Ryan Voiland, green-thumbed steward of Old Depot Gardens in Montague, is considering buying his own farm. It's a decision he'll probably make before his 22nd birthday.
Since he was in middle school, the youngest grower ever certified by NOFA has built a reputation for reliably bringing good Massachusetts produce to market, plus other organic offerings like bedding plants and cut flowers. During the same time, he's expanded his planting space from a few beds and a greenhouse in his family's back yard to five greenhouses and approximately seven acres on John Bitzer's nearby 15-acre farm.
While this was going on, he did his homework, took out the garbage, completed four years at Deerfield Academy, and today is within a few months of his graduation from Cornell University with a degree in fruit and vegetable science. He also read a lot of books, enjoyed some folk music and became an above-average juggler.
Ryan has a business sense (his annual gross has grown to around $50,000) and he's not unaware of the opportunities he has to turn his rare horticultural skills into money. But his only loan is a small one on his tractor. His farmstand is rustic and modest, well-stocked in the shaded front yard of his family's home on Greenfield Road. His associates speak of his level-headedness.
"I like growing healthy food for local people," he said. "I see a place for high-value things like bedding plants, but I wouldn't want them to exclude food."
As you'd expect from a juggler (four balls going on five), he likes "being very diverse, to try to do a real good job with a lot of crops. It satisfies customers, I don't get bored, and I like it from the biological perspective: I can rotate, keep the ecology going."
Ryan feels the urge to improve. "For a vegetable operation to be economically viable, you need to think of efficiency of movement," he said. At present, the greenhouses are at home and field crops a couple of miles away. Buying a farm would consolidate his operation in one place. He longs for a well-organized packing facility. He envisions a processing kitchen to utilize seconds for sauces and preserves. An on-site well would reduce his high water bills.
Ryan and his 3-4 seasonal employees sell food through two farmers' markets (Greenfield and Amherst), a co-op CSA (Common Wealth), the farm stand, and to Green Fields Market in Greenfield and the Village Coop in Leverett.
Old Depot Gardens is famous for its tomatoes. Two years ago it swept the Massachusetts Tomato Contest put on by the Mass. Department of Food and Agriculture. The tomato season gets an extension with greenhouses his father, Paul, helped him build and climate-control. (Mr. Voiland, who's in the heating and cooling business, used to be a baker and was the family's original organic gardener).
There's strong family cooperation. Ryan's brother, Adam, a junior in high school, has been in charge of the cut flower division of the business.
Ryan credited his start to the support of his parents, including his mother, Jean. He fretted over the prospect of moving his operation, especially the stand. "People like the location - the shade, flower gardens," he said. His folks have offered to let him live at home for a while after he graduates, something he may take them up on. "With no living expenses, doing the business since I was just a kid, I've been lucky," he said. "I've been able to reinvest all my profits each year."
Luck he's had...but Ryan made a lot of it himself.
This page was last modified on January 14, 2008 at 12:25:51 PM.