Young Female Potato Grower Preps For The Future

Being a young female grower in a predominately male field where the average age hovers around 60, brings both challenges and rewards. Sara Corey, the 2013 Maine Potato Board’s Young Farmer of the Year, has met all of those challenges with the same tenacious “can-do” attitude commonly found in growers who have spent decades in the field.

A second-generation grower, Corey grew up on her family’s potato farm, Daniel Corey Farms, in Monticello, ME, and at 23 years old, is the youngest recipient of the Maine Potato Board’s Young Farmer of the Year award. She is also the first female.

Corey’s official working title on the farm is Director of Agronomy and Variety Development, which includes an impressive breadth of responsibilities that expand as needed. On any given day she can be found in the office managing exports from Monticello all the way to Egypt, in the lab testing tissues, out in the field harvesting, or monitoring the tractors in the field with the advanced GPS app she acquired for the farm.

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Corey grew up on her family’s potato farm, Daniel Corey Farms, in Monticello, ME, and at 23 years old, is the youngest recipient of the Maine Potato Board’s Young Farmer of the Year award. She is also the first female.

Corey grew up on her family’s potato farm, Daniel Corey Farms, in Monticello, ME, and at 23 years old, is the youngest recipient of the Maine Potato Board’s Young Farmer of the Year award. She is also the first female.

Hard work is in her DNA, and Corey’s calm and collected approach to an amount of tasks and responsibilities that many typical 23-year-olds might balk at is refreshing to say the least.

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Young Beginnings
The farm was established in 1986 by Corey’s father Daniel, a first-generation farmer, and began as a 52-acre potato operation for the processing and table market. Flash forward to today and the farm has more than 1,000 acres of seed potatoes distributed up and down the Eastern seaboard, as well as for export to a number of countries including Egypt, Brazil, and Uruguay.

By the time she was 12 years old, Corey was required to work on the harvester during her school’s three-week break during peak harvest time. “You’d get off for three weeks, and we were made to work, that’s just how it was. So I was always on the harvester, and I was always in charge of getting my friends to help,” she remembers.

Not surprisingly, her early years on the farm significantly shaped her work ethic and sense of responsibility, and as an added bonus, taught her the value of a dollar.

“You’re working three weeks in a row, 90 hour weeks, and it’s not much more than minimum wage. We were always raised that if you want something, you work for it. So the harder you work, the more you get out of it. I definitely use that now,” she shares.

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After spending the bulk of her teenage years on the farm, it was finally time for Corey to graduate high school and make some serious decisions. Was she going to leave the farm and pursue her undergraduate degree? Or was she going to stay on the farm doing what she knew best, and secure the future of her family’s legacy?

Turns out, in the end she was able to do both. When asked what initially inspired her to leave the farm, she explains her thought process:

“You’re graduating high school and you’ve got this great big road ahead of you, and it’s so exciting. I didn’t have anything against the farm. I just wanted to do my own thing, and like any kid out of high school, that’s the mindset.”

Corey eventually went on to receive her Bachelors in chemistry at Husson University in Bangor, ME, but during her second year there, had a change of heart that had her longing to return to the farm.

“[School] wasn’t for me, and that’s when I realized that Dad could really use my help on the farm. I really liked it there and it was very good for me,” she says.

Does she regret her decision to go to school and get a higher education? Not for a second. “It’s really important nowadays to get a degree, and who knows where farming is going to be, you know? It’s just nice to have a backup,” she says.

New Varieties On The Rise
After receiving her bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Husson University in Bangor, ME, just two years ago, Sara Corey returned to the family farm and is already off to a running start. Corey dabbles in all aspects of the business, but one of her primary focuses on the farm is seed potato variety development. She says that the farm is receiving new, high-quality varieties that work well in different growing regions, which enables growers to increase their profitability.

During the variety development process Corey explains that they typically bring in new varieties based on market demand, plant a small amount of that variety, and send samples out to growers who decide whether or not they’re interested based on performance, flavor, etc. If they receive good feedback, they’ll grow more of the variety, and have more supply the coming year.

