TO BE SUCCESSFUL in farming requires a
good deal of stamina, flexibility, and determination, along with a love of the art of growing
things. Charles “Chuck” Obern, owner of C&B
Farms, Inc., embodies all these qualities, in
addition to curiosity — an instinctive awareness that research can provide previously
undiscovered or underutilized methods to
improve crop health and yields.
Graduating from the University of Florida’s Institute for Food and Agricultural Sciences program (IFAS) in 1979 with a major
in vegetable crop production and a minor in
tropical agriculture, Obern began his career
by working for a few farmers in southwest
Florida to learn the commercial produce
industry. He applied his academic studies
and previous hands-on experiments to
help grow their businesses. In 1986, he was
offered a land share of ten acres just outside
Immokalee, and that was the beginning of an
enterprise that would progressively expand in
acreage and diversity over the years.
C&B Farms, Inc. grows, both conventionally and organically, thirty different vegetables and herbs on its 1500 acres. Their staple
is specialty produce: organic green beans,
eggplant, baby bok choy, green cabbage,
and an assortment of peppers, greens, rad-ishes, and herbs such as basil, cilantro and
other culinary varieties. Yields are as follows:
300 acres of cilantro yielding 1,000 cases
per acre; 200 acres of bunch radish yielding
1,200 cases per acre; 200 acres of organic
green beans yielding 150 cases per acre; 150
acres of green cabbage yielding 1,000 cases
per acre; 100 acres of basil yielding 6,450 lbs.
per acre; 90 acres of culinary herbs yielding
7,500 lbs. per acre; 60 acres of Napa yielding
650 cases per acre; and 60 acres of bok choy
yielding 700 cases per acre.
Obern says, “We market our farm as a
diverse producer, branding our products and
custom growing and packing them based
on the individual customer’s needs and
requests. In 2006 we established the organic
sector to meet the increasing demand for
organic food and to provide healthy, sus-
tainable vegetables to the East Coast food
supply. We market directly to retail custom-
ers, wholesalers, repackers, and processors
through our in-house sales team.” Large
retail customers include Publix, Winn Dixie,
and WalMart. Obern adds, “Everything we
sell is either sold or committed before it is
planted.”
C&B Farms, Inc. employs thirty full-time
staff in administration, sales, and tractor
driving positions and hires up to 250 plant-
ing and harvesting workers during the
height of the season, roughly a quarter of
which is H-2A labor. Obern’s son, Charles
A. “Boots” Obern, works alongside his dad
each day and has done so since he was a
boy. Boots is responsible for managing the
production portion of the farm and assists
with sales and marketing.
Obern comments, “My son’s knowledge
is invaluable, and I am grateful for his com-
mitment to the farm. A bonus for us came
in 2016 when his wife, Miranda, joined the
family business. Because she brings with her
over fifteen years of experience in financial
management, she’s making a tremendous
contribution to our financial security. She
also played a key role in putting in place our
H-2A program.”
Son Michael Obern, who lives with his
family in Sarasota, also started working at
the farm at a young age and is a talented
mechanic. Obern says, “He can get anything
with an engine to run. He now works with a
large tractor dealer, keeping central Florida’s
tractors going.”
A landmark event in the growth of C&B
Farms, Inc. happened in 1992 when Obern
obtained a contract from Pace Foods, the
Texas-based salsa producer, to grow jalape-
no peppers. Obern recalls, “They advanced
the initial cash to grow the crop and helped
me establish credit and implement needed
setup operations.”
With his strong interest in environmen-
tally sound practices and sustainability,
Obern has worked with researchers at a
large number of agricultural institutions
and companies, including Rutgers Univer-
sity, IFAS, USDA, and Rupp Seeds. He has
hosted numerous experimental trials on his
farm dealing with a wide array of projects,
such as developing mildew resistant basil,
trials of methyl bromide alternatives and
weed control, chemical treatment of farm
discharge water to reduce phosphorus
discharge using alum, and genetic testing,
selection, and measuring of Eucalyptus
Torelliana as wind break and wood source
trees. Additional sugar cane wind breaks
64 Sunbelt Expo 2019 Farm Press
FARMER OF THE YEAR
CHARLES
OBERN
FLORIDA
