Building the Consumer-based Farm
By Deborah S. Wechsler (2004) 

PD&H Farms
Don McGehee
Rt. 2, Box 109A
Okemah, OK 74859

On land that has been in his family since 1916, Don McGehee is now turning his own longtime dream of farming into a well-rooted reality. Don and his wife, Peggy, purchased their Oklahoma farm, next to the one he grew up on, from family members 24 years ago. Off and on, Don tried farming part-time, raising livestock and vegetables and selling stock at the livestock auctions and produce at local farmers’ market. But he wasn’t happy with marketing this way, especially the prices he got at auction. “Every time I took an animal to market, I felt like I was cheated,” he says.

Then, inspired by reading Joel Salatin’s books, three years ago Don decided to start a CSA. Initially, he found it difficult to find subscribers. A turning point came when Bob Waldrop of the Oklahoma Food Co-op, a large co-op facilitating the local marketing of Oklahoma-grown foods, called. He had found out about the McGehees’ fledgling CSA, and he wondered if it would be all right for him to discuss the CSA at a seminar on local food sustainability. Suddenly, PD&H had ready access to its natural customer base. The first year, the farm had 16 families in the CSA. The second year, the number jumped to 48, and it’s 48 again this year. After two years operating the CSA, Don felt secure enough in farming to quit his job this year and farm full-time, and he has taken on a neighbor, DeWayne Holland, as his partner—Don supplies the land, DeWayne supplies the tractors, and they share the work

Families pay $240 a share upfront and are guaranteed 20 share boxes of produce over the season. If, because of weather or crop failure, PD&H Farms can’t fulfill the full schedule of deliveries, Don has promised that the missing deliveries will be carried over to the next year. “Our customers are real understanding,” he says. Separately from the pre-paid produce, subscribers can also order and receive the farm’s meats, eggs, and sorghum molasses. Deliveries are once a week to three central drop-off points in the Oklahoma City area. The CSA has no work requirement, partly because the farm is so far from where subscribers live, but several members have recently asked if they could work part of their share price.

PD&H also sells through the Oklahoma Food Co-op, picking up many customers who don’t want to commit to the CSA. Co-op members order from a monthly price list, usually shopping on-line or by e-mail. Then, Don meets the co-op’s truck at the Interstate-40 interchange two miles from the farm to transfer the farm’s products. About half the farm’s sales are through the CSA and half through the co-op.

Hogs are PD&H’s main meat animals, with two to three hogs processed a month. Don keeps his own boar and six sows for a farrow-to-finish operation. To control perennial grasses such as johnsongrass and bermudagrass the hogs are rotated through the fields in half-acre, electric-fenced areas with moveable sheds, moving about every 60 days. Don then plants his crops behind his four-footed cultivators. Rotational grazing is also practiced for the farm’s cattle, sheep, and goats. The farm’s hay is organic, and Don is starting to raise more of his own feed. All purchased feed is grown and milled locally.

PD&H Farm’s meat is marketed as “naturally raised,” with no hormones or animal byproducts in the feed and no preservatives in the meat. Don sells some of his hogs or lamb live to individuals or groups of customers, then takes the animal to be processed as a service to the new owners, and they pay for slaughter and processing. This arrangement, common among small livestock producers across the country, allows Don to legally provide local customers the products they want without being hamstrung by federal and state regulations on sale of processed meats. He sells these animals live weight; the dressed meat ends up costing about $2.45/lb for pork and $3.50 for lamb. Most of his customers, however, prefer to buy 10-pound orders, or by the package. The pre-order system allows him to sell most of the meat fresh, but he does freeze some of it. Value is added as sausage ($3.00/lb) and cured pork chops ($4.00/lb), and Don is planning to market cured hams for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Eggs from PD&H’s 80 laying hens go for $2.75/dozen--their one restaurant customer buys 30-60 dozen a week. The McGehees would like to create portable cages so they can pasture their poultry, but haven’t gotten around to it yet. Goats on the farm mostly help control brush, but Don is also milking four of them. Currently, the goats’ milk is sold for $3.50/gallon as feed for greyhound puppies and young deer.

All the farm’s vegetables are organic. When Peggy and Don bought their farm, it had been used to raise peanuts for more than 40 years, but it had never had any chemical fertilizers applied. From the start, the McGehees have been committed to organic methods. The cornerstone of their crop nutrition is small-scale composting of their own barnyard manure. A Soil Conservation Service cost-share program will help them also bring in poultry manure from eastern Oklahoma that they can stockpile and use over several years. Don keeps careful track of rotations, aiming for a four-year cycle, and is building in winter wheat and rye as cover crops. There is one pond from which he can irrigate a half-acre vegetable field, but mostly they use a lot of mulch on the vegetables to conserve moisture and keep down weeds. The main pest problem has been potato bugs, but he’s found that dusting with volcanic ash and wood ash controls them well.

PD&H Farm is bursting with plans and growing in a hurry. Don’s planning to set up two more hoophouses in the field this fall to extend their season. Last year, he made some sorghum molasses with a neighbor’s equipment; this year, they have planted five acres of sorghum and have acquired their own equipment for processing. This summer, Don will be planting four acres of pumpkins and will start offering school field trips. With all their livestock, they have a ready-made petting zoo for the kids. One new project, an acre set aside to raise produce to donate to local senior citizens’ centers and worked with volunteer help from neighbors, won’t bring in income, but will bring in lots of publicity and goodwill. The McGehees are also in the process of working to meet regulations to put in a state-inspected kitchen so they can add value to their crops by canning vegetables such as okra and tomatoes. Current income is not yet up to the level they’d like, but it is pretty dependable, and, says Don, “We’re looking at every way we can to make this farm a successful business.” 

Location: Central Oklahoma, 50 miles from Oklahoma City.
Climate zone:  7 Soil type: Sandy loam, with a little clay
Years in commercial production: Part time for many years; CSA started in 2002.
Acreage: 120 acres; 20 in pasture, 20 in crops.
Crops/products: Wide variety of produce; also harvest wild blackberries and sand plums. Peanuts, wheat (for flour), pumpkins, sorghum molasses and ornamental cane stalks, hay. hogs, sheep, chickens (for eggs), 40 goats, a few cattle and horses.
Value-added products: Sausage, cured pork, sorghum molasses.
Notable facilities and equipment: Three 14 x 90 hoophouses, two unheated and one heated with wood
Weeks in production: Produce late-May through October; meats and molasses year-round.
Markets: 48-family CSA; pre-order meats through Oklahoma Food Network (co-op); eggs to one restaurant.
Labor: Don McGehee and a partner, DeWayne Holland, farm together. Peggy McGehee works off farm but helps with orders; their 15-year-old daughter, Heather, helps with the animals.