ON THE JOB IN HOPEWELL VALLEY
By: John Tredrea
The Kerr Farm’s produce stand, which does a brisk business on Pennington-Rocky Hill Road in central Hopewell Township, got started from the back of a pickup truck 16 years ago, when a family tradition dating to the early 1960s was renewed by Geordie and Matt Kerr and a few of their cousins.
"I was 8 years old at the time," said Geordie while working at the produce stand a recent afternoon with his cousin John Jacob, who’s been on the job at the stand for six years.
"Matt and I and our cousins wanted to make money to go to the Flemington fair with. Two weeks before the fair, my dad (George Kerr, still the farm patriarch) suggested we sell corn from the back of a truck, here at the roadside. He said we could keep the money we made for the fair. So that’s what we did.
"Some of the people who stopped by to buy corn during those two weeks are still coming here regularly. So I guess that shows there really is such a thing as a loyal customer, and we appreciate it."
Mr. Kerr, now 24, said his father’s own childhood was the source of the idea on how to "make money for the fair" in what sounds like a quintessential fable of farm life itself, which involves handing down so many things from generation to generation.
"When Dad was a kid, about 10 or 12 years old, he worked at what’s now Sweet Valley Farms, up in Ringoes," Mr. Kerr said. "One August, he and a few other guys sold Silver Queen corn from the back of pickup truck on the side of a dirt road, to make money to spend at the Flemington fair. He still mentions this joke they had among themselves about the price of the corn they sold then at 30 cents a dozen, three dozen for a dollar."
Unless the weather is forbidding indeed, hundreds of cars will stop each week at the Kerrs’ stand, located just east of Elm Ridge Road, during the warm months of the year. The family sells corn, squash, tomatoes and many other fruits and vegetables they grow on the 199 acres they rent from Bristol-Myers Squibb.
When the Kerrs moved onto the farm 23 years ago, it was owned by Mobil, which sold it, along with an adjoining $41 million research park, to Bristol-Myers Squibb a few years ago.
"One thing we don’t grow on the farm is soybeans," Mr. Kerr said. "Deer just love ’em. They’d eat ’em all."
"We’ve just tried to have the small, roadside farm stand vibe to this place," Mr. Kerr continued. "I guess that’s increased the popularity of the stand. It’s the kind of feel people, including us, just enjoy."
Working at the farm stand means working on the farm, too. "I’m up at 6 or 6:30," Mr. Kerr said. "First thing, we go out in the fields and pick. Corn for an hour and a half or two hours, then an hour or an hour and a half picking everything else we’ll sell at the stand that day. The stand’s open at eleven in the morning and closes at six, except on Sunday, when it closes at five."
After the stand is shut until the following morning, it’s time to go back in the fields.
"After we close down, my mother and I will pick tomatoes or cucumbers," Mr. Kerr said. "We try to stay busy until sundown. It’s not hard to find things to do."
Mr. Kerr said he likes farm work.
"It’s good stuff," he said easily and matter-of-factly, with the big, friendly smile he shows often. "It builds character. When you’re out in the field, working with your hands, you feel like you’re doing something important, that you’re getting something to people they need. And you get to enjoy the beautiful things around you. When you’re picking tomatoes late in the day and it’s August and you get those special sunsets that month has, you just stop for a minute every so often to stand up and look at it, up there over all that green in the fields – it’s pretty special. Nothing else like it."
During the winter months, much of the work on the farm revolves around taking care of the 50-odd beef cattle the Kerrs keep.
"They’re kind of pets," Mr. Kerr said. "We use their manure in the fields. Very rarely do we send one to market. During the winter, when they can’t graze in the pasture, we give them feed and silage in the barn, and spread hay in there for them to lie down on, if the weather’s too cold."
Winter also gives Mr. Kerr time to play ice hockey, a sport he’s enjoyed since boyhood.
"I play in a men’s league at the Iceland rink, over in Hamilton," he said. "Other than that, when I’m not working I like to spend time with my friends, or maybe have a beer while I sit down and watch some TV. It’s nice to be able to put your feet up for a little while."