Some varieties Corey is currently experimenting with are fingerlings, exotic varieties including purple skin/yellow flesh, and purple skin/purple flesh, small garden varieties including an organic variety that’s resistant to late blight, and others suitable for the chipping and processing markets.

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Growing With Technology
Similar to most people her age, technology is at the forefront of Corey’s mind, and she’s used her tech-savviness to put her family’s farm on the map — literally. In the two years since she’s returned, she’s introduced a new GPS system to the farm, as well as the
JDLink app from John Deere, which helps track machinery and other equipment in the field.

“Introducing GPS has definitely improved our accuracy and efficiency. Our farm manager will go out and plant, and he’ll put where he’s planting — the field name, the number — and I can see what time he started planting this morning, when he took a break, how much time he lost filling, or how many acres he applied. I can put in all my chemicals too,” she explains.

Corey with her father, Daniel on one of the family's tractors

Corey with her father, Daniel on one of the family’s tractors

As for the JDLink app, Corey was specially selected to attend John Deere GPS School in New York in March 2013 along with 10 other young farmers from her area, and learned about the app and other technology there.

Corey also manages the farm’s three greenhouses where all the mini-tubers are grown, and oversees the farm’s laboratory, formerly owned by Monsanto, but purchased by the Coreys last year, where they perform tissue cultures.

Well-Rounded Participation
On top of her responsibilities on the farm, Corey stays busy as a member of both the Maine Potato Board Research Committee, and Young Farmers of Aroostook.

“I sit on the [Potato Board Research] committee and we allot funding for different projects, whether it be for the University of Maine, different plant pathologists or scientists, chemical research, or variety research. We touch everything,” she explains.

She also believes connecting with young growers is important, as evidenced by her participation in the Young Farmers of Aroostook program. In her eyes, it’s younger growers who are adapting more quickly to today’s technology and introducing it to the older generation to help push the industry forward. For Corey, networking in circles like the young farmers program is a great way to share these types of ideas and keep her finger on the pulse of the industry.

“You go to these meetings and you talk to other people to get a feel for what they’re doing that works, or what they’ve done that hasn’t worked. It’s just good to see what everybody’s doing out there, and learn from that,” she says.

Facing The Challenges
The challenges of being a young female grower are not lost on Corey. She understands that in order to gain acceptance in an industry that is primarily dominated by older men, she’s got to be confident and do her homework.

“As time goes on, I definitely feel myself getting a little more comfortable. The more I learn in the industry, the more confident I feel speaking about certain topics, and I think that’s with anything,” she explains.

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Her advice for other young growers, both male and female looking to break into the industry? “Get your name out there. I go to any meeting, any seminar — anything that comes across my desk that’s going on, I try to attend it. It’s all about getting your name out there; the more contacts you have, the more doors open, the more resources you have in the industry. I think that has helped me the most.”

In addition, Corey faces the same day-to-day struggles that every grower, regardless of age or gender, has to manage. Her primary concern: the weather.

Last year the farm received an excessive 40 inches of rain, which led to storage issues, lower yields, diseases in some thin-skinned varieties, and longer planting times.

“Usually it takes us two weeks to plant, but we started planting in the beginning of May, and we didn’t get done until the end of June; that’s how much rain we had to deal with. Getting the crop in later contributes to smaller yield, so it really affected us,” she explains.

Despite the weather troubles, Corey says that, in the end, they managed the difficulties just fine.

A Secure Future
There’s no doubt that the future of Corey Farms is secure and in excellent hands. Corey’s two younger brothers, Ben (18) and Jonathan (22), are both enrolled at the University of Maine studying sustainable agriculture and agronomics respectively, and are planning on coming back to the farm to work when finished with their studies.

Perhaps it’s being able to see and experience the joy of farming firsthand; perhaps it’s having grown up in a community where agriculture is a valued and respected career path. Whatever it is, it’s bringing Corey and her brothers back to the family farm, passing on its legacy to a next generation of growers who are both passionate and capable. In the end, that’s all that any family farm could ever hope for.

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