Big farms keep getting bigger.

Midsized farms keep

disappearing. In the shadow of these seismic changes in the rural
Wisconsin landscape, tiny farms have proliferated, fed by consumer
demand for local eats and healthy choices. A look at what's driving the
supersizing, and microsizing, and what it means for the rest of us.

BY ERIK GUNN

PHOTO BY
SEP + STELL

T H E
N E W
C R O P
54 MILWAUKEE MAGAZINE AUGUST 2016 AUGUST 2016 MILWAUKEEMAG.COM 55
L
ate afternoon spring sunshine
beats down on Oren Jakobson
as he picks his way through
long rows of newly planted
greens. All around, the first
shoots of kale, onions, carrots,
lettuce, peas and radishes push through
the soil at Field Notes Farm, a tiny patch
not much more than a clearing in the sur-
rounding woods in the central Wisconsin
community of Custer.
Jakobsons slender build and slowly
browning complexion show a man who
has spent all spring outside. His face still
radiates an adolescent softness at the age of
28. Everything about him puts the lie to the
slogan on his T-shirt: Beer is the reason I
wake up Every [sic] afternoon. On this day,
as on most, Jakobson and his partner, Polly
Dalton, have been up since dawn.
He squats to show off one of their latest
acquisitions a new system of automat-
ed valves that controls the flow of water
through hoses that irrigate their crops.
With an app on his iPhone, Jakobson can
turn each valve on and off or set a timer to
do the job. We can put water right where
we need it, he says.
Spring is their busiest time sowing,
sprouting seeds, beating back bugs and
weeds without chemicals or pesticides,
even filling out paperwork. Harvest begins
in June. Thats when they go out to sell at
area farmers markets and to a handful of
grocery stores and restaurants. But most
of what they produce fills about four doz-
FARMS BY SIZE
80,000 farms
70,000
60,000
50,000
67%
increase in
40,000 farms with
fewer than
30,000 50 acres
20,000
10,000
0 Fondy stepped in, leasing property north
1982 87 92
56 MILWAUKEE MAGAZINE AUGUST 2016
en cardboard boxes delivered biweekly or
monthly to subscribers who have paid in
advance for a seasons worth of produce in
Amherst, Appleton and Stevens Point.
And they do it all from just two acres
no larger than the yard of many an affluent
suburban home. Jakobson, who studied
mathematics at Lawrence University and
applies its logic in planning out his farms
planting and future, believes he and Dalton
are on a path that can sustain them. They
have no plans to increase their acreage.
What we represent is some people who
have made a choice to do something we
find value in and is fulfilling to us and pur-
poseful, he says. We feed people.
THE farms that slide past our car
windows as we rush down inter-
state highways form part of Wisconsins
wallpaper and are a core piece of our iden-
tity as Americas Dairyland. But the wallpa-
per has been changing. Conventional farms
are getting bigger than ever, even as their
numbers shrink. Thats readily visible. Less
visible is an opposite development: Small
farms even really small farms are on the
rise, as well.
Wisconsin has lost nearly one out of six
farms over the last three decades, and U.S.
Department of Agriculture statistics show
only two groups the largest and the small-
est are increasing in number.
In 2012, the USDA reported Wisconsin
fewer than 50 acres
50-999 acres
1,000+ acres
42%
increase in
farms with
1,000+ acres
97 02 07 12 of Port Washington, just 30 miles from
had over 2,200 farms with 1,000 or more
acres each; thats more than twice the num-
ber in 1982. Midsized farms of between 50
and 999 acres fell by nearly a third over that
time.
Yet in that same 30-year period, the
number of farms smaller than 50 acres
soared by 60 percent from 14,500 in 1982
to 23,000 in 2012. Fueled by (and converse-
ly, driving) changing consumer tastes of
the palate and the conscience, these farms
are plowing a furrow or two in Wisconsins
$88 billion agricultural economy.
People [who are] doing farming on
the side, or, because of a specialty niche,
theyre able to generate enough income
to maintain the lifestyle they desire,
says Dick Straub, senior associate dean at
UW-Madisons College of Agricultural and
Life Sciences. Just a few examples: organic
farms such as Field Notes; specialists who
raise esoteric crops or livestock (ginseng,
alpacas); and farmers who raise free-range
and pasture-grazed poultry and livestock.
Spring plant-
ing gives way
TO see a snapshot of farming going
small, you barely have to leave Mil-
waukee. Near Port Washington, a 40-acre
to harvest
