John Vlcek was recruited to run the direct marketing program. He and his staff successfully opened 125 new farmers markets, promoted farmer cooperatives such as the Hempstead Watermelon Coop, and connected small farmers upscale restaurants. John went on to become Assistant Commissioner of Agriculture and was instrumental in the adoption of statewide and then national organic standards.The promotion to Assistant […]
Gus Townes
“A lot of these towns were drying up. They didn’t have anything in them, not even a farmers market. So our strategy was to try to revive rural towns using farmers markets…The first one I had Leroy [Biggers] put together. When we got there, that farmers market only sold roses. That’s a big rose-growing area up around Tyler. So that […]
Judy Smith
“I see ourselves as the mentors or witnesses, I think it’s really wonderful we can talk about what it’s like. And remind women, I mean I see our role really is reminding women, what it was like, if Roe v Wade gets overturned. But I really do think that this is an entire generation of women who don’t understand this, […]
Brigid Shea
“The (Clean Water Action) canvass had a unique ability to literally be this foot soldier army that could go out door-to-door and reach people who may not show up elsewhere, but who really agreed with the idea of better protections for the environment, and eliminating excessive use of pesticides that were poisoning people, and making opportunities for organic farmers to […]
Freddie Richards
“Initially, the (Texas Agricultural Finance Authority) program funded people who wanted to take ag from production to processing and marketing, from the commodity production side to the processing side. Then we tried to help people who wanted to fund specialty projects that included viticulture, bees and deer and Christmas trees which were also considered to be agricultural diversification. Not 100 […]
Alfred L. Parks
“We had a guy that came in from the Dallas area. He had no farming background, but he had married into a family that’s local here… “My family has land not far from Prairie View, and we want to get into watermelons.” He created a supply chain. What he had done was go out and develop some markets with Luby’s. […]
Jesse Oliver
“(O)ne of my first formal relationships with agriculture was at the Black Farmers Conferences and getting some history of what was going on with them and what had transpired…The few who held on, who actually worked the land and stayed there, were still facing difficult times, mistreatment by USDA, especially with respect to support farm loans, crop loans, crop insurance, […]
Becky Murphy
“I remember one of the (California) grape growers said, we have a surplus of wine and a surplus of grapes in California and things are getting tough. Now we have all you other states competing with us. I said, wait a minute, you obviously never read Leon Adams. He said, if we had people growing grapes all over the United […]
Barbara Meister
“It’s Hightower’s philosophy, go out and scour the countryside, find these folks who are doing these innovative things and bring them into the government structure.Give them a computer, give them a secretary, give them a travel budget, and say, keep doing what you’re doing. But do it in here, do it throughout the whole state. I remember that being a […]
Pauline Medrano
“We went door-to-door into the different neighborhoods and found out neighborhood associations, PTAs, we promoted them however we could. It was grassroots. It was churches, PTAs, neighborhood associations, neighborhood groups. We’d say, ‘We want to start a farmers market. What would be a good day? What would be a good morning?’ Olmos Park (San Antonio) said, Monday morning. And that’s […]