By By JESSICA SIEFF / Niles Daily Star
NILES – On a day thick with heat and humidity, with a sky threatening rain, at Grampa's Orchard, 11025 M-140, Mark Layman is sorting through his peach trees. He's stripping branches bearing small, hard skinned, still green peaches with the speed that one would imagine only an experienced farmer to have.
Some peaches have fallen victim to nature, aborting themselves and growing inward or not at all. Some are hampering growth by crowding branches.
Layman has owned the 40 acres of farmland for 21 years. He doesn't supply big chain stores or even smaller owned markets. His farm is completely U-Pick. And the weather has impacted more than just his overall financial profitability. Frosts and freezes will affect what Layman's customers will find available to them this year. And the toll that the current economic and agricultural climate is taking on farmers like Layman, in Michigan and across the nation's heartland, seems to be testing some limits.
Layman's farm produces a large variety of fruits including cherries, nectarines, strawberries, Stanley prunes and 17 different types of apples. The strawberries, he said, received some frost damage earlier this year. As a couple of first time visitors make their way up the dirt drive, Layman explains to them the berries are full of taste – but that there remains only a limited amount left to choose from.
Raspberries also grow on Layman's farm but he says that fruit is not available for picking – because it is too vulnerable to weather. "Just as they're ready to pick," he said. "Here comes a three inch rain and they're all gone." Customers, he said, don't necessarily like coming to a U-Pick farm finding that there's relatively nothing to pick.
Operating side by side with a volatile partner in Mother Nature seems to be the art to farming. It's just that simple, as Layman tells it. Three inches of rain and an entire supply of fresh berries are left ruined.
For many Michigan farmers, it has not been an easy year. And that sentiment was made official when Governor Jennifer Granholm made a formal request for federal disaster assistance with Secretary Ed Schafer of the United States Department of Agriculture, the Michigan Department of Agriculture announced last week.
Granholm listed a total of 55 Michigan counties as those that had experienced severe crop losses due to both flooding and frost/freezing conditions between the months of March and May 2008.
"Michigan agriculture is a multi-billion dollar, job-creating industry that is critical to Michigan's economy," Granholm was quoted as saying. "This disaster declaration is a vital first step to ensuring that Michigan Farmers have the additional resources they need to overcome these natural disasters."
According to the release by the Department of Agriculture, an additional disaster request is still to come, regarding damages to "several areas of the Lower Peninsula" which took a toll on vegetable production for the state. That request is scheduled to be made after all information needed has been gathered by officials of the department.
The news is just more evidence that farmers in Berrien County, the state of Michigan and across the nation are facing tougher times and feeling the pinch of higher fuel prices and higher equipment costs. While consumers feel the effects of a struggling industry at the checkout counter and in their wallets from those farmers who supply those stores – state and area farmers are also feeling their fair share of pinches.
Even with Granholm requesting disaster relief for area farmers, Layman is a little skeptical. To hear him explain it -it's not as simple as it sounds. Relief comes in the form of dollars that are directly related to what was lost in the specified time. But farmers have to prove that loss – and that's not always easy to do. And those farmers who apply for their share of the relief funds can be turned down on such technicalities, leaving them with heavily reduced crops and heavily increased debt. If money is received, it sometimes is only a fraction of the total amount that has been lost in the long run.
Apples are giving Layman the worst headaches it seems. Crops froze in 2007 and this year, "May was about a half a degree warmer than April," he said. "I've never seen April and May so cold." There are six acres at Grampa's Orchard for apples alone and 400 trees per acre. "They should all be near full," he said. As he weaves through his neatly lined rows of trees on an old golf cart – it's hard to spot any fruit on any of them. Some look as though they've died completely, killed, he says, by rot or other diseases, or too weak to carry any fruit. Others are simply barren with no fruit to show for them. Results of a freeze. Layman's tone of voice is irritated. "There will be virtually zero," he said.
And there doesn't seem to be much for farmers like Layman to do in order to make up for the loss. "You can not double the price," he said. "Because then you're gouging."
When it comes to federal or state aid, Layman doesn't seem to have much faith in that either. The Michigan Department of Agriculture states, "the original crop loss estimates must be verified from harvest yield data. If losses of 30 percent or more are confirmed, and the disaster request is granted, eligible state producers will have access to USDA -Farm Service Agency's low interest emergency loan program for up to 100 percent of their weather-related agriculture production losses." It's aid, Layman said. "If you can show what you've lost." And, he added, "you get lower interest funds. But it's loans. And you still have to pay it back."
As he heads back to the strawberry fields on his farm, Layman drives past a heap of dead apple trees that he had to cut down after they died from a frost. They sit piled up on top of each other, jagged and dry. They'll be used for firewood, he said. They are of no use to him now.
Of course the story is different for every farmer across the country. Those in the nation's midsection continue to battle flooding and storm damage that have left a toll on the nation's food supply that is immeasurable as of yet. Others in the counties that Granholm outlined as in need of federal assistance were lucky enough to bypass any damages all together. "It all depends on what happens and what time of year it is," and what's being grown, Layman said.
As for him, he's running out of patience with farming. Though it has been a family tradition for more than a hundred years – he says he's selling Grampa's Orchard. Once it's sold, he knows the possibility exists for a new owner to raise prices or take away the idea of U-Pick altogether turning to a more lucrative option. "I'm going to feel bad for the people that come in here and have tried to keep me in business for 20 years," he said.
Currently, according to the statement, "the Michigan Department of Agriculture is working with the USDA-Farm Service Agency to compile crop damage estimates due to Michigan's current extreme weather conditions … in order for Michigan to receive federal disaster status."
A final picture of the damage Mother Nature has taken on farms local, state and nationwide will become clearer in the coming months. It would seem likely – even before all the details are available, consumers will be able to make their own assumptions as they see the prices at their local grocery stores
The request, however, does open the door to relief for some … but for others – the current agricultural climate continues to seem poised for stormy weather.