You can smell starch in the air as tractors kick up dirt and semitrucks filled with potatoes can be seen rolling through Aroostook County. Farmers are racing to gather their crop before the frosts.
At Porter Farms near Presque Isle, a conveyor belt carries freshly dug potatoes past a line of five teenagers. Their job is to pick out rocks, roots and spoiled spuds before the fresh potatoes get turned to French fries.
17-year-old Maddie Putnam grabs oozy, rotten potatoes as they tumble down a conveyor belt.
“The rotten ones, you can definitely tell just by looking at them because they have this white gooey stuff," she said. "There’s definitely a smell that comes with it... almost like bad breath."
Next in the line, Carter Vigue, 17, tries to listen over the roaring engines for rocks clanking on metal.
“You can hear them hit on the metal parts of the line," he said. "That’ll give you an indicator for when to find those… [The sound] definitely gets drilled right into your head. Like, sometimes you’ll have a dream about it.”
It's a time-honored tradition in Northern Maine dating back to the 1940's. Every fall, schools in Aroostook County allow students to take time off classes to help harvest potatoes.
While lobsters are synonymous with Maine, potatoes are the state’s top agricultural product. Over 90% of Maine potatoes grow in Aroostook County.
The students' days are long. Work begins as early as 5:30 a.m. and can go past eight hours - which is legally allowed when they're not in school. And once they clock out, many go straight to evening sports practice.
But Putnam said she'd rather be here than in the classroom.
“I mean, out here I get paid.”
At Porter Farms, the students make about $19 per hour.
“I've been saving it for the past four years that I've been working harvest," Putnam said. "Most of it has gone to my car, going into college and stuff like that. I want to be able to have a good foundational savings in my back pocket.”
Dozens of growers in Aroostook County hire students for harvest break. Farm owner Matt Porter said it's rewarding to be able to give high school students a job, and he enjoys the youthful energy they bring to work.
"I can remember those days of hating the alarm going off and being completely exhausted after a week of work," Porter said. "Maybe they love it, maybe hate it, but getting to understand how hard work earns a big paycheck; it's just a great lesson in life of what we all get to do once we get out of high school."
A Fading Tradition
In recent years, some school boards have canceled or scaled back their harvest breaks in part because of the costs associated with opening schools three weeks early to make up for lost time.
Ben Greenlaw is the superintendent at Maine School Administrative District One – which includes the towns of Presque Isle, Mapleton, Chapman, Castle Hill and Westfield.
He said the harvest breaks make for higher costs on running buses and creates scheduling conflicts for families.
“I think if you asked 100 people in the community, I think you'd get it pretty close to right down the middle, for the people that that would like to see it continue, and for the people that would like to see us modified in some way, shape or form,” Greenlaw said.
The number of students who work on farms has also dropped in recent decades. That’s partly due to stricter laws on farm work for children under 16 years old but it’s mainly due to the mechanization of farming.
Greenlaw said about 75 high school students took part in the harvest in 2024. About 125 others worked non-farming jobs.
![Ben Greenlaw is Superintendent at Maine School Administrative District One – which includes the towns of Presque Isle, Mapleton, Chapman, Castle Hill and Westfield. He says area schools differ in their harvest break policies. While his still has a three-week break, others have scaled down or done away with the tradition entirely. “Either keeping harvest or getting rid of it; I think people are largely understanding of each other's positions," he said. "But the few times that it has been voted on [at school board meetings], it's been really close."](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/b212dd6/2147483647/strip/true/crop/4032x3024+0+0/resize/840x630!/format/webp/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F19%2F12%2F34a933e54a8798d053c53b25a296%2Fben-greenlaw-0924.jpg)
“Either keeping harvest or getting rid of it; I think people are largely understanding of each other's positions," he said. "But the few times that it has been voted on [at school board meetings], it's been really close."
In 2018, the SAD 1 school board voted to eliminate the harvest break but walked back on its decision after outcry from farmers.
Dozens of Aroostook County growers still hire students for harvest break even though mechanized farming has made them less essential than they once were.
“I can remember at 12, 13 years old, somebody wouldn't show up, or somebody was sick, and they would come down to the potato house and grab me, and I'd be out there on the harvester,” said Robbie Irving, the sixth-generation owner of Irving Farms.
He said it used to take a team of people to operate a harvester, a large machine that digs up potatoes and loads them on trucks. Students used to get paid by the barrel of potatoes they'd harvest.
But new, automatic harvesters can process twice the amount in a faster time. Irving said he bought one for his farm a few years ago.
"We're putting in just volumes of potatoes that we couldn't even begin to put in 10 years ago,” he said.
Irving said even though he hires fewer students, the lessons they learn on the job are the reasons to keep the tradition alive.
“It's a labor of love. It's really something that a lot of kids, once they work a harvest, they have a greater appreciation for the work that we do," he said. "They also have a greater appreciation of what it means to so many people - you're literally feeding America.”
Superintendent Greenlaw at SAD 1 agrees, as long as the number of students who use the harvest break to work stays at or above 15%, he said his district will keep the harvest break.
At one of his facilities, Irving watches as his 15-year-old son Carter use a forklift to move debris before it starts to rain.
After that, Carter jumps into a tractor at least three times his height.
"It's just like driving a truck except a little harder," he said. "I mean, around here, you just have to get taught how to do anything. And my dad is the perfect person to do that for you.
For some kids, harvest break is a way to earn some extra money and develop a strong work ethic. For others, like Carter Irving, it's an education in taking over the family business, something they aren't likely to learn in school.
"I remember driving a tractor for the first time and stuff like that - little core memories that kind of helped me guide me," Brandon Porter, 17, said.
