editors NOTE:
Richard de Wilde and Linda Halley have parted ways since
the writing of this case study. Linda is farm manager at
Gardens of Eagan in Farmington, Minnesota and Richard continues
to operate Harmony Valley. This case study was written prior
to their split.
Richard de Wilde and Linda
Halley are veteran organic farmers, with more than 40 years
of organic vegetable production and marketing experience between
them. Together they own and manage Harmony Valley Farm, a
200-acre, diversified farm nestled among the rugged valleys
of southwestern Wisconsin, not far from the town of Viroqua.
Harmony Valley cultivates about 80 acres, employs up to 15
experienced workers and supplies a variety of markets, including
wholesale accounts, food co-ops, a farmers' market and a 450-share
CSA (community-supported agriculture). Although technically
in Zone 4, it enjoys a warmer microclimate, collecting a few
more frost-free days than surrounding areas. Madison, the
farm's primary marketing destination, is about 90 miles away.
Richard grew up on a family dairy farm in South Dakota and
has been farming on his own account since 1973. As a young
man he got a degree in mining engineering, then went back
to school and earned a degree in education, all the while
maintaining an interest in farming. Richard’s teaching
job provided some money for start up costs, and he continued
to teach in the winter for many years after beginning to farm.
He founded Harmony Valley in 1984, after relocating from the
Minneapolis-St. Paul area. Linda Halley has been at Harmony
Valley since 1993. She also took a degree in education before
starting to farm. Richard and Linda met at the Dane County
Farmers' Market, where both were selling vegetables; Linda
was interested in farming organically and adopted Richard
as a mentor.
Breaking new ground
When Richard began farming organically in the early '70s,
he was a maverick. “I was a young idealist concerned
about the environment. I had also read Rachel Carson’s
book ," he recalls. He possessed basic farming skills,
including a good working knowledge of soils and machinery,
and he had learned a good deal about organic gardening from
his mother and grandfather, but when he started out he lacked
equipment, capital and—most importantly—reliable
information about organic farming on a commercial scale.
An early attempt to get help from the University of Minnesota
Extension Service didn’t go well. "'You may be
able to do an organic garden,'" Richard remembers being
told, "'but you can’t make a living—it just
can’t be done.’ I didn’t go back. I had
nothing to do with them for 20 years. Then they came around
and said ‘Could you teach us something about organic?
Because it seems like you’re doing pretty good.’”
Lacking information from conventional sources, Richard became
an avid reader, seeking out everything he could find on organic
farming. Rudolf Steiner’s teachings about managing land
the way nature does were a key influence. For example, Steiner
observed that bare-soil fallows are useful but not natural—nature
always has a living plant present to capture every bit of
sun and rain. This insight led Richard to think carefully
about cover cropping—now an essential part of his rotation.
He also learned from older farmers in the neighborhood, from
visits to experienced organic growers in California and from
a steady process of self-education. “A lot of changes
we have made have been based on observations and experimentation,”
he reflects.
From the beginning, Richard had a strong soil management
ethic. When he moved to the new farm in 1984, soil tests came
up low in almost every nutrient. Richard applied compost,
consulting with Midwestern Bio-Ag founder Gary Zimmer and
paying special attention to micronutrients. “I invested
sometimes my last dollar on fertilizer and soil tests,"
Richard recalls. "We added cal-phos, we made our own
compost, and added a lot of trace minerals. As long as I can
remember it’s been a basic philosophy for me. You’ve
got to give the plant everything it needs.”
Rotations and cover crops
Richard and Linda grow a full range of vegetables on their
farm, from arugula to zucchini, as well as specialty crops
like Jerusalem artichokes, burdock and scorzonera. They follow
a five-year rotation based on botanical families—shifting
from Solanaceae (tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, potatoes)
to Cruciferae (cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower) to
Cucurbitaceae (melons, squashes, cucumbers), for
instance. Some areas are double cropped spring to fall.
They plan their rotations at least a year in advance and
seed everything down to cover crops—mainly peas, oats,
rye and vetch—in the fall. “We tried triticale
for a number of years, but found that in a mild winter it
didn’t winterkill," explains Richard. "We’ve
tried a number of different cover crops, but we’ve gone
back to those that are easy to source. They are even available
in organic seed now.”
