PORT ST. LUCIE PEOPLE
Donna DeMarchi
44 Port St. Lucie Magazine
ELLEN GILLETTE
Humphries and his father, Fred, do the bulk of the work on the Circle I, a seventh-generation
ranch handed down through his mother Joanne’s side of the family. He hopes his son
Jaxen, 8, will one day follow in his footsteps but says he’ll leave that up to his son.
Aware that agriculture is often blamed for
water problems, he wants to clear up misunderstandings.
“There’s a lot of twisted news,” Humphries
says. “Agriculture is everywhere, and it helps us.
If you’re not involved with agriculture, you’re
not eating.”
The Circle I uses best management practices
learned at state and county classes, including a
solar water pump supplying five water troughs.
Some BMPs will eventually be signed into law,
he says.
“They help us be better stewards, build better
businesses, and produce more profit,” he
explains.
Diversification is another strategy.
“Today, people are here cutting sod, paying so
much per pallet,” he says. “That conditions the
fields for us and cuts down on maintenance.”
At one time, Humphries wanted to be a
firefighter, working his off days at the ranch.
An accident in 2011 on Carlton Road ended that
dream.
“When you’re born into ranching, you grow
up expecting disappointment from time to time,”
he says.
His accident was that, to the nth degree.
When Humphries’ four-wheeler hit a guardrail,
he went airborne as metal sliced through
skin and muscle. Doctors gave him less than a 10
percent chance of survival.
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