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Officials set up a seminar to help them cope with the angst of a growing season marred by diseases and too much rain.

By BETH QUIMBY, Staff Writer August 26, 2009

First the rains shut down the greenhouse business and wiped out multiple plantings of cucumbers and corn at the Tibbetts Family Farm in Lyman.

Then John Tibbetts had to spend a bundle on fertilizer because it kept washing away. And even though Tibbetts' fields were spared the late blight that ruined the potato and tomato crops at other farms, his tomatoes didn't escape the early blight.

"We are not going to get the screaming crop we normally get. It will be mediocre," Tibbetts said.

Tibbetts and other farmers across Maine are contending with an unprecedented combination of challenges this year. Rain ruined strawberries and hay, and fungal diseases hit potatoes, tomatoes and blueberries. Dairy farmers are contending with plummeting milk prices, and their wood lots have been too wet to cut.

The challenges have created so much stress for farmers that the University of Maine Cooperative Extension Service has created a Web page and organized an Internet seminar to help them cope.

"This year everybody is struggling," said John Rebar, the extension service's executive director.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture declared disaster areas in Cumberland, York, Sagadahoc, Knox, Lincoln and Androscoggin counties because of the heavy rains in the last two weeks of June, making agricultural producers eligible for low-interest emergency loans and other assistance.

"We had so much rain and so little sun for so long, hay crops, corn, strawberries, potatoes, you just about name it, they have been affected," said Ken Gustin, acting state director of the Maine Farm Service in Bangor, part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Farmers say the disaster declaration will help, but they continue to play a waiting game with nature, hoping that the drier conditions of August will continue and the frost will hold off long enough to let their crops ripen.

Part of the problem, said Rebar, is that farmers face challenges they can't control.

"No matter how good a farmer you are, you have no control over major factors" like the weather and milk prices that are set at the federal level, he said.

Rebar said farmers are very independent. They may ask for help with crops, diseases and other professional matters, but they are less apt to seek help for stress-related problems.

When faculty members at the extension service started reporting unusual levels of stress among farmers this summer, the staff decided it was time to take action.

At 2 p.m. on Sept. 3, the extension service will sponsor an online seminar on coping with stress. The seminar, with Robert Fetsch, a professor of human development who has written widely on the subject, is free and will allow people to participate anonymously. Information on how to register is available on the extension service's Web site: www.umext.maine.edu.

Some farmers say they have developed their own mechanisms to deal with stress. Libby Bleakney, who runs Highland Farms in Cornish with three other family members, said it helps to think positively.

"We try to be as upbeat as we can in thinking that we can get through this," Bleakney said.

She said it helps to talk with other dairy farmers, all of whom are having the same problems.

"I try to feel that I am not alone, that every dairy farmer across the country is in the same state," she said.

Joe Carlin, who farms full time with his father in Windham, said a sense of humor and an appreciation for the outdoors are getting him through what he called the most difficult planting season of his life.

Bill Jordan, who grows vegetables in Cape Elizabeth, said he tries to diversify his crops to spread around his risk.

"But maybe we will have to revisit that," said Jordan, who had to stock his farm stand with green beans from other farms because his are so late.

In Lyman, Tibbetts said he copes by reminding himself how much he likes...