learned about the chemistry of food and use it to my benefit. My understanding of food changed. I still have to watch my diet. My husband and I are big fans of juicing with a vegetable like kale that is filled with antioxidants such as vitamins A, C, and K. I want to enlighten people and children about new habits so they can live well and healthfully. If they understand the power in food, they are more likely to eat it.”

About the safety of food, Shelby says, “Those of us who are growing safe food have our products sitting next to a product that is grown in another country where they don’t have to comply with safety regulations and jump through other hoops. The food may have a USDA stamp on it, but there’s no assurance they’re complying with the regulations like growers in the United States do. My advice is to get to know your local growers and how they grow.”

Shelby grew up in Ellenton and attended Palmetto High School and State College of Florida while Ben attended Bradenton Christian School and earned a degree in Horticulture Science at the University of Florida. She’s the fifth generation of her family to live in Manatee County where four generations lived in Cortez. Her great-great-grandfather was from the Canary Islands. Ben farmed for Taylor (Ben’s mother is a Taylor) and Fulton for five years from 1999 to 2004. Living on the King Farm that Ben’s father, an eye surgeon, and his mother purchased in 1963 are Ben’s parents, Ben and Shelby—living in the house where Ben was raised, Ben’s sister and family, and Ben’s brother and family. The King children consist of Lily, Jeb, and Reid who attend nearby public schools.

Shelby wants to be viewed as someone that changed the way people view food through education about local growers, their growing methods, and the benefits of eating healthy foods.

For more info on King Family Farms and to find out about future “Table to Farm” dinners, call 941-773-1624 or visit www.kingfamilyfarmandmarket.com.

Karen Yoder, off camera, with Fruitville Grove, who operates their fresh produce stand, is among the few farmer’s market stands in the region that accepts food stamps. Fruitville Grove has a market stand at the San Marco Plaza Farmer’s Market on Fridays in Lakewood Ranch. STAFF PHOTO / THOMAS BENDER

Hiedi Brown was hoping for a sales boost when she began accepting food stamp benefits at her farmers market stands in downtown Sarasota and Phillippi Estate Park last year.

After all, 100,000 people use the federal food program in Sarasota and Manatee counties. Brown figured some might want fresh local fruits and vegetables.

The results have been disappointing. The two Brown’s Grove market stands sell roughly $100 worth of produce a month to food stamp beneficiaries.

So Brown is skeptical that legislation aimed at expanding food stamp use at farmers markets throughout Florida will have much impact, at least initially.

“It’s not going to happen overnight,” she said.

Despite Brown’s experience, marrying food stamps and farmers markets is a growing national trend.

There weren’t as many Citizens Lobbying for Urban Chicken Keeping (CLUCK) members at the Board of County Commissioner meeting Tuesday, as showed up at last week’s BOCC workshop, where CLUCK members requested their proposal: to repeal the ordinance prohibiting backyard chicken coops in Manatee County.

Children and families learn about beekeeping at one of the Crowley Folk School booths at the Eat Local Week Festival of Reskilling at Phillippi Estate Park on March 12. Photo by Arielle Scherr

For the past three years, greater Sarasota’s Eat Local Week has been a celebration of fresh food and community and local businesses in Sarasota, Manatee, Charlotte and Desoto counties.

Beyond that, it has challenged consumers to really consider where their food comes from and to make purchasing decisions that support the local food economy. The observance does that through festivities, farmers’ markets, tours, tastings, workshops, lectures, discussions and more that highlight what the area has to offer.

Transition Sarasota, the principal organizer of Eat Local Week, does not want the effort to stop there, however. The sustainability advocacy organization would like to see the participants take the principles espoused during the festivities — which lasted from Friday, March 22, to Friday, March 29, this year — and apply them to their daily lives in ways that add up year-long.

First lady Michelle Obama and Emilio Vega plant seeds for the White House kitchen garden in Washington, D.C., Thursday, April 4, 2013. (Olivier Douliery/Abaca Press/MCT)

While the rest of his classmates were stuck in school Thursday, Emilio Vega, 11, planted bread wheat seeds with first lady Michelle Obama in her garden on the South Lawn of the White House.

“It was really exciting. She’s very nice and she’s really good at what she does with the seeds and everything,” said Vega, a fifth-grader at B.D. Gullett Elementary in Bradenton.

Gullett Elementary students traveled to Washington for the fifth annual garden planting as one of four elementary schools chosen as part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s HealthierUS School Challenge. The challenge, which recognizes schools that promote healthy environments with monetary awards, is incorporated with the first lady’s Let’s Move! initiative that she launched in 2010. Gullett Elementary Principal Kathy Hayes selected the five students based on leadership positions they hold at school. Schools from Massachusetts, Tennessee, Vermont and the District of Columbia also attended the event.

