A farming family tradition

HOULTON, Maine — Erica Fitzpatrick Peabody remembers working on her dad’s potato harvester for the first time when she was 9 and receiving her first week’s paycheck of $36. At the time she thought she could buy the world.
    Looking back, it probably wasn’t the dollar an hour that fostered the love of farming in Erica and the desire to find a career path that would allow her to be a part of that life. Intending to pursue a history degree, her mother instead encouraged her to study horticulture at the University of Maine in Orono. She took her advice and found herself immersed in projects that always seemed to involve potatoes. Throughout college Erica would return home each summer and work in the fields in one capacity or another.
After graduation she decided to attend graduate school and through a series of events, remained at U of Maine under the guidance of plant pathologist Dr. Dave Lambert. She began doing research on potato pink rot and while I’ve never thought of pink rot in the poetic sense, Erica nearly brought it to that level while reminiscing with me about that period of study. That research project really cemented her desire to work in potato research and in 2005 she began working for McCain Foods’ as an agronomist.
While she admits that she is probably at a computer now more than she likes, her job also provides her the chance to do field trials on new varieties of potatoes and to work with the McCain growers on various topics from cultural management to helping them manage the hurdles of different customer-required audits. She noted that many times growers have the information that organizations want and need for food safety and sustainability rules, but they just aren’t capturing it on paper.
But that’s just her day job. Back in Houlton, she and her family live just around the corner from her dad’s potato farm and she is involved with that as well. Together, they bring Erica’s science-based knowledge with the farm’s daily workload and decide what can be accomplished and what can’t.
When I asked what her father thinks of her involvement, she smiled to herself and said that sometimes she thinks he probably wishes she would just stay out of his fields. When she asks him if he’s filed his pesticide report, he’ll ask her if she’s checked the belt on the potato conveyer. Kidding aside, they have worked together on projects like planting annual rye grass as a plow-down crop to add organic matter, and green harvesting russet potatoes when the weather pattern allows them to. Both realize that it all starts with soil health and they work together with that in mind.
With two young children of her own, Erica is excited for them to be a part of a family farm as it is a part of her heritage. She wants them to have the chance to experience being a part of nature, working outdoors, smelling the dirt that sustains them. She wants all kids, however, to be able to be involved with agriculture in some form so that they understand where their food comes from and the process it goes through to get to their table.
To me, it sounds like Erica will be passing on to her children what her father always said to her while growing up, “If you love what you do, you will never work a day in your life.”
  Editor’s note: Angie Wotton loves her work as district manager for the Southern Aroostook Soil and Water Conservation District. She also raises pastured pork and vegetables with her husband on their small West Berry Farm in Hammond. She can be reached 532-9407 or via e-mail at angela.wotton@me.nacdnet.net.