Aroostook County, Maine, is one of the last areas in the country to close schools for the potato harvest.
TV5 visited a farm to see how operations are running.
Schools are on break and there are potatoes to dig up on Wood Prairie Farm in Bridgewater.
“I believe that kids learn more in the three weeks of the potato harvest than in any three weeks they’ve got in a school year,” says farmer Jim Gerritsen. “There’s a lot of good lessons in the potato field.”
Wood Prairie farm yields about 200,000 pounds of potato per year, and the crop makes it far—they ship out to all 50 states.
“They know Maine has the best certified seed potatoes in North America, and that’s the basis of our mail-order business.”
The farm works out of a catalog and online to sell the all-organic tubers. “Even with our small size it takes us all winter to market our crop because were selling a five-pound bag here, 20-pound carton there, 50-pound carton there and it takes us all winter to send out 10,000 to 15,000 orders to customers all around.”
Although money is coming in from out of state, there’s still one big complication: Internet speed.
“It’s really crimping our operation,” Gerritsen explains. “This is typical of all rural Maine, we are being held back by lack of access.” Gerritsen says he’s been negotiating to bring a fiber optic line closer to the farm, but it’s costly.
“It just seems like if we were on Main Street we’d be getting that fiber optic for $50. And to have to spend $8,000 to get it—that’s hard for any business.”
There’s also the typical weather challenge, but all in all, Gerritsen says it’s a fine balance.
“Farming has never been easy, but it still is a great life, and Aroostook County has been growing potatoes for over 150 years and there’s few places in the world that have better conditions—meaning soil conditions and climatic conditions for growing potatoes—than up here.”
For more information on Wood Prairie Farm, visit its website.
Source: WABI-TV 5