It’s easier to find Gourmet Greens on the
                                      Internet than on Dodge Road in Chester.
                                      No sign adorns the front of the modest
                                      brown building and adjoining greenhouse
                                      where 800 pounds of “greens” are
                                      grown, harvested and shipped a week.
                                      Owner Rich Rommer wants to keep it
                                      that way. “There is a lot of extra
                                      work involved in retail. I don’t want to
                                      have a store here. I’m a farmer.”

                                      If you’re picturing an old guy in overalls
                                      and rubber boots, rub your eyes.
                                      Rommer is a 50-year-old graduate of the
                                      Hippocrates Health Institute in Boston
                                      who tends his crops in a T-shirt and
                                      Birkenstocks. He grows four products,
                                      year-round, without ever having to go
                                      outdoors. His soil-grown sunflower,
                                      radish and snow pea greens get shipped
                                      twice weekly to stores as far as
                                      Maryland. You can find them at local
                                      health-food stores and co-ops. Gourmet
                                      Greens also grows wheatgrass — the
                                      chlorophyll-rich “nutriceutical” thought to
                                      eliminate toxins as you drink it.

                                      The future of farming in Vermont may
                                      end up looking a lot like this: smart,
                                      specialized operations catering to people
                                      who will pay for certified organic.
                                      Reaching enough of those people of
                                      course, has always been the challenge for
                                      far-flung growers. The Internet now
                                      allows virtual Vermont cultivators to
                                      reach their customers directly, and to sell
                                      them related products online. In addition
                                      to sprouts, seed and soil, Gourmet
                                      Greens’ Web site brokers new and used
                                      juicers that range in price from $89 to
                                      $560. Sales of online merch have
                                      improved the bottom line for Rommer,
                                      who estimates he will gross about
                                      $230,000 this year.

                                      On a drab November day, the brilliant
                                      green shoots are a welcome contrast,
                                      maturing under grow-lights in flats about
                                      the size of industrial baking trays. Seven
                                      days after planting, they are ready to
                                      harvest. With a straight-edged razor
                                      blade, and the dexterity of a
                                      cosmetologist, Virginia Brown slices off
                                      the plants about three-quarters of an inch
                                      above the soil line, and stacks them in a
                                      rubber basin, sending the root-filled soil
                                      back to the compost. It’s a
                                      labor-intensive process because no
                                      sharp-edged instrument has yet been
                                      developed to mechanize the shearing.
                                      And harvesting is the easy part compared
                                      to seeding, watering and composting the
                                      organic soil, which Rommer also sells
                                      over the Internet.

                                      But the effort pays off. Like most things
                                      in small, plastic packages, specialized
                                      salad greens command a good price.
                                      Rommer gets between $5 and $8 per
                                      pound from wholesalers. Retail
                                      customers — who e-mail their orders
                                      online and receive them by next-day air
                                      — shellout $35 for the first pound, most
                                      of which pays for shipping. “I thought I
                                      wa 1s going to grow a little bit of
                                      everything — carrots, lettuce and all
                                      those other things. I soon realized there is
                                      very little money in those things, because
                                      you are competing against agribusiness,”
                                      Rommer says. Large producers tend to
                                      stay away from sprouts, he says, because
                                      they require so much individual attention.

                                      “If you are a farmer out in the middle of
                                      nowhere, like most of the farmers in
                                      Vermont are, this could be very viable,”
                                      says Lindsey Ketchel at the Vermont
                                      Department of Agriculture. She describes
                                      Gourmet Greens as an “incredibly
                                      innovative and creative solution” to the
                                      challenging problem of sustaining
                                      small-scale agriculture in the state. “How
                                      would you like to be a dairy farmer with
                                      the USDA telling you how much you can
                                      get per hundredweight?” she suggests for
                                      comparison. “Farmers have to get a fair
                                      price for their product, and have control
                                      over their market, to succeed.”

                                      One thing Rommer does not have control
                                      over is ever-tightening health regulations
                                      — the result of increasing national
                                      concern about food safety in the wake of
                                      numerous foodborne illnesses. Sprouts
                                      have come under increasing scrutiny since
                                      a number of people got sick, presumably
                                      from contaminated sprout seed, in
                                      outbreaks in California, according to an
                                      article in the trade publication Growing
                                      For Market. The culprits were thought to
                                      be hydroponic alfalfa sprouts, which are
                                      cultivated in warm, bacteria-friendly
                                      water. They are more likely to cause
                                      illness, in part because it is virtually
                                      impossible to separate the seed from the
                                      sprout.

                                      “Soil-grown sprouts such as wheatgrass,
                                      sunflower sprouts and pea shoots have
                                      not been implicated in any contamination
                                      cases,” the article continues, “but it
                                      appears so far that they will be subject to
                                      the same regulatory action as the
                                      water-grown sprouts.”

                                      Earlier this year the parents of a sickened
                                      child filed suit against a hydroponic
                                      grower in Oregon. Around the same
                                      time, Rommer decided to disassociate
                                      himself from the aquatic side of the
                                      industry by substituting the word “greens”
                                      for “sprouts.”

