University Cooperative Extension specialist Otho Wells stands in a colorful red and green tomato field belonging to New Hampshire farmer Matt LeClair '90 and his family. Foliage from the tomato plants provides the green, but the red is not tomatoes but a plastic mulch which runs the length of the raised-bed rows. The new red mulch, Wells explains to the throng of 150 farmers gathered on this sun-streaked June evening, combined with well-aerated soil and trickle irrigation creates "a nice, cozy environment" for tomato plants to grow. Researchers at the University's Experiment Station have found that the red mulch has certain properties which enhance photosynthesis: for LeClair, this means a 5 to10 percent increase in his yield of tomatoes—a big boost for a young, struggling farmer.
The farmers who stand in the fading light of this stone-walled field have come from all parts of the state and beyond to attend a Twilight Meeting, an educational forum offered by UNH Cooperative Extension. There is a lot of handshaking and backslapping as the group gathers. Most of them already know one another—they have met at local agricultural events and some of them went to UNH together. There is a sense of camaraderie in their shared struggle to live off the land they love, relying on the whims of consumers and a sometimes fickle Mother Nature.
Tonight they will learn about the remarkable red mulch, see a demonstration of a special soil fumigation machine, get tips on weed and disease control, learn how to extend the growing season of tomatoes using high tunnels, hear strategies on more effective crop rotation for strawberries and earn credits for state certification on pesticide use. But they also will celebrate their industry and recharge their collective batteries before returning to the challenges of the small-scale family farming which typifies New England. "Farming's not for everyone," says Steve Taylor '62, the state's agriculture commissioner. "It takes a certain combination of talents and will power to make a family farm function."
Farming in New Hampshire is an ever-changing and broadly defined industry. The New Hampshire Census of Agriculture specifies that a farm is any agricultural endeavor that produces and sells more than $1,000 worth of its products—anything from lumber to honey. While there are still many large-scale dairy and apple farms, the state is seeing a new trend toward "niche" agriculture that relies on a close relationship between the producer and local consumers. More farms are run by women than ever before—16 percent—and the idea of "community supported agriculture" is being introduced, where the financial burden and risks, as well as the yield, are shared by both producers and users.
While the last 50 years have seen a dramatic reduction in the number of farms in New Hampshire due to economic pressures and development, since 1969 the number has remained about the same despite the fact that farm acreage has declined by 33 percent. Today there are just over 2,930 farms in the state: 30 years ago there were 2,902. "The perception is that agriculture is dying. It isn't--it's just changing and growing. It's very vibrant," says Paul Fisher, assistant professor of plant biology at UNH.
The last half century has seen unprecedented technological innovations in plant and animal genetics, plastics technology and computerization—and the University's agricultural programs, experimental work and outreach have been an integral part of this growth. Today, fruit and vegetable producers take advantage of technology which extends the season and provides insect- and pesticide-resistant cultivars; apple growers are exploring integrated pest management, stronger dwarf stock trees, and more marketable varieties; and large-scale greenhouses are using European mass production technology and innovative marketing ideas.
In the dairy industry, cows are producing more milk than ever and living longer. When mating cattle, farmers used to look for "a big tall cow and a big tall bull," says Taylor. "Now a consultant walks through the herd with a hand-held computer." By combining the computer's stored genetic information on the bulls and cows with physical characteristics observed in person, the consultant can select the attributes that will produce a better calf.
When Durham farmer Benjamin Thompson willed his farm to the state in 1856 to "promote the cause of agriculture," he couldn't begin to imagine the extent of his legacy at the turn of the second millennium. Many of today's New Hampshire farmers, like their parents and grandparents, came off the family farm and traveled to Durham to study on Thompson's farm—called the University of New Hampshire since 1923—in programs offered by the College of Life Sciences and Agriculture and the Thompson School of Applied Science. Even Commissioner Taylor, the state's most public farmer, is a product of Thompson's farm.
The federal government's 1862 Morrill Act provided support for land grant institutions, and the New Hampshire state legislature was quick to take action, incorporating the New Hampshire College of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts four years later as part of Dartmouth College. Thompson's historic bequest allowed the college to move 31 years later to the Warner Farm in Durham.
Agricultural research got its start in the state around the same time. Beginning in 1887, results of the Experiment Station's research were disseminated to farmers through bulletins and local newspapers. In 1911, Director John C. Kendall, Class of 1902, established the Extension Services. Today, Cooperative Extension works on the county system, although specialists will cross over county lines to provide the most recent research to the state's farmers.
Because of the state's farming heritage and the strength of UNH's agricultural programs and outreach, many of New Hampshire's farmers are UNH alumni. Some attended college planning to return to the farm. Others sought opportunities in agribusiness, their degrees opening doors to careers in animal nutrition, farm economics and plant science.
