Picking Peppers in Cherry Valley

A chance 5 minute conversation back in March led to me turning up at Stroudsburg PA bus station hoping that Heidi was going to let me into the secret of the CSA or community supported agriculture that is becoming an exciting opportunity for new entrants in the states. Thankfully she did collect me and with her husband Gary, welcomed me into their home for a week. Here I learnt that there is more to the American diet than burgers and that although we sometimes talk a different language, problems are just the same. It quickly became clear that Heidi could do with out a house guest during a busy garlic festival season and two days after her worker had left. So I had a chance to earn my keep and was set to work learning how a CSA worked from the bottom up. The weather was very hot in the day and cool at night, I got fit picking tomatoes and came back with a great suntan. I also came back being reassured that I could still work all day without the constant interuptions that happen at Higher Fingle.
Community supported agriculture (CSA) an interesting idea that seems to have great support. A CSA is a project which is often vegetable or produce, but can be meat or eggs, that the customers sign up for in January giving the often young farmer the capital to buy seeds and inputs.

Cherry Valley CSA had around 80 customers that paid $600 in January and started collecting their vegetables in May through to October. In September when produce was abundant they were receiving around $40 a week in squash, garlic, potatoes, carrots,tomatoes, peppers and wonderful fresh veg. The farm was also able to sell surplus produce at a local farmers market and attended a number of garlic festivals each year to sell the high value garlic crop. The customers that I talked to thought that paying early in the year guaranteed that they would get the produce and the were keen for the farm to continue operating. In 2009 early tomato blight had destroyed the crop, but this year abundant tomatoes meant they could take home basket loads. Although many were disappointed in 2009, they understood that the value of the CSA was being able to share in the bad times as well as the good, reconnecting people with the reality of food production. During my time in the states I saw many variations on the CSA themes which included buying clubs (paying $40 a year for privilege of buying from the farm stand) internet buying clubs and chicken shares. Although had a fantastic level of commitment from the customer to support the young farmer to make a living.

Like any farming, margins were tiny and the work was hard. Heidi in common with many new entrants had a passion for farming and was living her dream. Heidi, from a non-farming family finished a business degree then worked for the Peace Corp in Mali. On returning to the Sates in the late 1990's she decided that she wanted to farm and set about getting experience working for growers. Seeing 47 acres owned by Stroudsburg township not being utilized she approached them with a business plan in 2005 and managed to rent the land on a ten year lease for $1 a year. Through determination and hard graft she has cleared and fenced 5 acres to produce the vegetables. That leaves the other 42 acres of woodland and scrubby overgrown land that has so much potential but needs so much more than 10 years to do it in. In the UK Heidi would have been able to apply for an environmental grant to help maintain the biodiversity and provide educational access. But in the states that support is not available so each step will be only be taken when the money allows.
Heidi's wish list was to install some irrigation (hopefully this winter), get her customers more involved with the physical work, find the money to build a classroom and have time to have more fun. Her husband Gary had recently started working full time on the farm and his extra support,I hope will mean that she can a little more. Yet again I had met a new entrant that was determined against the odds to farm and worked tirelessly to make her business work.
I left Cherry valley when the weather turned to rain, but I left with having made some great friends that I hope will do me the honour of visiting my home one day.

Little Farm In The Big Woods

Mary Jean with her goats in the woods

When I was six, my Mum read my Brother and I the classic children's tale Little House in the Big Woods. Laura Elizabeth Ingalls Wilder (February 7, 1867 – February 10, 1957) was an American author who wrote the series of books documenting her pioneer childhood. In the 1860's her father cleared woodland and farmed both crops and livestock near Pepin in Wisconsin. When Laura was six the family moved west to better farm land and opportunities. Their tale is a lesson in how hard farming can be and how resourceful the pioneers were.
In the Pocono Mountains in Northern Pennsylvania similar wood clearance occured and productive farming produced food for the urban populations of the East coast. Nowadays the area is woodland again, regenerated in the last 65 years as farming become uneconomic and the areas mainly residential.
On a scorching hot morning I hitched a lift to visit a 100 acre farm near Henryville. This was farmed by young couple Jeff and Mary Jean who inherited the farm from Jeff's grandfather. Here, where there was little soil, abundance of rocks and many trees, they were trying to recreate the fields that would have been cleared in the 1860's. Through the trees there are vast heaps of stones that form the field boundaries, these are the rocks cleared each year as the extreme frosts bought more to the surface each winter.
For the last 4 years they have been selling free range eggs and vegetables locally, but were yet to make a living. To make the farm viable they had invested Jeff's 'trust fund' in a building that included a goat milking parlour, cheese preparation room and a cheese cave. It really was a lovely building clad with wood from the farm and with a wood furnace to heat the water. They are just milking 12 goats to start the enterprise and were waiting to receive the final inspections to allow them to sell raw milk. Then they will increase the numbers to 48 females.
The milk sold in the US is pretty poor and there is a great interest in raw milk for health reasons. Mary Jean was determined that she was going to get her license, both from the economic reasons but also she believed it to be healthier.

