Grant helps dream take root

DREXEL — A Burke County husband-and-wife team, with the help of a grant, have started laying plans for an organic vineyard slated for 2014.

Rebecca and Randy Vance have grown organic produce in Burke County for years, but a few years ago the two decided to sit down and make a five-year plan to extend their produce and become organic certified. Included in this dream was the plan for an entirely organic vineyard on their 24-acre property on Dogwood Vista Road in Drexel.

Randy said their five-year plan got a kick start after the two received a grant from The Rural Advancement Foundation International for $10,000. He said they applied for the grant in late 2010, but after they heard no word from RAFI-USA they assumed they hadn’t been selected to receive funding.

“We thought we would just go back to plan A since plan B didn’t look like it’s going to happen,” Randy said. “Then they called us and asked us to meet for a personal interview.”

Randy said during the interview process they were informed that only 30 out of the 80 applicants would receive a grant. The grants ranged from $100 to $10,000, and he said they were thrilled when they got the news that not only would they receive a grant, but that they’d also received the maximum funding. He said in early May they got their first installment.

Randy said the grant has shaved off two years from their five-year plan and allowed them to add amenities to the farm that they never thought would happen so soon.

“We’ve purchased 800 grape vines, all the wire and posts and RAFI-USA has paid for all of it,” Randy said. “With the money we had saved we were able to expand even more and do even more work on the vineyard. We are working on an irrigation system and several other things that were way out before we got the grant money.”

Randy said the two had not discussed whether a winery would be in their future, but he said for now they were going to focus on getting their USDA organic certification and starting their vineyard. He said they had already gotten a lot of interest from people wanting to buy their organic grapes.

“We have had people as far away as Columbus, N.C. call and show interest already in what we are growing, and we don’t have anything but vines yet,” Randy said. “And several of the local wineries have shown interest, as well.”

He said it would take almost three years before any grapes would be ready to sell, which seems perfect because it also is slated to take that long to receive their USDA organic certification. Randy said this process was grueling.

“We are in the process of being certified now. We are working with Clemson University. They are the closest organic certifier in this area, and they will be sending someone out to start field inspections here in the very near future,” Randy said. “It’s a tedious process especially when you are doing grapes because it’s a three-year program before you can become certified.”

While the couple has been growing organically for years, neither their grapes nor other produce have been USDA certified as organic because of the long and expensive process.

“We are doing it all at the same time instead of spending the money twice,” Randy said. “It was easier to do it at once, plus it just didn’t make much sense when we could just wait and have it all done in one sweep.”

Only one other vineyard in North Carolina is USDA organic certified, and Randy said he thought that Catawba Valley Vineyards would be the second in the state to get certified. He said the other vineyard had been a great help during the process.

“Carolina Heritage in Surry County are really good people, and they have been very helpful,” Randy said. “They have bent over backward to help us keep from making mistakes. We really owe a large debt of gratitude to them for what they’ve done to encourage us.”

Growing organically is something Randy said he and his wife had been passionate about for years because they felt it was a healthier choice.

“We feel like organic is the healthy way to do things. It is more sustainable, it’s earth-friendly, you don’t have all of the carbon emissions from the production of chemical fertilizers,” Randy said. “And we thought that if we were going to do a vineyard we would want for it to be organic.”

Randy said during the interview process, RAFI-USA seemed to be concerned with selecting someone whose farm would not only increase jobs around the area, but also keep growing through the years. Randy said Catawba Valley Vineyards was already fulfilling one of those concerns.

“I’ve hired two different part-time employees, and they’ve been helping with the vineyard,” Randy said. “It takes a long time to mow four and a half acres. We also hired people to help us plant and hope to hire a full-time employee to help us with the farm and the vineyard.”

Randy said he has a personal connection to the job industry.

“I’m a laid-off textile employee, and I’ve been laid off for almost three years now, and when that happened we thought ‘Oh no, what are we going to do now?’” Randy said. “And I just fell back to the farm, and I started growing things on the farm, and I’ve actually been able to build a business where I have revenue coming in, enough to cover what we need to do.”

Randy said this personal set back allowed him to throw himself into the farm and make this dream a reality, but he said the loss definitely affected their future.

“We had already planned to start this, so when I got laid off it just set us back a little,” Randy said. “It was going to be where we worked on the farm part-time, but now it’s kind of become my profession. It gets tough sometimes, but we’ve been able to do it.”

As for organic meats, Randy said he could almost say for certain they had no future in the organic cattle industry.

“We like to take extended time off and if you have animals to feed everyday you can’t do that,” Randy said. “In the winter time when the farm stops you can take a week and go somewhere and do something.”

For more on the grant program, visit http://www.rafiusa.org.