In areas where they need to get an early spring start, they
use a peas/oats combination for good winterkill. Other areas,
such as those scheduled for fall plantings of cabbages, turnips
and beets, are seeded to rye and vetch. Both cover crop mixes
include a legume to fix nitrogen and a grass to provide carbon.
For new farms or land in transition, Richard recommends sweet
clover for its combination of nitrogen fixation and subsoiling
potential, with long, branching taproots penetrating as deep
as five feet.
Deadlines for planting fall cover crops can pass quickly,
Richard notes, with the days getting shorter and the heavy
fall crops coming in at the same time. Over the years he's
learned to put fields to bed promptly—spreading compost,
subsoiling the field and seeding down the cover crop almost
immediately after harvest.
Tillage
In the early years some of Harmony Valley's fields suffered
from plowpan, a hard soil layer caused by plowing too wet
and/or plowing at the same depth every year. The compacted
layer inhibits drainage and root penetration. To correct this,
Richard and Linda borrowed a neighbor's subsoiler and eventually
purchased their own, a vibrating subsoiler with six-inch-wide
shanks 18 inches apart, made by an Australian company called
Yeoman. The vibration promotes shattering along the soil’s
natural lines, helping to preserve soil structure and pore
space. The subsoiler has helped not only with hardpan, but
also with drainage in low-lying fields.
After primary tillage, Richard creates raised beds with a
lister plow and Lilliston cultivators. The raised beds improve
drainage and help get cold soils warmed up in the spring.
Most vegetable crops do best in well-drained soils, Richard
notes; but good drainage is essential for early plantings
of beans and corn, since untreated seeds can rot in cold,
wet soils, and for the prevention of other disease problems,
like certain onion diseases. Even at a young stage onions
can be damaged from waterlogged soil, though the damage may
not show up until the onions are in storage.
Seed selection
Richard and Linda put a great deal of thought into variety
and seed selection. They save their own seed for crops such
as peppers and edamame soybeans, but for the most part they
feel seed-saving is too labor intensive, requiring a completely
different set of skills and equipment. Richard says that many
of the open-pollinated varieties he’s trialed exhibit
poor seed quality. Most of his favorite varieties are hybrids;
his preferred companies are Snow Seed, Seedway and Johnny’s.
Richard is concerned about seed supply issues—in recent
years, he feels, quality has gone down while prices have gone
up, and the cost to the organic producer sometimes goes beyond
the purchase price. “What we’ve learned about
seed is that it very often carries disease,” he explains.
Organic producers are not allowed to use fungicide-treated
seeds, so Harmony Valley uses hot water to treat seeds such
as tomatoes, peppers, brassicas and onions. Although this
can lower the germination rates (especially with poor quality
seed), Richard feels it’s worth it for the protection
it offers against diseases like bacterial leaf spot.
In February and March, prior to planting, they run germination
tests, noting uniformity and speed of germination as well
as overall seedling vigor. Richard advises farmers to know
the name and reputation of the seed breeder responsible for
each variety they grow; Dutch-bred varieties, for instance,
he says, are among the best. Richard and Linda trial every
new organic variety they can find and record the results in
a database. “I used to keep it all in my head, but [then]
I’d find seeds at the bottom of the bin that I should
have trialed and I didn’t,” says Richard. The
information is useful for certification as well.
Soil management
Richard and Linda raise a few steers every year, but these
are fed on pasture, so to make compost they buy in dairy manure,
mixing it with chopped corn stalks in long windrows. Compost
temperatures are monitored and the pile is turned regularly
(though not often enough to meet the guidelines for in-season
application). Harmony Valley's compost is spread in the fall
at the rate of six tons/acre; it's also used—along with
sterilized garden soil, peat and perlite—to make potting
mix for the greenhouse.
Every year, Richard and Linda get their soils tested for
organic matter (most of their fields are now at about 3 percent
SOM), macro- and micronutrients. Each of their 37 fields is
tested at least once every four years; fields identified as
“problem fields” are tested more often. They apply
some purchased amendments, paying particular attention to
calcium, sulfur, trace minerals, phosphorus and potassium.