Highlighted here are three different types of family farms, all run by UNH alumni. Each farm is considered progressive for its use of the latest technologies to enhance production, and their owners know the risks and benefits of working with living things.
Despite the hardships of the industry, Taylor suggests three reasons farmers stick to their business. "There's a lot more to it than cash return," he claims. "One, you get a chance to involve your whole family--family members can have a direct impact on the economic well-being of the whole operation. Two, you can work outdoors in a self-defined job. And three, you don't have to suck up to anybody."
Standing on the rocky slope of his family's Barrett Hill Farm, Matt LeClair looks like a guy who has spent a lot of time down at the gym lifting weights. His powerful arms curve away from his compact body; his small hands are dense and meaty. But what built his strong frame over the last nine years is lifting rocks from these New Hampshire hills and the steady labor of his highly physical occupation.
Since his graduation from the Thompson School in 1990 with an associate's degree in animal science and a minor in plant science, LeClair has toiled 365 days a year—with the exception of one week this past January for his wedding and a quick honeymoon—to turn his parents' farm in Mason, N.H., into a productive beef, fruit and vegetable enterprise.
LeClair, who manages about 300 acres, is considered a progressive farmer because he is up-to-date on new methods and eagerly incorporates them into his farm. Besides the remarkable red mulch, LeClair makes use of "high tunnels," easily constructed, portable plastic greenhouses which are just high enough for a farmer to walk down the middle.
"Using a high tunnel means that a farmer can double the growing season—one month in the spring and two months in the fall," says Wells. "There's almost complete disease control because they are very dry. And there's more yield per unit area." Efficient use of the land is vital to New England farmers who vie for land with developers. "Farmland is going fast," says LeClair. "You can't compete with developers for prime agricultural areas, so you're forced to look for higher value consumer-oriented crops."
Marketing his strawberries and a wide variety of vegetables at stands around the area, LeClair relies, in part, on consumer desire for locally grown fresh produce. "The availability of produce in the supermarket has grown dramatically," says extension fruit specialist Bill Lord. But the produce in the supermarket lacks a family with a stake in how it was grown, he says, while home-grown agricultural products represent a certain kind of "goodness."
The farm has been in LeClair's family since the 1920s. In the '30s it burned—LeClair credits a granite outcropping for attracting the lightning that struck the farm three times in the last 100 years—and the family found it cheaper to relocate to Massachusetts. They returned in the 1960s and farmed the land part-time.
"I honestly feel that this is a noble occupation," he says. "There's a lot of history on the farm and the land I'm working, and I feel like I'm connecting a little bit with the people who were working it 200, 300 years ago." LeClair plans to clear an additional 20 acres this year and is excited to have his wife, Beth, as a partner. "She loves it," he says. As for her nursing career, he acknowledges, "It's always good to have something else in your back pocket."
It's a blustery mid-November day at Graymist Farm on the banks of the Connecticut River in Groveton, N.H., and Nancy '76 and Gordon '74 Gray have just begun the 4 p.m. milking. Nancy works efficiently in the seven- by 25-foot recessed pit as she readies the milking parlor—three end-to-end stalls on either side of the pit—for the onslaught of 86 cows, bovine wetnurses to modern society.
Each cow has a name and a number: a name for Nancy's affectionate attention and a number for the computer. Molly, a first-calf heifer, stands placidly in the cubicle undaunted by the cachugachug of the milking units. Nancy accesses data on Molly by pressing buttons on a small box affixed to each stall. "1S tells me that 179 is her number," she says. "2S tells me how many pounds of milk she gave, 32.6 pounds, and 24S tells me it took her 4.9 minutes to give me that milk." All this information and more, progeny data, maternal characteristics, fertilization timetable, are stored in the small gray PC which sits in their barn's office: the Gray's access to high technology in this world of mud, manure and milk. Nancy doesn't need the computer to tell her the cows' names, though. She knows them by heart.
Graymist has a different look than dairy farms of previous generations. Gone is the massive barn, replaced by low, open-sided structures which provide increased ventilation for healthier animals and farmers. The shining metal silo stands erect next to more easily accessible three-sided trench silos. The cows are fed four different nutritionally balanced mixes of grain depending on where they are in the reproductive cycle, and their bedding is a mixture containing cut up newspaper which the Grays later sell as compost. Like LeClair, the Grays are always trying new methods to be more productive. They are among the few farmers in the area to grow soybeans, which provide both an inexpensive source of protein for the cows and nitrogen residue in the soil to benefit next year's corn crop.
