Harner Farm has seen big changes over 80 years in Centre County. What’s next?
Today, families around Centre County know Harner Farm as the place to go for flowers in the spring, fresh produce in the summer and apples and pumpkins in the fall. A long-standing staple within the Happy Valley agricultural community, the farm is celebrating its 80th year in business.
Paul and Emily Harner purchased the farm in 1945 and have passed it down through the generations. Today, Paul and Emily’s son Dan and his wife Pam, along with their son Chris, oversee what is still very much a family business, with Chris’ wife Stephanie also involved, and Dan and Pam’s other son and daughter-in-law, Todd and Ellen, even traveling from their home in Ohio during the farm’s busiest weekends in October to help out.
However, the Harner Farm that many area residents know and love today wasn’t always as it is.
“It’s been an interesting journey, the way things have transpired over the years,” Dan said. “At one time, almost all of our business was wholesale.” Harner Farm produced tens of thousands of bushels of apples, trucking them out to warehouses around the state.
“It was a fairly intense operation. Beginning in the [1980s], we moved more into retail,” he said, describing how the farm shifted as wholesale demand waned. The farm already had its greenhouse, which opened relatively shortly after the farm’s purchase, and the family began to build out the consumer-focused spot at the intersection of West College and Whitehall Road in Ferguson Township.
Dan worked at the farm with his parents until he was 18. After high school, he served in the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division and attended Penn State. Following a brief stint working for United Technologies in Connecticut, he and Pam returned to the farm to take over, alongside his brother, Tom, as Paul retired.
Chris’ experience was similar. He worked on the farm his entire life, through high school and college. He worked away from the family business here and there, but, after not finding a post-college path that suited him, he “stuck around and got plugging away.”
“You always have to run everything by Dad,” Chris joked when describing the family members’ current roles. “He’s the boss. Mom’s at the store every day of the week. I’m in the field working with the employees and production, and do a lot of marketing.”
Beyond moving to primarily retail sales in the 1980s, more recently, Harner Farm has diversified its offerings to include more of what the family calls “ag entertainment.” This diversification and ability to pivot, they say, is what’s to credit for the business’s longevity.
Now, they start the season with plant sales, then move into summer produce. The fall brings apples, cider, pumpkins, corn mazes and haunted attractions. Around the holidays, they offer thousands of Christmas trees.
Chris continues to expand these seasonal experiences, too. Last year, the farm planted a sunflower field for the first time. This year, the farm will introduce a cut flower field.
“I think that’s the direction,” Dan said, describing the farm’s future. “We’re not ever going to try to grow 25,000 bushels [of] apples anymore ... I think [this is] the emphasis across our type of business. [The farm] becomes a destination, at least in this kind of a setting that we have, with a university in a very active and growing town. ... We’re looking at the next generation. They come out, they have a good time, they want to come back, they talk about it. It shows up on Facebook or Instagram.”
As for whether the next generation of Harners will be at the helm in the next 80 years to come? Chris said his son, Clayton, recently graduated and is now working for Hershey’s Ice Cream, but he would love to see him come back to the business.
Harner Farm is now open for the spring season. Learn more and keep an eye out for 80th anniversary celebrations at www.facebook.com/harnerfarm.
Holly Riddle is a freelance food, travel and lifestyle writer. She can be reached at holly.ridd@gmail.com.