I would love to have shown some of the grass obsessed Nuffield Scholars the tiny fields surrounded by tall trees and littered with large stones and I was impressed with young farmers taking an idea, that many would regard as mad and working hard to make it work.

Their wish list included an understanding vet ( they had a certain amount of resistance to being organic) and low cell counts.Veg Field & grass

During my travels in the US a theme seemed to appear of young farmers that were taking risks on marginal land and supplying direct to a customer produce that was unique.
However modern this farming was I still couldn't help feeling that at last, I was living the little House dream that many six year old girls love. How I covert a wooden house with a porch and rocking chair, but i'm not sure Nevil would be happy with black bears wandering around the farm.

Stunning new Goat milking barn and cheese dairy

Crabcakes and Vineyards

Old Field vineyard, North Fork Long Island.

Merlot grapes, ready for harvest

Perry Baiz

One of the reasons for this blog is to try and remember where i have been and what i have seen, not just for when my memory packs up completely, but also so when the dreaded report writing begins i will be half way there. As I am doing my travel in short trips I have left myself very little time for anything and only managed to get some thoughts down thanks to Greyhound timetables. After a hectic few days, plans for a kayak trip on the Deleware have been abandoned due to rain which means no excuses not to blog.
As a not often travelled country girl i started my trip to the USA by visiting my cousin, Sarah and hubbie, Joe, in Great Neck, Long island New York. After surprising myself by not getting lost travelling from Newark my first weekend was spent being looked after with great hospitality.
North Fork Long Island used to be an area that grow lots of potatoes and cauliflowers for New York, but back in 1973 the first Vines were planted and now a thriving wine industry exists with mostly direct sales to the many tourists that visit each winery to have a $4 tasting and buying for home. Not just a few tourist were out when we visited, but crowds that included families, couples and bizarrely stretch limos full of Hen parties, certainly agritourism that seemed a great success.
Starting out early and driving to the furthest winery on the fork we had a great private tour with Perry Baiz, who with her mother and father farm The Old Field Vineyard
Old field had been purchased by Perry's great Grandfather and her father planted the first vines in 1974 and since 1997 all 12 acres have been vines, 95% of what they produce is sold direct from the farm. Perry and her mother make most of the wine, but they use the facilities at a more modern vineyard to make some and buy the grapes in to make the whites. Pretty much everything was manual, except for netting the grapes with a nifty machine mounted on the tractor. Great emphasis was placed on sustainability and this seemed to be something that was important in the marketing. When pressed why not organic, the risk of crop failure due to mildew and fungal diseases was thought to be the main reason, followed by the cost of registration and inspection. Perry had opted to study Environmental Biology before returning to the farm and found the UK's system of Agricultural education something that she would have been interested in if it was available in the states. Her Brother had decided not to farm and was a stunt man in Hollywood, however he came back each year to harvest the grapes. I'm not sure if his stunts had led to the other farm diversification that included the setting for film that is out soon starring Katie Holmes called the Romantics and it really is in a stunning place. If you love the views and want to have your wedding there you can hire the garden only and beautiful beach for $10,000.00 but bring your own tent, caters, potapotty and insurance. For the inconvenience of 6 weekends a year it suddenly is viable to farm on 12 acres and that is the beauty of being so close to such a huge number of people. But still Perry wished for the investment to put in a new barn with modern equipment and was envious of the city types that had bought neighbouring vineyards as hobbies and tax avoidance, have you heard that before? Maybe a few more films may make her wish come true, i hope so!

