More About Us:

The Farm Experience

Management Practices  

Daily Update

Or Phone our Hotline at:

(608) 835-3979

Contact Information

Our Crops:

Strawberries

Raspberries

Grapes

Additional fruit we sell at the Dane County Farmer's Market:

Pears
Plums
Cherries
Aronia
Sea Berry
Currants
Elderberries

Issues that Concern Us All

Sustainable Agriculture

Eating for Health

Eating Locally

Thinking Between The Boxes

Planning for a Sustainable Future

Links

The Owners

Dale & Cindy Secher

Carandale Farm the longest established pick-your-own farm in Dane County, will be celebrating 40 years of providing pick-your-own and retail fruits and vegetables to the Dane County area in 2008. At Carandale Farm, we are committed to providing our customers with safe, nutritious produce grown in an environmentally conscientious manner.

Dale and Cindy both grew up on family farms in a time and place where diversity was key to good land stewardship including resource conservation, waste recycling and an overall reverence for nature. Our ideals and values were shaped by the challenges, opportunities for personal growth and the self-sufficiency of the family farm. They both left the farm, got university degrees and embarked on other professional career paths (Cindy in teaching and Dale in engineering.)

The old adage, “you can take the boy out of the country, but you can’t the country out of the boy” was so strong, that in 1968 Dale and his first wife, Carolyn, purchased a rundown dairy farm at the very end of South Fish Hatchery Road. Indeed times had changed, and small to mid-sized family farms were being forced to embrace unsustainable practices for economic survival. Local infrastructure for processing milk, eggs, meat, wool, as well as fruits and vegetables was on the way out. A “cheap food” policy that overlooked social and environmental costs had become well established.

Farm gate prices for agricultural commodities were kept low by agricultural policy that encouraged over-production. Economic survival required mono-cultural practices that reduced diversity and required unsustainable amounts of non-renewable energy, inorganic fertilizers, pesticides and proprietary seed stocks to increase production and yields. A limited number of mega-processing facilities aided by cheap fuel, a publicly subsidized highway system, and short-term efficiencies of scale controlled farm gate prices. The bulk of the economic return from increased productivity went to large corporations that provided inputs and did value-added processing.

To avoid these evolving socially and economically unsustainable trends forced on family farms and to recapture the environmental values of a diverse agricultural base, Dale decided to start a direct market based pick-your-own fruit and vegetable operation, which was an innovative, risky, untested model at the time. Indeed, it took until 1976 before it became economically feasible for him to quit his engineering job with the USDA, Soil Conservation Service [known today as NRCS (Natural Resource Conservation Service)].

Dale and Carolyn’s 23-year marriage ended in 1988. Since 1989, Cindy and Dale, with similar interests and backgrounds, have been able to pursue a shared goal of contributing to a sustainable future. They are fortunate to have four adult children who share their values.

Over the years cropping systems and marketing continued to change at Carandale Farm. Initial emphasis was dictated by economic survival that required a wide range of vegetables and fruits to spread risk in a pioneering market environment. In the early years, nearly every vegetable was included in the cropping systems, but as the tree fruits matured, management changed to a fruit production emphasis. The last vegetable crops to be eliminated were tomatoes and pumpkins. In recent years, the emphasis has been on researching little known and unusual fruit crops with the goal of helping to re-establish and maintain a regional marketing infrastructure (click on Non-traditional Fruit Crops Research for more information.)

As of the 2008 season, Carandale Farm will no longer be marketing apples, so that more time can be devoted to unusual fruit crops research. Phasing out apple production was a difficult decision, but it was the least environmentally sustainable crop grown and climate change was increasing disease and insect pests demanding more pesticide use. We sincerely thank our apple customers for their past patronage and are confident other apple growers in the Dane County region can meet their needs.

Strawberries will always be our passion. We will continue to have pick-your-own and already picked strawberries, fall raspberries and Concord grapes for our customers at the farm. In addition, we will have an increasingly diverse selection of fruit from our test plot for sale at the Dane County Farmer’s Market.
 

Dale and Cindy extend a cordial welcome to Carandale Farm!