A granulated fertilizer from Midwestern Bio-Ag goes in with
the corn seed in the spring; a midseason application of Chilean
nitrate (aka Natural Nitrate of Soda, NPK 16-0-0) supplies
additional nitrogen to cold weather crops like garlic and
late-season brassicas. “After you get your soil tests
up there, you can maintain the quality of your soil with compost
and gypsum,” Richard says. Another kind of soil testing
is done with the soil tensometer, which measures compaction
and helps evaluate equipment functioning.
"Organic isn’t just not doing things,” Richard
emphasizes, adding that readily certifiable or even certified
organic land can in some cases be in “almost as bad
[condition] as conventional.” To build organic matter
in new fields, Richard and Linda use rye cover crops, cutting
the rye in the spring and tilling it under. The decomposition
time of the incorporated rye is a good indicator of the health
of the soils' microbial populations, Richard notes. “Microbes
need the same [nutrient] balance that plants need"—the
trick is to manage organic matter so that the microbes always
have something to feed on, creating a slow release of nutrients
for the plants. “It’s no accident that the transition
to organic period is three years," he adds. "It
takes three years before soil starts to work right and five
years before it’s good.”
Most of Harmony Valley's fields lie on flat bottom land along
Spring Creek and the Bad Axe River. Erosion is a concern but
not a serious problem. Grasses and other vegetation protect
the waterways, as does Harmony Valley's conscientious use
of cover crops. Well-managed soils—high in organic matter,
with good tilth and good drainage—and well-formed raised
beds also help minimize erosion, Richard notes. In some poorly
drained areas they have corrected the grade to better manage
water movement.
For irrigation, Richard and Linda use a combination of drip
tape, overhead sprinklers and a traveling gun, with some form
available for every field they farm. Drip tape is used beneath
plastic mulch for crops like tomatoes and peppers, which are
susceptible to foliar diseases that thrive in wet conditions.
Water for the drip irrigation is delivered using a water wagon
with 1000- to 1500-gallon tanks. The traveling gun, used in
more accessible areas, can irrigate a larger area with less
set-up labor.
Weed management
Richard's approach to weed management is summed up in a piece
of advice he recalls receiving years ago from one of the older
farmers in the neighborhood: “If you can see them from
the tractor seat, they’re too big.” To live up
to that rule of thumb, he says, the first key is prevention:
"You’re always weeding for next year’s crop,
not just this year’s crop. Always aim to keep the weeds
from going to seed."
For early season weed control, Richard uses stale seedbedding
with a rolling basket cultivator: preparing beds for planting,
waiting about a week for weed seeds to germinate, and then
making a final, shallow pass with the rolling baskets covering
the full width of the bed. He used to do a lot of flame weeding,
but now uses it exclusively for slow-germinating crops like
parsnips and early plantings of carrots.
The second fundamental of organic weed management, Richard
says, is to know your adversary. “You have to know where
the weeds are, and when they’ll germinate. Every weed
has its season. There are different control strategies for
each weed.”
Eliminating perennial weeds is comparatively easy, according
to Richard: use a season-long fallow to let the perennials
grow up and repeatedly till them under, gradually exhausting
their energy reserves. A mid-season smother crop of buckwheat
or sorghum-Sudan grass can help suppress perennial weeds while
adding organic matter to the soil.
Annual weeds like purslane and chickweed are tougher—but
again the key is to familiarize yourself with the growth habits
of specific problem weeds. Purslane germinates in warm soils,
for example, so it can be combated by stale seedbedding, or
by planting early- or late-season crops, when soils are colder.
Pest management
For insect and disease problems, Richard says, the organic
farmer’s first line of defense is healthy soil: If your
plants are vigorous, they are less likely to be affected by
insects and diseases. Still, Harmony Valley typically has
to contend with fungal and bacterial diseases like septoria
leaf spot, early blight and late blight on tomatoes, brought
on in the fall by cool evening temperatures and heavy dews.
As a preventative measure, Richard uses copper and the relatively
new biofungicide Serenade (Bacillus subtilis), spraying
once a week or once every other week up until the beginning
of harvest. They haven’t done a controlled study of
Serenade’s effectiveness, but they believe it has some
efficacy.
Brassicas are bothered by a number of different insect pests.
During the spring when plants are small, flea beetles can
do severe damage. Richard covers the first plantings with
a poly row cover and for later plantings uses a combination
of organic pesticides, including Entrust, Pyganic and rotenone.
