107-year old Wood farm bought by 18-year old local farmer

May 3, 2007

Photos by Jon Alden

The Trustees of Reservations and the Westport Land Conservation Trust have announced the sale of a prime agricultural parcel to a local young man who will go from his high school graduation straight onto a tractor.

Andrew Orr, a senior at Westport High School, has always dreamed of making farming a career. Now, with his purchase of 13 acres of the Wood farm parcel at the corner of Adamsville and Sodom Roads, his dreams will soon become a reality.

For the past three years, Mr. Orr has been grooming his career working on the Wood farm and helping to run its popular farmstand. Jim Wood, whose family has farmed the land since 1900, is retiring. Mr. Wood will, however, continue to provide Mr. Orr with guidance, helping him pore over seed catalogues and plan for the upcoming growing season.

"Farming has been my biggest interest since I was young," Mr. Orr said. "For me, this is the next wrung on the ladder, and I'm ready for the challenge."

The Wood -- now Orr -- farmland was put under an Agricultural Preservation Restriction (APR) earlier this year thanks to state funding and a substantial investment from the town's Community Preservation Fund. The town now co-holds the APR -- in effect controlling the development rights, while Mr. Orr owns the field.

The land itself was purchased by a conservation partnership made up of The Trustees of Reservations and the Westport Land Conservation Trust using private donations from individuals in Westport.

The goal of the private partnership was to make sure the land stayed in active agricultural use by purchasing it from the Wood family and then reselling it at its agricultural value to a local farmer.

Small, locally-owned farms in Massachusetts are becoming a rare commodity as they face competition for land from real estate developers and competition from large corporate farms. The demand for locally grown food is rising, however, as more people discover the nutritional, environmental and safety benefits of locally grown food, farm-fresh food.

Trustees of Reservations President Andrew Kendall said,” We were thrilled at the chance to help Andrew Orr fulfill his dream and help the residents of Westport keep a small but critical farm in operation."

In many towns throughout Massachusetts, The Trustees of Reservations has worked in partnership with the state's Department of Agricultural Resources to help preserve family farms. Nowhere has that work been more successful than in Westport, where the partnership includes the Westport Land Conservation Trust and the town.

Together, the groups have protected 13 farms in Westport over the past five years, including two dairy farms, two Christmas tree farms, an organic fruit and vegetable farm, a beef cattle operation, and even a piggery.

There are now a total of 28 preserved farms in Westport, encompassing over 2,100 acres. Over 600 of these protected acres surround the Wood - now Orr - field.

The Trustees of Reservations have long supported protection of prime farmland throughout the Commonwealth, but they have recently become active in their own agricultural pursuits, opening a CSA (community supported agriculture) at Appleton Farms in Ipswich five years ago and another at Powisset Farm in Dover this spring. At Long Hill in Beverly, The Trustees also partner with The Food Project, an innovative program that brings urban and local youth together to grow produce for local farmstands and hunger relief organizations.

In Westport, The Trustees have recently entered into an agreement to manage the Westport Town Farm on Drift Road. In addition to providing new public access to the property, they plan to actively manage the property as a farm for the benefit of the public, if the necessary town and private support can be secured.

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This WHS grad will take root on a Westport farm

By Bruce Burdett

Courtesy of Westport Shorelines

May 03, 2007

Andrew Orr, a senior at Westport High School may be the only one in his high school class who will graduate this spring as the owner of a farm. He is the proud owner of 13.68 acres of the Woods Farm at the corner of Adamsville and Sodom roads in Westport.

He is the son of Mike and Joanne Orr -- his father is a carpenter and his mother a folk artist -- and the family lives on Charlotte White Road. It was his grandfather, Tiverton farmer Lionel Thiboutot who died not long ago, who first got him hooked on the notion of farming.

How long have you been interested in farming? Since I was about ten years old I guess. My grandfather in Tiverton got me into it -- he raised horses and poultry and I always loved to go visit there, help out and learn from him. He got me chickens and I raise them at my house -- 75 birds (which he sells shortly before they reach egg laying age).

Is your grandfather proud to see you follow in his footsteps? "I learned that I would be getting the land one day before he died so luckily he did get to learn about it. When I told him about it he told me to go for it. It means a lot to me that he knew about this."

What are you going to grow? "Mostly vegetables. I learned a lot from Mr. Wood too working with him for three years -- about planting, greenhouses, everything. That's what gave me the confidence to go into this. Pretty soon I am going to move his farm stand down to my location and we'll keep it running. I've also got strawberries growing at my house, 900 plants that I started before I had any clue I was getting this land. My grandmother and girlfriend volunteered to help pick them. (At the new farm) I am harrowing the field now. I've already planted an acre of corn and a quarter acre of peas."

All by yourself? "I'll do a lot of it but my mother said she's help and my father will when he can."

Do you have farm equipment? "Jimmy Wood is letting me use some of his equipment to help me get started. And I just got a Kubota tractor -- it's a good one and really exciting to have."

How's the soil? "Good but there are some rocks in it, just like everywhere else around here. You find them all the time."

What do your classmates say when you tell them you have a farm? "You tell them and they don't believe you -- 'yeah, yeah, yeah.' But some of them say it's pretty cool ... Actually it was the principal who first got me the job with the farm -- he's Jim Wood's cousin."