It showed local food represents about 20 percent of all Florida food purchased for at-home consumption, except restaurant take-out food, said Alan Hodges, an Extension scientist with UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences.

The study was based on a statewide consumer survey. Prior estimates from other states had local food accounting for about 5 percent of all food sales, he said.

“We are doing relatively better in Florida, in moving toward food self-sufficiency,” Hodges said. “I can only attribute that to the favorable year-round growing conditions we have for fruits and vegetables.”

SLOW MONEY HOPEFULLY FEWER PROBLEMS: Slow Money Founder and Chairman Woody Tasch / COURTESY ERIKA VAN ZANDT

When Woody Tasch went on tour to promote his book, Inquiries Into the Nature of Slow Money: Investing as if Food, Farms, and Fertility Mattered, he had no idea his collection of musings on how to spark investment in local agriculture would turn into a movement.

But there he was, in Santa Barbara, Calif., discussing the book with a crowd of about 150, when someone raised a hand and said, “I’m in for $1,000.” Nine others in the audience offered to throw in a grand. They didn’t know what exactly they were committing to, but they wanted to use their money to invest in local food.

“There was this impulse to start doing it right away,” Tasch says. “It became clear very quickly that it wasn’t just a book.”

That realization led to 17 Slow Money chapters and $23 million in investments that benefit more than 180 small food producers, all in just two and a half years. When Tasch visits Sarasota this Friday and Saturday as part of Transition Sarasota’s third Eat Local Week, the conversation will be completely different than those during Tasch’s first book tour.

Hens forage for food in a backyard in West Bradenton. Members of the Manatee chapter of Citizens Lobbying for Urban Chicken Keeping, also known as CLUCK, plan to appear during a workshop session March 19 to urge adoption of an ordinance allowing people to raise hens in yards in residential neighborhoods. According to CLUCK, under the current Land Development Code, chickens are illegal in Manatee County in residentially-zoned neighborhoods. PAUL VIDELA/Bradenton Herald

Backyard coops may be springing up around Manatee County soon thanks to the CLUCK-ing by members of the Manatee chapter of Citizens Lobbying for Urban Chicken Keeping (yes indeed, CLUCK is the acromyn).

Imagine farm fresh eggs most every morning. Cardiologists might get heartburn over that, but this appeals to a lot of people. Palmetto and Sarasota allow hens (but not loud-mouth roosters), as does Sarasota County. Holmes Beach approved an ordinance this week. Bradenton still forbids the critters. This is a nationwide movement, and the solid arguments in favor are winning the day.

Fair Food Program supporters march along U.S. 41 in Venice on Friday during the Coalition of Immokalee Farmworkers’ event, March for Rights, Respect and Fair Food. STAFF PHOTO / ELAINE LITHERLAND

Lupe Gonzalo remembers the first call. It was from a woman who had been forced to overfill the 32-pound bucket of tomatoes. The heavy fruit heaped above the bucket’s brim, but the added work did not mean more money for the worker struggling to make minimum wage in Florida’s fields.

The woman had called the Coalition of Immokalee Workers for help and Gonzalo, 31, answered.

It was shortly after November 2011, when the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange — which represents 90 percent of the state’s tomato farm owners — agreed to follow the Fair Food Code of Conduct.

Gonzalo knew, for the first time, that the woman would not have to suffer long.

GREATEST OF ALL TIME: The only reason you need to visit the Old Miakka Farmers Market / COOPER LEVEY-BAKER

The Old Miakka Farmers Market may be a long haul from home, it may be on the small side, but what it lacks in convenience and size it more than makes up for in baby goats. The short-haired critters, bundled up in warm sweaters, prance around the small clearing next to the Old Miakka United Methodist Church, where the market’s four or five vendors set up shop each Saturday morning. The goats chase one another, munch on sticks and, inevitably, attempt to snatch food from the vendors’ tables.

I can’t resist trying to pet them, but the animals scamper away, which is fine, because really they’re just a distraction. I’m here for food — which I quickly learn involves coffee and freshly fried doughnuts in exchange for one measly dollar. A dollar. Over at the Yolkers Wilde Hatchery and Dairy Goats table, I snag some raw chèvre and ricotta — “Pet food only,” of course! A bagful of locally grown organic veggies later, and I’m ready to head home for lunch.

The Old Miakka market is just a couple years old — one of several markets that have sprung up in all corners of Sarasota and Manatee counties in recent years.

When I set out to put together a comprehensive guide to all of our markets, my list just wouldn’t stop growing. Whenever I would chat with a vendor, I’d learn about a market I had no idea existed. From Old Miakka and Lakewood Ranch in the east to Bradenton Beach out west, from North Port and Englewood in the south to Palmetto in the north, this place is crawling with markets that each have their own set of vendors, and their own organizations and missions.