Lance Ham learned what he
knows about growing strawberries and tomatoes from his wife Tami’s
parents George and Pat Sprouse. After graduating from high school,
Ham went into an electronics school but knew that he wanted to farm.
“While I was dating Tami, I liked what her dad was doing and
it inspired me to want to start farming,” Ham said.
Ham worked for Tami’s parents for a year, during which time,
George taught him the skills he needed to start his own farming operation.
The land he farms now includes 15 acres of tomatoes – from which
they produce two crops per year, 25 acres of strawberries and 15 acres
of cucumbers. This land was once cattle land – cattle land that
belonged to his mother’s parents. His grandparents raised cattle
on it as well as some strawberries and some citrus. Ham’s parents,
Lance and Gayle Ham decided not do any farming but decided to raise
cattle on the ranch instead.
Lance’s paternal grandparents, Purvis and Elsa Ham, were strawberry
farmers in the 1940s and 1950s, and his grandfather still helps with
the harvest even though he is in his late 80s.
“Even though Granddaddy farmed over 50 years ago, he still gives
me useful advice for the farm,” Lance said.
When Lance and Tami first started their farming venture on a small
corner of his maternal grandparents’ – Fred and Essie
Mae Ackerman – land, they grew three acres of cherry tomatoes.
Their first strawberry season was on leased land and was a grand total
of five acres.
Lance and Tami call their farm I Farm 4U – inspiration for the
name came from Tami’s truck license plate. Lance sells all of
the farm’s strawberries – many go to retail outlets and
Florida roadside stands. The tomatoes and their cucumbers are sold
through a broker.
In the years that they have been farming, Lance said the biggest change
has been in their fertilizer use.
“The biggest change is probably converting from dry fertilizer
to liquid fertilizer – using strictly drip irrigation,”
he said. “It conserves the amount of fertilizer, and we’re
able to double crop more than one crop in the same plastic.”
Lance and Tami farm together and Lance said he enjoys working with
Tami – they have worked side by side the whole time minus three
and a half years when Tami worked for the state’s Wildlife Commission.
Lance also said he enjoys the diversity of owning a farm.
“The reason I like my job more than anything – every day
I get to do something different,” he said. “I do everything
from bookkeeping to selling.”
Lance and Tami have won their share of awards from different industry
groups: Young Agriculturist of the Year in 1995 by the Plant City
Chamber of Commerce; Young Farmer & Rancher of the Year in 1996
from Florida’s Farm Bureau; and Outstanding Young Farmer in
2000 from the Hillsborough County Fair.
Lance is active in different industry groups, as well. He serves on
the board of directors of the Florida Strawberry Growers Association
and on the Southwest Florida Water Management District’s Agricultural
Advisory Committee. He is also a member of the Florida Fruit &
Vegetable Association and Hillsborough County Farm Bureau.
“More so than for each farmer individually, these organizations
work for the good of the industry as a whole,” Lance said. “Whenever
the government gets involved with what we do, there’s trouble.”
In fact, Lance said many of the difficulties involving government
regulations come from finding a labor force. I Farm 4U employs about
25 to 50 migrant workers each year.
“The only problem we have is mostly government interference,”
he said. “When the government relaxes on their enforcement,
we don’t have any trouble finding help. As soon as they put
the word out, if they really hit the big farms, they (big farms) lose
workers, and our workers go to those farms. When the big farms are
hit, if they lose a lot of workers, they've got to get workers from
somewhere else.”
Lance and Tami have two children – Logan, 12, and Lexi, 7.
“Logan kind of helps around the farm a little bit. Lexi is around,
but she’s not really old enough,” Lance said. Lexi does
enjoy eating fresh strawberries from the field, though, Lance said.
Information for this story also came from an article written by Tami
Ham for the Florida Fruit & Vegetable Association.
