It’s been a week much like any other out here. We’ve been harvesting away and keeping up with odds and ends of maintenance. On my part, I have been processing quite a few onions. We’ve got tobacco drying, carrots reseeding, pea trellising, the whole nine yards. Mason, Dylan and Emily took on the great burden of sorting through our final potato crate, and luckily only found one potato that was on its way to entirely liquefying. While I’ve been spared that particular fate, for once, I instead keep finding onions that are entirely liquefying, which I’m chalking up to hubris. Also: the interior door handle of the box truck broke the other week, so a person has to either climb out from the passenger side or crank the window down to use the outside latch. As you may guess, this both looks and feels very silly. And lastly, we got nearly 2 inches of rain!
Purdue Student Farm Spotlight: Chris Adair
Hello! My name is Chris Adair and I am the Purdue Student Farm Manager which I have been doing for close to 9 years. My journey started in 2008 when I came to Purdue as a freshman in Biology with an “interest in plants” as I grew up working on my parent’s property near Raccoon Lake which focused a lot on native plant restoration. I very shortly found learning how the heart works was not for me and ended up moving to the Botany and Plant Pathology Department. While an undergrad I worked many jobs, including dining courts, TAing for BTNY 110, working for labs in botany, agronomy, biology, and horticulture (Guri Johal, Mitch Tuinstra, Nancy Emery, Lori Hoagland), and of course working at the Purdue Student Farm (Steve Hallett). These were all amazing experiences and allowed me to learn a lot but the Student Farm really struck a chord with me.
After graduating in 2012 the Student Farm had grown enough we were looking to hire a manager which I was interested in but underqualified for, as much as I would have liked to think I was not. With that being the case I moved to an area just south of Crawfordsville and worked for Moody Meats owned by Adam Moody and his son Isaac on their roughly 200 acre farm that focused on a 7 year rotation involving cows, chickens, and their feed crops. This was probably one of my favorite experiences as I was exposed to so much I had never worked with before. I drove the biggest tractors (still not all that big) I ever had, learned how to milk cows, fed and raised calves, cared for both hens and broilers, washed eggs (only optional work we ever did on Sundays), ground feed, and also learned how to butcher as many of the animals raised at the farm were sent through their butcher shop. After a couple seasons, the job ran its course and I ended up moving to Champaign-Urbana where Ashley Adair was working on her masters. I ended up finding a job as the assistant manager for the Sustainable Student Farm (LINK) working for the manager, Matt Turino, who is still in that role. The farm was a great place to work and really solidified some of the knowledge and skills I had built over the prior years.
In early 2015, Ashley noticed a posting for manager of the Purdue Student Farm, so I immediately set to work on my application as I was always very intent on coming back to manage the farm if I could. Some could call it my dream job. I was hired for the job and began that April, still at the old farm site west of campus, but with a major move on the horizon as the farm was in the process of moving to a new site. The move to the new site was a bit crazy and chaotic as there were questions of what exactly the farm building would even look like at times but we managed the move without any great trouble and have now been at the new site just about as long as the old site! Building up production at the new site and figuring out how to use the land fully has been a challenging but rewarding time.
Our greatest challenge came during Covid (of course). Our only major market, the Purdue Dining Halls, shut down in the middle of the spring semester, leaving us scrambling. This was the year we began the CSA program with just a small week-to-week setup where we averaged around 12 folks over about 10 weeks. This was enough to encourage us to focus on a larger program the following year where we had 78 participants. The program has continued to grow with participant numbers reaching just over the 150 mark for this season!
I never anticipated when going to college my journey would lead me to vegetable farming, let alone at a Purdue student farm, but I have really enjoyed it and can’t thank everyone enough who has made it happen, especially the students. Thanks to all the undergrad interns as they have always made the job easier with their enthusiasm and willingness to get stuck in. Also, final thanks to Steve Hallett and Petrus Langenhoven. Steve has known me since undergrad and has really helped me navigate not only school but the farm as I learn, success or failure, and I see him as a great mentor. Petrus recently became my immediate boss, taking over as the farm director in 2023, but we have worked together at the farm since I started in 2015. He has been a great support and a wealth of information as we continue the hard work that began back in 2010.