Hadley farmer works to grow on her own land someday

HADLEY, Mass.- Lesvia Perez is hard at work, making sure her crops are ready for a healthy harvest.

“We are starting to pick the weeds from the radishes,” said Perez. “If we don’t take the weeds out, the radish cannot grow, so we have to remove all the weeds from the plants to get a nice radish.”

Perez came to the U.S. from Mexico in 2000, for a chance at a better life and an opportunity to live her dream of owning her own farm someday.

She has worked at Plainville Farm in Hadley for the last 15 years.

Perez said she loves working in the field because it gives her a sense of independence.

“When you planting by yourself. You don’t have to buy it. When you growing your stuff for yourself, you don’t have to buy it.”

Perez said being a farmer right now is extremely challenging, from the cost of maintaining the farm to being able to find employees willing to work on one.

She said many people have come to Plainville Farm over the years and left after only two days because of the demand of being a farmer.

“The fertilize is going up a lot of money. A lot of cost, a lot of money,” Perez said. “So how he can buy the fertilizer? How can he grow the stuff if he don’t have help?”

On Monday, Perez spent some time working on her own section of the farmland.

She and her family are currently growing independently, hoping to have a full space to call their own.​

It’s a tough job, but the love of creating their own harvest is a feeling which can’t be denied.

“You feel like you doing your own stuff. Like me, what I am doing here, I’m feeling like I’m doing my own stuff,” Perez said. “So it doesn’t make me want to stop. It makes me more, doing more every single day.”​