"It's a Ton of Work to Grow Food"

Cedar’s Noel Bielaczyc on working on a farm and for the USDA

By Ross Boissoneau | July 20, 2024

People got used to Zoom meetings during the pandemic, and now we conduct business of all kinds with a kitchen, library, bedroom, or other surroundings in the background. (Plus the occasional interruption from children and pets.) Still, it’s a bit out of the ordinary for someone to ask, “Wait, are you in a shed?”

Unless the person they’re asking is Noel Bielaczyc.

Welcome to life as a food scientist in northern Michigan. For Bielaczyc, it’s another day on the farm and as a United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) official. Northern Express connected with Bielaczyc to get his take on both small-town farming and big-picture food systems—and how the two intersect.

The Farm

“Currently I live in Cedar with my family—my wife and two girls,” Bielaczyc tells us of his own farming endeavors. “I’ve been out here just a couple years. It’s a small farm, with old Christmas trees, vegetables, chickens, and eggs… ”

When the pandemic hit and everyone was working remotely, Bielaczyc was working for Michigan State University, and he and his family decided to leave East Lansing to move closer to home. He grew up in Petoskey, while his wife originally hails from Empire. They landed on a farm in Cedar, and it’s been an adventure ever since.

In late winter, Bielaczyc and the family harvest and process maple sap. Come spring and summer, it’s all about the vegetables, and garlic is a family favorite.

“We love growing garlic,” Bielaczyc says. “It doesn’t require a lot of attention. Garlic scapes, the gray curlicues [on top of the growing bulb], are tender and mild.” Harvesting the scapes also prevents the plant from flowering and sends more energy to the bulb.

Whether it’s syrup or garlic that’s in season, life on a farm is never dull.

“My wife takes the lead on a lot of the farm stuff,” Bielaczyc says, though he does his share. “I make sure the chickens have water and food, get eggs, check the irrigation. I’m on the computer by 9am, holding meetings, then more chores at lunch.” And as everyone knows, “The mowing never stops.”

Even on a small scale, farming isn’t easy, and Bielaczyc says today’s global marketplace poses its own set of challenges.

“A big one for a lot of growers is finding out how to carve out a space for themselves in the market,” says Bielaczyc. That doesn’t just mean offering a unique product or finding a spot on crowded grocery store shelves, but simply being able to sell products at an affordable price—affordable for both the producer and consumers.

“Folks want and need food to be cheap, but farmers have to make enough money to live on,” Bielaczyc explains. “It’s hard to squeeze those two realities [together].”

It’s also difficult to scale up and pay a living wage to workers—if you can even find them. “When you need help, it’s hard to find good farm workers, and labor is expensive. It’s hard to balance.”

The USDA

Helping farmers solve these challenges is Bielaczyc’s day job, and why he’s making calls from his garden shed (which does have its amenities, like electricity and fiber internet).

Prior to working for the USDA, Bielaczyc worked for Michigan State University as part of the MSU Center for Regional Food Systems. His role focused on projects geared to build more resilient and fair food systems. That included everything from small- and medium-sized farms to small processing plants to food hubs. In short, all kinds of businesses or organizations that farm or distribute local and regional food products.

He was even more hands-on before that. “I was a fishmonger for years. I purchased and cut seafood,” he says, which was good training for parts of his job. He still works on projects involving aquaculture and fish processing.

Early this year, Bielaczyc left MSU and began working in the fellowship program for the USDA. The new job mirrors some of the work he was doing previously, looking at the structure of the food supply chain, just on a nationwide scale as opposed to being focused on Michigan.

For example, if someone in South Carolina wants to build a shellfish processing plant, it will need things like refrigeration and sanitation equipment, and it’s Bielaczyc’s mission to assist them. While his main responsibility is with programs around the Great Lakes, Bielaczyc works with food hubs outside the region, as far away as California and Hawaii.

“Food systems don’t stop at borders,” he notes. “We want to build a better system for everyone.” The pandemic’s disruption of supply chains of all sorts emphasized the need to be able to adapt quickly to changing circumstances.

The Changes

And circumstances are changing, even in Bielaczyc’s backyard.

Bielaczyc is on the Centerville Township planning commission, and he says the township is unique in that it is zoned 95 percent agricultural. But as the years go by, some of the area farms are sitting vacant.

“We are trying to navigate the future,” he says. “A lot of farmers are aging out. There’s lots of development pressure. It’s hard for a small 50- to 60-acre farm to make it.”

Michigan is the second most diverse state in the country in terms of its agriculture, and the agriculture industry employs nearly 25 percent of our workforce. “How do we continue to innovate in that space? How do we adapt to drastic changes?” Bielaczyc asks.

As is the case in many other sectors, diversifying may be part of the answer to keep smaller operations afloat. Agritourism, new crops, hosting events, and farm stays all offer new revenue streams, though navigating these new fields can require investments in infrastructure, expensive insurance, and other costs.

And of course, there’s the specter of climate change, though Bielaczyc believes northern Michigan’s location helps insulate us from more dramatic effects. “As a region we have a lot of advantages. The Great Lakes have fresh water, and we’re relatively safe from major disruption,” he notes, such as hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, or rising sea levels.

As our area gets warmer, Bielaczyc says extending the growing season is a move farmers can consider. “We have to get more hoop houses, move to year-round [growing].”

At the end of the day, only one thing is for certain: “It’s a ton of work to grow food,” Bielaczyc says.

Pictured: Noel and his daughter Iris outside the shed-office on the farm.