Sustainable produce: Steve Hoad ’72

Steve Hoad '72 poses at Emma's Family Farm in Windsor in 2008. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College)

Steve Hoad ’72 poses at Emma’s Family Farm in Windsor in 2008. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College)

Blind from birth, Steve Hoad was raised by a mother who “understood that children were children,” he says. “It was expected that I would do things children do.” His outdoors experiences as a child and a desire to conserve land solidified Hoad’s dream to one day live with his family on a farm.

Today, on Emma’s Family Farm in Windsor, Hoad and daughter Rose sell vegetables from a stand and include rare heirloom breeds among the chickens and turkeys they raise for customers’ holiday tables.

And to the Hoads, “good food” and “high prices” needn’t be synonymous.

“We have a really basic philosophy that says everybody has a right to good food, and everybody, if they want, should know where their food comes from,” Steve explains. “That philosophy includes helping out wherever we can, keeping our prices low, and at the same time, protecting the earth that gives us the food that we need.”

Multimedia

The Farmer’s Father (video)

This story was published in 2008.