Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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"Hobby" farms?


More Americans growing food on small 'hobby farms'
http://www.seattlepi.com/national/1110ap_us_farm_scene_hobby_farmers.html
By RICK CALLAHAN
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

        In this Friday, Sept. 11, 2009 photo, Gary Mithoefer washes 
vegetables picked from one of his two garden plots filled with sweet 
potatoes, squash, cabbages and a dozen other types of vegetables, including 
freshly planted rows of fall lettuce in Gem, Ind. Mithoefer gardens after his 
workday ends at his state highway job, is one of a growing number of 
Americans who are rolling up their sleeves and digging into the dirt to raise 
crops or livestock on a small-scale.(AP Photo/Michael Conroy)

GEM, Ind. -- Most evenings, Gary Mithoefer can be found at the end of a long 
gravel driveway off a busy highway, tending two garden plots filled with 
white sweet potatoes, squash, cabbages and a dozen other vegetables still 
thriving in early fall.

The 62-year-old, who gardens after his workday ends at his state highway job, 
is one of a growing number of Americans rolling up their sleeves and digging 
into the dirt to raise crops or livestock on a small scale.

The produce and meat raised by these small farms, sometimes called "hobby" or 
"lifestyle" farms, provides much of the food found at the nation's farmers' 
markets and roadside stands, said Maria I. Marshall, an associate professor 
of agricultural economics at Purdue University. Many of the farms raise 
specialized crops and practice organic or sustainable farming.

Mithoefer, who sells whatever produce his family doesn't eat, freeze or can 
at a Saturday farmer's market, said he loves working outdoors with a nephew 
who helps him till, plant, weed and harvest plots covering about a half-acre 
just east of Indianapolis along U.S. 40, the famed National Road.

The Greenfield, Ind., resident recently sat in the fall sunshine near his 
fields vigorously washing buckets of cucumbers, squash, turnips and beets for 
the farmer's market as the air hummed with the din of cicadas and crickets.

"We do it for the enjoyment," Mithoefer said as he scrubbed dirt from a 
cucumber.

"We make some on it - it doesn't lose money. We try to be reasonable with our 
prices and give the customer a good quality product for a reasonable price. 
Not much goes to waste."

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's most recent farm census shows that while 
the nation's largest farms keep getting larger, a growing number of small 
farms also are sprouting across the nation.

February's census report found that the number of farms under 50 acres soared 
nearly 15 percent between 2002 and 2007 to about 853,000 nationwide. Farms 
under 10 acres grew even more, with their numbers rising about 30 percent to 
232,000.

Nearly 300,000 new farms began production since the last census in 2002, and 
they tended to have fewer acres, lower sales and younger operators who also 
work off-farm, said Ginger Harris, a demographer with National Agricultural 
Statistics Service, a branch of the USDA.

Although the census numbers show a growing interest in small farms, she said 
farmers weren't asked their motives for starting their farms or why farming 
isn't their primary occupation.

"We don't know if they do something else because they can't make enough money 
with their farms, and they would like to be a full-time farmer, or it really 
is just a hobby," Harris said.

Denise Beno Anderson started her 5-acre chicken and vegetable farm in central 
Ohio in 2003 with her husband. They divorced this year, and Anderson now runs 
the operation with the help of a cousin and her 17-year-old son, Peter, who 
works as a farmhand.

Anderson said she moved from Columbus, Ohio, about an hour to the south, to 
the small town of Mount Gilead in part because she wanted to start a farm 
like the one she grew up on.

"I had my taste of the city, and I got tired of the sirens and the 
helicopters and the traffic and the smells, and I felt more comfortable in a 
rural setting," she said. "I had to get back out to my rural roots."

Anderson, 46, raises about 500 chickens from six old-fashioned layer chicken 
breeds, including Barred Plymouth Rocks, Rhode Island Reds and Americanas, 
which lay green eggs. She also raises vegetables and a few hogs, lambs and 
rabbits - all without chemicals, antibiotics or hormones.

Her farm has about 50 customers who pay for regular allotments of either eggs 
and vegetables or eggs and selected meats - or both. Anderson also sells 
vegetables and meats twice a week at two Columbus-area farmer's markets and 
to retail stores.

She also works part-time as a trail ride guide at a local horse stable.

"I can pay the mortgage on the farm, the utilities and other things," 
Anderson said. "We're not living a life of luxury over here, but we're not on 
food stamps, either. We're able to make a living."

Mithoefer, who grows his crops on a tiny slice of an 85-acre grain farm owned 
by his mother and two cousins, started farming as a child. In the 1970s, he 
took over some of the vegetable fields his maternal grandparents had tended 
for decades at their farm.

Mithoefer estimates he sells between $1,000 and $1,500 worth of vegetables 
each year at a local farmer's market. When he retires, he plans to keep his 
current fields but plant a wider variety of crops to extend his harvest, 
which now runs from June through November.

He hopes his nephew, who's 25 and wasn't even 10 when he started helping him 
with the fields, will take over someday.

"He's one of the reasons I'm still at it - because he still wanted to do it," 
Mithoefer said.