Who were your childhood icons? Chances are good that you were able to collect them in card form, trading them with similarly obsessed friends. Whether it was baseball players or Garbage Pail Kids, it’s unlikely that you ever met them.
Since 2016, however, kids in Loudoun County schools have been doing just that. That’s because the people featured in the trading cards distributed at their schools are local farmers.
“We in Loudoun County work hard to promote our rural economy and tell that story,” says Buddy Rizer, the county’s executive director for economic development. “We were talking about, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if people knew what rock stars, what superstars our farmers are?’ We thought they should have their own trading cards.”
And the team makes sure to appeal to potential fans early. Through a partnership with Loudoun County Public Schools, as well as the Loudoun United soccer team, Rizer’s department distributes 100,000 cards a year.
Rizer says his team chooses farms that are “representative” of an array of different lifestyles. “We have everything from traditional agriculture CSA farms to ones with llamas and goats. We have minority farmers and women farmers. We’re just trying to tell that wide story and be something for everyone,” he says.
This year, one of the superstars is Vishali Mogulla of Sprouting Roots Farm, which specializes in plants used in Indian food. Mogulla, who still pays the bills with a job as a software engineer, grew up farming rice with her family in India. She reached out to the Loudoun County location of the Virginia Cooperative Extension to help her find land to farm and began growing her native favorites, from okra to bitter melon to seasonings like turmeric and ginger, last year.
Mogulla says she has been overwhelmed with new business since her trading card launched in the spring. Many of her customers are also of Asian descent. She says that when students went home with their cards, many were excited to see a woman who looked like them and grew familiar vegetables that are difficult to find fresh in our region.
Mogulla hasn’t made a visit to schools yet, but many of the farmers who are featured do just that. “The farmers like going to these schools and having that direct interaction and signing autographs,” says Rizer. “It raises the profile of farmers in general. It’s a new and exciting way to engage people in this.”
Indeed, the program is part of what earned Rizer’s team 2021 Economic Development Organization of the Year by the International Economic Development Council. Other offices around the country have followed suit in distributing farmer trading cards, too, including communities as far afield as Mississippi and Alabama.
And the work exposing local citizens to farming isn’t limited to trading cards. On October 15 and 16, Loudoun County will host its twice-annual farm tour. It’s a chance for those of us who have long since graduated to meet the heroes who keep our food system afloat.
Feature image courtesy Loudoun County, Virginia Economic Development
This story originally ran in our October issue. For more stories like this, subscribe to our monthly magazine.
