Baldwin County farm, produce market plow forward together

DAPHNE, Alabama -- In a coastal county where, in recent years, subdivisions have multiplied faster than yellow squash during a hot, wet spring, 55-year-old Vince Allegri has managed to keep up a generations-old family farming business.
And he’s done so by selling the produce himself for more than 15 years, he said.
"This is something I could never give up. It’s what I always knew I would do from earliest time I can remember," Allegri said as he drove a utility vehicle down a dirt path beside a field of verdant collard greens and rows of young corn with golden crowns.
The 40-acre family farm is just a short drive south of Allegri Farm Market. He’s owned the shop at the corner of Ala. 181 and Baldwin County 64 since 2003.
Driving an identical utility vehicle behind him was Patti Kontos, who for the past three years has managed the market so that Allegri could concentrate on cultivating his farm along Dick Higbee Road off 181. Allegri said he leases out another 800 or so acres to farmers across central Baldwin County.
As Allegri stopped to inspect some of his fields’ rubber drip irrigation lines, Kontos watched him with a smile.
"I don’t think he could ever come back to manage the market. This is where he belongs. This is what he loves," she said. "I love to come out here to get a break. This is the real beauty of Baldwin County, the longest view you’ll get without a bunch of development in the way."
In a few minutes, Kontos drove back to tend the market and its 27 full- and part-time employees.
"Hiring her six years ago was one of the smartest things I’ve ever done," said Allegri, who met the Nebraska native when they both were shopping at Mobile’s farmers market. Kontos at the time was running her own stand in Leakesville, Miss.
Working as a laborer
After graduating from Fairhope High School, Allegri said he attended "Dick Higbee University." That is, he worked until he was 28 as a laborer for Belforest-area cattleman and farmer Dick Higbee.
That year, Allegri planted his first 50 acres of sweet corn. He nearly lost that crop due to drought, but saved it by installing an irrigation system, he said.
To this day, corn remains Allegri’s major crop. As he gave a tour of the farm, he pointed out rows planted at different times to ensure that he will be able to deliver fresh sweet corn to the market daily from about May 25 until July 18, he said.
Allegri said it was the rising cost of land in Baldwin County that motivated him and business partner George Klumpp to open what they called the Fairhope Farmers Market in 1996.

That land was later sold by the Klumpp family, and is now the site of that city’s Walmart.

Eight years ago, Allegri opened Allegri Farm Market in a 4,000 square foot building where he still offers fruit, produce, dairy products, jams, jellies, soups, honey, boiled peanuts and large shelves full of vegetables.
"We try to buy from a lot of the other local farmers, too," Kontos said. "We don’t always understand each other, though. They say they have plenty of something. To them, that’s four boxes. To me, plenty is more like 12 boxes."
'This is real economics'
Owning both a farm and a market creates stability, Allegri said. Meanwhile, other local farmers, flower growers and beekeepers have a place where they also can sell their goods, he said.
"This is real economics. This is what Baldwin County did for hundreds of years," he said.
Allegri said that, like many people in agriculture, he long distrusted the frantic housing construction that accounted for so much economic growth both locally and throughout the country.
"The false bottom fell out of the housing market, and now we have acres and acres of fields that you probably will never be able to farm again," Allegri said. "You have paved roads, drainage systems and underground utilities in these fields with no houses on them. It’s heartbreaking to look at."
Allegri said his wife and two daughters — one a married Auburn graduate and the other still in college — have long had an arrangement.
"Don’t wait on me," he said, explaining that while he loves his family, the farm and market are intensely time-consuming, and often the work can’t wait till another day.
"If you’ve got something you really want to do, you go ahead and have a good time. Tell me all about it when you get home," he said. Almost in the next breath, he pointed across the street from the market to a field of wheat.
"I’ve got 300 acres out there. We’re going to get started on harvesting that in the next couple days," he said.
For large projects like that, he uses big farm machinery. But for the produce sold at his store, Allegri himself picks it along with eight or 10 hired hands, generally local teenagers.
"People ask me how I can get out there and work all day with them. Well, for one thing, that’s the only way you can keep them working is if you’re right there," he said.