Whitney and Kip Schlegel tend to 150 acres, 51 sheep, 42 cattle, 125 chickens, two horses, two ducks, two miniature donkeys, one full-sized donkey and one nearly deaf and blind guard dog that should probably retire. Add that to their Indiana University faculty status and the last item on the Schlegel’s to-do list is marketing.
In July 2015, the Indiana State Department of Agriculture created a free-to-join marketing program to easily identify local agricultural products. Indiana Grown has spent the past two years connecting groceries, farmers markets, wholesalers, restaurants and more with agricultural producers within the state. Seven Bloomington-area businesses recently have helped the statewide branding initiative grow to more than 800 members in less than two years, despite the region’s general lack of involvement.
Of the more than 818 Indiana Grown members, 63 — less than 8 percent — are within the south-central Indiana region.
“We gain members at about a rate of one per day, and sometimes we’ll get them at a rate of 10 or 15 a week,” Heather Tallman, Indiana Grown’s member development program manager said. “For what the demographics of small business and farming look like in Brown, Monroe, Greene and other counties, I do feel the numbers should be higher.”
Despite that growth and the economic development program’s fully booked Monument Marketplace event in Indianapolis, agricultural businesses from Brown, Greene, Lawrence, Monroe, Morgan and Owen counties are an under-represented portion of the initiative’s membership.