I have blogged about purchasing locally grown produce, but being a farmer today can be hard. So hard in fact that Will Tuttle is planning to pack it in.
Tuttle is the owner of the 134 acre farm in Dover, New Hampshire that is the longest family-run farm in the country. Started in 1635, the Tuttle farm has been passed down from father to son for hundreds of years. But, Tuttle, an 11th generation farmer, said his sons don’t want it and he doesn’t want to force it on them, so he has put the farm up for sale.
Tuttle, age 63, says that he wakes up at 4:30 a.m. each morning and puts in anywhere from 12 to 17 hours each day. While he says he has learned to live with less sleep, he wants to spend more time with his kids. He said that “being out in the fresh air, being tired when I get home, that’s all good stuff” but those are also the trying parts of farming.
Tuttle said that he is a farmer, “not a museum curator.” He has put in 57 years on the farm, leaving his job as a salesman that he took after graduating from Tufts University in the ‘70s. His grandfather told him to “be careful where you set foot on this farm because that footprint is going to be there for the rest of time, you’re gonna leave your mark on this farm.”
While the decision was difficult, Tuttle said he “had to take the weight of our ancestors off the decision, they not here to advise us. I think probably most of them died with their boots on.” Tuttle himself has several farm related injuries including having ruptured an Achilles tendon a few years ago and currently suffering neck and back problems. He said, “I wasn’t the first one. I may be the last one. You can’t live anybody else’s dream, and 57 years is enough.”
Tuttle’s sister Lucy admitted getting rid of the farm will be an adjustment. She said it was an “incredible feeling” to work the same land her father and grandfather did. Sister Becky took pride in produce in the farm stand that was labeled “our own” because it was grown on the farm and people knew they were getting fresh, quality produce.
But, she said supermarkets were making it hard for them to match their competitive prices. Becky said, “Places like Walmart and even the supermarkets with their buying power, to buy the products we sell, they are able to buy them cheaper at wholesale than we can.”
The family has gone through a conservancy to ensure that whoever buys the farm will continue to work it, so it won’t be turned into residential or commercial property.