Matt Shaffer has operated Matt’s Farm Market outside Hamlin for 20 years. He grew up in a farming family. At age 5, working beside his mother in her garden, he planted his first patch of sweet corn. By his early teens, he was growing and selling sweet corn and pumpkins locally, and he started raising beef cattle. Today, Matt farms about 200 acres, growing sweet corn, pumpkins, potatoes, tomatoes and a few other vegetable crops, as well as hay for his cattle. “Watching things grow and gathering them for harvest is really rewarding,” he says. He also likes working with animals and finds being around his cattle is “very relaxing. They are my therapists.”

Matt also works part-time off the farm to catch up for bad years. “We farmers are at the mercy of the weather, markets, equipment failures, animal damage, a dangerous workplace, and a bunch of other things,” he explains. “But then there’s that everyday challenge on the farm that keeps it interesting. That’s the lifestyle I’ve always known and grew up in. I wouldn’t change that.”