Year of extremes has sown devastation for many farmers

Stanley Brzoska with a rotted pumpkin on his Southwick farm in September. (Christine Peterson for the Boston Globe)

Last summer lived up to the adage that if you don't like New England weather, just wait a minute. And for farmers, that often proved devastating.

Tropical thunderstorms. Dime-sized hail. Heat, high winds, and even the odd tornado threat rolled over farmland from mid-June through August, resulting in reduced yields for some and damaged farm buildings and livestock for others.

In response, the US Department of Agriculture has made federal disaster benefits available to growers and others to salve the losses from such extreme weather. Governor Deval Patrick requested the federal assistance in October for growers in Barnstable, Bristol, Norfolk, Plymouth, and eight other counties where crop production was at least 30 percent lower than expected.

Besides emergency low-interest Farm Service Agency loans, farmers can tap into emergency conservation programs, Federal Crop Insurance, and the Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program as long as they meet such eligibility requirements as an ability to repay the loan.

"Keeping farms viable is vital to maintaining the health of the state's agricultural economy," said Doug Peterson, who is the commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources.

Hard-hit crops included alfalfa and apples, and even usually lush tomatoes hung split and stunted on vines from one end of the state to the other.

Pockmarked tobacco leaves pummeled by hail in the Connecticut Valley, and then blighted by blue mold, added insult to injury as the per-pound sale price of $6.25 bottomed out at 25 cents, said Carrie Novak, chief of loans for the Farm Service Agency.

Waterlogged pumpkins that opened and oozed before harvest time dramatically reduced available supplies for Halloween, she added. "There was so much rain they just didn't keep."

Stanley Brzoska of Pumpkin Valley Farm in Southwick, in Hampden County, harvested 16 tons of pumpkins, well short of the 40 tons he brings in most years.

About 12 percent of the state's farmland is in Plymouth County, where the majority of farms are family-owned and -operated. The major commodity is cranberries, along with other fruits and berries, greenhouse and nursery plants, dairy, and vegetables.

Denise and Jeffrey Pavao own Bull Frog Acres, a small farm and farm stand on Blackmore Pond Road in West Wareham. Besides their cranberry bog, the couple are selling vegetables, herbs, flowers, and fresh-baked goods.

The Pavaos emerged at the end of the growing season virtually unscathed, but they missed being pelted by hail twice, by just a few miles.

"We were lucky," Denise Pavao said. "I know a couple of cranberry growers in Rochester who got hit pretty hard."

Like Richard Pray, a fifth-generation farmer who with his wife and daughter runs a family farm in Rehoboth. The Prays' wholesale and retail flower and vegetable operation includes 15 greenhouses and 150 acres of squash, sweet corn, peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplant, pumpkins, hay, and more.

A violent storm in late June destroyed 3 acres of zucchini and more than 6 acres of corn.

"It just hit one spot of the farm and looked like someone went through it with a lawn mower," Pray said. "We probably lost between $20,000 and $25,000 right there."

A September week that alone dropped 10 inches of rain also wiped out most of the pumpkins. Pray had expected to yield about 250 800-pound bins, but harvested just 70, he said.

"I was devastated because it was a nice crop coming in," he said. "With me, every day and every week we pick is like a payday. And as soon as it ends, the paydays are over."

Although Pray has insurance that will cover some of his losses, he expressed little faith in the farm loan program that he said is set up to be difficult to access. More than 100 farmers in Bristol and Plymouth counties once had such loans, but they now number around 25, he said.

State officials, including Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Ian Bowles, however, have expressed faith in the federal aid program.

"Agriculture is integral to the Massachusetts economy," Bowles said, when news of the loan program was released. "We applaud the USDA's support of local farmers in their time of need."

Farming is a gamble, acknowledged Pray; every grower knows that. And where one crop might fail, another often succeeds beyond expectations, such as his acres of winter squash that yielded the best price ever this year.

"Those are the risks you take," he said. "Sometimes, the good Lord watches over you."

Michele Morgan Bolton can be reached at mmbolton1@verizon.net.