Teen grasps an old farm's future

WESTPORT -- On Sunday , Andrew Orr will graduate from Westport High School. But he isn't thinking of exams, parties, or college.

This is how Orr, Westport's youngest farmer, spent his last weekend of high school: planting corn and worrying about his strawberry crop.

While his classmates apply for college loans, Orr just financed his first tractor for $20,000.

The 13-acre field where the lanky 18-year-old is planting is treasured by the town as part of its rural landscape. When the farmland was put up for sale last year and developers began circling, Westport residents helped raise $1 million so a land trust could buy it.

The trust then sold the land to Orr, who was among a half-dozen would-be buyers, for $32,000. Under the agreement, the land had to remain a farm, as it has been for more than a century.

The land's previous owner, Jim Wood , 58, is retiring after spending his life on the farm, which once produced dairy products but since 1990 has grown flowers, herbs, and vegetables. Wood is serving as Orr's mentor.

This month, Orr will start selling his produce at a farm stand on the edge of his field. He aims to succeed at farming, not just make a living, and to show the town that its trust in him was well founded.

Standing on his land last weekend with his new tractor, between rows of sprouting lettuce plants, Orr said he can feel the town cheering him on. Passing drivers often honk and flash him a thumbs-up.

"I want to do the best I can for them, and keep the town happy," said Orr, who worked on the Wood farm throughout high school.

With 14,000 year-round residents and about 100 families who count farming as a source of income, Westport still looks like a farm town, with stone walls and pastures and small, handwritten signs propped at the end of driveways, advertising eggs for sale.

But steady growth in construction spurred residents to step up efforts to preserve the town's rural character.

Seven years ago, local donors put up most of the money for a statewide land trust, The Trustees of Reservations, to open a satellite office in Westport and partner with a local group. Together, the two groups have raised almost $9 million in local, state, federal, and private money to protect 13 farms in Westport, including two dairy farms, two Christmas tree farms, a beef cattle operation, and a piggery.

To buy the Wood farm, the trust and the local group pooled $385,000 from local donors, $350,000 from town funds for open space protection, and $260,000 from the state's agricultural preservation program.

Similar preservation efforts across the state have helped hold farm numbers steady, at about 6,000 on 520,000 acres, for the last several years, according to the US Department of Agriculture. Fifty years ago, by contrast, Massachusetts had 11,000 farms and more than 1 million acres of farmland.

In Westport, the number of dairy farms has shrunk from 11 to four in five years, and many farmers work several jobs to stay afloat, according to the town's agricultural commission.

When word got out that Wood would retire and sell his land, the town rallied to action. The farm had been in the Wood family for three generations, and is considered a gem for its soil quality in a region known for rocky, or "bony," fields.

A sale of the site to developers would have been "a blow to the belly" for farmers, said Barbara Hanley , secretary of the Westport Agricultural Commission. Instead, she said, the sale has boosted morale.

At a meeting where Orr was introduced, local farmers gave him a standing ovation, she said. The average Massachusetts farmer is 55 years old.

"Getting this youngster on the land means not only is [farming] not over, it's alive and well," Hanley said.

Orr discovered his love of the land at age 10, when he started helping out on his grandfather's small farm in Westport, and found he liked animals and "getting all grubbed up."

He later worked on the Wood farm for three years.

"He was the only one of the kids who worked here, including my own two boys, who asked why we did something a certain way," said Wood.

When Orr heard about the opportunity to buy Wood's land, he was thinking about college, but his heart wasn't in it. So he sought advice from his ailing grandfather.

"I just wanted to hear it from him," he said. "He would tell you straight out if it wasn't a good idea."

His grandfather urged him to pursue the deal, and lived just long enough to learn that Orr had succeeded.

Now, Orr goes to Wood for guidance on which crops to plant, and when, and how deep. He bought Wood's old farm equipment -- he'll pay when he can -- and is taking over Wood's old farm stand.

"I try to stick to what he's done," Orr said. "It's all pretty much the same as Jimmy had it."

The lessons have piled up quickly, along with the bills he has to pay. Orr marvels at the cost of sweet corn seed ($800) and fertilizer ($400 per ton). Monthly payments for his land and tractor total almost $600 (his father, Michael Orr , a carpenter, co-signed his loans; also, Andrew will continue living with his parents). But until the farm stand opens, there is no cash flow.

"It's kind of rough right now," said Andrew Orr. "It's going to be close, until the corn starts coming in."

Wood said Orr should get by in a market, local produce, for which there is growing demand.

"He won't make a fortune," said Wood, "but he'll make a living at it."

Planting corn on his own last Sunday, Orr crossed the field slowly on his tractor, peering backward to watch for mechanical glitches as Wood's well-worn planter bounced along behind him.

He paused often to kneel in the dirt and sift it with his fingers, making sure the hot-pink seed was still spitting out of the planter.

He was also worrying about his strawberries -- specifically, his decision to grow an "everbearing" variety called Ozark Beauty, which will produce three crops of fruit throughout the summer, instead of a more popular June-bearing plant that yields all its fruit at once.

"I don't know," Orr said, a hint of doubt in his voice, as he lifted his baseball cap to rub his close-cropped head. "With the everbearing, I might not get as much."

There is still a lot to learn, but he has a lot of help. His mother volunteered to work at the farm stand. His paternal grandparents helped him pick rocks from the field. His girlfriend has promised to lend a hand.

Hanley laughed to think of the tide of good will flowing to the young farmer.

"If Andrew Orr ever needs anything, all he has to do is whistle," she said. "He didn't know that he would be a hero."

Jenna Russell can be reached at jrussell@globe.com.