Article by Zachary Lyons

During my first year as executive director of the Washington State Farmers Market Association, I intentionally scheduled our annual board retreat in the little city of Waterville, smack dab in the middle of the wheat fields of central Washington. After spending most of 1999 touring more than 70 markets throughout Washington and Oregon, it had become clear to me that the segment of agriculture least served by direct farm marketing was grain growers, and they were hurting as badly as any farmers from low prices and softening markets.

At the first Seattle Farmer-Chef Connection in February, 2006, at which farmers and chefs gathered by the hundreds to discuss doing direct business with each other, I encountered Brooke Lucy, who, with her husband, Sam, had just decided to convert their grain-growing business from selling on the wholesale commodities market entirely to direct selling. The Lucys were the first grain farmers I had met who were following the path of direct farm marketing of which I had dreamed some seven years before.

Bluebird Grain Farms is special, not just because the Lucys are pioneers in the direct farm marketing of grain products, but also because of what they grow, how they grow it, how they handle it, and how they sell it...