Today, second generation apple, cherry and nectarine grower Paige Hake shares with us how she ended up in the organic fruit industry and a little bit of what she’s learned along the way.
Shoutout to Paige and all of the women out there sharing their wisdom and making a difference in the agriculture industry!
Video Transcript:
“I’m Paige Hake, I’m second generation apple, cherry and nectarine grower. All of our orchards are in Mattawa, Washington. I was born into the industry. I grew up on an organic apple orchard in Mattawa. I knew that that’s what I loved, I knew that that’s where I wanted to be. I love thinking about my kids growing up and being in the orchard and getting dirty and understanding that it’s hard work to get the crop off of the tree. And it doesn’t stop when the crops off the tree, you have to keep working. There’s the packaging and there’s the selling and the buying and there’s just so many different aspects to being a farmer and being in the fruit industry. I think it’s really an exciting time to be growing up in it. As a farmer you have to be an optimist. You have to know that if things are bad or not working out well that you can start again the next year. The words that we farm by are “first footsteps are the best fertilizer”. We go through the orchard as much as we can and we make sure that we understand where the orchard is, where the trees are, where the fruit is. Every single day we try and make sure to get out there and and understand what we need to be doing.”
