The Fallon Food Hub basket program returns for the 2024 growing season, with the first baskets headed out in early March. Customers can receive locally-grown fruits and vegetables – even flowers and coffee – on a weekly basis and help sustain our food network in the process.
Fallon Food Hub can draw its roots from the collective of local farmers who first started the Great Basin Basket Farm Share. Originally sprouted by Lattin Farms and the second oldest farm share in Nevada, the Fallon Food Hub took the reins for the administration of the program in 2017. Technically speaking, it’s called Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), where customers are buying directly from local farmers, helping to keep farmland profitable. Last year, the Food Hub provided 2,078 baskets and earned about $67,000. They also received a grant to provide fresh produce to the Pennington Life Center and the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribe.
The Food Hub gathers the produce from growers located mostly in Churchill and Lyon Counties and then builds each box according to the customer’s order. The offerings are available as they come into season, and this program often carries a slew of varieties of tomatoes, melon, and squash. The growing season for the boxes runs about 40 weeks from March through October in Nevada. Ordering is through an online platform called Harvie, where customers sign up and pay for their subscriptions. There’s even a private Facebook group for subscribers to network, and the boxes come with recipes to prepare vegetables that may be unfamiliar to some – like how to cook a kohlrabi.
The program currently operates from Lattin Farms and distributes the boxes with its delivery van and newly acquired refrigerated truck. The boxes are available for pick up on Tuesdays and Thursdays from Lattin Farms on McLean Road, and the van transports boxes to other cities for customers outside Fallon, including Fernley, Sparks, Reno, Carson City, Garnerville, Douglas County, Minden, and even the Desert Farming Initiative with the University of Nevada Reno. Its goals this next year are to increase to 350 weekly orders, add a truck to the budding fleet, and welcome new board members.
Subscriptions run $30 for a small box and $50 for a large box, which Secretary Sara Beebe-Wolken says is the most affordable CSA in Nevada. You can choose from a weekly or bi-weekly subscription, and each box is open to customizing from what’s in season and available that week. They’ll even accept special orders for those who want to can specific veggies. Current members can receive a $25 discount with the Refer a Friend program. The first boxes this year will offer produce, baked goods, eggs, and locally roasted coffee.
Residents can support the Food Hub by volunteering to assemble boxes, hosting a basket pickup location, or even drive a delivery route. Growers interested in selling to the Food Hub will need a producer’s certificate and a business license – for help, see Sara at the Churchill Entrepreneur Development Agency in Fallon.
Those interested in serving on the five-person board or providing for the Fallon Food Hub should email and inquire about opportunities and receiving certification – they’re currently in need of egg producers! Check them out at www.fallonfoodhub.com or email [email protected]. To order, visit www.harvie.farm/profile/fallon-food-hub, and to participate, visit www.cedaattracts.com.
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