A year ago at this time, I was working on the retail side of a chicken farm. Our store’s goal was to sell exclusively locally-produced products. Last spring we had an all-employee meeting where my employer opened up about his motivation and vision for the farm. He wisely shared some of the things that keep him up at night too. And on the last page of his presentation, he shared a poem by Wendell Berry. Nothing could have better confirmed for me that I was in the right place.
Looking around, what was this right place? I was sitting on a folding chair set up in the aisle of a farm store. My coworkers and I, of varying ages, creeds, and life experiences, had paper plates balanced on our knees after our potluck meal.
My favorite part of every day was arrival at the farm—driving up and walking to the store, taking in the details of the property, the season, the time of day. Which field are the cows in? Is the sprinkler going? Has the processing team started? Is someone planting in the cutting field? Were customers gathered around the fire pit?
A little over ten years ago, the farmer-owners had left their previous careers to farm. They started raising chickens—both layers (for eggs) and boilers (for meat). They learned regenerative farming practices through the books and mentorship of Joel Salatin. They brought in and trained working farm dogs to protect the chickens from predatory birds. They learned what hay/grass mixture to grow for the chickens, and then for cows, pigs, and turkeys. They learned how to strategically rotate the animals through the fields to enrich the soil, control pests, and fresh feed. A few years in, they decided to build a processing facility, so that they could further ensure quality. Then they decided to build and operate a retail market on the property, in order to sell eggs and chicken direct to customers. This market opened in fall 2019, and I began shopping there shortly thereafter. When I returned from traveling and was looking for a part-time job while I searched for something more permanent, a friend suggested I apply there.
Getting to know the landscape
This new work environment taught me that most work has a fight to it. When you change industries or workplaces, onboarding includes learning which forces are working against you. Then you show up each day to solve a problem and change the world. Somedays you’re drinking a lot of coffee and stumbling through the day’s tasks to fix that problem. Many days you make a step forward, together with your coworkers, and that step makes all the difference.
Farms are supposedly for-profit businesses. As a veteran of the non-profit space, however, I quickly saw that this farm, and others like it, may as well consider themselves ministry, with all the forces arrayed against them. And the employees seem to feel the same—choosing to work hard for minimal wages and perks like breaks in fresh air and sunshine, “take home” eggs, and expired product—because they believe in the promise of such a place too.
Below is my short list of challenges facing the small-scale American farmer, each one holding the potentiality to shut the whole thing down.
Weather and Weather Events.
Developers.
Industrial Agriculture.
Inflation.
Lack of Consumer Education.
Retaining employees through the seasons.
Any new requirements that require costly equipment upgrades.
How it Changed Me
I knew my time on the farm would be short-lived. I’m glad I had this opportunity to think critically about our food system.
It humbled me. I was the merchandising manager in the retail store selling products raised or grown on the surrounding farm. I wasn’t in the greenhouse, mending fences, nor processing chickens. I did get to work a four hour shift in the field one day, feeding the animals, and I was immediately humbled by the physical strength and resilience of my co-workers.
It changed my shopping habits. Growing up, we had a huge garden every summer and often shopped at a farm market too. As an adult I’ve been drawn to local produce and diverse foods. Working on the farm, however, challenged me to scrutinize meat and dairy, as well as locally-made shelf-stable products like pasta, crackers, tea, and salt. Going to grocery stores became an on-going research expedition. I found myself walking empty-handed out of some stores because the produce or products offered weren’t up to par or didn’t meet my consumer standards and out of others because I couldn’t afford what was there.
It changed my cooking habits. Now I make more effort to eat seasonally and creatively use all the parts and preserve food too.
I hope that small changes in my personal habits will help our farms survive.
Four living heroes of American farming you should know
Wendell Berry (b. 1934) is a prolific American essayist, poet, novelist, conservationist, and farmer. He is deeply rooted in the rural Kentucky community where he was born. An emphasis on rootedness with people and in a specific place runs through all of Berry’s work, from his most popular novels Jayber Crow and Hannah Coulter, to his many essay collections, poetry and his most quoted poem, Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front. I’m currently reading and underlining his latest work The Need to Be Whole: Patriotism & the History of Prejudice, published in 2022. My journey reading Wendell Berry has led to surprising and life-changing connections.
Alice Waters (b. 1944) is an American chef, restaurateur, and author. Thanks to a formative study abroad experience in France, Waters was inspired to bring seasonal eating home and opened the innovative restaurant Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California in 1971. She is widely considered a co-founder of the slow food and farm-to-table movement. Over the last 20+ years Waters has been teaching gardening and seasonal eating at a local elementary school and from this formed the Edible Schoolyard nonprofit. She has written numerous cookbooks, my favorite of which is a small, thoughtful volume, My Pantry: Homemade Ingredients that Make Simple Meals Your Own.
Joel Salatin (b. 1957) is an American farmer, lecturer, and author using regenerative farming practices to raise livestock on his Polyface Farm in Virginia. His books, coaching, and podcasts have taught a new generation how to buck unhealthy conventional practices for a better version.
Gabe Brown is an American farmer and the author of Dirt to Soil, One Family’s Journey Into Regenerative Agriculture. His work is featured in two recent documentaries about combating climate change, Kiss the Ground and Common Ground. Gabe’s son now operates the family farm Brown's Ranch, a diversified 5,000 acre farm and ranch near Bismarck, North Dakota, while Gabe works full-time to equip other farmers to heal their soil with Understanding Ag.
That time we started a farm…
I’ve read and enjoyed several memoirs about the adventure and mishaps of setting up a farm:
Animal Vegetable Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver - southwestern Virginia. After decades in Arizona, Kingsolver and her family decide to return to family roots in the east and establish a farm to sustain them. They vow to eat only products produced within 10 miles of where they live for a year, each allowing themselves only one exception—if I remember correctly, they chose bananas, chocolate, coffee, and lemons. Kingsolver chronicles this year and shares recipes along the way.
The Dirty Life by Kristen Kimball - upstate New York. A journalist falls in love with a farmer she interviews and eventually trades her New York City apartment for his rural farming life. Together they embark on the very hard work of starting up a farm that can produce and provide for the complete dietary needs for their customer families.
The Egg and I by Betty MacDonald - Vashon Island, Washington. Long before she began writing Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle stories, MacDonald was a young Seattle bride. On the return from their honeymoon, her husband explains that his dream is to trade his city job for a chicken farm. MacDonald suddenly finds herself living in a farmhouse in rural 1930s Vashon Island. Her descriptions of neighbors and daily life are heartwarming and funny. The book was published in 1945.
Everyone’s favorite farm movie
The Biggest Little Farm (2019) is a visual delight thanks to nature cinematographer, John, documenting his personal journey with his wife, Molly, a chef, and their dog, to leave Los Angeles and start a farm on 200 acres. They make worm casting tea, learn the ins and outs of pest/predator control, and go hog wild with biodiversity. In 2022 they released a film sequel, and in 2023, a cookbook. I appreciate The Apricot Lane Farm Cookbook illustrations and descriptions of diverse varieties of plants and animals, most of which are rarely found in a grocery chain. For example, can you name another kind of avocado besides the Haas? Molly describes over a dozen!
The poem from that employee meeting
Suppose we did our work
like the snow.
Quietly, quietly,
leaving nothing out.
- Wendell Berry