The Farmer's Father

Blind from birth, Steve Hoad, Bates College Class of 1972, 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, Maine, 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.”