By: Micah Houston, AmeriCorps member
This past spring break, the Student Farm Club had the opportunity to visit and explore the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina. The Biltmore Estate was founded by the prestigious Vanderbilt Family who founded a railroad empire in the 19th century. The 8,000-acre family estate has since become a famous tourist attraction and the Biltmore House remains the largest privately-owned house in the United States.
Although the Biltmore is a prominent historically preserved example of American wealth during the Gilded Age, we were interested in it for another reason; its enduring legacy in food chain sustainability. Since its construction, the founder, George Washington Vanderbilt envisioned the estate as simultaneously functioning as a working farm, with which to provide fresh produce for the family and their employees, and even sold surplus to the surrounding community. In addition, he established a dairy farm which went on to produce milk and serve customers throughout the Southern states.
Pigs on the Biltmore Estate farm. Photo: Micah Houston
Now a luxury resort, the Biltmore continues its agricultural practices today with a farm-to-table program for its five, on-site restaurants. The former dairy site has since been converted into a winery, and one of the most popular attractions on the estate. Most of the grapes are grown on-site, and are sometimes mixed with grapes from North Carolina and other origins, such as California, to produce wine which is sold all over the country.
As attractive as this delicious, locally-produced wine might sound, what we were really interested in was the estates vegetable production. While visiting, the club had the privilege of getting a behind-the-scenes tour of the Biltmore’s agricultural operation by none other than the estate’s Vice President of Agriculture, Dr. Ted Katsigianis, who has worked there for over thirty years and happens to have received his advanced degrees from Penn State.
Dr. Ted showed us the estate’s fields and told us about the sustainable practices used, such as solar powered electric fences, vehicles which operate off bio-fuel, and fields plowed and fertilized by pigs and chickens. The Biltmore has recently chosen to focus a lot of their resources on greenhouse production, which provides vegetables such as lettuce, spring mix, and micro-greens directly to the estate’s restaurants. These restaurants are not only thrilled to have an exclusive and direct connection, but actually purchase the fresh produce for much cheaper than the normal market rates of other producers.
Student Farm Club members learning from greenhouse manager Eli Herman. Photo: Leslie Pillen
On a personal note, I couldn’t help but notice the mutually-beneficial and symbiotic relationship of this farm-to-table program. The Biltmore has been able to eliminate the need for a middle-man for much of its produce needs. The restaurant managers love their access to cheap, fresh produce and in return, the farm managers are more than happy to provide excellent and high-quality products to their clients with whom they enjoy a friendly and personal relationship. Our take-away from this experience is that there are so many benefits to this kind of internal, institutional relationship and that we see a lot of potential for fostering these connections in our own similar system at Penn State.
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