A2B-Lancaster Farming, Saturday, February 19, 2000
Six Mid-Atlantic Farmers
To Be Inducted As
2000 Master Farmers
(Continued from Page A 1)
ers and their families will be
recognized for their successes
areas: progressive business man
agement, responsible use of re
sources and exemplary civic
leadership.
The Master Farmer program
is one of America’s oldest and
longest running agricultural
honors programs, dating back to
1927. The award is co-sponsored
by Pennsylvania Farmer and
Maryland Farmer magazines
and the cooperative extension
programs of Pennsylvania, Del
aware, Maryland, New Jersey
and West Virginia.
“It’s the ‘Academy Awards of
Agriculture,’said John Vogel,
editor-in-chief of Pennsylvania
Farmer and Maryland Farmer
magazines. “Following stand
ards established more than
seven decades ago, it recognizes
outstanding management, land
stewardship and community
role models. Our society very
much needs such exemplary
people who can be inspirations
to others.
“This year’s winners join the
best of Mid-Atlantic agriculture.
Mid-Atlantic Master Farmers
comprise only 0.9% of all farm
ers in the five states,” adds
Vogel. "From their ranks have
come a number of state and na
tional ag leaders and several
state agricultural secretaries.”
For year 2000, more than 200
people from the five states were
nominated. Eighteen candidates
submitted completed applica
tions for the competition. Eleven
qualified for final-round judging
by a New Jersey Department of
Agriculture official, a Farm
Credit official from Maryland
and Dr. Robert Steele, dean ol
Penn State’s College Agricul
tural Sciences.
Here’s a review of this year’s
winners. Susan Blew is proof
that you don’t need a big farm to
build a future. Her production
innovations, marketing savvy,
endless energy, plus enthusiastic
support from husband Ted and
their four children built Oak
Grove Plantation near Pitts
Susan Blew retails 95 percent of the family farm’s pro
duction in NYC.
town, N.J. Slew’s early years
were spent on her parents’ dairy
farm. After an older brother’s
auto accident, her dream of
farming also crashed at age 16
when her parents sold their
working farm. That only deep
ened her resolve to farm.
The first time she met Ted,
she was 16 and he was a young
farm manager. After graduating
from Bucks County Community
College in 1973, she married
Ted, who had the same goal - to
own a farm. By then, she had
added a stipulation to her goal -
‘no farm, no family.’ By 1975,
the couple was farming more
than 1,100 acres of rental land.
She did the chisel plowing, har
rowing, combining and putting
away hay and straw. They also
began producing crops for their
roadside stand. In 1977, their
partnership purchased their
160-acre Hunterdon County
farm, kept farming the rental
land and began a slow shift from
wholesaling conventional vege
tables to retailing organic speci
alty produce.
In 1981, they started a farrow
to-finish hog operation and
began retailing pork products
under their own label. That’s
also when they discovered
Greenmarket, the open air farm
ers market in Manhattan’s
Union Square.
Today, Oak Grove Plantation
retails 95% of their specialty
crops grown on 27 acres and two
greenhouses plus 90% of the
pork raised in a converted dairy
barn.
Their children, Charity, Eric,
Amanda and Jonathan, are still
at home and involved in the
business. Every week, they truck
product into NYC’s Greenmar
ket, where she’s knows as
NYC’s “Pepper Queen.” Ted
handles the market end; Susan,
the production. She selects and
saves seed for 275 hot Chile
pepper varieties, 97 sweet
pepper varieties, 88 heirloom
tomato varieties, 95 herbs, 15
sunflowers, and 30 mescum
varieties. They also market pro
duce, plants, baked goods and a
wide range of pork products.
Duane and June Hertzler developed a successful, less
stressful grazing-based dairy.
Like most farm kids, Duane
Hertzler learned to love the farm
while growing up doing chores
before and after school. For
three years after graduating
from Lancaster Mennonite High
School, he worked away from
the home farm near Mechan
icsburg. Then in 1970, before re
turning home to farm, he met
farm girl June at a church
sponsored coffeehouse. She was
attending Lancaster General
University, studying to become a
registered nurse.
Over the next two years,
Duane began adding cows to his
father’s herd. In 1972, Duane
HPWv'* *• '
€
Lewis Riley, transitioned his poultry and crops busi
ness to his son while serving as a state ag leader.
Mid-Atlantic No-Till
Conference Next Week
COLLEGE PARK, Md.-Over
the past quarter-century, the
Mid-Atlantic No-Till Conference
has introduced a conservation
concept that was new to many
crop farmers and provided help
ful information on how no-till
adopters could refine their crop
ping practices to achieve the
greatest profit potential.
