Fifer’s Orchards Field Trip

For our second field trip, my classmates and I went to Fifer’s Orchards in Camden, DE. There we met Bobby who runs the farm and plant portion and his brother Kurt who handles the marketing portion of the business. At the orchards, they grow everything from apples, sweet corn, strawberries, cauliflower, pumpkins, tomatoes, potatoes, and kale. They are not an organic business. Throughout the farm they use most varieties of irrigation. Some examples of the irrigation types consists of trickle, hard hoes reels, and center pivot systems. Kurt was talking about the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) and how it benefits them. For instance, it benefits small farms, it gives farmers the ability to take in credit. Also an impact for the farmers is that the consumers provide the money up front to the farmers to help them get started and when time gets closer for the crop to be harvested the consumer has first grabs with no extra charge to them because they paid at the beginning. A challenge for the family operated farm is that it’s a seasonal job. It’s hard to keep employees because they only work about five months out of the whole year. Some of the people they hire is college and high school students but mainly retirees. The retirees have a little more experience and it also gives them something to do. Finally, for future notice always try and drive separately otherwise there is a mostly likely chance the bus will break down.

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