Middletown Organic Farmer Sees Shift In Food Awareness

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Middletown Organic Farmer Sees Shift In Food Awareness

Gazette.Net
June 13th, 2012

Credit: George Groutas/Creative Commons

By Ryan Marshall

Eric Rice strolled through his orchard, pointing out the work that awaits him as the growing season progresses.

The cherries are almost ready to be picked, but still need to get a little darker. The apricots are just starting to get some color and have some time before they’ll be ready.

“These are pears, right here,” Rice said, pointing to a row of trees along a field on his Country Pleasures Farm near Middletown.

Wearing gloves, a wide-brimmed hat and a plastic bucket full of fresh-picked blueberries attached to a leather belt around his waist, Rice expounded on the pleasures and perils of growing crops without some of the benefits available to traditional farmers.

Country Pleasures has been certified organic since 1990, making it one of the oldest of about 90 certified organic farms in the state, according to the Maryland Department of Agriculture. Organic food is grown without using many conventional pesticides or synthetic fertilizers, bio-engineering or ionizing radiation, according to the department. Certified organic growers must pass an inspection process overseen by the state.

Rice said he thinks people have become more savvy about what they eat, especially among the members of Generation Y. His parents’ generation was mainly interested in getting off the farm, and many his age weren’t as interested in farming, he said, but the younger generation seems more attuned to where their food comes from.

“I am greatly heartened by the interest that I see,” Rice said.

The farm sells its produce at a farmer’s market in Washington, D.C., as well as to individual customers and several stores and restaurants.

Along with their main profit-earning crops of blueberries, pears and cherries, the 38-acre farm grows a wide range of fruits and vegetables on a variety of scales, from several acres of apples to a few lemon and avocado trees in one of the greenhouses.

Currently they’re experimenting with artichokes, said Rice’s wife, Lori. The greenhouses also hold figs, persimmons, kiwi and a variety of herbs that can help control pests, she said.

They like to grow a wide variety of produce to help protect against problems with one crop or another. If you just grow corn and you have bad crop, you’re done, she said.

This has been a good year for blueberries because it’s been so wet, but that might not be good for the apples in the fall, she said.

Without pesticides and some of the other products used by traditional farmers, they’ve had to experiment to find out which products work best to be grown organically. They originally planted about 30 varieties of blueberries and winnowed it down to about 10 types.

By the time the season is done, they will have harvested more than 250 flats of blueberries to be sold, as well as turned into jams, preserves, syrup and other products, Eric Rice said. One flat is equal to 12 pints.

Rice said that although they pay attention to what their customers want and which products will grow best organically, their overall approach is simple.

“We grow stuff that we want to eat,” he said.

[Source: Gazette.Net]