Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
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for corn earworm. There is just not a lot of pressure around for the month
of July. It is in between flights; it is before the generations build up. We
can be down to as low as 0 percent worms, and not go above 15 percent
or 20 percent worm damage. And the worm damage is just tip damage. So
20 percent damage . . . which for organic is very acceptable.” Indeed, that
is very acceptable even in conventional chemical farming. Phil explains,
“Corn is just a nice thing to grow. People like corn. It works well in farmers'
markets. It works well with our local route. There is something to be said
about a nice ear of sweet corn even if you cut the tip off if it has good flavor.
“And we grow cucumbers. We usually end up doing about an acre and
a half a year, and that is mainly for our local routes. We are still trying to
learn how to do cucumbers. I don't know that we have ever made money on
cucumbers. If we could do a good job with it, local cucumbers throughout
the summer are a nice item to have. And then in the fall sometimes the
prices go up. We are doing summer squash. We are doing maybe four acres
a year. Maybe five. Two to three goes to wholesale, and then after that there
are some smaller plantings to spread it out through the season. We still do
a wholesale summer squash deal. We try to hit what is an early market for
around here in May and June and then try to get out of it before the local
people come in because that usually means the prices go down.”
While planning and growing these diverse crops takes a lot of time and
commitment, perhaps even more effort goes into marketing the many types
of produce. Up until two years ago, Phil sold only to wholesalers that dis-
tributed his products regionally and nationally. “They had a sales staff. They
oversaw the cooling and shipping. That worked very good for a number of
years. We were able to expand our business as the organic industry grew.
There was a big increase in growth from 1990 to 1998.Sowegrewour
business over those years. We were able to have a pretty diverse crop mix ro-
tation.” But then things started to change in organic production. “It looked
like it was becoming a little more competitive. We were trying to figure out
where we fit into the whole thing.We have a pretty goodmedium-sized farm
for organic production, but there were more people getting involved, there
were bigger growers, conventional farmers trying organic in this area. And
what was happening was they weren't experienced with organics, especially
marketing and size of fields. They would plant somewhat the way they
were used to planting, just much too large. It ended up there were pretty
depressed prices on certain things. And we thought there would be more of
that. As you got more people into that and organics became a little more
mainstream, it may parallel the way the conventional market is and that, to
me, is not a healthy way to market. The farmer is more at risk.”
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