For cabbage loopers and cabbage worms, he sprays Bt (Bacillus
thuringiensis var. kurstaki) if necessary. Careful
monitoring is essential, he stresses: you don't want to spray
if you don't need to.
Richard and Linda have planted some hedgerow areas with curly
willow, pussy willow and other ornamentals to provide food
and cover for beneficial insects such as the wasps which parasitize
important vegetable pests like cabbage loopers, tomato hornworms
and European corn borers. The willows produce a sap that attracts
aphids, and the wasps feed on the aphids' honeydew. By providing
a food source for the wasps, the farmers hope to improve the
wasps’ longevity, egg laying potential and percentage
of parasitism.
Beneficials provided about 85 percent effective control at
Harmony Valley in 2004, with workers resorting to Bt only
a few times. Results can be uneven, however, with 100 percent
control close to the hedgerows and reduced control further
away. Because of this, Richard says, it’s important
to monitor the entire field, rather than checking just one
or two areas.
Cucumber beetles are a problem pest for summer squash, damaging
young plants and vectoring viral diseases. To moderate their
effects, Richard uses a trap crop of zucchini grown on yellow
mulch. Both the yellow mulch and the zucchini attract the
cucumber beetles, and then Richard sprays the row with rotenone.
In this way he minimizes his pesticide use and time spent
spraying while achieving good control of the pest. In 2004
they also tried reflective silver plastic mulch, designed
to disorient and repel cucumber beetles, and were moderately
pleased with the results.
Carrots occasionally get a disease in which the leaves die
back before the carrot is fully mature. Richard notes that
hybrid varieties like ‘Bolero’ show greater resistance
to this than older varieties such as ‘Nantes’.
Celeriac (celery root) sometimes gets a leaf spot disease.
Richard and Linda have used a copper spray in conjunction
with Serenade with some success. Since the alternate host
for this disease is wild carrot, eliminating the wild carrot
may also be a way of controlling the disease.
In 2004, Richard also tried using Serenade as a seed treatment,
applying it via the insecticide boxes on his corn planter.
Even though they planted in the last week of April (quite
early for this area), they had one of their all-time best
plantings of corn and beans, with near-perfect stands despite
a very wet spring.
Whatever the pest or disease problem, Richard emphasizes
that it’s important to learn to identify pests, monitor
for them, and develop preventative strategies. Two books he
recommends are Vegetable Insect Management: With Emphasis
on the Midwest (Meister, 1995), edited by Rick Foster
and Brian Flood, and Diseases of Fruits and Vegetables:
Diagnosis and Management (Springer, 2004), edited by
S. A. Naqvi.
Predation by wildlife—including deer, woodchucks and
raccoons—is another ongoing challenge at Harmony Valley
Farm. Organic crops—especially lettuce, beans, peas,
melons and sweet corn—are notoriously tasty, and wild
animals naturally want to take their share. As with weeds
and invertebrate pests, the first step in protecting your
crops is to understand the habits of the pest animals so as
to better anticipate their behavior.
Richard and Linda use trapping to keep raccoons and woodchucks
at bay and allow deer hunting on the property year-round.
They also take advantage of a Wisconsin Department of Natural
Resources program to protect their most susceptible crops
with electric fencing. After much experimentation, they've
found that plastic mesh fencing combined with a low hot wire
works well, as does a triple run of electrified tape at five,
eight, and 16 inches off the ground. The trick with electric
fencing, Richard says, is to get it up when it's needed, keep
it hot, and then take it down promptly so that animals don't
become accustomed to it. He recommends setting up the fence
on a strip of bare soil so that growing vegetation doesn't
ground out the charge.
Equipment and machinery
“It’s really expensive!” Richards says
of equipment. Although he’s found equipment difficult
to afford over the years, he’s also a firm believer
in investing in labor saving devices—even if you have
to take out a loan to do it. When choosing equipment, he says,
it’s important to get advice from a knowledgeable farmer.
After you build a list of needed items, you can be ready to
jump on good deals when they appear.
When should a farmer make an equipment purchase? Richard's
approach is to ask himself, “If a crop is not profitable,
what equipment could make it profitable? Then calculate how
long it will take to pay for itself.” Recently he bought
a Lely flex-tine weeder, which uses ranks of coiled tines
to rake the soil surface and expose emerging weeds. It cost
$3,200 new, but it cleaned up 98 percent of the weeds in fields
where it was used. A good cultivator can save up to $1,000
an hour compared to hand-hoeing or lost yields, Richard has
calculated—so the implement paid for itself in the first
year.
