Butte growers honored as Farm Family of the Year

BUTTE — Vern Stockwell said the reason he got into vegetable farming isn’t terribly complicated.

“I grew up on a farm in South Dakota and I guess I had a little bit of the farming in my blood yet,” he said. “Or at least some of the country life. We found a nice, quite place out here in the Butte with lots of elbow room and we just kind of liked that environment better than a big city.”

That was in 2001. Stockwell, his wife Becky Gardner, and their three sons moved to the Valley. Now 12 years later, the state has chosen to name them the Farm Family of the Year, an announcement that came Aug. 15 and was made official Thursday in a ceremony on the first day of the 2013 Alaska State Fair.

Stockwell Farm sells vegetables of all kinds.

“We do pretty much everything. We grow broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, greens, lettuce, strawberry tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, beets, onions, green beans,” Stockwell said. “But I think our two biggest crops are probably carrots and tomatoes.”

It’s a family operation, but he hires people locally and internationally though the Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms organization, which connects interested people with work on organic farms across the globe. WWOOFers who have worked on his place have come from Europe, Asia and the Lower 48.

“They just want to come to Alaska and it’s like an economical way to get here and stay,” Stockwell said.

His farm also participates in a program called Colony Next Step, a Mat-Su Borough School District program that brings students to the farm to help wash and bundle the produce for market and perform other job tasks.

“They’re special needs kids that come out and learn some job skills and things like that,” Stockwell said.

That program got a nod from the state when it announced the award for Stockwell Farms.

“They were nominated by the agriculture community for not only their passion for agriculture, but also their commitment to sharing that passion with young adults with disabilities. This farm family not only feeds Alaskans, it also nurtures self-esteem and personal growth,” Agriculture Division Director Franci Havemeister says in a press release.

Stockwell said his family gardened for its own personal use in Anchorage before moving to Butte. Now, on their seven acres, farming has become pretty much a full-time gig. They sell produce at four Anchorage farmer’s markets each week.

“There’s more than that. We just do four,” he said.

A state Division of Agriculture press release noted that Gardner is also famous among her friends for her prepared food products like ginger-rhubarb jam and dandelion jelly.

Stockwell said he’s been in the state for two decades and his origin story is kind of a familiar one.

“I came up here about 25 years ago, just basically came up here for the summer camping fishing and gold mining and came up for the summer and basically stayed,” he said.

Stockwell spoke as his family got ready to attend the banquet held in their honor. Asked if he was excited to go, he offered a humble joke.

“Oh yeah. I hear they’ve got lots of good beer,” he said.

Contact Andrew Wellner at 352-2270 or andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com.