Small Farm Rising

by Emma Troyer of Plain City, OH

On a gray, fiercely cold day in early January, my sister and I got into our friend’s truck headed east. We were going to pick up a bull. When you are a youngster in Upstate New York in wintertime, almost any kind of excursion sounds exciting.

We truly were excited, however. An irreplaceable love for farming and livestock was being nurtured deep inside the two of us, and for me that especially included the farmers themselves and their stories. I would have gone anywhere to visit any farm and talk to its farmer, just to see what life looked like to them, what they were doing, and how they were doing it. And to ask them why.

The hour-long drive to the farm passed pleasantly. Our friend Kelby responded to our farming questions, talking about which things were tough and which things kept him hopeful. His farm, Sunny Cove in Alfred, New York, was the place I had come to land while I half-heartedly pecked away at a college education. Kelby’s family have farmed for three generations now on a peaceful hillside outside this quirky college town, raising pastured meats and raw dairy for their community. He knows a thing or two about farming, and between him and his wife Kristina, my time at college was quickly becoming more of a deep dive into learning about livestock, food preservation, and community engagement than anything resembling what you might call the typical college experience.

Once we arrived at our destination, a friendly young man greeted us and showed Kelby where to pull the truck. The three of us got out, exchanging greetings and pleasantries. The young farmer, bundled in coveralls and woolen mittens against the bitter chill, showed us into his barn where the young goats lived. He talked excitedly about their plans as he showed us to where the bull was waiting. I don’t remember where their farm was, or what they did there, but I do remember the young man’s enthusiasm – and that after we left, Kelby, who leans more on the side of the realist, thought maybe he was a little too gung-ho for a beginner.

But looking at the place, I understood. I took in the rough-and-tumble little house, thought of the early-morning chores in the frosty darkness, and the hot mug of coffee the young farmer probably shared with his wife every day before they began their endurance race of animals, weather, children, bills, and muck. I felt the possibilities and almost could taste them, too. At the same time, I saw the struggle. Farming is just one way to live a life. It can be either chosen, accidental, or inherited, but either way it is hard-won.

I recently watched the film Small Farm Rising, and it reminded me of that start-up farm years ago and so many of the others I have encountered since. Small Farm Rising is a little gem of a documentary, filmed and directed by photographer and filmmaker Ben Stechschulte of New York City. While it was completed and released back in 2012, it seems to have quietly held its space on the internet without a lot of attention. The film dips in and out of several ordinary days throughout the seasons on three different first-generation farms in the Adirondack Mountains of New York State: Asgaard Farm, Fledging Crow Vegetables, and Essex Farm.

You might be familiar with Essex Farm through Kristin Kimball and her two books, The Dirty Life and Good Husbandry. These are two of my own favorite memoirs, and it was through keeping up with Kristin’s writing online that I came to know about the film. Kristin and her husband Mark started the farm shortly after they met in their 30s. Together they have turned 400 acres of rich but quite neglected land in the small community of Essex into a farm that produces more diversity than perhaps any I have ever heard of, at least on such a scale. Their model is unique in that it is a “full-diet” CSA (community-supported agriculture) membership, providing members who pay for shares with, literally, a full and diverse diet. This includes meat, dairy, eggs, vegetables, fruits, grains and dry goods, and maple syrup, all produced on their farm. The Kimball family and a team of bright, intrepid young farmers produce all of this food using horses as their main source of field power.

Kristin was a writer in New York City before she became a farmer, and so it’s only natural she should express her feelings about the dynamics of farm life through writing. Her first book, The Dirty Life, tells about how she and Mark met, their first years of establishing and working the farm, and how she fell in love with the place, the animals, and of course, the food. Good Husbandry follows Essex Farm into its more adolescent years and reveals some of the tougher aspects of Kristin and Mark’s life as they parent their children and manage the business together – and argue over how important it is to remodel the dilapidated farmhouse.

After having experienced life on Essex Farm through Kristin’s books, it’s exciting to get a visual picture in this documentary of the farm’s fields, its butcher shop, and the bustling kitchen where the farm workers gather for breakfast. There’s also a glimpse of what a CSA pickup day looks like, and even the room in the Essex Fire Department where Kristin goes to publish her weekly Farm Notes.

