When a company has been involved in farming for more than 150 years, it’s safe to say that the decades of experience bring expertise and passion that can be matched by few others.
Such is the case at Smith’s Farm, a Presque Isle, ME-based broccoli and potato grower-shipper that traces its farming roots back to 1859. With the fifth and sixth generations of the Smith family now running the business, Smith’s Farm brings an ideal mix of time-tested experience and forward- thinking enthusiasm to producing its crops.
Broccoli is the primary commodity grown at the Maine operation of Smith’s Farm (the firm has a farming operation in Hastings, FL, which also grows broccoli and potatoes), but that has not always been the case. When Oliver Carpenter Smith and his wife, Isabella, first arrived in Mars Hill, ME, in 1859, their foray into farming involved potatoes, which the family first produced on a commercial scale in 1888.
In fact, it wasn’t until the 1980s that fifth-generation family members Lance Smith and Greg Smith, who are cousins, first introduced broccoli onto the scene at Smith’s Farm, and then only in a limited fashion, with 50,000 cases of product.