“Hot” topics over the years
have included no-till drilling
techniques, machinery adjust
ments, nitrogen application,
weed control, crop rotation and
soil compaction.
To start off its second 25
years, the conference will offer
breakout sessions and round
table discussions on topics like
cover crops, narrow-row silage,
zone tillage, manure manage
ment, no-till vegetable produc
tion and the soil phosphorus
index.
For the first time, the confer
ence is scheduled at two loca
tions on consecutive days-Feb
ruary 24 in the Four Points
and June married and formed a
partnership with his father. In
1978, the Hertzlers struck out on
their own, buying their own 200-
acre farm near Loysville in
Perry County.
Their children, Joel, Neil,
Becky and Heather, came along.
And Moo-Echo Farms contin
ued to expand into 1993 when
they were farming close to 1,000
acres and milking 170 cows.
After several severe droughts
and a debt load that was also
steadily rising, they realized “we
were working too hard for the fi
nancial gains obtained,” notes
•***
Hotel at Hagerstown, Md., and
February 25 in the Holiday Inn
at Grantville, Pa. As in all previ
ous years, the conference is
sponsored by cooperative exten
sion at land-grand universities
and by the USDA’s Natural
Resources Conservation Service
in participating states, with
assistance from interested agri
businesses and related organi
zations.
Identical sessions will run
from 8 a.m. to 3:15 p.m. at both
locations. A $2O registration fee,
payable by February 16, will
include lunch at one location.
After February 16, the fee is $25.
Registration brochures will be
available soon at many coopera
tive extension county offices in
Maryland and Pennsylvania. Or,
contact Joel C. Myers, Pennsyl
vania state agronomist, Natural
Resources Conservation Service,
1 Credit Union Place-Suite 340,
Harrisburg, PA 17110-2993;
phone: (717) 237-2208.
Lewis Riley is proud to be the
Duane.
January 1994 brought their
decision to switch to rotational
grazing and to build a high
tensile perimeter fence. By
April, they were ready to start
rotational strip grazing. Since
then, they’ve cut back their
farming acreage to about 550
acres, increased their owned
land to 315 acres, and boosted
their milking herd to 235 cows
averaging more than 20,000
pounds production.
In 1999, Moo-Echo averaged
more than 1-million pounds of
milk per person. Today, the
Hertzlers find life more enjoy
able, due to reduced debt and
grazing-based management.
They still find time to be in
volved off the farm. June is the
librarian for their local church
and works fulltime as an RN for
a juvenile detention center.
Duane is a past board member
of the local Agway and Ag
Choice Farm Credit. He cur
rently serves on the Pennsylva
nia Beef Council and Perry
County’s Farm Preservation
Board, and has been an elder
and a member of the long-range
planning committee.
fifth generation of his family to
farm near Parsonsburg, Md.
He’s equally proud that son
Lewis Quinton or “Quint” is
part of the sixth generation to
own the Wicomico County land.
He’s not bashful about noting
the enjoyment that he and his
family get . . get great satis
faction in being ‘farm folks.’”
That enthusiasm drove him
even as a youth. By age 17, he
was farming 60 acres of his
grandfather’s land. He received
Maryland FFA’s State Star
Farmer award in 1955 and the
nation’s American Farmer
Degree in 1956. At age 20, he
married wife Virginia. In 1958,
the Rileys bought the first of
their four farms - a house and
small block of land. The next
year, they grew their first chick
ens in a rented 5,000-bird house.
In that same period, they also
started their family - Quint,
Patti and Terri.
Also in 1959, they bought a
used 8,000-bird chicken house
and had it delivered to the farm
where he fixed it up. And in
1962, another 30,000-bird
broiler house was built.
In 1962, he decided to run for
county commissioner, and lost.
Four years later, he won election
to his first job as a politician. In
31 years of public office, Riley
served 12 years in county gov
ernment, eight years in Mary
land’s House of Delegates, five
years in the Senate and six years
as Deputy Secretary and Secre
tary of Maryland Department of
Agriculture.
Today, principal ownership
and management of the Rileys’
Beaver Run Farms, Inc., has
been transferred to Quint. The
business now handles 120,000
Cornish chickens a year under
contract to Perdue. The farm in
cludes 550 acres owned and an
other 200 acres rented. Beaver
Run trades custom work with a
neighbor to get haying done. It
also markets 500 to 600 hogs
and produces feeders from a 75-
cow beef herd.
In 1998, Riley resigned as
state ag secretary due to his
wife’s illness. He continues to
serve on the Peninsula Bank’s
advisory board, but chooses to
stay close to home and “assist
my son as time permits.”
(turn to Pago A 34)