Choosing to Farm: New Generation Stories

NatGLC board member Jenn Colby hosts a podcast called Choosing to Farm: New Generation Stories. The podcast is aimed at the many reasons first-generation people get into farming or ranching, and some of the things they’ve learned along the way. It started from a desire to help other first-generation folks find out they are not alone and help them get started on the right foot, but there are many conversations about life, business, building relationships, loose animals, equipment fires, social media perceptions, and being profitable while seeking to achieve quality of life.  Every conversation is just as unique as every farm or ranch is, and there’s a nugget to take away from each episode, even if you’ve been farming for six generations.

If you’re just getting started in the farming and ranching world, you might not feel like you know much. If you’re like me, you might have been farming for more than two decades and STILL feel like you don’t know much. The folks I’ve been interviewing on the Choosing to Farm podcast come from all over the country, and have had lots of different backgrounds. They have been kind enough to share some of the things they’ve learned along the way to getting started and managing their businesses. Here are a few nuggets to take home and use on your farm/ranch.

Bruce Hennessey and Beth Whiting, Maple Wind Farm (Diversification)

Bruce and Beth have had an uber-diversified farm over their 20 years, in fact they joke that they like to “change everything, every year”. While that’s not quite true, the list of enterprises they’ve added and dropped over the years has been impressive. They have had a birth-to-plate cattle operation, a maple sugaring operation, a summer camp for kids, a sheep flock, wholesale vegetables, pastured chickens and turkeys, a USDA poultry processing facility, farrow-to-finish pigs, haying operation, boarding horses, events, and a micro dairy. They have marketed wholesale; through restaurants; as part of a cooperative; direct-ship to customers; onsite delivery; farmers market; and through an on-farm retail store. After attending Ranching for Profit School they spent the time and energy to refine down their enterprises (at the time) into a focus on pastured poultry, finishing (not farrowing) pastured pork, finishing grass-fed beef, and operating the poultry processing facility. 

Bruce says, 

“ The truth is, at some point we came to the realization that we really had to figure out what are the three or four things that we really want to do and can do that will make this business work.”

Austin & Maggie Troyer, Crossroads Land & Livestock (Land Access)

Austin and Maggie Troyer didn’t grow up on a farm, but Austin started working on a beef ranch right out of high school, mainly because he wanted a different path than his family business--construction. He liked working with the animals and seeing new generations coming along. He and Maggie knew this was what they wanted to do. They weren’t in a position to buy a large-enough property to graze livestock as a business, plus doing so would tie up any capital they might have to work with. They feel a big challenge of buying land is that it’s a long-term investment where developing equity takes time or the cash payout comes when the land is sold—not a great choice for someone getting started with a new business.

Some opportunities came their way for Austin and Maggie to put together several leased properties. They own their home and a few acres, but the balance of their operation is on land they don’t own, which actually works perfectly for them. They have balanced custom grazing, animal shares, and owned animals, all on leased land.

As Maggie explains: 

 “I think for us specifically, knowing that we are first generation farmers we are starting from scratch, …you always understand that if you're leasing or renting there's always the potential that you might not have it in the future but we're willing to take on that risk knowing that it takes a lot of the financial costs up front out of the picture because we're not having to buy the ground. It's really enabling us to put that money back into growing, and growing our stock and really getting established before we have to take on a huge payment of buying a giant ground.”

Jenn Colby & Chris Sargent, Howling Wolf Farm (“Blended” Partners)

My husband Chris and I are a “blended” marriage; a farmer married to a non-farmer. For more than half of my 24 years farming, that was a huge problem for us. I had a vision of him working outside with me on projects and he wished I’d come inside the house more. He started a hobby and had a vision of us doing it together (which we did, somewhat), but balancing work, family, farm, and hobby meant a constant tension between what he wanted to do and what I did. 

One classic example was processing chickens. I processed chickens and Thanksgiving turkeys at the back of the house throughout the fall. It was cold, muddy, exhausting work, and I felt very resentful that he wouldn’t help. He was resentful that I was always busy. As we eventually realized, expectations and communication were at the heart of finding a balance of what we wanted.

As Chris says, 

“It's managing expectations and communicating, because we each have to know what the other expects of us. We have to negotiate. That's one of the biggest things, what do we really want? What do we each want out of this farm?”

“It worked out fantastically, but that took communication. I think that that's part of it. You and I have become better at communicating with each other about what's important. People tend to hold on to resentment, we spend more time in resentment than we do taking the time to be vulnerable with our spouses and say this is how this really makes me feel and doing it in a way that's not antagonistic…It’s owning the feeling…and saying, ‘Look, this is how I feel when this happens. I know you're not trying to do it on purpose, but this is how I feel’ and trying to then figure out what [is] the best way to satisfy both of us in a way that's holistic and healthy.”

Margaret Chamas, Storm Dancer Farm (Building a New Business)

Margaret Chamas fell in love with goats through 4H. She went to college for animal science, started working for farmer organizations after graduation, and began building her farm life piece by piece. Now she’s a farmer running a Goats on the Go affiliate, shows goats, and still works for a farming organization in addition to extensive public events and education about farming. She has had to adjust her expectations around building up the pieces of her business infrastructure, finding profitability, improving systems as a (mostly) solo farmer, hiring help (to not be a solo farmer), and trying to raise her farm operation up from nothing.   Now she takes pride in the fact that the yearly struggles are changing as signs of progress and patience. Getting paid for her grazing management and customer service expertise rather than the pounds of meat produced has been key to getting her business off the ground.

From Margaret, 

“For a long time, it's been just like struggling to get my farm to the bare minimum of what I would consider acceptable in my head. There was no pride, no accomplishment, because before that I was failing. So I was simply not failing now that I've done this thing. I'm trying really hard to be able to take accomplishment in the improvement, and the continuous improvement.”

Over more than 60 episodes, there’s a lot to learn about the struggles and successes of first-generation folks as they establish new businesses, balance home life, and manage land well while seeking to be profitable. If you’d like to hear more, sign up at the Choosing to Farm website, and you’ll get some free resources and access to future podcast episodes.