Mike and Kelly Edwards, owners and operators of the 103-acre Wood Duck Landing Farm on Deal Island Road, are three years into a mission to produce high quality produce through regenerative agriculture that is sustainable and economically viable.
Mike explains, “We believe that the condition of the land in the area right now is poor. It’s very simple: the supply and demand market has caused economic pressures, forcing farmers to not use the best practices. Traditional corn and soybean farmers have had to use significant amounts of synthetic fertilizer to get anything to grow and the fields are overloaded with phosphorus. Basically, we have degraded the ability to grow.”
Current agricultural methods are not sustainable, he said, and the real root of the cause is economic viability. “Our environment and our technology have made it possible to grow more product on less acreage at the cost of the soil. We are trying to fix that by using practices that will restore the soil, help the environment and be a model for the Eastern Shore and elsewhere to see what’s happening here.”
“This is not organic, this is what I call ‘smart farming.’ We’ll use all the modern technologies, but in the proper way and as minimally as possible,” Mike said. “One example is we have cover crop in the same field that’s producing year-round. At any given time, we’re only farming 20-30% of the field.”
They also use different types of cover crop every year. “Last year, we used clover to sequester nitrogen and we put a lot of organic matter back into the soil to try to build it up. I call it not farming greedily—farming at a point where the land can support us. Once the soil is in better condition, we can get better production.”
The Edwards’ grow 56 different “items on the board.” Specialty crops are just a small, but important, portion of that.
“What we found was that for most of the traditional crops that are being grown, the markets are saturated and the margins are so low that sometimes it isn’t worth growing. That’s why we are looking more to the specialty or ethnic crops—one, to help fill that need and two, to actually try to make a living,” Mike said.
UMES Extension’s alternative crop specialist Dr. Nadine Burton, he said, “has been instrumental working with us and trying to make that happen,” from information on growing Jamaican crops, such as callaloo, Scotch bonnet peppers and Jamaican pumpkins to finding markets for them in Washington, D. C. Dr. Naveen Kumar Dixit, an assistant professor and extension specialist in the Horticulture and Fruits program, has also worked with the couple to grow and market Asian vegetables like bitter melon or gourd.
“We look at information from all over the world for the things we do, but we also look to the university,” Kelly points out. “They come out and offer ideas and solutions and we come up with our own ideas in collaboration. Everyone keeps an open mind and has a similar goal.”
Kelly lists several projects they have done with university researchers. With entomologist Dr. Simon Zebelo, the couple participated in studies of capture crops for watermelon, squash and a SARE grant study of sweet corn. “We also donated our blueberry plot to the university to study fruit flies,” she said.
When asked what the biggest challenges have been, a hearty chuckle comes from Kelly.
Mike stepped in. “Every year and every season offers different challenges. You never know what’s coming around the corner.” Year one, he said, they were just getting started and learning the industry. “Farming is a lot more than just growing produce. Growing produce is the easy part.”
The difficult part is learning the business end of it, Kelly said, which is her part of the partnership. “Who’s going to buy it, where is it going to go, what is it going to cost, getting our market share…all the logistics.”
“Which we thought we had it all squared away at the end of year one and ready for year two. All of our buyers were in place, everything was set and ready to go and guess what happened? A thing called COVID came along and everything (buyers) disappeared. The restaurants that were going to buy our stuff shut down,” Mike said.
“We had to figure out and re-invent,” Kelly said. “We started doing some farmers markets, but it wasn’t adequate (for income).”
Year three, COVID has eased and things are starting to come back, Mike said. “This year the biggest challenge was not enough labor.” Kelly added, “We have buyers, but not enough people to pull it out of the field. Every year there’s something.” She recalls the tropical storm that took out their sweet corn and they were forced to re-plant the whole field.
When asked about their biggest success, Mike laughed, “We’re still here and we’re still married!” “That’s a big one,” Kelly adds, “It’s tough on a marriage because you’re working all the time and often going in different directions.” “Gotta do what you need to do to make it work,” Mike said.
“That’s just typical agriculture,” Mike said. “The pests, the weather, a drought, those normal things that can kill a farm, we can deal with that.”
On advice to a start-up farmer, Mike said, “Spend a year working for a farmer in the area of your interest to see how it really works. A lot of people have the idea that farming is just planting some seeds, some stuff grows and you make money. That is just a little piece of farming. If you don’t have the complete circle, you will fail.”
“The thing that works for us is that I have learned the business end and Mike has learned the farming end,” Kelly said. “You have to have the answers to: Where are you going to sell it? How do you figure out a profit and loss statement? How do you figure out what your net really is? What can or can’t you sell something for? How do you know if you’re making money or losing money? If you aren’t making money, you won’t be in business. That’s one of the things I think we’ve gotten down to this year is our actual costs of a crop.”
Their advice: start small!
Gail Stephens, agricultural communications, University of Maryland Eastern Shore, School of Agricultural and Natural Sciences, UMES Extension, 410-621-3850, gcstephens@umes.edu
Photos by Todd Dudek
