Jeff Griffith has been working on his family’s farm in Lothian for as long as he can remember.
Though his mother didn’t want her son to follow in the family’s footsteps tending the former tobacco farm, he was out in the fields with his father when he could crawl. As soon as he could walk, he was working.
“She figured [there were] easier lives than farm life,” Jeff Griffith said. “That may be so, but I always loved the hard days — hot, dirty, everything else I loved it, always have. There’s nothing greater than to plant a seed and watch it grow, as far as I’m concerned.”
Kayla Griffith, Jeff’s daughter, has stayed on the farm for the same reasons. Just like her dad, she loves working in the fields, preferring days outside over a desk job. She, too, is raising her family there, joining the long line of Griffiths who have grown deep roots to the farm.
Those roots date back to 1923 when Jeff Griffith’s great-grandfather bought more than 200 acres of land off Greenock Road from an aging farmer who was ready to sell his parcels. From there bloomed a generational love for the land. A century later, that commitment to the farm earned the Griffith Family Farm a designation this month as one of Maryland’s Century Farms.
Established in 1994 by former Gov. William Donald Schaefer, the Maryland Century Farm Program recognizes farms that have been in the same family for 100 consecutive years, contain at least 10 acres of the original parcel, and have a gross annual income of $2,500 from selling farm products.
About 1.7% of Maryland’s 12,550 farms have received the designation and honor that comes with maintaining the family tradition.
“I have seen firsthand the care and love that Century Farmers put into their work and their communities,” Lt. Gov. Aruna Miller said in a news release. “Gov. [Wes] Moore and I are grateful for your extraordinary service and your commitment to honoring the legacy of agriculture and its significance to Maryland.”
When the Griffith family first took ownership of the farm, tobacco was the primary cash crop. Over time, though, struggles to find laborers to work the land prompted the Griffiths to join hundreds of tobacco farmers across the state in taking a buyout in 2002. Brought forward by former Gov. Parris Glendening, the program sought to end tobacco production in Maryland by offering farmers money to stop growing the crop.
“I’m not saying it was good or it was bad, but it ruined the entire industry here in Southern Maryland,” Jeff Griffith said.
When the state offered the buyout, it promised farmers an alternative, proposing forays into the grape industry. But Maryland is “not Napa Valley,” Jeff Griffith said.
“There’s no replacement in terms of crops or livestock that can meet the economic viability we had with tobacco,” Kayla Griffith said. “There’s been people searching for alternatives, but they just don’t exist.”
Though the now 400-acre farm had some livestock over the years as well, including 3,000 turkeys at one point, the Griffiths needed to pivot to a more lucrative option. In the 1980s, Jeff Griffith’s father began offering an opportunity for visitors to dig their mums on the farm, but that, too, proved to be a labor-intensive operation like tobacco. The family also has battled crop damage over the years from bad weather, deer, and insects, leaving the family in a tough spot to recuperate.
“We just keep going with whatever we can until we figure out what we’re going to land on,” Kayla Griffith said. “I mean, [my dad] knows what he’s landed on, it’s a grain and hay operation.
Hard work and wanting to succeed to keep their family on the farm are what drive the father’s and daughter’s commitment to the land.
“Farming takes grit. It’s tough, it’s mentally tough, but it’s also a great lifestyle,” Kayla Griffith said. “That’s why I want to try to keep it up, to work with him as much as I can and learn the ropes.”
In the past decade, the fifth-generation farmer resurrected a produce stand that her grandfather and cousin had started as a hobby years before. She maintains her own hobby, too: keeping a flock of chickens and geese. In 2020, the Griffiths also started a cut-your-own sunflower field, making use of the flowers they planted for hunting.
Kayla Griffith wants her daughter, as well as her brother’s children, to grow up respecting the land. Though her 16-month-old isn’t working in the fields just yet, Griffith has taken her daughter out on the tractor. Jeff Griffith’s 4-year-old granddaughter has taken a liking to the tractors, too, often going out to “inspect” the tires, he said.
“I’ll do anything I can to help them do that,” he said of sharing his love for farming with his grandchildren. “But I’m not going to force them into anything.”
In moving forward as stewards of the land, for themselves and generations beyond, the Griffiths have always been on the cusp of conservation practices, too, aiming to keep the Chesapeake Bay watershed safe while tending to their farm.
“We have that in mind every single day we care for this land,” Kayla Griffith said. “We have to, or it won’t care for us.”
Jeff Griffith agreed.
“All the farmers are going to be the best stewards of the land they can,” he said, “because that’s their livelihood.”
