Green Living: Small farmers wear a lot of hats

By Nick Rosen

LONDON (Reuters Life!) - Matt Gerald starts work at 4:30 a.m. on days when he has a farmer's market. Other days he sleeps in until as late as oooh...5:30 a.m.

Gerald runs a small organic flower farm in Bar Harbor in the U.S. state of Maine with just one full-time assistant. He sells some 17,000 lilies and 9,000 tulips a year, and also manages two of Maine's 77 farmer's markets.

The East Coast State has a disproportionately high percentage of the 4,385 farmer's markets (USDA, 2006) in total in the United States.

Farmers like Gerald tend to sell nearly 20 percent of their goods through farmer's markets, said Davis Taylor, Professor of Economics at Maine's College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor. But not many of them also manage farmer's markets as an additional income stream.

"I usually work until about five in the evening, setting aside about one hour a day for yoga practice or contemplation," said Gerald who is currently building himself an eco-home in the little spare time he has left.

"The first 10 years of farming I strove to grow more and more with as much diversity as possible. The second 10 years I've tried to streamline the operation as much as possible, sticking to crops I know well. I'm learning to grow less more efficiently. My annual gross has decreased and I have fatter pockets in the fall."

Gerald has "a pretty good business," Taylor said. "For small organic farmers cut flowers is likely the most profitable revenue producer."

Like many farmers, Gerald has to wear so many hats he gets confused sometimes - planner, buyer, planter, grower, marketer, vendor. But it has its compensations.

"I do have the pleasure of remembering the carrot I have for dinner when it was a seed in a packet," he said.

One of his hats is fuel-provider.

"I've got arms like thighs and thighs like tree trunks," he jokes when asked where his wood is from.

"We process about 40 cords of wood, about five thousand cubic feet a year. I enjoy cutting and splitting wood as a form of contemplation. With the price of energy where it is now, wood heat is the only option for my off-season greenhouse production."

As well as his paid employee, Gerald also has young volunteers working on his farm.

"I provide field space and make available all the resources of a working farm and sometimes provide start up capital. They get to try their hand at farming without having to go into debt. And they volunteer some hours on my projects," he said.

Maine has a high number of organic farms and networks of farmer distribution and marketing outlets...including farmers' markets and restaurants selling predominantly local food, said Taylor, who specializes in sustainable community development.