Pulaski County is a field of agricultural opportunity that is progressively changing toward diversified growth.
The Pulaski County Community Development Commission has been working for the past several years to cultivate the county’s potential by supporting farm diversification projects that are becoming essential for farmers to increase revenue and positively impact the community.
According to the USDA, Pulaski County is home to more than 540 farms and 231,880 acres of farmland, or about 80% of the county land. Pulaski County is ranked in the state for best milk, popcorn, and egg productions from companies such as Rose Acres, Gutwein Popcorn, and Black Gold Farms. The land is also suitable for mint fields and a one-of-a-kind facility, Eden Valley Farms, in the Francesville area.
Eden Valley Farms is a hydroponic greenhouse that focuses on growing head lettuce, baby leaf lettuce, and herbs without GMOs or chemicals using two different production systems: nutrient film technology and deep water culture.
“It’s one of the few, if not the only, major scale projects where it is more diversified agricultural growth than row crops,” said Pulaski County Community Development Commission Executive Director Nathan P. Origer. “This is not only the only hydroponic farm, as far as I’m aware of, but it’s the only major scale new and unique farm in the local agricultural economy. This is pretty unique to Pulaski County and the region.”
Eden Valley Farms CEO Joel Putt and General Manager Trevor Putt, fourth-generation Pulaski County farmers, created the business in 2019. They typically grow corn, soybeans, and hogs but were looking to diversify the farm operation. The idea began with aquaculture but soon evolved into growing leafy greens with aquaculture.
“It shifted to just leafy greens so we could focus on a set of product lines,” Trevor Putt said. “We visited a farm in Canada, and we really fell in love with the concept. We felt like it was a natural progression for us to continue to grow crops but to bring it indoors.”
While the idea continued to form, the two realized that the Midwest relies heavily on lettuce produce from the West Coast. The lettuce could also be grown more efficiently with less water.
Finding a site for the business took about two years, with the groundbreaking for the facility in March of 2020 and finishing the construction in February of 2021. Planting began in March of this year, and the product was shipped in April.
“One of the reasons that we wanted to go to a larger scale was to capture the attention of the larger retail stores and provide that volume, but also we wanted this to be a bigger project than our family. We wanted it to be a project that could impact the community and provide jobs,” Putt said. “Pulaski County was our first choice because we wanted to do something in the county that we grew up in. We wanted to see the tax dollars and the support of the business to come back to Pulaski County.”
Origer said the Putt invested a lot of time into finding a property to suit their needs regarding size and logistics.
“Being from Francesville, they wanted to keep it in Pulaski County,” Origer said. “They landed on property that my office had engineering studies done when we were looking at developing over there.”
Eden Valley Farms is located just south of the West Central School Corporation on CR 200 S., Francesville. The property is adjacent to a railroad and U.S. 421. Previously the Community Development Commission (CDC) looked at the property as a potential site of an agricultural-based industrial park.
“The site is right across from West Central High School, which is perfect because we wanted to bring in young kids and get them excited about agriculture in Pulaski County. We want them to come back to Pulaski County,” Trevor Putt said.
Eden Valley Farms employs 25 full-time people and 10-12 part-time employees, some high schoolers and ife-skills students.
“We are seeing relatively large investments that we think are going to be sustainable and that fit with the existing local economy,” Origer said. “This is the kind of growth that we want to see. They are letting us help them implement our strategic plan instead of us having to implement it. I do hope the community continues to support them by buying their products, and the county government shows the supports so that it shows the world that we do want to see more investments along these lines.”
Eden Valley Farms has produce in 10 local restaurants or stores and works with a company that sells mainly to Meijer.
“We want to give back and make this premium product available to the community, especially in a place like Francesville that can be forgotten about,” Putt said.
Putt said the CDC was a great resource, and they are working with Origer on a couple of other opportunities.
“We are excited about some things that we have coming down the pipeline,” Putt said. “We hope to expand and look at a couple of different product lines as well.”
Origer said the development of businesses such as Eden Valley Farms also has the potential to serve as a hub for a regional approach to ag-oriented economic growth. Pulaski County is one of six counties out of eight Kankakee Valley Regional Planning Commission counties participating in a regional ag-strategy grant project funded by the Economic Development Administration.
“We are looking for the niches so that we can set ourselves apart as a region and make ourselves more productive,” Origer said. “These unique agricultural adventures will add to our diversity and our capital investment across the whole region.”
For more information about the Pulaski County Community Development Commission, visit http://development.pulaskionline.org/ or contact Origer at 574-946-3869.