The next farm featured is Asgaard Farm, located in Au Sable Forks, New York. Asgaard is owned by first-generation farmers David Brunner and Rhonda Butler. They raise grass-fed beef, eggs, and pigs on pasture. The pigs make use of the whey that comes as a daily bi-product of their creamery, which is where their specialty lies. A herd of milking goats produces the milk which they use to make artisanal cheeses in their on-farm creamery.

One of my favorite scenes in the film shows a mother goat giving birth on Asgaard Farm. A small crowd is gathered around the laboring mother, some of them farmers, some perhaps neighbors. Things become tense for a moment, yet the farmers have a capable, calming way as they coax and work with the mama goat, and the scene is awash in the feeling of natural process. When the tiny kid is delivered, all wet and fresh, someone exclaims, “At last, another girl!” This is another animal who will be an important player in the work, in the dance of running a small farm that is also a living, moving, changing work of art.

Just to the northeast, in Keeseville, fields of green arugula, lacey carrot tops, and velvety-soft spinach leaves sit under the protection of ancient mountains. Fledging Crow Vegetables was started by two friends who met while working together on a farm in Ecuador. The filmmaker follows Ian Ater, one of the owners, as he makes calls to wholesale customers, operates the transplanter, and marvels over ripening tomatoes. It doesn’t take long to understand that Ian clearly loves what he does. He does the most talking of probably anyone else in the film, and one thing he said particularly resonated with me. After mentioning the questions people raise to him about the viability of making a living farming, Ian says, “Guys are doing it. Guys like me are doing it.” Almost as if to say – “I don’t know how we’re doing it, but we are.”

No mistake, a small farm has a lot of hurdles to overcome, even when you aren’t a first-generation farmer beginning from scratch. There are some beneficial government programs available to small farmers, but you don’t get the subsidies of large-scale commercial farming. The cost of entry into small-scale, diversified farming is often lower than that of commodity farming, which now seems nearly impossible to come into as a new farmer. The vegetable grower or the stockman making goat cheese does not usually need the same vast amounts of land or the large, ridiculously expensive equipment it takes to grow fields of corn and soybeans. You can make quite a decent living growing vegetables on a handful of acres, and Ian is right, people are doing it. But there is the big question of market. For a direct-to-consumer farm, that market consists not of corporation names but of real, face-to-face people. You have to find them, or make a way for them to find you. Because you as a small farmer are not able to compete with the quantities and prices of Walmart or Sysco, you have to convince your customers that the value of your products is what you say it is. This can be tricky, and a farmer can fall into the trap of feeling pretentious or even begin to doubt the superiority of their products. But small farmers – take heart. There are many consumers out there looking for you, too. They want to enjoy good food. And in today’s increasingly impersonal society, they are longing to know the story behind it all, too.

Small Farm Rising does a fine job of telling part of this story. It offers an unglossed picture of farm life. It is not flashy, relying on quick scene changes and peppy music to hold the viewer’s attention. There is hardly any music at all, which allows the real sounds of the farm to come through as the score: the snapping of broccoli leaves, the clink of chains on the horses’ rig, the subtle cluck of the team driver, the splash of boots through a puddle. Small Farm Rising shows its subject in farm realtime, which, even with its chaotic moments, is mostly slow and solitary – especially when working with horses.

Mark Kimball of Essex Farm gives an attempt to explain why they choose to work with horses. Sometimes, he says, when he’s really behind, he will get on the tractor and go out to a field and get the task done in much shorter order. He then says this:

“But when you have an opportunity to go the distance and bring the horse in from the field, take the time to feed it and water it, groom it and pick out its feet, put its harness on it, and then go do what you were setting out to do, you’ve slowed everything down. You’ve ruined your day. You’re sort of working against what humans have been working toward forever. You’ve basically set us back. Why? I think it’s that difference between the genius of the machine and the mystery and miracle of working with the animal.”

I will take a stab at this as well, in my own words: the choice to hold onto mystery and miracle doesn’t always have to make sense to the logical mind. Maybe there are better reasons than efficiency for “slowing everything down.” Maybe the people and the horses alike benefit from keeping that autonomy and power instead of always accepting the help of a machine. This is one of the things I admire about those people, like many in the Amish community, who intentionally hold themselves back from embracing every new piece of technology that comes along. Sometimes the cost is far too great, and there isn’t always a need to explain it in an eloquent, bullet-proof way. Once experienced, just like Mark says, one gets closer to understanding.

