In our new blog series, “Getting There,” we ask professionals and experts what it takes to be successful and what kinds of advice they can offer. And, as we believe the concepts of curiosity, creativity and communications are vital to contributing to the success of any endeavor, we are also interested in knowing which they have utilized most often and how.
Steve Crump
DeLeon Springs, Florida
Steve Crump is president of Vo-LaSalle Farms, a diversified farm producing over 100 acres of citrus and other crops and livestock.
How did you get your start?
Our family is from Illinois. My mother’s side of the family came from Illinois in the 1880s. They came to Florida for the winter, but they never went back.
I was born into the family business in agriculture. But, I went to Florida Southern College and got a degree in Citrus Business.
Primarily, what we’ve done in the past has been in citrus. Now, we are adding things into it like U-pick vegetables, strawberries, hay, and other kinds of things.
Recently, I was fortunate to receive an award for innovative farming. The innovative part for us was that we put up high-tunnel greenhouses to grow vegetables through the winter. This is fairly new for Florida. It’s much more common for colder areas and Europe but it’s rather different and novel here.
What kind of advice do you have for those considering a career in farming or agriculture?
It’s difficult to own a farm if you didn’t inherit it. Actually, the best way to get into farming is to marry into it. If you can marry the farmer’s daughter or the farmer’s son, well, that’s an excellent plan if you can pull it off.
Another way is to go to college and study agriculture. Whatever you want to focus on, whether it’s a livestock or crop production, study agriculture and then get a job for a very big farm. You will be hired as a supervisor, a farm manager, and your job will be to manage people and grow crops or manage people and grow livestock. That’s an excellent way to do it if you’re younger person and you’re just starting your career because there’s lots of opportunities.
If you want to get involved with the farm-to-table movement, an excellent way to start is as a hobby farmer. You keep your day job and maybe work three days a week at it. You start off by leasing some land or having a big back yard and a big garden. Anyone can start that way and see how it goes.
The farm-to-table is a good way to go if you’re going to start small because you can get the biggest return per acre or per square foot. You’re going to sell it for more than what the wholesale commercial growers are going to sell it.
You will often see people in corporate farming who will keep their job but they will buy some adjacent land and they will farm that. In addition, they might rent it back to the company they work for. There are all sorts of arrangements like that. You will see people accumulate some wealth and then invest in land. And when they buy the land, they will grow a crop of some type because they have the knowledge set and the know-how to do it.
A lot of people, though, may just say, “I’m very happy working for this employer. I love farming but I don’t want the added responsibility.”
How do you use curiosity or creativity?
I’m not very creative. That’s a known weakness I can accept. But I am curious. I ask questions of people who I think will know the answer. And, I read a lot on quite a few different subjects. I study a lot.
I’ve got to be a risk taker. I cannot rely on what worked in the past or what my grandfather did, so we try new things. A lot of them don’t work. You may lose money and time and sweat. But then you try something else. You look for that one thing. It won’t last a whole lifetime maybe, but I can get five or 10 years out of this before everyone else figures out how to do it and the price drops or the demand dries up. Then, it’s on to something new.
