Tiverton man trades social services job for long hours on the farm

TIVERTON — This year will be for observation and experimentation at Movement Ground Farm, where rows of vegetables are growing, crop-share members help tend the fields and city youth get a taste of where their food is grown.

There are 300 heads of lettuce nearly ready to harvest and long rows of dozens of other types of vegetables, from standards such as tomatoes and peas to the more unusual yard-long beans and kohlrabi.

Kohei Ishihara, 39, started farming six years ago, trading a social services job that had him writing grants well into the night – with the help of bottomless cups of coffee – for long hours outside in the sunshine, working the soil and waging battle, organically, against ever-present insects.

His drink of choice now is rose-colored hibiscus flower tea he makes himself.

Ishihara and his family purchased the farm at 592 Neck Road in March following a two-year search. They visited a lot of abandoned farms and farms converted to other uses such as equestrian centers and bed and breakfasts.

Ishihara wanted to be close enough to his established CSA — community-supported agriculture — customer base from the Boston and Providence areas, but far enough from the cities to be affordable.

“I’m really glad we made the decision not to go big,” he said.

The landscape at Movement Ground is breathtaking.

“I get goosebumps every time I drive into this area,” Ishihara said of the Punkateest Neck peninsula where he and his family now live on a seven-acre parcel overlooking Nonquit Pond. “It’s where farmland meets the ocean."

The property includes two acres of vegetable plants in neat rows, some covered to keep away hungry pests.

The flea beetle, Ishihara said, is particularly annoying. It flees the plant its munching on when approached, leaving its mark — a hole in a leaf.

“I’m trying to keep it manageable this year,” Ishihara said of his new farm, though he may plant another half-acre this season. Seven volunteers helped him plant the first two acres.

He plans to grow vegetables well past the usual season in high tunnels where cold crops such as spinach, carrots, scallions and bok choy can grow in the snowy winter months.

He eventually hopes to start raising chickens, ducks and quail. At the farm he leased in Berkley for the last three years, he raised poultry and included their eggs in CSA shares.

What matters to him, he said, is having people share his experience.

“It’s important to have some place to help to inspire people to connect to their food,” Ishihara said of CSA members who volunteer to do everything from cut the grass to weed the fields and harvest the crops. His connection to youth groups, through his former job as director of a youth activist organization, has introduced city youth to farm life.

Martha Yager, a CSA member, drove from her home in Seekonk to spend a few hours cutting grass.

“I believe in the mission of the place,” she said, “and who wouldn’t want to be here? I’m sitting in the sun with a breeze and this view. Folks can come here and get grounded."

As he walked around the fields, followed by his little dog, Turtle, who likes to rip up mouthful-size clumps of grass, Ishihara said he needed to learn about his land.

“We love the view, but with the view comes the wind,” he said, and some crops will be affected by it.

Along with the flea beetle, he's also identified the cucumber beetle as a pest that loves his land.

“Right now it’s just two bugs, but there’s going to be deer, rabbits, caterpillars, tomato hornworm and cabbage moths. It’s a constant battle,” Ishihara said of protecting his crops.

So far his defense is from scented sticky traps and floating row covers.

His first harvest for his CSA members will be July 1 for a July 2 pick-up. There are still 15 shares available at $259 for the season, or about $21 a week for 13 weeks. Ishihara also plans to sell at the Westport Farmers Market Saturday mornings and have a little roadside stand.

“It’s so new I don’t have a sign-up, or a business card,” Ishihara said, but people can learn more at movementgroundfarm.wordpress.com.