Makeshift Farm is a diversified vegetable farm in Derby, VT currently growing on 1.5 acres. First generation farmer and Derby native, Owen Tatum, of Makeshift Farm has been a partner of CAE’s Produce to Pantries (P2P) program since 2023, growing storage crop staples like potatoes, onions, carrots, cabbage, and beets. Now for a third consecutive season, CAE has facilitated the purchase and transport of these crops from Makeshift Farm to our site partners who serve community members in need from Holland to Hardwick. 

The Produce to Pantries Program promotes food justice by creating a symbiotic relationship between local farms and local food pantries: it purchases produce from local farms and moves it to local food pantries during late fall and winter, offering high quality storage crops when they’re most needed.

By the Numbers, Makeshift Farm produce for Produce to Pantries

• During the 2023-2024 season, Makeshift Farm grew 575 lbs of veggies for P2P.
• The following season, during winter of 2024 through the spring of 2025, we sourced 3,328 lbs from Makeshift Farm for the program.
• As the 2025-2026 season comes to a close, we ran the numbers again, and discovered that 3,566 lbs pounds of produce have moved from Makeshift Farm through CAE to our food access sites.
   

As these numbers demonstrate, P2P has helped support Makeshift Farm’s increased production and has provided a market for their product. While this is a positive outcome, ultimately, our work is about a lot more than that. In recent months, the relationship between Makeshift Farm and CAE has evolved in other meaningful ways. We believe that the deepening partnership between Makeshift Farm and CAE helps illustrate the importance of relational work: both become more effective and successful by the nature of having previously established a trusting relationship.
 

In October 2025, when two of the three produce vendors missed the final two dates of the Hardwick Farmers Market due to early frosts, the farmers market manager was in a pinch and called Owen in hopes that he’d be willing to help out. Makeshift Farm confirmed that they could fill the gap and Owen arrived at Atkins Field for the market in a VERY full Honda Fit (with a table strapped to the roof!) and supplied a beautiful stand of fresh veggies for all to enjoy. 

In November, we ran into Owen again at the Farm to Plate gathering in Burke. He attended CAE’s ‘Recipe for Community Meals’ workshop and has since collaborated with other friends and community members (including his good friend and CAE’s own Food Sovereignty Organizer Ally Howell!) to offer a monthly community meal in Derby, Vermont. This new community meal has already been really successful and shows great potential as an ongoing offering. 
 

Upcoming Derby community meal details:
5:00-7:00pm at the UCC in Derby on March 10th & April 14th, 2026

We recently asked Owen to share his perspective on his work with CAE and we thought his words were well worth a share:   

“From the standpoint of farm business viability, it’s easy to see a program like Produce to Pantries as a much-needed ‘leg up’ in the marketing department for small farms, and there’s a real benefit to that, but there’s also more to be celebrated in what the program does. ‘Doing business together’ seems not to fully capture what’s happening. It's deep work we're doing: even as the prevailing (but weakening) economic order casts us in a mold of ‘rational pursuit of our own self interest,’ we’re getting better connected, becoming more responsive to each other’s needs, and working together to advance common interests.  It's socially and economically powerful, it’s functional and efficient, and it stirs something in our human souls in a way that just feels good.”
-Owen Tatum, Makeshift Farm

Our relationship with Makeshift Farm is a powerful example of what’s possible when we work towards a shared vision; setting our sights on a future which includes thriving landscapes, healthy local food, and vital, equitable communities. 

We want to thank Makeshift Farm for helping express what we know to be true: this work is IMPORTANT and we’re all in this TOGETHER. We are grateful to be part of this amazing network of farmers, food producers, and community organizers! If you want to learn more about the Produce to Pantries program, please reach out to: hayley@caevt.org.