Because timely cultivation is so important, Harmony Valley
has five cultivating tractors—including an International
Harvester A, an IH Super C and an IH 140—each one dedicated
to a specific cultivating task. Having equipment ready to
go saves time and maximizes the window of opportunity for
cultivation. Cultivating tractors hold their value if well
maintained, Richard notes, so they are usually a safe investment.
Other components of the mechanical weeding lineup include
Besserides sweeps, spring hoe weeders, Buddingh finger weeders,
and Buddingh rolling baskets with shields. Richard also uses
side knives or beet knives for running close to the row.
Another recent purchase is a precision air planter. It cost
$13,000, but Richard feels it's worth it because it doubles
their planting speed—increasing their ability to make
use of short planting windows—and because it has excellent
depth control, resulting in good, solid stands.
Modifying traditional equipment is also sometimes necessary.
For bed-forming, Richard starts with a lister plow (traditionally
used in the West for dryland farming) to dig a furrow and
throw soil up onto the bed. He added a marker to the plow
to help space the beds evenly. Then they use a Lilliston rolling
cultivator to smooth out the soil on the top of the bed. The
sides of the beds are a challenge to cultivate—after
some experimentation Richard added side knives to the tool
bar to slice off weeds without disrupting the soil. The Lilliston
is also used to reshape beds and throw dirt back out of the
pathways.
Harvest and post-harvest handling
A final key to delivering a good product is making sure every
employee understands and adheres to harvesting and handling
standards. Harmony Valley sets a very high standard—Richard
aims for 90 percent “good stuff." Wagons are covered
to provide shade and carry water tanks for hydro-cooling,
enabling workers to harvest through the heat of the day if
necessary.
Next, the experienced farm crew carefully washes and packs
the vegetables. Richard and Linda have made a number of labor-saving
equipment purchases here, including a barrel-washer for root
vegetables, an industrial-sized spinner for washing salad
mix, and a bagging device. The packing shed is also outfitted
with a 20-gpm well, a large-capacity ice machine and a number
of pallet jacks. Flanking the packing area are a vast walk-in
cooler and a loading dock. Harmony Valley uses refrigerated
transport for CSA deliveries, wholesale accounts and the farmers'
market. Some of their wholesale customers, such as Whole Foods,
pick up at the farm.
Marketing and distribution
Richard emphasizes three key points about working with buyers:
be dependable, be timely, and deliver a good product. That
starts with the initial contact. When you're approaching a
retailer, drop off a box of your product, and make sure it's
beautiful. If the buyer is unavailable, get his or her name.
Arrange a time you can talk on the phone, and make the call
punctually. All this may seem fairly basic, but by doing it
you’ve proved several things—that you can provide
a good product, that you are good at timely communication,
and that you’re dependable. Richard points out that
his product “sells itself,” but in fact the buyer
isn’t just purchasing the product. He or she is buying
into a dependable working relationship.
Maintaining communications after the initial “sell”
is equally important. Since both Linda and Richard hate making
sales calls, they fax their wholesale customers each week
with a produce availability list, inviting the customers to
return the fax with their order indicated on a form. “We
didn’t lose a single customer when we started doing
that,” Richard notes. The system works better for the
buyers too, since they can place orders at their own convenience
rather than under the pressure of a phone call.
Richard and Linda also sell vegetables at the Dane County
Farmers' Market in Madison, where cleanliness and presentation
matter a lot. A friendly sales manner is vital, as is simply
showing up every week so that customers know they can depend
on you. “We’re there every single week from the
last week in April through the last cold day in November,”
Richard says. To promote the farm and reinforce their marketing
identity, they have a number of different items—including
bags, twist ties and labels—printed with the Harmony
Valley name and logo.
