Spring Ag Commission Tours Dorchester, Wicomico Farms

By Joe Bartenfelder

Published in the May 20, 2017 issue of Lancaster Farming

Last week I joined the Maryland Agricultural Commission for their spring agricultural tour, which featured Dorchester and Wicomico counties. We covered the Lower Shore’s major commodities: Poultry, seafood, nurseries, and fresh market produce. The commission is an advisory board to the Secretary of Agriculture, which represents all major commodities in Maryland.

J.M. Clayton Seafood Company

The tour started at J.M. Clayton Seafood Company in Cambridge, which has been in its current location since 1921 along the Choptank River. A family business now operated by the 5^th generation, J.M Clayton is the oldest working crab processing plant in the world. Co- owner Jack Brooks walked the group through the processing plant from unloading crabs on the dock, to cooking 400 pounds (10 bushels) at a time in each of their two heavy duty steel steamers, to the picking, processing and packing rooms.  Perhaps the thing that made the greatest impact on the group was the labor that goes into getting a pound of crab meat from the Chesapeake Bay to final market. The department is excited to have the state’s seafood marketing program officially return to Agriculture from the Department of Natural Resources in July.

Double Trouble Farm

The group then toured the Murphy family’s Double Trouble Farm – the first Maryland poultry operation to install cutting-edge technology that converts poultry litter to energy. The Maryland Department of Agriculture awarded about $1 million from the Animal Waste Technology Grant Fund to Biomass Heating Solutions, Inc. (BHSL) for the Rhodesdale project.

It’s exciting to see Maryland farmers finding alternative uses for manure to address environmental issues while improving the farm’s bottom line. The Ireland-based BHSL system utilizes poultry litter as a feedstock by converting it to energy to heat the farm’s chicken houses and generate electricity. The system is projected to generate 526 megawatts of electricity per year. Adding heat to poultry houses has been proven at other sites to improve the flock growth rate and overall bird health.  The Murphys are working with BHSL to explore markets for the high-phosphorus ash by-product including Maryland fertilizer companies.

Marshall’s Riverbank Nursery

Our third stop highlighted the second largest ag sector in Maryland – horticulture – which in 2014 accounted for $251 million (about 10 percent of total farm cash receipts). John Marshall, former Commission member, led the group on a tour of his 60 acre irrigated nursery that houses 400 hoop houses and continues to expand acreage. He also highlighted one of his biggest challenges is finding people willing to do the manual labor required in nursery work.  His Salisbury-based business focuses on a mix of re-wholesalers, garden centers and landscape contractors from Northern Virginia to Massachusetts and west to Pittsburgh and Ohio.

Wright’s Market

At our final stop, Charles Wright IV, along with his wife Michelle, explained the family’s farming business in their 13,000 square foot retail market in Mardela Springs. Wright’s Market offers fresh local produce, eggs meat, seafood, ice cream, bakery items, gifts, home and garden items and Amish-made furniture. Their Longhorned cow Zorro – and the goats that keep him company – are a big attraction for visitors. Additionally, the family grows poultry, grain, processing vegetables and retail produce. In the spring, they offer pick-your-own strawberries and in the fall, they host agritourism activities for the public and about 2,000 local students for field trips.

Ice Cream Trail Opens May 26

The 2017 Maryland’s Best Ice Cream Trail will kick-off on May 26.  I hope all Marylanders will visit a local farm or two and enjoy some delicious local ice cream this Memorial Day weekend (and continue on the trail this summer). The trail includes nine dairy farms that produce and sell ice cream directly to consumers. The Ice Cream Trail stretches more than 290 miles from Ocean City in the east to Washington County in the west. The purpose of the trail is to highlight the important contributions of Maryland’s dairy farms and to increase the public’s general understanding of dairy farming.

You can pick up an Ice Cream Trail Passport at any of the creameries (or online at www.marylandsbest.net). Everyone who returns a completed Ice Cream Trail passport by visiting each of the nine farms on the trail and answering a question from each creamery between now and September 25 will be entered into a drawing to be named the 2017 Ice Cream Trailblazer. The grand prize includes a $50 gift certificate to a favorite creamery; a DVD set of the latest season of Maryland Public Television’s number one show – Maryland Farm and Harvest; a signed copy of “Dishing Up Maryland,” a cookbook by Lucie Snodgrass; and statewide bragging rights!