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Times change, but the ‘Squash King’ still reigns

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Times change, but the ‘Squash King’ still reigns

26 June 2008 – By Jeffrey Turner, intern

Just as the sun rises above the pine trees along Highway 55 west of Mount Olive, so does Kenneth Best to patrol his squash fields to ensure that everything is as it should be. Indeed, for Mr. Best this has been the way he has greeted most mornings on his 200-plus acre farm for many years during the summer months because to be dubbed by locals “the squash king” carries with it the responsibility of producing the best squash to be found anywhere. In order to do that, long days, countless hours of sweat and toil, and careful cultivation are all necessary to maintain the high standard he sets for his produce.

Perhaps more important to Best is the support he receives from his family to keep the farm up and running. On most days during the summer farming season, one can find Mr. Best, his wife Helen, his son Tony, and several helpers busy at work planting, irrigating, or harvesting their staple crop of squash as well as beans, potatoes and cucumbers. While most farms in the area have, for a multitude of reasons both practical and

staff photo/JEFFREY TURNER
Tony Best (in center, wearing yellow) and Kenneth Best (center, wearing purple) work alongside some of their employees to help get the squash harvest to market. Kenneth Best is known locally as “The Squash King” because of the quality of the squash his farm produces each year.

economical, shifted away from small family farms to larger corporate operations Best takes particular pride in knowing that each product from his farm has been given the kind of quality attention only available from smaller producers.

“To me, it’s important to tend only what you can look after. The bigger the operation you have, the more likely it is that something is going to be overlooked and then you will have a product that is not up to par,” he said.
Even so, Best admits that it is becoming increasing difficult for farmers to tend the kind of operation he has. Chief among the reasons for this being the case is that the financial aspect of produce farming in this area has become much less secure since the closing of Faison Produce Market in the late 1990s.

“When Faison was open for business, you could just take what you had down there and you would receive a ticket with a price for what your produce would go for, and then you would go to a certain shed and the buyer would pick and chose what he wanted right there on the spot,” notes Best.

Now, however, many more avenues must be traveled before farmers such as Best are able to receive compensation for their product.

“The situation now is that you take your produce to market and a seller takes your product and sends it to someone up North. Of course, by the time it gets up there, you don’t know what kind of shape your produce may be in. But whatever happens just happens and you get paid for whatever the buyer pays the seller you went through.”

In addition to more red tape being present in the process, farmers such as Best still have to deal with the perennial problems of supply and demand, which set the prices for their goods.

“We still have to deal with the issues of when crops come off in neighboring states because that can either make or break your season right there,” stated Best.

Yet even in the face of economic uncertainty that has squeezed many farmers out of the produce business, Best continues doing what he loves quite simply because its rewarded him with something much more important than mere money: family. Indeed, the strong family ties that have been cultivated on this farm have most likely been the reason his son Tony has come back every green season to assist his parents. And it’s also why he insists he will keep coming back as long as his parents want to continue farming. “I’ve been sitting on a tractor since I was a boy so it just feels natural to be out here doing this. It’s hard to imagine a summer without getting my hands in the dirt out here,” says Tony Best.

Thus, the Best family will continue tilling their land every season for the foreseeable future, for after all, being known as the “squash king” is not a title Kenneth Best wants to relinquish just yet.

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