A major shift in marketing strategies came in 1993, when
Harmony Valley added a CSA. They started with 35 shares and
over a period of four or five years expanded to their present
total of 450 shares. Initially, Richard and Linda priced their
CSA low to attract customers. Careful bookkeeping, however,
showed them that costs like office expenses and advertising
were much higher with the CSA than with other parts of the
business, and they decided they needed to raise the share
price. Now customers pay an average of $20 per box for weekly
deliveries from May through December. As an incentive, members
are offered a $10 gift certificate (good for farmer’s
market produce, canning shares, or beef shares) for each new
member they recruit. Members provide feedback about the CSA
through a core group that meets annually to guide decisions
from season to season.
One disadvantage of the CSA is that it obliges them to grow
crops they would otherwise avoid because of low profitability.
The farm has addressed this challenge through economies of
scale and by looking at the balance sheet of the CSA program
as a whole, rather than for individual crops. A 450-share
CSA is large enough for efficient production of crops like
peppers, tomatoes and sweet corn, Richard says. "We can
afford some of the specialized equipment, such as a sweet
corn picker. For CSA, it’s not whether you can grow
any one of the crops. We know we can’t grow broccoli
and make a profit. But if the whole package is profitable
then that’s OK.”
Today the CSA is their most profitable venture, followed
by the farmers' market. The wholesale operation has the lowest
profit margin but the highest volume; the most profitable
wholesale crops are specialty items like burdock. Richard
and Linda say they let the market drive their crop selection
from year to year: “If there’s a demand, we try
to grow it.” Each winter they meet with their wholesale
client to discuss anticipated needs for the coming season.
Recordkeeping and farm management
Harmony Valley was first certified in the late '70s by the
Organic Growers and Buyers Association; in 1988, Richard helped
start Wisconsin's first OCIA chapter. Perhaps not surprisingly,
he's a strong supporter of the principles of certification
and an old hand at facilitating a smooth audit trail. Maintaining
good recordkeeping practices isn't easy, he says, but it's
an essential part of running a business. “How can you
run an effective business if you don’t know what crops
are making money?” A good audit trail affords the farmer
some protection if any problems arise down the road, Richard
points out, and makes inspections less intimidating. “Our
inspections are quick and easy,” he says. “The
inspector loves our recordkeeping because it’s easy
for him to evaluate and get the information he needs.”
Harmony Valley's recordkeeping system wasn’t difficult
to set up, but it took many years to perfect. It’s a
two-part process, Richard says—diligent field records
in conjunction with data entry and fact checking. “You
need a form and a pencil to take out into the field. The form
will evolve over time. It’s also a management issue—the
whole farm needs to buy into the recordkeeping. We have one
person who is responsible for all the data entry. We check
the entries on a daily basis, and that helps with daily planning.”
All the farm’s records are computerized with Access
and Quickbooks. One of their CSA farm members helped them
tailor Access to the farm's needs.
They've developed a sheaf of forms to track every detail
of the operation, from inventory records to harvest and packing
plans to CSA box check-off forms. All these and more help
organize the tons of product flowing through the farm. When
purchasing inputs, Richard says, he always double-checks organic
permissibility. “It’s simple,” he says:
“If it's on the OMRI list I can purchase it—if
it’s not on the OMRI list, I can’t.” They
order all their supplies in the winter, before the busy season
starts.
The final, indispensable element of a successful farm operation
is an expert, smoothly functioning workforce. Each season
Linda and Richard appoint two specialized tractor drivers
(with an emphasis on mechanical cultivation), a harvest crew
boss, a packing shed czar and a seasonal chef to prepare two
meals a day for the crew (using farm produce of course). They
provide room and board to as many employees as possible and
give everyone the opportunity to participate in a retirement
benefit program. They also look for ways to extend their employment
season with maintenance, processing and management tasks.
All of these measures contribute to a good retention rate,
with most workers staying at the farm for three to seven years.
Conclusion
After many years of hard work, Richard and Linda are now
“enjoying the rewards of a mature business.” In
2003, they received the Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education
Service's inaugural Organic Farmer of the Year award, an acknowledgment
not just of their expert growing skills but also of their
pioneering role within the region's organic farming community.
“We worked against conventional wisdom," Richard
reflects. "People told us it couldn’t be done and
we said, ‘we think we can do it.’ …. There
were definitely a lot of mistakes and a lot of losses and
struggles. But we made observations and acted on them in a
timely and diligent manner. We have good management systems
and great employees. That helps, too.” Overall, Richard
says, the most satisfying aspect of his career as an organic
farmer has been “deciding to do the impossible and doing
it.” 
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