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Reprinted with permission of GazetteNET © 2001 Daily Hampshire Gazette New breed of organic farmersSidebar: Diversity rules in Valley farming By CHERYL B. WILSON WHATELY - When Paul Maiewski's great-grandfather, Joseph "J.B." Maiewski, had problems with squash bug infesting his crops, he filled a burlap bag with limestone and dusted the plants. "The bugs didn't like it. They didn't like the fine grit," Paul Maiewski said. Natural materials such as lime and copper mixtures were among the few reliable methods of pest control available in 1908. That was the year that J. B. Maiewski bought a tobacco and onion farm on River Road in Whately, a farm that has remained in the Maiewski family for nearly 100 years. Working a total of 250 acres in Whately, South Deerfield and Hatfield, the Maiewskis switched from tobacco and onions to mainly potatoes in the 1930s and continue to devote most of their land to that crop. The Maiewskis, including J. B.'s sons, Henry, Philip and Myron - who also was the state's assistant commissioner of agriculture from 1963 to 1977 - have always been innovative farmers. When new chemical pesticides were introduced after World War II, the Maiewskis were among the first local farmers to try them. Now, a new generation of family members is, in a sense, turning back to the way people farmed at the beginning of the century. Paul Maiewski, 28, who has taken over the family farm, is one of the new breed of organic farmers in the Connecticut Valley, an area that has supported agriculture for 300 years. While the vast majority of area farmers rely on traditional growing approaches that include the use of pesticides, more and more are turning to organic farming in a shift driven by consumer demand. That demand in turn is due, in part at least, to chemical scares of the past, such as when many of Whately's wells were found to be contaminated with a popular pesticide in the 1980s. "The number of organic vegetable farmers is growing," said John Howell, a vegetable specialist with the UMass extension. "They are not a thundering herd going down the road, but every year one or two more think about it and maybe do it. They are still a fairly small part of the total production, but they are increasing." In 1986 there were just 20 certified organic farms in Massachusetts, said Julie Rawson of Northeast Organic Farming Association. Today there are 60 farms totaling 1,000 acres and grossing close to $2 million in sales. "The organic industry in the form of food and value-added products is growing around 25 percent a year," said state Agriculture Commissioner Jay Healy. Break from the past Paul Maiewski, whose father, Charles, became a librarian instead of a farmer, took over the family farm after graduating from Stockbridge School of Agriculture in 1991. He grew up assuming he would be a farmer - a potato farmer. "I always said potatoes are the life for me," he said. Now he is in charge of converting the family farm to organic methods. "I've had great support from my family," Maiewski said. His brother, James, 32, is his partner in the venture. "My grandfather, Henry, really liked the idea of organic farming. All the older guys would relate back to the times before there were so many pesticides." Chemical pesticides, however, have been the story of farming nationwide and in the Valley since World War II. On July 23, 1947, the Daily Hampshire Gazette ran the following notice: "For the first time in this locality, helicopter dusting of farm crops will be demonstrated next Monday evening on the J. Maiewski and Sons farm in River Road, Whately, where a 20-acre potato field will be treated with insecticide. A far cry from the old 'hand-picking' of potato bugs from the vines, the air-dusting method will make short work of eradicating plant pests with DDT." That, of course, was long before Rachel Carson exposed the horrors of DDT to the world. "DDT was the great invention for potatoes and a lot of other crops 50 years ago," said Ed McGlew of Hatfield, organic certification manager for the Northeast Organic Farming Association of Massachusetts. Farmers throughout the country used the deadly poison for decades until it was banned in the 1970s. "When the pesticides came, back then, it made sense to use them," Paul Maiewski said. All the pesticides were approved and even touted by the federal government. The banning of DDT was a large problem for farmers, especially for potato growers, who have to contend with the Colorado potato beetle, or potato bug. The beetle larvae and the adults munch on the foliage of the plants, sapping the vitality and reducing yields. "In the 1970s, the beetle was very serious for growers," explained Howell, the extension vegetable specialist. "They had to spray once a week or even every five days, using four or five different chemicals in the mix, hoping to kill them. The beetles kept developing resistance (to the pesticides). "In the late 1970s, we got Temik," Howell said, a new pesticide extremely easy to use and highly effective. "You put it in at planting time right in the ground. It took care of beetles and aphids pretty darn good. It cut down on spraying," Howell said. "I can remember it," said Maiewski, who was a child at the time. "It was black granules. You dropped a band of it right in the furrow." Then in 1983, some Whately wells were found to be contaminated by the pesticide. Temik was also blamed for water pollution on Long Island and, throughout the country, the pesticide was banned from potato fields. In Whately, non-farming citizens were up in arms about the pollution of private wells and though the federal and state governments helped the town install a municipal water supply, it still was extremely costly to the town. Local farmers were shocked by the Temik ban. Their livelihood was at stake. Paul Maiewski recalled people bemoaning the situation. "'Oh, why won't they let us use it anymore?' they said. I guess it worked. It was effective."