Gordon moves slowly around the milking parlor sporting the traditional garb of the dairy farmer—green coveralls and steel-toed boots. His deep, resonant voice carries the classic New Hampshire accent: "there" becomes the two syllable they-uh. Little in his demeanor reveals his impressive credentials: a pre-veterinary degree from UNH, and a master's in reproductive physiology in dairy cattle from the University of Vermont. This year he is taking a course in cow nutrition over the Internet.
"Farming is a big challenge," says Gordon. "If it isn't animals being sick or something, it's crops fighting Mother Nature. You've got to be a mechanic, a veterinarian, a nutritionist, a soils person, an agronomist, you've got to be able to repair things—never a dull moment. That's what I like—the variety. I had an office job once and it drove me crazy. I couldn't sit still."
Both Gordon and Nancy, who was also a pre-veterinary major at UNH, like the family-farm environment for raising their five children. "We're with them all the time," says Gordon. "I guess that makes up for not taking vacations."
Kelly, the oldest of the Gray's children, graduated from the Thompson School in 1997 with a degree in horticulture and moved back to the farm to start her own business growing and selling fruits and vegetables from a newly-built stand about 100 yards from the farmhouse. Like most New Hampshire farmers, the Grays know the value of diversification. "Some farmers do work in the winter, like logging. We sell compost and vegetables," says Gordon. "It goes with the times. When milk prices are good you don't see much outside work, when prices go down people do stuff to get by."
One of the largest greenhouses in New England, Pleasantview Gardens in Loudon, N.H., is run by the Thompson School alumni triumvirate of father Jonathan '50 and sons Jeff '76 and Henry '80 Huntington. When Jonathan bought the greenhouse in 1976, after farming and selling fruits, vegetables and bedding plants in Connecticut to patrons like Paul Newman and Martha Stewart, it had 12,000 square feet of production space worked by 12 employees.
Today, the Huntingtons are on the leading edge of the state's $1.5 billion ornamental horticulture industry, the largest grossing agricultural market. They have increased their greenhouse space over 20-fold, employ 160 employees, support an extensive intern program, and have doubled the volume of air-shipped plants in the past year to become the largest commercial shipper using Manchester airport's scheduled flights.
Liners, young plants sold to other growers, make up 65 percent of the Huntingtons' business. The remaining 35 percent consists of more mature plants that are sold to small garden centers and larger chain stores. "The way plants are marketed through mass markets like Home Depot and Wal-Mart," explains Henry, "has prompted growth in our state and throughout the country that has revolutionized our industry." This along with what Taylor calls the "Europeanization" of American taste—adding greenery to living space—has brought horticulture to the forefront of the state's agriculture scene.
With Jonathan slowly and reluctantly easing his grip on the reins—at times he would like to be a part of the excitement—his sons are ready to grasp hold with a new $2 million, state-of-the-art facility in Pembroke, N.H., and an innovative marketing plan.
From the outside, the new greenhouse is a crystal palace with its seven peaks and six- by eight-foot foot panes of glittering glass. Inside, it's a sun-splashed warehouse, its concrete floor separated into bays, each with four flood zones divided by rubber floor flanges. Sprouting plants in two-inch high flats carpet the floor, and are kept moist at first by overhead misting booms. Then as they grow sturdier, they will be nourished by a seven-minute deluge of 3,500 gallons of water, pumped from a 10,000 gallon holding tank through inch-and-a-half diameter holes that riddle the edges of the bays. When the water returns to the tank, it will be filtered and used again. The entire process is automatic. "There's very little touching of the plants," says Jeff Huntington.
A forklift beeps past the inspecting brothers. A product of Dutch technology, the specially modified lift is carrying over 3,000 little plants in trays to be placed on the other side of the greenhouse. Later in the year, the greenhouse will be filled with four-and-a-half inch pots and a different forklift attachment will move 378 pots at a time across the greenhouse, to be deposited in uniformly spaced intervals.
While the Huntingtons have invested in the future of greenhouse technology, they are also coming up with new ways of marketing live material. As part of the Proven Winners(TM) cooperative, Pleasantview, along with three other geographically disparate U.S. growers, introduces native plants from around the world to the U.S. market. "The first objective was to introduce new plant material," explains Henry. "Afterwards, we saw its success and we realized we were creating a brand."
Both Henry and Jeff love the family aspect of their business. "I always wanted to be a farmer," says Jeff. Henry, on the other hand, hated the greenhouse as a kid in Connecticut. "Now I love creating a new plant and watching it grow into a beautiful product," says Henry. But most of all, the brothers share the excitement of a growing and successful business adventure. "The other day when I got home my wife asked, 'How was your day?'" recalls Henry. "And I said, 'It was fantastic.' And it was."
Elibet Moore Chase is a free-lance writer who lives in Concord, N.H. At UNH, she studied communications and music. Currently, she is a graduate student in the non-fiction writing program at UNH.