Homegrown Farmer

Tom Qualey is a fifth-generation farmer. Like many Mainers of Irish descent, his ancestors emigrated from Ireland during the potato famine of the 1800s. Qualey and his brother John own and operate Three Oak Farms in Sherman. The 1,200-acre farm produces potatoes grown as chip stock; they also raise canola, hay, barley, oats, and small grains.

“Making a living as a potato farmer is a challenge. It’s a competitive market,” Qualey says. “We’re also having a hard time pulling young people into the industry,” he adds. “The median age of a potato farmer in the U.S. is now 54 years old.”

But the choice to go into farming was easy for Qualey. He grew up on a dairy farm, and while he knew he didn’t want to raise cows like his father, he did want to go into agriculture. After spending two years at what is now Eastern Maine Community College, Qualey headed back north. “I like the business and I like the area,” he says.

Qualey’s work ethic is what you’d expect for a successful farmer: relentless. He’s so consumed with his farm’s success, he was on the fence about attending the annual Maine Potato Board dinner in mid-July, even though he’s on the executive board. Qualey talked himself into it this way: “If I get riled up enough, I’ll have my wife, Linda, drop me off at the farm and I’ll work all night hilling the potatoes.” This year’s unusually rainy summer was a nightmare for many farmers. Because of flooding and outbreaks of blight, the Qualey brothers were behind on hilling their plants and had to work overtime spraying their crop with fungicide.
Tom Qualey has been active in the potato industry for years. He is currently serving on the Maine Board of Pesticide Control, the Integrated Pest Management Council, and the executive council of the Maine Potato Board. He was unanimously chosen as the 2009–2010 chairman of the U.S. Potato Board in March, an honor that hasn’t been bestowed upon a Mainer for 20 years.

“To have someone from Maine in a position to chair a national potato organization is tremendous,” says Don Flannery, executive director of the Maine Potato Board. “To see Tom rise to the top, with the overwhelming support of top potato-producing states, speaks volumes about both his character and his contributions to the industry.”

One of the biggest projects he’s been working on with the USPB is trying to change the perception that the potato isn’t a quick vegetable to prepare. “The potato is getting pushed off the plate because it is not considered easy,” he says. The USPB is working to create more refrigerated potato products that people can cook in their microwave. “The refrigerated business is the fastest-growing segment of our industry right now,” Qualey says.

Qualey has enjoyed his time on the USPB. He loves that he’s had the opportunity to travel across the country and to places like Cuba and China to learn from and share his experiences with fellow growers. But traveling takes him away from his farm and his family of two daughters and three granddaughters. He and his wife live in Benedicta, a short drive south from Three Oaks Farm.

Traveling also keeps him away from his new projects. Over the past few years, Qualey has been experimenting with growing gourmet niche potatoes. “I would love to get into growing some kind of specialty potatoes, be it fingerlings, or yellows, or all reds, or all blues,” he says. “There’s room for niche growing; there’s incredible demand across the globe.”
What Qualey is working on now, however, is gearing up for harvest. It’s not as backbreaking as it used to be 30 years ago—the industry has become highly mechanized over the years. Three Oak Farms will harvest about 325 acres of potatoes this fall. When will he get to put his feet up and relax? “No one’s ever asked me that,” he says. “I honestly have no idea.”