Oregon Public Broadcasting

Forget the farmers’ market, now foodies can connect with their Northwest farmers via the internet.

A company that mills flour in Spokane has launched a new web site. It allows customers to track their bag of flour back to the exact Washington, Oregon or Idaho farms where the wheat came from.

Richland correspondent Anna King reports.

Punch the number code on the side of your bag of Stone-Buhr flour into FindtheFarmer.com , and you can get to know guys like Art Schultheis.

He’s a fifth-generation wheat farmer in Colton, Washington. That’s near Pullman.

Schultheis says these days it’s a rare person who knows where their flour comes from. And most wheat farmers lose track of their grain after they drop it off at the local elevator.

Art Schultheis: “It’s important for us as farmers to be part of the value chain, to put some added value to our crop and know where it’s going.”

The owner of Stone-Buhr flour brand says his company already had the information about where the wheat was coming from -- he’s just taken the extra step to put it online.

Josh Dorf says putting traceability, photos, maps and farmer bios on the web site won’t add any extra cost to the bags of flour.

Online:

Find the Farmer