Future of family farming uncertain in Ohio
By Kimberleigh Anderson and Melissa Puppo
Miles of farmland cover the northeast region of Medina County in Ohio. Sunny blue, clear skies stretch over the land filled with a magnitude of crops, livestock and colored John Deere tractors.
Amongst the nearly 75,700 farms in the state, lies Martin’s Blueberry Farm in Spencer Township. The farm is a tranquil place, complete with rows of blueberry plants for a ‘pick your own’ experience. A vast 260 acres of land fill the rest of the farm.
Martin’s Blueberry Farm is one example of a local, family farm still managing to survive in the agricultural industry, despite challenges including skyrocketing land values, a push for large-scale farming and, now, a stiff competition in the organic farming industry.
Dave Martin, 73, remembers farming with his grandfather when he was 10 years old. Martin has grown accustomed to tending to the land and been working hard to ensure a sufficient farm since he can remember.
Martin’s farm consists of his blueberry plants, roughly 120 acres in soybeans, 70 acres of rows of corn, 50 acres of woods — home to wild flowers, “The Black River,” and magnificent oak trees — and 10 acres in farm buildings and roadways. Originally built in 1888, Martin has lived on this farm since 1984.
“There’s only three ways to get a farm: you either marry a girl whose dad has a farm or else your dad has a farm or you work two jobs all your life,” Martin said. “I did the last. I worked two jobs most of my life.”
Besides farming, Martin also held numerous jobs at United Airlines over the years. Farming is a 24/7 job, however; it’s something that is a constant in his life.
[pullquote]“There’s only three ways to get a farm: you either marry a girl whose dad has a farm or else your dad has a farm or you work two jobs all your life,” Martin said.
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“There’s always 25 jobs to do. It’s a priority,” Martin said. “Even if you take a vacation, you wonder, ‘what’s going on at the farm?’ Everything that happens affects you and your livelihood, whether it’s weather or some other tax.”
Recently, he feels the farming business is undergoing serious changes. For one, he is concerned with government interference in what local farmers do.
“I dislike some man sitting at a desk dictating what I should do physically here on my farm,” Martin said. “That gets to be irritating after a while. I think if the politicians would let the free enterprise and the capitalistic system work, it’d work great.”
The government’s impact on farming has led to some changes over the years.
Small farms account for 91 percent of all farms and 23 percent of agricultural production, according to an Economic Research Survey by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Despite representing a mere nine percent of farms in the U.S., large and very large farms now account for roughly 30 and 47 percent of American agricultural production respectively. That number is steadily increasing.
A look inside of Martin’s farm
Charting the Essentials
Family farming struggles
“Family farming” is a family production where the farm is managed and operated solely by a family and their labor.
“When I think of a family farm, I think of a family working together like the Amish people still do farming and making a living,” Martin said.
The amount of family farming in the nation and Ohio is going down.
“I don’t know how to encourage young people to look at farming as a career because to me, there’s a lot of exciting things, and we worry about the age of the American farmer is getting up there,” he said. “ We have to help young people get established in farming. That would be my biggest worry is, is there is another generation around ready to do this work?”
Martin believes the decline of family farming relates to the fast growth in size and consolidation — where there once were a 140-acre farm with 30 cows, now there are two to three farms with a magnitude of urbanization and employees.
Push for organic farming
“The basics [of organic farming] are that you put no foreign materials on your land,” Martin said. “You don’t use any pesticides. You use all natural, organic products. You give up technology and seed improvements sometimes you take a lesser yield.”
While, Martin’s Blueberry Farm is not a registered organic farm, he still runs his farm as completely pesticide free as possible. The farm uses an herbicide — which is still considered a pesticide — to control weeds in the offseason. The only insecticide he has used was because of an outbreak of sawflies.
“Do I let the saw flies eat my blueberry leaves and grow in the plants, or do I spray them,” he said. “We use it only as a last measure.”
Martin said he is not trying to be organic, as it is tough getting into the financial world of organic farming. The product has to have quality and a super premium price to reward the farm for all that has been giving up in yield and quality sometimes.
Even though, farmers are looking to become organically certified, this may present problems in the future.
“I think that if the whole world were organic that there would be a lot more people starving to death because we just wouldn’t produce the volumes that we do.”
A farm must be certified by the Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association (OEFFA) to be considered an organic farm. There is a five-step process that must be met by the organization. The United States Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service recently released results from a 2014 Organic Production Survey this week that showed a 72 percent increase in organic sales in 20008.
While the state didn’t reach the top 10 in organic sales like other states including California, Pennsylvania and New York, Ohio remains in the top 10 in the number of organic farms in operation, according to a federal survey of U.S. organic farms.
Close to home education prepares future farmers
New at Kent State at Tuscarawas, Assistant Dean Fran L. Haldar has led the development of the new Bachelor of Science in Agribusiness, which took more than six years to create and obtain approval to begin the new program.
“We have the Agribusiness degree which is a balance between the decision-making framework of business and the technical aspects of modern agriculture and food systems,” Haldar said.
Life for a farmer
TV2’s Kimberleigh Anderson goes inside of Martin’s farm to learn about the way farming has changed and the issues for farmers in the 21st century.