Young professionals taking up farm careers

Tom Murtha studied English at the University of Pennsylvania. Tricia Borneman majored in journalism at Shippensburg University.

Like most college graduates, they finished school with a good idea of where they wanted their career paths to lead. Unlike most college graduates, for them it was a dirt path.

So on a recent summer day, instead of working in an air-conditioned office building 40 miles away in Philadelphia, the pair were tending to kale, collard greens and broccoli in Bucks County.

"It's been so dry, we're really hoping for rain soon," said Borneman, squinting in the hot afternoon sun under a straw hat, weeding impossibly straight, green rows with a long-handled stirrup hoe.

Several yards away, Murtha tilled new rows using a temperamental red tractor. And before dusk, there would be drip tape to unroll for irrigating the soil, and yellow squash to harvest in an adjacent plot.

"We went to college, we were on track to have some sort of professional careers, but it just didn't resonate," Murtha said. "The thing about farming is, it engages you on all levels, which doesn't happen with a lot of jobs."

Murtha, 34, and Borneman, 32, are among a new crop of farmers sprouting up around the country who weren't raised on farms, have college degrees, and in some cases have left other careers behind.

"Agriculture has been so subsidized, corporatized and globalized," Murtha said. "There's definitely an interest and desire for younger folks to get involved in agriculture."

Murtha and Borneman have been farming together for eight years, the last two at the 70-acre Blooming Glen Farm in Perkasie. Parents of a 2-year-old daughter, they did stints in Oregon and New Jersey before returning to Pennsylvania, where they do farmers markets and operate a community-supported agriculture program in which local families do four hours of farm work during the growing season and receive regular shares of produce from spring through fall.

A walk through Blooming Glen also reveals plots of fragrant basil, feathery dill astride neat rows of beets peeking above the dirt, pumpkins and summer squash lying nearby. Bees work at pollinating tomato plants in small greenhouses across from lettuce planted in alternating lines of red and green.

The farm eschews synthetic fertilizers or pesticides, and is seeking certification as organic.

Ben Wenk didn't work on his family's century-old 350-acre fruit farm in Aspers, Adams County, during high school, and mulled a music education degree.

"But when I stopped to think about it, I realized that music was more of a hobby, and farming was what I enjoyed the most and really wanted to do," he said. "I saw an opportunity to expand the business in a new direction."

Wenk, 23, became the seventh generation to work Three Springs Fruit Farm after graduating from Pennsylvania State University last fall with a degree in agroecology, or the science of sustainable farming. He added a half-acre plot for tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, squash and melons that he brings to Philadelphia farmers markets.

He created a MySpace page for the farm, where weather conditions are posted and customers post thank-yous. He said the work requires business savvy and creative thinking to control costs and optimize sales, and Wenk is thinking about ways to expand.

"If I wanted to make a small fortune and retire at 55, I wouldn't have gone into agriculture. But I look at these beautiful rolling hills and think, 'This is my office,' " he said.

Dawn Buzby of A.T. Buzby Farm, a 55-acre fruit and vegetable farm in Woodstown, N.J., welcomes the fresh crop of people entering the farming field - including her 25-year-old son, a recent college graduate with an engineering degree.

"The new blood entering farming is a great trend that has really energized longtime farmers," she said. "There's a lot of enthusiasm out there."

Still, huge hurdles exist for young farmers, from the cost of land to the threat of suburban sprawl.

People within the movement, however, say the numbers can be misleading.

"Are there young people who are going into farming? Yes, more and more," said Dennis Hall of the Center for Farm Transitions, a Pennsylvania Agriculture Department office providing technical assistance to new and established farmers. He said the landscape started to change about 31/2 years ago.

Nearly one-fourth of people who currently contact the center for information don't have farming backgrounds, Hall said. They range from college students to people leaving established careers, he said.

"What I will say about a lot of the young folks is that they're more entrepreneurial, more agile and more intuitive," he said. "They'll look at where the consumer is going and they'll move appropriately."