Meet Farmer Lee Jones
Meet Farmer Lee Jones of The Chef’s Garden! Farmer Lee is behind one of The Trotter Project’s scholarships, focused on agricultural sciences.
The Chef’s Garden isn’t your average farm—it’s one of only three regenerative farms in the country, another level beyond organic. Everything Farmer Lee Jones, his team, and family do is regenerative—from how they continue to grow in healthy ways, to consistently testing their produce and soil nutrient levels, along with giving back to those around them. As Farmer Lee said in our interview together, “Do the right thing because it’s the right thing to do.” Learn more about Farmer Lee’s story below, including his family’s farming history, the future of agriculture, and his special relationship with Charlie Trotter.
Watch Farmer Lee Joneses story here.
Hi, Farmer Lee! Thanks so much for taking the time to chat with us today. We are so excited to talk to the man who is behind the Farmer Lee Jones Scholarship here at the Trotter Project. Let's start off with a little bit about your background. Tell us how you fell in love with farming.
It’s just in the DNA. We're in an amazing microclimate right along Lake Erie. We're about 2. 9 miles inland from Lake Erie. And at one point, there were over 300 vegetable growers in this county. As near as we can figure, it was the largest concentration of vegetable growers of any county in the world.
They were what they called truck farmers, family farms that grew vegetables. They took them into the market, entirely different from the market or farmer's market that we think of today. The farm markets back in the day in the ‘30s and the ‘40s were at about midnight and you met all of the grocery store owners or grocery store buyers.
If you can think back to your hometown, and maybe you're old enough to remember family-owned grocery stores. Every one of those family-owned grocery stores had a buyer and they would come down to the farmer's market and they develop relationships with those farmers. As family-owned grocery stores went out of business, one by one, those small family farms were pushed out too. We too fell victim to that in the ‘80s.
Interest rates hit 22 percent, we had a hailstorm, it wiped out the crops, the bank came knocking, and they foreclosed on the farm. I, at 19 years old, along with my family, watched them auction the entire farm off. Every tractor, every piece of equipment, all the land, my mother's car and our home. And we literally crawled away.
We came to a six-acre farm and started back over, staring at farmer’s markets. And we met a chef. She had trained in Europe and she said, “I think that if you would grow for the quality, grow for the flavor, grow for the integrity of the product, I think that chefs would support you.”
We were so desperate for a way to be able to survive in agriculture, we grabbed around both of her ankles and we wouldn't let go. And we said, “Teach us.” And she turned us on to things that she'd seen in Europe and the way that they were being grown. Losing the farm, as devastating as it was, allowed us to re-look at what we were doing.
We started looking at agricultural books that were 100, 150 years old. Why is it, with all the brilliance, with AI, with all of the brilliance that we have in this world today, that our nutritional levels have gone down 50 to 80 percent and continue to go down, and all of these health issues continue to go out of control?
It's not sustainable. My dad had a saying that the only thing we're trying to do is get as good as the growers were 100 years ago. If you think about it, pre-chemical, pre-synthetic fertilizer, with nutritional levels 50 to 80 percent higher. Even though that was really a blow to us, it's our personal belief that God had another plan for us, and we took on an entire approach of regenerative agriculture.
We suspected as a byproduct of trying to achieve flavor naturally that we were probably bringing the nutritional levels with that.
So we put a lab in and it's been a part of our research for the last 20 to 30 years. If you can get your mind around the idea that your body is a receptacle for energy from the sun, then it's not such a far bridge to recognize that different types of plants will harvest different types of energy from the sun.
We do lab analysis on the soil, just like if you and I go in for blood work. The same minerals in our body are the same minerals in the soil. We have a tagline—healthy soil, healthy vegetables, healthy people, healthy environment. So what we're really trying to do is create balance in the soil. We find out what those deficiencies are in the soil, then based on the deficiencies in the soil, we plant cover crops.
It's clear you're just so passionate about farming and the future of it. And it's interesting that you're looking to the past for that future. What do you think is holding back other farmers from doing your regenerative processes and looking at things the way that the Chef's Garden is?
We're a small operation. We only farm 350 acres. To somebody that's not in the agricultural world, 350 acres may sound like a lot of acreage. It's not. We're surrounded by farms that are farming 3,000 or 5,000 or 10,000 acres. But to make 350 acres even smaller, two thirds of that acreage is committed to cover crops.
We were told we could become more efficient on the farm by using weed killer chemicals to eradicate the weeds. They told us that when it hit the earth's surface, it dissipated. It was a lie. They knew it was a lie. We know now that it's a lie. But not only did it kill the weeds, it killed the biology in the soil. So if you're using a synthetic fertilizer, if you're using a chemical fertilizer, or even if you're using cover crops, If the biology is not alive in the soil to break the food down into a form that the plant recognizes it, guess what? Nutritional levels go down.
But if we abandon those chemicals, there is hope. It's not all doom and gloom. In about three to five years, you can create so much biodiversity in the soil. You can harvest that energy. We're seeing numbers as high as 150 to 300 percent above the USDA average. And we can really turn this around.
But there's a sense of urgency. Thomas Keller has those signs in his restaurant, “Sense of urgency.” Watch ‘Kiss the Ground’ if you get a chance. It predicts that we have 60 harvests left if we don't make drastic changes.
We have to make those changes, and we have to make them now. How do we make a change? How do we get other farmers to do it? Farmers are willing to change, but change is a tough thing. Supply and demand dictates and drives everything. If there's a demand for food grown in a particular way, then farmers will grow it.