time in June
for Oren
Jakobson and
tract of farmland rents plots to small com- Polly Dalton. Milwaukee, from a private landowner for
mercial vegetable growers. Its run by the farmers to use and hiring Petro to manage
Fondy Food Center farmers market on the the program. Our current acreage is all
citys North Side. rented out now, he says. We have a wait-
Fondy traces its history back 99 years ing list of six farmers. And the market now
and has a long heritage as an outlet for im- runs at full capacity on Saturdays, although
migrants, says Fondys farm director, Ste- its not quite full other days of the week.
phen Petro. German settlers sold produce Now the makeup of its participants is
there in its earliest years; some 80 years evolving, from veteran farmers to increas-
later, Hmong refugees who arrived after ing numbers of first-timers, Petro says.
the Vietnam War became its main vendors. Growers agree to use organic methods
Thrust into an urban, industrial culture, (they dont have to be certified an expen-
the mainly rural Hmong pursued farm- sive and paperwork-laden process) and to
ing not just for income but as a lifeline to sell some of their harvest at the Fondy mar-
their traditional culture, Petro explains. ket in Milwaukee.
But that lifeline was frayed, in large part by Fondy charges the farmers $150 an acre
the sheer difficulty in finding reasonably
priced and suitable land that they could use
to rent for a year. Plots range from a quar-
ter-acre to 12 acres; most are two to four
year after year. By 2011, the Fondy market acres. Rice grows in one experimental plot
had lost half its participating growers, Pet- and hops used by Company Brewing in
ro says: The vast majority of those vendors Milwaukee grow in another.
were retiring from farming not because Most of the growers dont discuss how
they wanted to, but because they couldnt well theyre doing financially. Still, the
get consistent land access. markets executive director, Jennifer Ca-
sey, points to retention rates: We have
farmers whove been selling at the market
Photos by Sep + Stell AUGUST 2016 MILWAUKEEMAG.COM 57
for decades. Clearly they feel their sales
are worth returning year after year. Many
small farms, though, clearly are making
money. One is the aptly named Small Fam-
ily Farm in western Wisconsin.
Neither of Small Familys owners, Jillian
and Adam Varney, grew up on a farm, but
theyve worked in agriculture for more
than a decade. Their farm consists of 21
acres, although they use just nine to grow
organic vegetables.
Pulling weeds one morning among the
snap peas while chatting on her mobile
phone, Jillian Varney recounts her journey.
As a teen growing up with skin problems in
Dubuque, Iowa, I fell into a crew of health
nut people who were giving me advice in
what to do and introduced her to organic
food, she recalls.
She and Adam met in 2005 when both
were working on an organic farm near Vi-
roqua. They began their own farm a year
after meeting, buying land through the
USDAs Farm Service Agency. In the years
since, theyve enrolled 300 subscribers in
their Community Supported Agriculture
(CSA) program from across the southwest-
ern corner of the state and reaching as far
as Madison, using a similar veggies-in-a-
box delivery model as Field Notes Farm
and other small organic growers.
Were surviving entirely off of farm in-
come, Jillian says, which is enough to raise
their family and hire employees.
Growing demand suggests a continuing
future for what the Varneys and other or-
ganic growers provide. In 2014, Wisconsin
organic food sales topped $200 million,
58 MILWAUKEE MAGAZINE AUGUST 2016
SMALL FAMILY FARM ACREAGE
9 backs, and were connected throughout the
21
total acres
farmed
acres
up 51 percent from 2008, according to the
agriculture department. Nationally, the in-
crease has been an even more dramatic 72
percent in the same six-year period, with
2014 sales approaching $5.5 billion.
Theyre not all from small farms, of
course: The average Wisconsin organic
farm has 186 acres, based on USDA sur-
veys. But with lower expenses no bills for
chemical fertilizers or patented seeds, for
instance farmers who practice organic
methods may find much smaller-scale op-
erations more sustainable.
And those who take the CSA route can
finance their operations without racking
up bank debt. It works like this: Farms sign
up subscribers, who pay an upfront cost
with the promise of eating locally grown
produce throughout the summer and fall.
Some health insurers have begun subsidiz-
ing CSA benefits for policyholders; some
employers are doing the same.
