Question and Answer: Paul Rood: Master Farmer, 82, says things have changed

Paul Rood has worked the same farm along County Road 378 in Covert Township for more than half a century, land that has been in his family since 1870.

At 82 he produces 12,000 to 15,000 bushels of pears a year, along with plums and apples, on 90 acres of fruit trees. Most of the pears are sold to Gerber Products Co. in Fremont, which uses them in baby food.

Rood grew up in Lansing and was drawn to the farm at an early age. After obtaining bachelor's and master's degrees in soil science and a Ph.D. in horticulture at Michigan State University, Rood worked in California as a USDA scientist for three years. He returned to the family farm in 1956.

This year, Michigan Farmer magazine named him a Master Farmer, recognizing him as an innovator and leader in one of Southwest Michigan's most important business sectors for much of his life.

Rood has four grown children, Kathryn Rood, Paul Rood, Phillip Rood and Laura Kao. His wife, Geraldine, died in 2009.

Staff writer Scott Aiken interviewed Rood.

What are some of the greatest changes in farming you've experienced?

A big first general is specialization. When I was a boy, we had cows and chickens and pigs and sheep. I have specialized and most of my friends have specialized.

We're growing better food than we ever used to. And those of us who still do it have more volume.

The terrible part is the regulations. The dog isn't supposed to run in the orchard. He might go to the bathroom in the orchard. We've been down there to meetings this winter (at the Southwest Michigan Research and Extension Center in Benton Township) and they've been telling us all the new things we've got to do.

What do you like best about the work you do?

The independence. There once was an Extension agent at southwest station named Chris Reiser that got independent. He said once you start getting up each morning and deciding what you're going to do, and doing it, and not having somebody else telling you, it's habit forming.

And Chris left that Extension work and is farming, and I'm farming, and it isn't necessarily all fun. I never tried drugs but it's worse than drugs.

With less than 1 percent of the U.S. population claiming farming as an occupation, what kind of future do you see a future in agriculture for young people?

There will be a future. The specialties have been a help to me. I sell pears to Gerber's. But the big pretty ones go to these guys that are going to Chicago farmers' markets. They like these plums and pears because they can't do that (sell at markets) and raise good fruit.

The land will be used some in agriculture. There'll be the cornfields. But increasingly, unless the regulations and the labor climate change, a lot of our food will be imported. ... It has come to be true of England, it will come to be true here.

With the cost of fuel and fertilizer so high, what are farmers doing to produce food with less energy?

We're tilling less. We're plowing less. I'm going to plant wildflowers (to attract bees) to pollinate my fruit. There's a government program. That field down the road we'll, with their approval, burn the grass.

I sprayed it last fall to kill the grass and it went into the winter dead. We'll burn it, and the soil conservation district has a no-till planter that will put seeds at the rate of two ounces to the acre, these little flower seeds. You've heard the dead bee stories in the newspapers. Well, this is the farm bill's solution to the dead bees. No-till saves a lot of fuel. And we get less erosion.

Southwest Michigan has long been important in fruit and vegetable production. Do you see that continuing?

I think it will. But the canning factory in South Haven closed, Michigan Fruit Canners as a pear canning outfit. (Gerber's) is the only pear processor in the East. It'll be specialties, and it'll be feeding the folks. Farmers' markets in Chicago will be a good fit, at least for us down here.

What are the greatest challenges to farmers in the region today?

To continue to exist. The Gerber scientist that as a friend came and said, "well, if you can continue to exist it will be a major accomplishment." That means to pass on the farms, to keep a generation of people that are interested in farming.

When I go through the past presidents of the Michigan State Horticultural Society, and the famous names down here, most of their sons did not choose to continue to farm. There's one son that may continue to farm my farm. But the succession of farm ownership is a major problem. They talk about making sustainable agriculture, but it's got to sustain the families that are continuing it. You can get in and out of vegetables pretty fast, and corn. But these pears take 15 years to come into bearing. I'm picking pears now that I planted with my pregnant wife at the end of the row telling me, drive this way.

Are farmers in the region feeling development pressure?

You can see it around Benton Harbor. You see it from South Bend coming into Berrien County and when you get up around the south side of Grand Rapids. There's pressure and it's also social pressure. I have folks that complain about my farming.

We have a right-to-farm law, and I can spray at night. I make noise. The dairy farmers can spread the manure. The infrastructure and the markets change. They're cutting the Extension service down to nothing, and they're cutting the (agricultural) experiment stations down to nothing. I depend on those.

To see more of The Herald-Palladium, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to

http://www.heraldpalladium.com/. Copyright (c) 2010, The Herald-Palladium, St.

Joseph, Mich. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For

reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or

847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group

Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.

For full details on (GERB) GERB. (GERB) has Short Term PowerRatings at TradingMarkets. Details on (GERB) Short Term PowerRatings is available at This Link.