Local Chicken Farm Awarded USDA Grant

by Marissa Luck

Tom Husmann wasn’t always a chicken farmer. Four years ago he was spending 12 hours a day crammed into his home office running a web-hosting company. He described how he started to worry about the example he was setting for his son, “I wanted to see him outside, working and enjoying [the outdoors].” That desire to “get back to the country, get back to your morals” led him and his wife Celia to build small farms in Steamboat Island and Chehalis.

Though they had always eaten local, organic foods, they had a dream of selling their own products. The only problem: they had no idea what product was missing from the local-food market. So they decided to start backwards, opening their farmstand before they had their own product to sell. Thus began Olympia Local Foods, a kind of “virtual farmstand” where consumers can order food online for pick-up or home delivery. The local products are from mostly organic and “no-spray” farms. (They use the use the term “local” broadly to describe Washington, Oregon, and northern California; the out-of-state products supplement the off-season).

“Our goal was to make buying local foods as convenient as going to the grocery store or ordering a pizza,” Tom explains.

Celia and Tom quickly discovered there was a lack of quality local poultry available. They also hated the fact that the closest organic Kosher poultry is from the Midwest or East Coast. That inspired them to embark on another entrepreneurial endeavor, Tachira Farms. Currently they have 30 chickens that are a mix of free-range and pasture-range. Unfortunately those labels aren’t actually regulated, rather just correspond to voluntary USDA guidelines. For Tachira Farms, free-range chickens are free to wander around their field “doing chicken things”. Pasture-range means the chickens are kept in 10′X 10′ pens moved daily so that they have access to fresh air, grass, and bugs.  Although they’ve been working with the Seattle-based Va’ad HaRabanim towards becoming Kosher certified, they haven’t converted to Kosher production yet due to costs.

In April, the Husmanns received a $300,000 USDA grant in rural development; they’re one of eight recipients in Washington and 298 recipients nationally. They plan on using the grant to develop their infrastructure and marketing more before bringing Tachira Farms products to the market. The Husmanns also hope to create a CSA-type membership program through Olympia Local Foods and would like to collaborate with other Olympia organizations to provide space for organic gardens and educational workshops.

You can start looking for Tachira Farm eggs in June when they’ll be available on an on-demand basis through Olympia Local Foods.

More info at tachirafarm.com and olympialocalfoods.com.