http://www.democratandchronicle.com/article/20101017/BUSINESS/10170330/Zarpentine-family-has-heart-for-farming
Even with a steady rain drenching the parking lot at Zarpentine Farms' market in Parma, people getting out of their cars can immediately smell the aroma of cinnamon sugar doughnuts and steaming pies wafting through the open door.
Inside, seasonal workers and members of the Zarpentine family are getting ready for the day ahead. Kim Francis, 40, eldest of the Zarpentine siblings and store manager, supervises the restocking of coolers with cider and the packaging of pies and other baked goods. Rob Zarpentine, 30, who is in charge of the baking operation but fills in everywhere, is carrying gallon jugs — four in each hand — to the cooler.
Patriarch Ron Zarpentine, 63, is helping in the setup, too, before finally pulling on a raincoat to go move wooden crates of apples.
Early fall is the height of the farm market's season, and even on this miserably wet day, there's a steady stream of customers coming for fruit, other produce and sweets.
But it wasn't always this way, as the farm's history of a century and a half attests. The farm that had been in Ron's family since at least the 1860s was a place where generations of Tabers and then Zarpentines raised food for themselves and cash crops to support themselves quietly and modestly.
Today the farm still produces a modest living but goes into overdrive during apple season, when the family makes nearly all its income.
"This is what pays our bills for the whole year," said Ron's wife of 34 years, Pat Zarpentine, 58. "The retail keeps us in farming."
Ron and Pat married and moved to his maternal grandparents' farm on Burritt Road in 1976, when there was little money in farming. But that wasn't enough to deter Ron from trying to make a living on the seat of a tractor.
"My father put me on a tractor when I was 5 years old and you couldn't get me off since," he said. "Farming was always in my heart."
In the ensuing years, there have been several times when the farm seemed perilously close to going under. But by changing the family business's focus, the Zarpentines have avoided the fate of many family farms.
"They're very much part of the solution. Some folks just want to bring up the problems," said Bob King, director of the Agriculture and Life Sciences Institute at Monroe Community College.
"I think they work smart, and the other thing is they work hard," King said of the Zarpentines. "The harder you work the luckier you get. They have a can-do attitude and that's paid off for them."
Not that the Zarpentines are rolling in dough — other than the kind used for fry cakes — they're quick to point out. Ron Zarpentine estimates the farm's annual revenue is $200,000, which doesn't leave much for four family members after paying expenses and 25 seasonal workers.
But clearly the Zarpentines take great satisfaction in the job they do and the community they create.
"It's just not enough for them to sell product. They want to make sure people are pleased and happy," King said.
The family members talk about crying with customers who have lost loved ones or delivered new babies, and celebrating when a customer who toddled into their store years ago has made it into college.
"For me it's not always about selling the peck of apples or the apple pie," Francis said. "My parents have always taught me as long as you give someone an extremely good product for a very fair price, people will keep coming back."
That philosophy isn't just about pleasing customers, but about the economics of modern farming.
"If you grow great fresh fruit, you can charge for it," Ron Zarpentine said. "They can get not-so-good anyplace."
Indeed, farmers earn between 5 cents and 10 cents per pound when they sell apples to a processor. Zarpentine said he earns about 35 cents a pound when he sells them directly to consumers.
Beating the rain
Ron Zarpentine grew up in Ogden on his father's 40-acre farm, now owned by his brother. When Ron was a kid, his father, Alonzo Zarpentine, went to the Burritt Road farm of his in-laws, Bert and Alta Taber, twice a day to help Bert with milking cows and other farm chores. The farm also had pigs, chicken and bees, along with subsistence and cash crops. The elder Zarpentine purchased the farm from his in-laws in 1962 and maintained both farms until his son moved to the Parma farm in the mid-1970s.
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