Are you the only one in your class going into farming? "I don't know. There might be a couple of other kids. Not too many are going into farming anymore here - these days everyone wants to go into computers or something. A lot of the old farms are disappearing and it's sad to see it. Right by our house there are houses now where there used to be a farm."

Any thought of college? "I was supposed to go to Sterling College in Vermont to study agriculture but that has all changed. Now I'm going to stay right here in Westport. Maybe I'll go back to school someday but for now there won't be time. Now I'll learn on the job."

Working afternoon, weekends -- do you miss doing high school things? "No, I'd really rather be doing this than hanging around after school. I'm not really into playing sports and for me this is fun."

Any hobbies that don't involve corn, chickens? "I have a motorcycle, a Buell Blast that I love to ride. But I'm going to sell it. I need the money and there's no time."

What do you see beyond this spring's crop? "I'll need more land someday to make a living at this. I just looked at some more land in Little Compton that I might be able to rent for planting."

What will you hours be like this summer? "Long. I'll start about 6 a lot of days and go to late in the day. There's always more to do - I'm already a day behind on my harrowing."

Doesn't sound like much time for the beach: "I only went once all last summer -- may not go at all this year. That's OK -- I love this."

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Young farmer lands on national TV

By Jill Rodrigues

Courtesy of East Bay Newspapers

July 31, 2007

As Andrew Orr picked lettuce, squash and cucumbers at his farm on the corner of Sodom and Adamsville roads a few weeks ago he had a camera crew following him and recording everything.

NBC's Today morning show picked up the story of the 18-year-old farmer, just out of high school, who bought the former Wood Farm. A Today reporter and camera crew visited Westport for four days to film Mr. Orr and Jim Wood, whose family has farmed that land since 1900, for a segment that aired about 8:40 a.m. this past Monday, July 30.

Mr. Orr's father, mother and grandmother -- who all help at his farmstand -- stayed home to watch his clip.

But Mr. Orr started work at his usual time of 7 a.m. He opened his stand and was out in the fields picking buckets of summer squash when his girlfriend, Lauren Arruda, managed to get him away from work to watch the show on a tiny hand-held color television, with about a two-inch screen.

"I missed a lot of stuff," Mr. Orr said. "I wasn't even planning on seeing it. I've got stuff to do."

Like pulling out thick weeds growing as tall as his corn, spraying herbicide to keep those weeds at bay or tying up his tomato plants. These were some of the daily farming duties he planned for the day the Today crew followed him from sun-up 'till he closed up shop.

Since sweet corn is such a New England staple, the camera crew wanted to film Mr. Orr inspecting his crop, though at the time the corn was too young to pick.

"They made me check the sweet corn like 20 times," Mr. Orr said. "I felt like, 'do you really need me to do that that many times.' "

NBC did in fact use a shot of Mr. Orr examining his ears of corn, which he is now picking by hand at a machine-like pace, and often selling out by the end of the day.

All this publicity is bringing in business, Mr. Orr said.

Joanne Orr, Andrew's mother, said she went into Town Hall right after the show aired and people were talking about it in the clerk's office. Every few minutes a new car pulled into his farmstand and remarked about seeing the Orrs on TV that morning.

"I went in for lunch and all I was doing was talking," Mr. Orr said.

Lettuce, which he picks daily because the stand does not have refrigeration, usually sells out around 4 p.m.

"Today I think we're going to sell out early because of the Today show," Mr. Orr predicted, and was correct -- selling out of lettuce at about 1:30 p.m.

Cameras also followed him home with his family, where they were filmed having dinner, and interviewed his parents and grandmother.

Mrs. Orr said her husband, Mike, normally a garrulous fellow, kind of clammed up when the cameras were rolling, so she did most of the talking. In the interview, Mike Orr did speak of how proud he is of his son, Andrew. And that was the clip Today producers thought fit to air.

With Andrew's family volunteering to work at the stand, the Today reporter asked him how he plans to pay them, to which he said, "A lot of corn I guess."

Mrs. Orr said that form of payment is fine with her.

"I told him I would be there to help him," she said.

His family more than helps at the stand. His parents took out a second mortgage so Mr. Orr could finance the $32,000 needed to purchase the 14-acre field through an agricultural preservation restriction. When Jim Wood, the former owner of this valuable land which fronts two roads, decided to retire, he was first offered a large sum by a developer who wanted to build 18 houses. Instead, he opted to preserve his former field for agricultural purposes, and took $1 million raised through donations by The Trustees of Reservations and the Westport Land Conservation Trust.

"This is what he wanted," Mike Orr said. "And I wanted for him whatever was going to make him happy."

Since the age of 10, Andrew Orr would ask to go to his grandfather, Lionel Thiboutot's, farm on Stafford Road in Tiverton to drive the tractor, feed the chickens and turkeys, and do whatever needed work. His grandfather instilled the love of farming in him, and helped him to decide to buy a farm of his own.

"When he was able to get this piece of land, he (Lionel) said go for it," said Lionel's wife, Jeanne Thiboutot.

Lionel Thiboutot has since passed away but not before he knew his grandson would be his own farmer.

"It was very emotional seeing my husband on TV (on the Today Show)," Mrs. Thiboutot said. "He died knowing that Andrew got the farm. I just hope he's with us now."

Andrew Orr thought the producers did a good job piecing the segment together.

"It was just neat," he said of the experience. "They were here a lot of hours for a couple of minutes."

Being in the national spotlight hasn't changed him, he said. "I'm still a farmer. There are bigger farmers around here."

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