The Case for Microagriculture
The School of Adaptive Agriculture does not advocate any one farming philosophy or style, unless it be sustainability in all its senses. But we do entertain a variety of strong voices on behalf of all sorts of approaches to the farming of the future. As a friend’s father says, “You’ll never get to the middle unless both sides are pulling with all their might.” I’ve never been a fan of the middle ground (“middling,” after all, means mediocre), and there are rarely just two sides to any question; but the point is well taken. Unless we hear passionate, well-informed voices on behalf of alternative ways of farming sustainably, we won’t be able to think creatively and adaptively about our own farming choices. I’m a passionate advocate of micro-agriculture, farming, that is, on three acres or less. Green Uprising Farm, which my family and I run, is just a third of an acre in market garden, plus around twenty fruit trees in various stages of production and a handful of dairy goats. My heroes in small-scale agriculture are bigger, but none of them have “scaled up” in the manner that many of the voices around us insist we have to do in order to make a living farming. (And, contrary to the prejudices of some, supplementing a living from other sources with farming is as good a reason to farm and produce food for other people as doing so full-time.)
Some examples and some numbers
Eliot Coleman is an acknowledged guru of the new farming movement. His book, The New Organic Grower, provided and provides invaluable advice, tools, and tips for small-scale farmers. The Winter Garden Handbook has inspired many to use low-cost hoop houses for winter production and shown us how to do so intensively. Yes, Coleman and his wife Barbara Damrosch are writers and speakers and make a good income from those activities. But Coleman has been concerned from the beginning of his career to show that small-scale agriculture can support the farmers. Ten years ago he reported that his one and a half acre farm in Maine grosses $125,000 a year and paid himself and his farm manager $24,000 a year, his wife half that. Apparently, the farm is making more now, because he has two employees besides himself and his wife.
Inspired by Coleman, Jean Martin Fortier and his wife established a farm in rural Quebec. Their purpose, Fortier writes in his handbook, The Market Gardener, was to farm at a scale that supported them without encumbering them in debt or ruined their health. They started out on rented land, less than a quarter acre, and in their second year grossed $55,000. When they bought their present farm, their goal was to generate enough income to make payments on the land, build a house, and keep the family afloat. Within a very few years, they were grossing $100,000 an acre, with a profit margin of 40 percent. The Fortiers found that an acre and a half was enough to support them in a comfortable way of life. Unlike Coleman, they take the winters off. In nearby Michigan, Ben Hartman and his wife were actually able to scale back from three acres to an acre and a half using the techniques documented in Hartman’s The Lean Farm. They found they could generate greater income, with less work and more vacation time, by farming with greater attention to planning, design and management practices. Others who don’ write books are proving that it can be done around the country. Patrice Gros at Foundation Farm near Fayetteville, Arkansas, has reached $130,000 per acre since converting from tractor farming to no till in 2007. Another no till farmer with impressive income per acre, Conor Crickmore at Niversink Farm in Claryville, New York, notes of his mainly hand cultivation methods, “That is the biggest misconception, that we must be breaking our backs. We farm this way because it is much easier, more efficient and much more profitable for us.”
And closer to home, Elizabeth and Paul Kaiser’s Singing Frog Farm in Sonoma also grosses over $100,000 an acre. Their three-acre market garden supports the Kaisers and four full- time workers paid a decent $15 an hour. Like Coleman and the Hartmans, the Kaisers farm year round, supplying a large summer and smaller winter CSA, farmers markets, and restaurants.
But it doesn’t take the highly populated market that the Kaisers enjoy in Sonoma County, as Coleman’s example shows. Here in tiny Mendocino County, Green Uprising Farm grossed over $30,000 on its third of an acre and small orchard this year, with another few thousand dollars from dairy goats. Another local farm took in almost $40,000 in sales their second year on a third of an acre, and still another realized almost $50,000 on one acre, also in their second year. And we all know we have a long way to go to realize our potential.
Conclusion
It doesn’t take a lot of acreage, tractors and implements, and lots of cheap labor, to make a modest living farming. Eliot Coleman and his wife’s $36,000 a year may not pay for their trips to Europe (the writing does that), but it is a decent living, and despite the year-round farming, the rhythm of winter growing is much more leisurely than that of the summer and fall. The Fortiers and Hartmans and Kaisers are not getting rich on farming, but they are living well. And they are free of the burden of operating debt and continuous capital expenses that burden many larger-scale farmers. Here at Green Uprising the farm pays for itself, many of its capital costs, even investment in our new outdoor kitchen, as well as our everyday household expenses.
Micro-farming is one of the most hopeful signs in the agricultural scene today. Next time I will write about how it’s done and, perhaps in a third blog, what micro-agriculture could mean for the future of food production.
Author: Michael Foley
Farm: Green Uprising