It works. It is scalable. It can be done. We can do it. What are we doing? Everything that we can.
One of the things that we're the most proud of is our diversity on the farm. We have a world exchange program where students come from agricultural programs in their respective countries. They come here for one year, they work on the farm, they bring ideas with them, they take ideas back home with them.
The single greatest asset on our farm is not greenhouses, it's not land, it's not tractors, it's people. And we have to create an environment where we can provide a healthy competitive wage and a benefit package with all of those things that come along with the competitive work environment of today.
We have to be able to provide an environment where people feel like they're making a difference.
So shifting gears just a little bit here—When was the first time that you recall meeting Charlie and being excited to work with him?
Chefs have been our lifeblood. Chefs have allowed us an existence on our farm, and chefs drew attention to agriculture. Not monoculture, but really small family farms that were focused on the quality, the flavor. We heard flavor over and over. The three most important things to a chef were flavor, flavor and flavor.
I can't remember the year that we met Charlie Trotter. Our product met Charlie Trotter before we did. We read about his successes. And so we reached out to them and asked if we could send them a sample of our product. They loved it, and they made suggestions, and the relationship began. Most of my communication was through Charlie's assistant, and whenever Charlie was doing some sort of a VIP event he started inviting me into those.
The 816 West Armitage location is a house, and there were different seating arrangements in each room. And Charlie would go to one room and talk to that group, and then he would introduce the farmer. He recognized the importance of the chef and farmer relationship very early on.
He was intimidating to me. He was iconic and it was a privilege to be in his presence. He always kept you on your toes. He pushed us, but in a good way—he did more for our family than we could ever repay. We're indebted to him. There's not a day goes by on the farm that we don't think about him, and his presence is here on the farm with us.
It was always about the quality, how we could do the best, how we could get better. What's good enough yesterday ain’t good enough tomorrow. It's a competitive culinary arena, and the chefs just keep getting better. The gift that he gave us, our family, our farm, and our team members, the insight to be able to do better and to grow, was just a life lesson for us personally and professionally.
On three different occasions, he invited us to bring 30 people from the farm. Some of the folks went and bought the first suit of their life to make this trip to Chicago. When we arrived, he wanted us to arrive exactly at 11 a.m. He told us specifically which way that he wanted the bus to arrive in.
The devil's in the details, and he was adamant for detail. He was there shaking hands with every single person that got off the bus: “Welcome to Charlie Trotters.” The kitchen staff were in training. They came out, they introduced their dish, they told why they prepared it, why it was relevant.
And then he said, “Every one of you from The Chef's Garden is going to ask two questions and we're starting with you. Go!” So each person asked questions.
An amazing learning experience. Three hours later, we're leaving, Charlie's at the bus, handing them a gift bag with two autographed books, a printed menu, and thanking them for all coming.
His wisdom was in recognizing the farm as an extension of the kitchen, and when Jose could see how the cucumber with blossom was being applied and used on a plate, you think that didn't have a monumental effect on how they selected that cucumber or whatever it happened to be?
We learned, the kitchen staff learned, and of course we invited their teams to come out here.
What he did to bring awareness of the importance of quality, nutrition, flavor to agriculture. He gave it life. He gave it meaning. That there were people connected with that product. That somebody with scissors harvested that product and brought it into the restaurant.
Charlie broke ground on the Culinary Vegetable Institute. Literally. And we didn't do this with a shiny shovel. We had a giant crane. And it was the first time, maybe the only time, I ever saw him a little bit intimidated. His face was a little red against this bright white chef's jacket.
He climbs up onto this thing that was huge, a giant crane with a bucket. The operator got up there, started the thing up, “Rawr!” And showing him how to use the crane. He reaches with this giant bucket and takes a very aggressive bite, and it throws the front end about a foot off the ground.
He adjusted it a little bit, made it a little less aggressive, took a bite. Swung it over, emptied it, came back, took another bite, swung it over. He had the rhythm in about two minutes. And then he throws his hands up and says, “How big do you want this hole?” It was unbelievable. And so that was how we started the Culinary Vegetable Institute, with Charlie breaking ground on it.
Let's talk about the Trotter Project itself. We are 10 years old this year. What did it mean to you to be involved with the Trotter Project? What made you say, I have to be involved?
When they invited me to be involved with The Trotter Project, it was a huge honor. I think that the mission and vision is really important and of course, it was a no brainer. It was as if Charlie was asking us himself. And so we're honored to be a part of it.
We're proud of the work and the progress it's made and continues to make, and will continue to make into the future. I didn't ask for a scholarship. I wouldn't ask. I'm humbled to have the Farmer Lee Jones scholarship, and I hope that through the work of the Trotter Project, we can help people that need a hand up, in encouraging them to be able to follow their dreams.
The reality is that we all get a hand up at some point, in some way. I would be the first to admit we've had so many people that have helped us, including Charlie Trotter. Charlie gave us several hands up. But in life, it's what we're supposed to do. Do the right things because it's the right thing to do.
It's a beautiful program and we're honored to be a part of it. The work that the Trotter Project is doing is good work. It helps people in the community become valuable, productive citizens of our country, and it makes them a better person, and it'll help the whole world.
I can't believe that it's been 10 years. The work that's been done, the work that continues to happen, and the work that will happen in the future really keeps me up at night. Thank you for all you've done and continue to do. Keep going, The Trotter Project!
A huge thank you to Farmer Lee Jones and The Chef’s Garden for continuing to support The Trotter Project through your scholarship! To learn more about our scholarships and other programming, be sure to sign up for our newsletter to stay up-to-date and check out our donation page here!
