Company: Jaswell’s Farm
Owners: Allison and Christopher Jaswell
Location: 50 Swan Road, Smithfield
Type of business: Orchard, farmstand and bakery
Year founded: 1899
Employees: Five full time, three part time
Annual revenues: WND
PAT JASWELL, “retired owner” of Jaswell’s Farm explains the intricacies of apple picking to an attentive and hungry group of listeners.
Seifert Systems Invests in Energy Efficiency to Strengthen Operations
For manufacturers, energy is more than just another operating expense. It plays a critical role…
Learn More
It’s a life regulated by federal mandates, social developments, and Mother Nature. It’s a job that requires more than 80 hours a week, but doesn’t guarantee a paycheck. And it’s a tradition rooted deep in family histories.
For more than a century Jaswell’s Farm has been a part of the Smithfield landscape. Today, that tradition is going strong as the farm is in the hands of the youngest generation of Jaswells – 27-year-old Allison and her 30-year-old brother Christopher.
Building on a solid foundation of farming and business degrees from Bryant College, the two have set out to continue the tradition started in 1899 by their great- grandfather – Italian immigrant Nicholas Jaswell.
Allison said she and her brother are not soon going to forget the work both their parents have done. In fact, though officially retired, the couple still works with their children at the farm. The family still lives together in a home on the property, and has their daily staff meeting at the breakfast table.
“We’ve always been proud, this is our upbringing,” Allison said looking out at the apple orchard. “But pride doesn’t even begin to cover it. It’s about what’s important.”
It’s been a long hard journey, Allison said. What her great-grandfather started, her grandfather struggled to continue even though he was legally deaf. In 1967, immediately after they were married, Allison’s parents, Richard and Pat took over running the farm, making changes of their own – including focusing primarily on the growing and eliminating the livestock.
Though still holding a full-time job, Allison’s mother started a small retail business placing harvested goods on a picnic table outside the family home. A few years later, the retail store moved into the old barn the family used as a garage. Today, the retail portion makes up more than 50 percent of the business.
“My mother always used to say that ‘diversification is the assurance of a lifestyle,'” Allison said.
One change the couple made was adding a cider mill to the facility. Allison jokes the mill will always be her father’s baby – but it has brought the farm publicity among residents of Rhode Island.
Several years ago, the family decided to upgrade their cider mill by adding a pasteurization system. The only cider mill in the state with those capabilities, Allison said the decision was a good one for the family.
“It was a very costly investment,” she said. “But I think it was very wise. At the time we put it in there were several outbreaks of the E-Coli bacteria. There was a warning issued, and school tours were told not to drink cider that wasn’t pasteurized. That could have been very detrimental to our business.”
In fact between 3,000 and 5,000 kids visit the farm during apple picking season, which lasts from September to mid October. Allison’s mother, Pat guides the tours through the orchard.
“Teaching the children about the orchard has always been one of my favorite parts of this job,” Pat said. “They are so honest and eager to learn about the farm.”
Meanwhile developers have been drawn to areas surrounding the farm. But though many people nearby feel as though they are living in the country, Allison said some don’t appreciate exactly what that means.
Though Allison said most of her neighbors are family, farmers across the country and throughout the state are dealing with what she called “urban encroachment,” or developments being built closer and closer to farms.
“People move here because they want to live in the country, but they don’t want to know that the tractor starts up at 6 a.m. or that we have to irrigate and our pumps are very loud,” she said. “We do use pesticides and understandably a lot of parents are concerned about their families. Everything we do here is safe and done under federal guidelines, but people just don’t want it done.”
According to Allison, over the past few years the farming industry itself has become more difficult to work in. With increased regulations and more specific guidelines for funding, she said it is difficult to measure what’s going to happen from one year to the next.
”During last year’s drought we were able to get supplemental funding because we are an orchard,” she said. “But there were other farmers that didn’t fit into the specific legislation that didn’t get any funding. It’s so strict in structure that no matter what size the farm is, we all need to work together. There is no competition, we are all working with one another.”
Open from mid-June through Christmas Eve, the farm has three distinct seasons – berry picking from May to August, apple picking from September to mid October and the holidays.
In keeping with their mother’s philosophy to diversify, last year Allison and her brother opened a full-service bakery at the farm stand and have started baking pies, pastries, cookies and candy apples – for many of which family recipes are used.
Allison doesn’t mind sharing the recipes; in fact, she said that’s part of the family tradition.
“There are no backrooms, back entrances or corners in this business,” she said. “It’s always been that way and it always will.”