The effect of pesticides and chemical fertilizers on water quality after the Temik scare drove some farmers to consider organic farming. And Integrated Pest Management, developed at the University of Massachusetts, began to emphasize using the least toxic pesticides and even organic methods such as crop rotation. The IPM approach appealed to Maiewski. At Stockbridge he met another young man who was interested in organic farming. "Doug Coldwell opened my mind up and gave me a different perspective," Maiewski said. Maiewski and Coldwell, a Bolton native, started growing Tomatoesorganically in 1993 on an unused acre at the Maiewski family's River Road farm. "It was a tiny little acre that hadn't been farmed for years, so it was certified organic the first year," Maiewski said. Soil must be free of pesticides and chemical fertilizers for three years before it can be certified organic and produce grown in it can be sold as organic. Coldwell has branched off from the Maiewski farm, although he still leases some acreage from Maiewski who has 30 acres that have been converted to organic production and another 30 in process. "By 2002 we'll be organic on all fields," Maiewski said. Organic farming is still in its infancy in the Pioneer Valley. "I know a lot of farmers look at it and consider it," said McGlew. "The ones who have taken the challenge are the younger or newer farmers who are not as set in their ways and don't have the investment in equipment," he said. "Paul has a leadership role," McGlew said. "He is cutting out of the mold and going organic. That's a big step. He's the one who has shown that it works." For his part, Maiewski said he chose organic because, "I didn't like spraying all that synthetic stuff. It's expensive and it's nasty. Spraying is my least favorite activity." The higher prices consumers seem willing to pay for organic vegetables was also an incentive, he said. "We heard you can get all kinds of money for organic vegetables. We saw the prices people got for the stuff when we went to the stores," he said. Other farmers have had limited success with the IPM approach. Potato farmer Robert Waryjczs of Plainfield worked with UMass researchers several years ago in the IPM program. He doesn't feel he can go cold turkey and be completely organic, however. "I've cut pesticide use by 70 percent," he said. "I'm almost organic now, but it's too much risk, too much of a gamble to do it fully." Waryjczs, who farms nearly 400 acres in Plainfield and Worthington, said he is worried about a financial disaster caused by blight disease for which he now uses several fungicides. "There seem to be new strains of blight," he said. Rotating his fields helps enormously with potato beetle, but doesn't do much for blight.
Among the local marketing groups is the Pioneer Valley Growers Association. Coldwell and Maiewski formed Happy Valley Organics, another marketing cooperative, three years ago along with David Jackson and DeWitt Thompson. Happy Valley Organics began because Maiewski found that a 30-acre potato farm wasn't big enough to draw attention from supermarkets. "Joining together made us big enough for them to be interested," Maiewski said. Last year they shipped 60 items, from lettuce to Tomatoes, summer squash, peppers and potatoes. What the future holds Overall, farming has declined dramatically in the Pioneer Valley and in Massachusetts in recent decades. In 1901 there were 37,300 farms in the state. Asparagus enjoyed such a heyday just after World War II that this area was called the Asparagus Valley. Tobacco was also lucrative. In 1997, the number of Massachusetts farms had dwindled to 6,100. Diversifying crops has helped local farmers, organic and conventional, survive in a business dominated by large California farms. "We're evolving toward mixed vegetable crops, not just potatoes or cucumbers," Howell said. "There is an interest growing in specialty crops, high value crops, 'yuppie' crops" such as sprouts and peppers. Maiewski is in tune with the times. "We still grow potatoes, never a year of no potatoes, but we also grow (winter) squash and hothouse Tomatoes," he said. Maiewski doesn't see himself as a trendsetter, however. "I can't see a lot of farmers switching over (to organics). It's not easy to do," he said. For instance, he said, many local farmers rent their fields and can't afford to let them lie fallow for three years or to sell produce from the fields that isn't certified organic. "Organic farming is more labor intensive and it may not be for best for somebody with 70 or 80 acres," said Commissioner Healy. He said the organic growers who get the best profit margins are those who process the vegetables into potato chips and other "value-added" products. Still, enough young farmers are testing the waters that the future may, indeed, lie with organic farming. Ivan Donovan, a relative of Waryjczs in Hawley, is succeeding with organic potatoes, Waryjczs said. For the Maiewski family, organic is definitely the way to go. Returning to the old, natural methods has made it possible to carry on the family farm. Whatever the future holds, Maiewski knows one thing for sure., "I will always grow potatoes," he said. SELECTED
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GORDON
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