New wine barn on neighbours vineyard

And the crabcakes, nothing to do with the farm but that was our lunch in the lovely village of Greenport, where you could watch the Americans at play and see some stunning sailing boats and large speedboats.

Greenport Long Island

Blogging on a Circle

So this is easton circle, the major tourist attraction in Easton and where they hold a farmers market since 1760's or something like, but not on a Monday. Monday is also the day the Crayola crayon attraction is closed, so's the canal museum and pretty much that's it. So while away the time i'm using Macdonalds wifi and not buying anything by sitting on a roundabout with a very nice fountain and weird music from hidden speakers. I'm quite glad i'm not staying longer than 6 hours. I've now been on the Pittsburg greyhound and i should have guessed when the driver said that noone gets off at Easton that it might be a little quiet. To while away the time, in good Nuffield style, i went to the town offices and found the lady in charge of the Easton Farmers market. A lot of thought and effort goes into the market and she assures me that they are thriving (unlike the UK where sales are definately down.) One of the things that helps is that they accept food stamps, as well as supplying a credit card machine for the stall holders to use. It is most definately not a well off area 19% below the poverty line) and not a particularly large town (2008 estimate was 26,080) but i was told that the market supported 28 traders, although they were looking for a new poultry supplier (bit far for Higher Fingle especially by greyhound)!) market pitches were $125 for the season that run each Saturday from May through to October, so by UK standards pretty reasonable which mean that the farmers can charge a reasonable price for their produce.
Things here get weirder as i'm joined on the roundabout by someone else using Macdonalds wifi and who is determined to tell me the history of Easton. I think that's a cue to escape as We get on to the reverse flag at the reading of the Declaration of Independance and the address of the local prison. Hopefully my bus will be here soon and I get to Stroudsburg before dark, but if anyone tells me that no one goes there I will believe them!

Girl Power

The other week I spent an interesting day at The Royal Agricultural College Speaking to the Widening Participation officer. When I first found there was such a post I found it quite funny having gone to college at a time when the Royal maintained an exclusive status by having fees that were way above other colleges and was definitely not known for being inclusive.
Emma Thomas is an interesting person that is very much motivated by the benefits that education bring to young people. Her post is funded from several streams and is part of Aim Higher which is about making everyone aware of the benefits higher education can bring, whatever their background. This means that she is not just promoting Agricultural education. Most colleges and universities have such a person and bring all ages of school children onto campus to encourage them to aspire to Higher Education.
So why go to the Royal? I first contacted Emma because she runs the Young City Farmers Programme an idea inspired by The Black Farmer (Wilfred Emanual Jones) to get inner city kids out to experience the countryside and then help them equip themselves with the skills to go into land based industries. The programme is in it's 4th year and is funded from several land based charitable trusts and the results are now being seen. Previous student have gone on to various courses including NDA's in horticulture, apprenticeships and full time jobs. A really well thought out programme that certainly inspired youngsters to make agriculture their choice of career. The only draw back was it was only 12 students a year participating and the resources going into were quite considerable. Although Emma was pleased how the program had developed she felt that maybe it was not utilising resources efficiently and reaching out to enough students.
Emma was helped out by 2 very able girls that were Student Ambassadors. This looked like a job I could have done with at college with pay rates well over the minimum wage. Talking to these girls was where the day got very interesting. One was from a farm and was studying a degree in food chain, the other was from non farming background and in second year of a BSC in Agriculture. They had a fantastic commitment to promoting the food industry and bubbled over with enthusiasm. They obviously had the right communication skills to encourage school children to have a go at higher Education. I learnt loads from them, mainly about being old and cynical but also pearls of wisdom like 'of course we expect to be more professional than our parents generation' 'it is difficult to get experience on a farm but i always read the farmers weekly' 'i completed a tractor driving course but not yet learnt to reverse a trailer' ' on course of 40 Ag students only 4 are girls.' It was a bit mind blowing and i am still having a job working some of it out.
So far i am thinking that

1. Although i started on my pre college year 25 years ago, it is still nearly impossible to get a job on a farm without some experience
2. I thought we had done the feminist bit and proved that girls were as good as the boys, but I just must not notice anymore. (did you know that only 10% of farmworkers are female)
3. It's about time farmers woke up and took both girls and boys more seriously before all this youthful enthusiasm goes somewhere else.
4. Why on earth is Agriculture the one course at RAC that doesn't require any practical experience?

