Organic Farmers on the Ground - Good Growing: Why Organic Farming Works - page 105

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M ary Mitchell shipping out an order of Florida citrus. (Credit: author)

Rob explains, “This is the oldest organic gig in the United States as far as
citrus goes. I am pretty sure there is nothing close in California. This has
been a grove since 1879 and it has been organic since 1946. Strictly organic.”
Rob explains how it all began. “My brother and I came here in 1975.Mr.
DeWolfe owned this place. He wanted someone to work with him and not
for him. He decided to sell it to me and my brother because his family was
going to sell it out as soon as he was dead and gone. So my brother bought
the other side of the road, but he lost that in his divorce.” Of course, it
hasn't been easy. “It's been a lot of learning by doing and then we froze in
1983, and then we went about five years without having any grove at all. And
then I started planting again in 1988. Then in 1992 or so I started coming
into production and I haven't stopped since. It seems like yesterday. I wish
I had fifty or a hundred acres right in this area, right on this Fruit Land
Peninsula.”
Mary is from Kentucky. She met Rob and followed him to the farm in
1987. She explains how the grove takes the best of both of them: “It's not
a job. It's fun. You know, we enjoy packing it, the people. I love it, so you
know it's not a job. It's fun and we get paid for it. It's got to be in your blood,

[105], (15)