Daniel Chappell and his wife Anna own a 40-acre farm. They grow herbs,
vegetables and grains, and raise poultry.
"I actually really do love the job," says Chappell. "Part of it is being
self-employed -- being able to make our own decisions and being able to derive
our well-being off our own land is just satisfying on its own. But also we
just really enjoy working with our animals and working with the soil and the
land itself as well."
The Chappells sell their products at farmers' markets as well as through
a share program. The share program is based on a Community Supported Agriculture
(CSA) model. Many small farmers use this type of program. It involves customers
paying in advance to receive a certain amount of fresh food on a regular basis.
Chappell says customers like the connection they can have with farmers
such as him through buying locally produced goods.
"A lot of people like to come out and see the farm because they do want
to make that connection, and I think a lot of people are getting more concerned
with the distance they have from their food supply," says Chappell.
Barbara Moore agrees that many people want to feel connected to the food
that they consume. She's executive director of Harvest Mountain Farm Gardens
in Lakewood, Colorado.
"They'd rather meet the person that's working very hard in the hot sun
to grow quality produce," says Moore.
Moore's farm grows vegetables that she sells to chefs, at farmers' markets,
and through the CSA model.
"CSA is a pretty good way to know that when you grow crops, people are
going to buy them and also get to eat them," says Moore.
"So I found people that wanted to do the (CSA) shares and I did a market
stand and then I went around to restaurants and told them I was going to be
growing organic produce. And it's pretty easy to start in produce when you
don't have any competition. Literally, there was nobody else approaching these
restaurants."
Moore says being a small farm owner is very rewarding, especially when
you get positive feedback from your customers.
"It's extremely rewarding," says Moore. "Like when I was bringing my produce
to the chefs, and then the chefs would of course taste it and love it. I've
grown hundreds of different kinds of fabulous tomatoes. They'd be like, 'Oh
my gosh, this tastes so good!'"
Moore has developed programs to educate young people and other aspiring
farmers about running a small farm. She says mentoring and coaching are essential
for new farmers.
"It's not easy to figure out how to be financially viable as a small farmer,"
says Moore. "It's not easy. If you want to have some kind of income where
if you wanted [you could] have a family and buy clothes for your kids and
have a little bit of a life, you really need to get coaching."
Craig Rogers owns a sheep farm in Virginia. His retirement from academia
ended up becoming a very full-time job as a farmer and shepherd.
"My wife and I saw a sheepdog trial on campus one day, and we thought it
was the most amazing thing we had ever seen," says Rogers.
"A dog without commands casting out to gather up sheep more than a quarter
of a mile away, and with the lyrical melody of a shepherd's whistle, [the
dog] was able to so deftly and precisely navigate sheep around the course.
We were just taken by that."
Rogers and his wife bought a small farm and within three days had six sheep
and a trained Border Collie.
"I woke up one day with 600 sheep and knew that I needed to figure out
what I was going to do with them, and so created this enterprise where I sell
lamb to many of the best chefs on the entire East Coast," says Rogers.
"There are two aspects to raising quality lamb," says Rogers. "One is that
you obviously need to be proficient at animal husbandry. But the most important
thing is to be exceptionally proficient at grass farming. So our efforts are
almost evenly divided between caring for the sheep and caring for the land.
"We also slaughter 52 weeks a year, which then also means that we have
pretty consistent chores, everything from sorting animals to delivering to
slaughterhouses. [And] we sell direct, so it means sorting parts and shipping
to our customers every week. So there's a lot of logistics involved in what
we do as well."
It's a lot of work. Fortunately, Rogers loves what he does. He says it's
the secret of his success as a sheep farmer.
"I think that the primary quality to succeeding at this is having a passion
for the animals," says Rogers.
"I used to have cattle. I didn't have the same passion for cattle as I
do for sheep. I'm a sheep man. And what I've always noticed is that even farmers
who have multiple species, that there's probably one that is their favorite.
And those are always the best looking animals."
As you might guess, Rogers' advice for other farmers is to make sure they
love what they're doing. It will probably make the difference between their
success and failure as a farmer.
"I highly encourage anybody to follow their passion," Rogers says.
"If you get into this strictly from a financial point of view, trying
to figure out which species are going to be easier to market or distribute
or whatever the case is, and you don't have passion for that animal, it's
going to be a long road, because there's always somebody out there who does
have passion and that's very powerful."