Anyone lucky enough to have health insurance and paid days off probably wouldn’t think twice about staying home to rest a sore back. But with crops to harvest, others to plant, and an endless slate of exacting tasks to manage, most farmers don’t have that luxury.
Dr. Seth LaFlamme is aiming to change that.
Starting this winter, LaFlamme will accept surplus produce from local farmers in exchange for services from his practice, Great Works Chiropractic & Wellness.
“It’s a labor of love for them,” says Dr. Seth, who runs Great Works along with his wife, Dr. Briana Duga. “They’re using their body very intensely, for the purpose of feeding the people around them and getting us away from our over-reliance on industrial agriculture. I feel like that deserves recognition and a kind of special consideration.”
A regular at local farms and markets, Dr. Seth – his preferred title – says he’s been approached a number of times over the years by farmers who expressed interest in stopping in, but who in many cases simply couldn’t justify the cost.
Now, all they’ll have to worry about is grabbing a canvas bag of what’s lying around.
“Whatever it is, we’ll take,” says Dr. Seth. “Whether it’s on our dinner tables or in community pantries, we’ll make sure the produce gets put to good use.”
Dr. Seth says that while farmer’s tend to be in better shape than most, spending endless days hunched over or burdened by heavy loads can’t help but exact painful tolls.
“We have this idea that work creates more muscle, but that’s not the whole story,” Dr. Seth explains. “Once you develop a problem, the intensity of the work can prevent very important healing. So it can get worse very quickly.”
According to Dr. Seth, the appeal of chiropractors for farmers is twofold: It’s much cheaper than other medical means, and – once the patient is established – there are no two-hour doctor’s office waits to contend with, meaning they can quickly get back to what they do best.
“It’s a quick visit, but it keeps you functioning,” says Dr. Seth. “It’s much better to take an easy step to help maintain the body rather than just waiting for everything to fall apart.”
If the practice’s recent history is any indication, the public is starting to heed the chiropractic clarion call: Dr. Seth recently moved a few doors down with a bigger office that includes additional examination rooms, a more spacious lobby, and an x-ray machine – a must for most practices.
Dr. Seth’s plan is to use the new space to conduct forums, talks, movie showings, and the like, all in the interest of helping foster a more “sustainability-minded” community.
“To me, the more that we walk the walk, the more that we show people what sustainable living looks like and how it can be achieved, the stronger our community will be,” he says. “We want people to think of it as a home away from home.”
It’s that sense of home that drew Dr. Seth back to the Seacoast in the first place.
After studying Philosophy, English, and Humanities at the University of Maine at Farmington, Dr. Seth followed then-girlfriend Briana, to Atlanta, where the latter planned to study Chiropractic at the field-renowned Life University, the largest school of its kind anywhere in the world. Motivated as much by his own neck and back pain as he was the thrill of something new, eventually LaFlamme decided to give chiropractic a try for himself.
He never looked back. Instead, it’s all about what lies ahead: A happy family, a thriving practice, and – starting soon – a steadfast emphasis on a new kind of creative community economy.
“There’s something to be said about growing your business that’s more than just about that one bottom line,” Dr. Seth exclaims. “We like to think of it as letting a product – in this case produce – be treated as currency. And if it means there’s that much less food waste because of it, I think it’s more than worth it.”
