AFTER A DECADE OF WAITING FOR A SUCCESSOR TO TILL THE LAND, THIS FARM’S DAYS ARE NUMBERED

By Kris B. Kamula, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Ten years of planning, ten years of want ads and hope and worry ended one day in October when Don Kretschmann realized it wasn’t going to work; no one was going to step in.

This was going to be the last harvest at Kretschmann Family Organic Farm.

Come spring, the Beaver County farm will be idle for the first time since he first turned the soil there in the spring of 1979. Mr. Kretschmann is retiring after failing to find someone to take over his 80-acre operation.

“I just thought somebody would come,” the 71-year-old self-taught farmer said. “Nothing worked out there — unless some miracle happens.”

The inability to find a successor surprised him. He was offering a turnkey operation, an opportunity for an entrepreneurial farmer to simply start growing and harvesting by leasing the land. Access to land is the biggest barrier for beginning farmers along with the cost of equipment — which Mr. Kretschmann also offered for lease along with his house.

His only requirement is that the land be farmed organically.

“We ran lots of ads” in agricultural publications, he said. Maine, New York, Massachusetts, Vermont, Minnesota, Iowa, California. “We went all over.”

A woman from Santa Fe was interested but wasn’t suited to the rigors of farm work. A Kretschmann neighbor expressed interest, but later backed out. And the guy from Ithaca, New York, sounded promising, toured the farm and Downtown Pittsburgh — but later said he didn’t want to leave his extended family.

“A couple of times he was so close,” said Hannah Smith-Brubaker, executive director of the Pennsylvania Association of Sustainable Agriculture, a Harrisburg-based trade group, who has known Don and his wife Becky, 73, for years. “It’s very sad. It’s such an important farm and he’s been a mentor to so many farmers.”

And there’s money in organics.

Direct-to-consumer farm sales is a $439 million industry in Pennsylvania, according to PASA. In a U.S. Department of Agriculture study, organic food products generally commanded a premium exceeding 20% over conventionally grown vegetables. And the popularity of organics continues to grow.

“There’s really a great future in organic farming,” said Carolyn Dimitri, associate professor of food studies at New York University. “I’m surprised they weren’t able to find people to take over that farm. A farm like that could have so much potential.”

Don and Becky Kretschmann, early family photo. (Courtesy of Kretschmann Family)

Potential was on Mr. Kretschmann’s mind when he met his future wife, a native of Arnold, Westmoreland County, and University of Pittsburgh graduate, at a greenhouse in Latrobe where she worked in the 1970s.

By then, Mr. Kretschmann, a New York City native had graduated with a degree in psychology from St. Vincent College in Latrobe after switching his major from physics. The switch came after he worried that studying physics could lead to a career in “military defense systems,” Mr. Kretschmann said.

The owner of that Latrobe greenhouse had some advice that proved prescient: “You could make a living growing corn and tomatoes.”

Ten years of planning, ten years of want ads and hope and worry ended one day in October when Don Kretschmann realized it wasn’t going to work; no one was going to step in.

This was going to be the last harvest at Kretschmann Family Organic Farm.

Come spring, the Beaver County farm will be idle for the first time since he first turned the soil there in the spring of 1979. Mr. Kretschmann is retiring after failing to find someone to take over his 80-acre operation.

“I just thought somebody would come,” the 71-year-old self-taught farmer said. “Nothing worked out there — unless some miracle happens.”

The inability to find a successor surprised him. He was offering a turnkey operation, an opportunity for an entrepreneurial farmer to simply start growing and harvesting by leasing the land. Access to land is the biggest barrier for beginning farmers along with the cost of equipment — which Mr. Kretschmann also offered for lease along with his house.

His only requirement is that the land be farmed organically.

“We ran lots of ads” in agricultural publications, he said. Maine, New York, Massachusetts, Vermont, Minnesota, Iowa, California. “We went all over.”

A woman from Santa Fe was interested but wasn’t suited to the rigors of farm work. A Kretschmann neighbor expressed interest, but later backed out. And the guy from Ithaca, New York, sounded promising, toured the farm and Downtown Pittsburgh — but later said he didn’t want to leave his extended family.

“A couple of times he was so close,” said Hannah Smith-Brubaker, executive director of the Pennsylvania Association of Sustainable Agriculture, a Harrisburg-based trade group, who has known Don and his wife Becky, 73, for years. “It’s very sad. It’s such an important farm and he’s been a mentor to so many farmers.”

And there’s money in organics.

Direct-to-consumer farm sales is a $439 million industry in Pennsylvania, according to PASA. In a U.S. Department of Agriculture study, organic food products generally commanded a premium exceeding 20% over conventionally grown vegetables. And the popularity of organics continues to grow.

“There’s really a great future in organic farming,” said Carolyn Dimitri, associate professor of food studies at New York University. “I’m surprised they weren’t able to find people to take over that farm. A farm like that could have so much potential.”

Potential was on Mr. Kretschmann’s mind when he met his future wife, a native of Arnold, Westmoreland County, and University of Pittsburgh graduate, at a greenhouse in Latrobe where she worked in the 1970s.

By then, Mr. Kretschmann, a New York City native had graduated with a degree in psychology from St. Vincent College in Latrobe after switching his major from physics. The switch came after he worried that studying physics could lead to a career in “military defense systems,” Mr. Kretschmann said.

The owner of that Latrobe greenhouse had some advice that proved prescient: “You could make a living growing corn and tomatoes.”

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