DATE: Saturday, October 18, 1997            TAG: 9710180276

SECTION: BUSINESS                PAGE: D1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY LINDA MCNATT, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: SUFFOLK                           LENGTH:   95 lines

FARMING OUT HIGH COSTS AND LACK OF LABOR FORCE FARMERS TO SUPPLEMENT THEIR INCOMES

On a cool, drizzly autumn afternoon - when the peanuts are in, the cotton is still to be picked and deer season hasn't started - J. Frank Holland stands in what was once a livestock buying station, plotting his next move.

``Primarily, peanuts. That's what I've got in mind,'' Holland says. ``I think we'll be doing a little more with peanuts.''

The smell of fresh, roasting peanuts wafts through the air at his Holland Open Air Market, across the bins of tomatoes, butter beans, sweet potatoes, apples, squash, gourds and pumpkins. Holland grows about 90 percent of it on his farm.

Holland is one of many local farmers who do more than plant seeds and wait for the crops to grow.

Faced with increased costs, the perennial lack of available labor and fear of federal farm program cuts, more small farmers are branching out.

``It's a statewide trend,'' said Jim Lawson, deputy statistician with the Virginia Department of Agriculture. ``People with small farms in this state can't compete with large, Midwest farms. They are looking for just about anything you can think of that can reach a niche market.''

On 600 acres of land near the village that bears his family's name, Holland grows peanuts, corn, wheat and soybeans - typical row crops. To supplement the farming operation, he runs the produce stand and sells raw, roasted and boiled peanuts.

The produce stand off U.S. Route 58 is just one of the Suffolk farmer's enterprises.

Just last year, Holland built his own smokehouse. Most of the meat he cured there was sold before making it to the market. Now, he's thinking about enlarging the smokehouse.

``I take the profits I make out here and put 'em back in the farm,'' he said. ``A farmer's a big fool. There's no profit in it anymore. If you're determined to do it - you've got to be smart about it.''

In Hampton Roads and the surrounding area, ``off-farm'' operations, like produce stands, raising sheep and horses, herb farming, nurseries and other nontraditional forms of farming represent about 40 percent of agricultural operations.

Statewide, nearly 54 percent of farms have nontraditional crops or livestock businesses. The trend is spreading faster in Hampton Roads than in any other area of the state, Lawson said.

It's evident in Suffolk, said Virginia Tech extension agent Clifton Slade.

``Large farmers can sell timber, but small farmers - those with less land - don't have that option,'' Slade said. ``They have to go off the farm to supplement a way of life they love. Maybe some of it doesn't even make sense, but everybody has their reasons.''

In Whaleyville, a rural village on the outskirts of Suffolk, Roger Fowler operates a wrecker service, auto repair garage and used-car lot. He also farms, and one of his sons is following in his footsteps.

Todd Fowler, Slade said, is one of the city's hardest-working young farmers. Just this year, he recognized a market and went after it.

With Colonial Downs opening in New Kent County, the younger Fowler planted hay, and he's sold his crop to make a decent profit.

``It makes for long days and short nights,'' Roger Fowler said. ``We do our farming because it's what we really enjoy.''

Statewide, the apple crop didn't do well this year. But ask folks in rural Surry County where they're getting apples, and many are likely to tell you about Ernest Blount's five-acre orchard on the shores of the James River.

Having something to supplement your income is ``a must, today,'' said Blount of Elberon. ``The price of everything associated with farming has increased. Our profits have hardly increased at all. Whenever the government looks for something to cut, they look to agriculture first.''

Arthur Whitener, who farms in the Myrtle section of Suffolk, agrees with that. And the future in farming, he said, is even more uncertain.

``We're all doing more and more with the impending loss of the peanut program,'' Whitener said. ``This is a whole new aspect in farming.'' The peanut price support program is due to be phased out in 2002.

Whitener, who is retired from the Portsmouth Redevelopment and Housing Authority, is a local leader in alternative crops. In addition to traditional row crops, he grows elephant garlic, sweet potatoes and tomatoes, and he's just put in a network of blackberry, raspberry and muscadine grape vines with an elaborate trellis system. Eventually, the trellises will allow the berries and grapes to be picked by machine.

The machinery is likely to be expensive, but it's an expense that Whitener will have to bear, if he wants to stay in farming.

Holland recalls, when he first started farming in the early '60s, buying a grain compactor for $6,000. That same piece of equipment today costs $150,000, he said.

``Back then, we were getting $2 a bushel for corn; today, we get about $2.70,'' Holland said. ``We're getting about the same prices for our product we were getting 20 years ago, and we have to have thousands of dollars of equipment to get the job done.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo

JOHN H. SHEALLY II/The Virginian-Pilot

Suffolk farmers Louis Holland, left, and J. Frank Holland supplement

their farming operation with a produce market on U.S. 58. At far

right is helper Willie Darden. The Hollands say diversification of

crops is a necessity for farmers today.

Send Suggestions or Comments to webmaster@scholar.lib.vt.edu