Along with the physical demands of life on a farm, there are the luxuries which only the farmer and his family get to enjoy. The film captures that as well, again, in its quiet and observant way. I loved the scene in which the Kimball family walks through their large market garden at sunset to inspect the crops. They walk at leisure, Mark picking samples of the different vegetables and exclaiming over their flavor, while Kristin, who carries baby Miranda strapped to her front, picks new kale for their supper. Mark hands their daughter Jane a carrot and a candy-striped beet. She holds one in each hand, taking a bite out of each by turns, while her little feet are planted into the same soil from which the food started as tiny seeds.

Picking vegetables fresh from the field for your supper is one of the farmer’s rewards, a close-up view to the miracle of food. Small Farm Rising is full of these miracles. The thrill of a new birth, the alchemy of making cheese, the quiet strength of camaraderie between a horse and his driver, even the quiet slaughter of a steer in the field – not all of these are pretty, but even the ugly moments are necessary and honored. On the farm, even death is a miracle.

Unlike some documentary films, Small Farm Rising doesn’t contain a lot of opinions or explanations of what it depicts. As mentioned, there’s not much talking. Instead, it offers a feast of sights and sounds, and an invitation into experiencing time-worn processes that continue to shape and change the world. Working horses. Planting seedlings. Shaking hands over a deal. Watching the sky for clouds. Bracing against the cold. Nurturing young life. More than answering questions, it poses them: what makes a small farm “rise up”, so to speak? What is the enduring value of the small farm? Why do we need them – all of us?

I think the film has done a remarkably good job of showcasing small farms as what they are, quietly doing their work for simple but profound rewards that can’t always be seen and quantified. They are individual life-sustaining ecosystems that often operate in their slowness and smallness, mostly out of public view, each one unique and filling its own particular place in the world, while at the same time remaining an interdependent part of a greater human culture. Each farm has its specialty, each serves its own customers, but farms in the same region may share customers. Each farm has its personal mission, but they all work to nurture life. A good farm sees life everywhere, from the microorganisms in the soil below to the souls of the people who tread on it. They don’t have to be small, by definition. But from what I’ve seen, it is the farms who remain confidently in their place, true to their original purpose, and within the bounds of their human limitations and smallness, that really make the most difference – and grow the most remarkable food.

After watching the film, I wanted to know more about these farms. This project was first begun in 2006, after all, and I was curious: how are things going now? Are they still milking goats on Asgaard Farm? Has Fledging Crow remained there under that old mountain? Though they are pillars of wealth to a community, small farms, especially new ones, can be fragile. I wanted to know what these hard-working people are doing today.

Essex Farm continues their CSA membership and still grows food for many families in the Adirondack region. Asgaard Farm continues making their artisanal cheeses, raising beef on their pastures, and even offers on-farm guest accommodations. But I was disappointed to learn that Fledging Crow Vegetables closed its business in 2023. Curious, and surprisingly saddened, I found an article from the Adirondack Daily Enterprise that told more of the story. Ian Ater, the ambitious young farmer who began the farm back in 2008, explained how the downward trend of sales and the heightened cost of production eventually led to the decision to file for bankruptcy, spelling the end of their business as it was.

But Ian and his family are still able to grow vegetables, and he still has his land. Between contracting his fields to neighboring farmers and growing produce for local businesses in his high tunnels, he’s still farming. And when he looks back on the 15 years he spent running Fledging Crow, he describes it as having lived his dream. That doesn’t sound like a failure to me. Rather, it sounds like gratitude. It also sounds like ingenuity and resilience, which are the very things a farmer needs to get started in the first place, and to start again every day.

Yes – and hope. Again, I think of the young farmer in Upstate New York on that wintry day, and I wonder what ever happened to his family’s venture. Even if he didn’t make it farming – whether “it” be financial viability, or an accumulation of assets to hand down to his children – hopefully, like Ian Ater, he at least had a ball while he was doing it. Hopefully, the time he spent learning from his animals and honing timeworn, durable skills is now enriching the lives of his children as he passes these things down to them. All of that is a legacy, after all.

Or maybe, he is farming still. Who knows?

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You can watch the film Small Farm Rising for free on Vimeo, or by going to Ben Stechschulte’s website, www.benstechschulte.com.

Emma Troyer lives, writes, and keeps farming in central Ohio. She writes a newsletter called Pasture People, which can be found on Substack.com.