Small farmers struggle as drought kills vegetables

A farm hand har­vests pota­toes a month early at King’s Hill Farm at Min­eral Point, Wis. The potato yield is about one fifth of the expected yield, but is the farm’s only sal­vage­able crop after the other crops per­ished in the drought grip­ping large sec­tions of the Mid­west. (Asso­ci­ated Press | Sit­thixay Ditthavong)

DINESH RAMDE

Asso­ci­ated Press

WEST ALLIS, Wis. — Chris Cov­elli planted 1,000 zuc­chini seeds on his farm in south­ern Wis­con­sin this spring. Only a quar­ter sprouted in the parched soil. A few weeks later, he planted 1,000 more seeds and dou­bled his irri­ga­tion. This time, noth­ing came up.

Cov­elli also lost his broc­coli and green beans to the drought that now cov­ers two-thirds of the nation. Under pres­sure to fill the boxes he deliv­ers weekly to fam­i­lies who buy annual sub­scrip­tions of pro­duce, he recently threw in purslane, which he describes as a vitamin-rich, “deli­cious weed” that tastes like lettuce.

Small fruit and veg­etable farm­ers through­out the Mid­west are strug­gling with unusual heat and a once-in-decades drought. Some have lost crops, while oth­ers are pay­ing more to irri­gate. Most aren’t grow­ing enough to sell prof­itably to whole­salers, and sales at farm­ers mar­kets are down. Those with com­mu­nity sup­ported agri­cul­ture pro­grams, or CSAs, are look­ing for ways to keep mem­bers happy, or at least sat­is­fied enough that they’ll sign up again next year.

Cov­elli said he and his crew have spent every day in the field, often in 100-degree heat, in an effort to deliver the veg­eta­bles promised to fam­i­lies who pay $14 to $45 per week. So far, he said, they’ve deliv­ered most of what they promised, although they’ve had to get cre­ative with the addi­tion of drought-hardy items like purslane.

“There’s no secret,” said Cov­elli, who owns Tomato Moun­tain Farms in Brook­lyn, Wis. “You just do what you have to do. If that means doing more plant­i­ngs, try­ing dif­fer­ent crops, wak­ing up at 2 a.m. to move the irri­ga­tion pipe, we do it. That’s what hard work is.”

Other farm­ers have not fared as well. Bob Bor­chardt, who co-owns Har­vest Moon Farms in Viro­qua, Wis., lost most of his greens, includ­ing chard and kale. He also runs a CSA, but said thus far, he’s only been able to deliver about 20 per­cent of what he planned. He hopes to make it up to mem­bers when his heir­loom toma­toes come in next month.

Mean­while, he’s been in dire need of cash. To tide him over, he sold “spon­sor­ships” of two fields for a total of $5,000. The Illi­nois fam­ily who bought the spon­sor­ships will be able to pick from the field, be treated to a home-cooked meal on the land and have a cor­po­rate logo or fam­ily por­trait posted among the plants.

“We’re not out of the woods yet, but we are opti­mistic,” Bor­chardt said. “All we’re think­ing about now is get­ting through this year and stay­ing in business.”

Unlike farm­ers who grow corn, soy­beans and other crops sold as com­modi­ties, veg­etable farm­ers don’t have insur­ance to cover them in case of drought or flooding.

But even those who have veg­eta­bles to sell say it has been a bad year.

Anna Ertl, whose fam­ily runs a farm in Ray­mond, Wis., near the Illi­nois bor­der, shook her head as she watched a trickle of cus­tomers mean­der through a farm­ers mar­ket in the Mil­wau­kee sub­urb of West Allis. In front of her was a table with pick­les, sweet onions and sev­eral dozen zucchinis.

“You hear so much bad stuff in the media (about har­vests), but peo­ple need to come down here and see what we have,” Ertl said. “This is our liveli­hood. This is how we survive.”

Dan Koralewski, who over­sees oper­a­tions at the West Allis Farm­ers Mar­ket, said 5,000 to 6,000 cus­tomers gen­er­ally show up dur­ing peak sea­son in mid-July, but atten­dance seemed to be about half that this year. He blamed a com­bi­na­tion of cus­tomer skep­ti­cism and hot weather that kept many peo­ple in the cooler indoors.

Farm­ers mar­kets in other Mid­west­ern states also reported fewer sales. In Plain­field, an Indi­ana town of about 27,000 res­i­dents, atten­dance at the local farm­ers mar­ket is down an esti­mated 20 to 30 per­cent, said Brad DuBois, the exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Plain­field Cham­ber of Com­merce Farm­ers Market.

Bryan Rob­bins, who runs the Greens­burg Decatur County farm­ers mar­ket in Indi­ana, said it expe­ri­enced a sim­i­lar drop in atten­dance in recent weeks, so he started a new pro­gram for elderly cus­tomers who may be leery of the heat.

Seniors can now pull up to a des­ig­nated lane in the park­ing lot and hand over their shop­ping lists. Rob­bins or some­one else will then fetch the prod­ucts, allow­ing the cus­tomers to remain in their air-conditioned cars.

“That’s one advan­tage of being a small mar­ket in a small com­mu­nity,” said Rob­bins, whose mar­ket typ­i­cally draws 700 to 800 peo­ple. “Not every­one else can do that.”

Posted by AP News on Jul 31 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.