                                      But getting around the regs is a bit more
                                      involved than changing the language on
                                      labels. The Food and Drug
                                      Administration now requires alfalfa sprout
                                      growers to soak their seeds in a 2
                                      percent chlorine solution for 10 minutes
                                      before planting. Seed suppliers require a
                                      signed affidavit from growers, promising
                                      they will follow the disinfecting
                                      procedure. The same practice is
                                      “recommended” for soil-grown
                                      cultivators like Rommer. But “we
                                      wouldn’t be certified organic if we used
                                      that hazardous chemical,” he points out.
                                      An added irony is that chlorine is a
                                      known carcinogen. Health-conscious
                                      wheatgrass buyers are not likely to
                                      appreciate the deadly marinade.

                                      Rommer has instituted some improved
                                      safety measures on his own, including
                                      better seed storage containers and
                                      improved “traceability” in the event of a
                                      recall. He also tests every new seed
                                      shipment by sending the resulting greens
                                      to a lab to certify they are free of
                                      pathogens. The relationship between
                                      growers and regulators doesn’t have to
                                      be contentious, he says. “They are trying
                                      to ensure the safety of the food supply.
                                      They should be there, just like troopers
                                      on the interstate are there to keep
                                      speeders under control. I don’t have a
                                      problem with that.”

                                      But Rommer does have a problem with
                                      greens being singled out for scrutiny —
                                      operations like his are “more like a dirt
                                      farm…I think if they are going to require
                                      people like us, who grow greens in soil,
                                      to soak seed in chlorine, they should also
                                      require Swiss chard, lettuce and mesclun
                                      growers to soak their seed, too, even out
                                      in the open field.” Rommer does
                                      recommend washing his greens, as you
                                      would lettuce or any other salad stuff.
                                      And his sunflower greens come with a
                                      warning: “Remove any seed hulls before
                                      eating.”

                                      Rommer keeps close watch over his own
                                      growing operation, overseeing every
                                      stage of the process from seeding to
                                      shipping. It’s an organic cycle that plays
                                      itself out every day. Most of the heavy
                                      lifting is done by noon. While part-time
                                      workers bustle between buckets of
                                      soaking seed and bags of freshly
                                      harvested radish greens, Rommer is just
                                      as likely to be showing off the company
                                      Web site as tending to the furnace, which
                                      burns oil and wood.

                                      Employees approach Rommer with every
                                      imaginable question. Only one worker,
                                      Virginia, seems sufficiently self-reliant to
                                      cover for the boss. A teenage boy, Nick,
                                      oversees the composting operation,
                                      which takes up a large portion of the
                                      greenhouse. A home-schooler, he is
                                      getting an excellent hands-on lesson in
                                      microbiology and horticulture, tending to
                                      numerous  wooden bins in various stages of
                                      decomposition.

                                      Nick is also the sole worker to turn down
                                      a couple ounces of free wheatgrass juice
                                      during the mid-morning break — a
                                      company ritual, apparently, that suggests
                                      Rommer really does believe in his
                                      product. In fact, Rommer was still pretty
                                      young when he first experienced the
                                      benefits of good nutrition. At 18, he went
                                      to the doctor with a severe case of acne,
                                      and was told to stop eating certain foods.
                                      “I avoided those and it did clear up my
                                      face,” he says. “So I saw the
                                      connection.”

                                      He saw the connection again when he
                                      came back from Europe, buff and healthy
                                      after eating vegetarian for several months,
                                      and resumed an American diet of
                                      hamburgers and cookies. “My face
                                      broke out, I gained weight, and I said,
                                      ‘Hey, I don’t want to lose this health that
                                      I came upon by accident.’”

                                      Someone suggested he check out a
                                      nearby health food store in suburban
                                      New York City, and he picked up a
                                      95-cent paperback titled, How to be
                                      Healthy With Natural Foods. Says
                                      Rommer, “I just kept on reading.”

                                      That interest led him to read and later
                                      work for wheatgrass guru Anne
                                      Wigmore, who was advocating a “live
                                      food diet” in Boston, and later, to an
                                      organic farm in upstate New York. He
                                      spent six years gardening — and making
                                      wheatgrass concoctions — for a wealthy
                                      woman in Rochester. It was there, 18
                                      years ago, that he started the greens
                                      business. Rommer’s Vermont-born wife,
                                      Kathy, convinced him to move it to
                                      Chester, midway between White River
                                      Junction and Brattleboro, in 1986.

                                      Although some might find Rommer’s
                                      views on the harsh side — he won’t hire
                                      smokers, for example, and is very much
                                      down on dairy — he still practices what
                                      he plants. “We are able to make a living,
                                      without sacrificing our lifestyle, in
                                      Vermont,” he says, pressing the fresh
                                      green blades through a company juicer
                                      until the pulp spirals out like a fibrous
                                      emerald turd. Administered like a dose of
                                      Nyquil, the liquid tastes like lawn
                                      clippings mixed with sugar, with a slightly
                                      medicinal aftertaste.

                                      They go through about three pounds a
                                      day at Liquid Energy — juice capital of
                                      Burlington, on the Church Street
                                      Marketplace. Rommer was the only local
                                      source of wheatgrass, until he trained a
                                      farmer in Fair Haven to grow enough to
                                      supply the cafe. “I’ve learned over the
                                      years that when you give, it comes back,”
                                      Rommer suggests. No one provides
                                      more convincing proof that you can reap
                                      what you sow. •

                                      For more information about Gourmet
                                      Greens, or to order online, check out
                                      the website at
                                     www.gourmetgreens.com. Or call
                                      802 875-3820.