By Melissa Thrailkill
When he moved from the Panhandle to the Texas Valley in 1994, David McCommas says he knew the land he bought was “real good.” McCommas had been farming his whole life, learning the practice from his “granddaddy.”
He bought the land to farm for personal use, and he cultivated it in the evenings and on weekends, when he wasn’t working his day job. His “real good” land ended up producing a lot, however.
At first he would give the overflow to friends, but then, he says, he “started running out of friends.” He had so much to offer that eventually they would, “start running when they see you coming,” he said.
But he didn’t want to see it go to waste. “It was large quantities of high-quality, vegetable produce,” he said.
So he set up a truck at the end of his driveway. McCommas said people would show up at all times of the day to buy his tomatoes or corn or onions or whatever else he happened to be growing at the time.
A little over a year ago, another option opened for McCommas in the form of a farmers market on South Padre Island, and he began selling his produce there. The SPI market, which happens every Sunday from 11 a.m. – 1 p.m., started as an offshoot to the growing and successful Brownsville and Harlingen markets, said Jack Moffitt, who manages the SPI market.
Moffitt, a big city attorney turned farmer, says the market relies on a tiny budget and that its success depended mostly on a “guerrilla marketing” team and word of mouth.
He discovered from new visitors that tenants in the rented condos were leaving behind notes about the Sunday market on their refrigerators, which helped keep new visitors coming to the market on a regular basis. Since its beginning, the market has grown into one of the Island’s featured events for travelers and residents. On Super Bowl Sunday it was packed with winter Texans sporting Green Bay Packers gear, and on some dates, chefs from local restaurants like Zeste and Wild Fork, hold how-to demonstrations using the products sold by the farmers at the market. They also use the local produce in their menus.
In addition to managing the market, Moffitt, who grows vegetable, herbs and fruit, as well as flowers, also sells his produce there. Other featured sellers include River’s End Nursery and Farm, located in Bayview, which grows tropical and subtropical fruit trees, and Acacia Farms, also located in Bayview and which grows pesticide-free fruits and vegetables.
Some of the farmers at the SPI market can also be found at the Harlingen and Brownsville markets. McCommas is one of the “super local” farmers, as Moffitt describes them, who sell only at the SPI market.
Even though these strangers at the market aren’t the same friends McCommas shared his produce with in the past, it’s hard to tell. He still practically gives his goods away and spends time with the people that stop at his stand.
Observing McCommas, one of the benefits of buying at a market becomes instantly obvious: the ability to talk to the producer of the food you’re about to consume in a down-to-earth, friendly way. The farmers can answer questions about the quality and taste of the crop, how it was grown and the best ways to prepare the product.
“My stuff was hand-picked,” McCommas said. “You can talk to me and ask me what it is and how to cook it, or whether I sprayed it or not.”
In talking to the farmers a bit longer, another benefit of buying at the markets becomes even clearer: the direct benefit to the local economy. Most of the farms are completely family-run, or depend on a small group of employees.
Ralph O’Quinn and Sulema Ortega, the owners and operators of Buckeye Farms, do all the work on their farm. Their farm, located in Rio Hondo, features pastured poultry, eggs, turkey, Cornish game hens and beef and lamb. Buckeye also sells to retail outlets and restaurants and offers a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) membership.
O’Quinn and Ortega run all of this at the same time they hold down their day jobs and raise a family. For them, the success of their farm, which started out as a personal use enterprise, provides them with an opportunity to give people a choice in buying their meat, poultry and eggs.
“I grew up on farm-raised,” O’Quinn said. “It has a better taste. We wanted people to try it. Not a lot of people have access to it.”
Buckeye Farms, like all the vendors at the SPI market, give the community access to affordable food produced by neighbors using sustainable farming methods. The markets make buying local easier and helps create a community around the production and consumption of food.
“I’m walking my plots every day,” McCommas said. “I do things on a small scale. All it does is cost me my time and my effort. I only do it because I love to do it.”
For more information on the South Padre Island Farmer’s Market and the farmers featured there visit the market on facebook,
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