Nevil says that i should have gone and visited a proper Agriculture College (old habits die hard) and maybe I will and maybe the demographics will be different, I hope so.
The following week I got even more confused when the Farmer Weekly had some forum on 'What should a Farmers Daughter do?' Sometimes I am at a loss how to understand an industry that seems to find what your father works at more important than your skills (how many job interviews ask that?) and seems content to dismiss 50% of the workforce because of their Sex.
As a mother of 2 Daughters and 3 Sons I know which ones are the most focused and ambitious and the most useful on the farm. OK so not really scientific survey but that's Nuffield.
Phew,Rant Over so you can relax now!


My Pre-College farm, Newhouse Farm where the Hook family were good enough to teach me to drive a tractor. I did work for £35 per week for 3 months and was very proud when they decided I was good enough to be paid a proper wage.

Okehampton Show with kiwi humour

One thing we do well in the South West is Agricultural shows. The smaller local shows that are run with passion by volunteers are the best days out, much more entertainment than any theme park. Today we went off to Okehampton show and it did not disappoint. This show has had a few years that it had to be cancelled due to bad weather, but it has recovered and seemed to have loads of top class stock, as well as all the usual rural entertainment.Funny moments included the pig couple showing where one pair of white pigs caused chaos, a black sow who managed to wee on Alfred's foot and best of all the fantastic Sheep show
Who could possibly forget the sheep characteristics after such a brilliant demonstration, only a Kiwi could train nine sheep to dance.
The show was packed with all ages, both looking at and exhibiting livestock, crafts and vintage machinery. Sightly worrying to see a ford Fiesta in vintage display of the same age that i was so proud to buy after one summer of tractor driving, but great seeing David Brown Cropmaster that I remember watching our neighbour ploughing with when I was just a youngster ( mind you it must have been fairly vintage then).
Judging on today the young are most certainly interested in the countryside, and the countryside has people that are prepared to put in huge amounts energy of running the show or exhibiting, the challenge is how does that transfer to a commitment to start those youngsters on a career in farming.

Who needs Holidays?

As we head for home, we start to list reasons we can’t stay for longer. Ian Walker the owner of our lovely holiday gite was really pleased that he had quite a few 3 week bookings. Most of these bookings seemed to be school teachers, but even a 2 week holiday seems to be something that we may save like mad to achieve, but organising would be very near impossible. After getting our first farm we never left the place together for 5 years, eventually we took the kids on a weekend trip to Woolacombe to stay in a caravan that was all of 30 miles away, what a revelation and what fun. The children had our undivided attention and we could relax. As Nevil could quickly return to sort any problems out we were able to leave our very capable French agricultural student in charge.

With the children getting older and employing full time staff as well as students, last year was the first time we attempted a full week holiday. Of course now with mobile phones and many holiday accommodation having wi-fi you can pretty much keep in touch constantly and we have been able to keep an eye on the day to day running of the poultry business and even update this blog! However, farming by internet is pretty impossible and to get away Nevil had to work non-stop before we left and had to pay to leave someone reliable in charge.

So is it worth it? Although the hassle of travelling with 5 children is a little desperate (I’m writing this on the ferry, help!) Nevil and I are coming back refreshed and with hopefully a clearer direction and new ideas. The children are healthy and brown, their swimming has improved and they have an appreciation of French. They have been out for very traditional French meals and behaved themselves (mostly), been and bought bread and sweets on their own at the boulangier, cultivating with a young French farmer in a John Deere and played French Pokeman. More importantly we have all spent time together as a family.

So yes, a Nuffield experience most definitely broadens the horizons, not just for us but the children as well. Growing up on the farm can be fantastic but could become isolating; hopefully we are equipping them with skills to grow up into confident adults, not frightened to push the boundaries.

So how does a new entrant step back, assess their business and take a rest. Pretty near impossible but from our experience it should compulsory! Those farms where the parents are on hand no problem, but first generation farmers the cost and worry of taking a break at prohibitive. A while back I was talking to a local representative for Farm Crisis Network that was popping in each day to check on the relief milker so a young farmer was having a chance of a worry free family holiday. Maybe preventing a Crisis is a network the farming community should be organising themselves and offering the young a chance for a rest.

Meanwhile, I must prevent a crisis with a seven year old who really is not coping well with the sea, may be next year we will try Cornwall.