We have 300 people who get food
from us every week, people who know
our names, Jillian Varney says. Payment
in advance $360 for the season to have
produce delivered every other week, $595
Fondy Farm
by Port Wash-
ington rents
plots to small
farmers.
to get weekly delivery provides capital
throughout the growing season and helps
deepen their relationships with custom-
ers. We have people who kind of have our
season, Varney says.
AMONG conventional farms, the
biggest are even bigger, and
the small and medium-sized farms are get-
ting bigger, too.
When David Daniels was a boy on his
familys farm in the 1960s and 70s, their
herd totaled 50 cows. After earning a dairy
science degree at UW-Madison, he came
back home in 1977 to help run the opera-
tion. Twenty years later, in 1997, Daniels
and two neighboring farmers in their
Kenosha County town of Brighton pooled
resources to create Mighty Grand Dairy.
At 550 cows, the Mighty Grand Dairy
herd is more than 10 times as large as the
one Daniels grew up with, and five times
the average Wisconsin herd. The collective
includes 1,150 acres of farmland, a majority
of it used to grow animal feed for its cows.
Most of the 6,000 gallons of milk produced
daily at the farm is sent off to be made into
mozzarella cheese for frozen pizzas.
Though far from the states largest farm,
Mighty Grand Dairy offers a snapshot of
the growth and consolidation that has
pervaded conventional farming in recent
decades. Farm economists point to some
reasons behind it: Larger operations with
bigger economies of scale can borrow more
easily the five- and six-figure sums of cash
needed for equipment; todays farm fami-
lies have fewer children, and fewer yet who
seem interested in joining the next genera-
tion to work the land.
Daniels, 61, explains still another impe-
tus: Bigger farms make it easier for farm
families to have more flexible schedules,
including the time off that many who dont
live on farms take for granted.
Running any livestock operation is a
24/7, 365-days-a-year job, says Steven
Deller, an economist at UW-Madison/Ex-
tension. The only way to get family time,
like going to the kids soccer games, is to get
big enough to have hired help.
Mighty Grand Dairy employs 13 people
outside the three families who own it, as-
This page photo courtesy of Fondy Farms;
facing page photos by Will Skaggs
signed to specialized tasks from herdsman
MIGHTY GRAND DAIRY
to mechanic. Thirty years ago I worked
more with the dairy cows, Daniels says.
Today I work more with the employees.
50
cows in
the 1960's
PERSISTENT and swelling
consumer de-
mands for locally produced food, for or-
ganic food, for meat from animals raised
and fed in pastures all help create the
niche many smaller farms seek to fill. They
put some pressure on conventional farms.
A case in point: More than 20 years ago
the Food and Drug Administration ap-
proved the sale of milk from cows treated
with recombinant bovine growth hormone
rBGH for short. But in the face of relent-
less opposition including concerns that
it might harm the health of the animals
many processors demand milk only from
cows that have not been given it.
Ripon farmer Chris Pollack changed
processors after one imposed that rule; he
uses the hormone on a very limited basis,
only on certain cows and contends it has
prolonged the life of some. Beaver Dam
farmer Andrea Brossard sees
no safety hazard from rBGH
and calls the push against it
David Daniels
stands by cows
a lot of fear marketing. Still,
that produce
about 6,000
pounds of milk
she notes, it has never been
given to her familys herd.
There are other tensions
daily at Mighty
Grand Dairy. between conventional farms
and their much smaller coun-
terparts. The chemical fer-
tilizers, pesticides and weed
killers in wide use have helped farmers
reap ever larger yields; to their proponents,
theyre an unalloyed boon that have made
American farms the most productive in the
world. Their absence, of course, is among
the chief selling points of organic products.
Finding themselves on the defensive,
conventional farmers blame organic food
promoters who tar their methods. But they
also see another factor: todays greater cul-
tural gulf between agriculture and the rest
of society. Theres so few of us in produc-
tion agriculture anymore less than 2 per-
cent of the population, Brossard observes.
Brossard, who worked in ag-related
public relations before returning full-time
to farming, responds by inviting everyone
from grocers to retailers to chefs to her
FARM
familys farm. Meeting face to face, they
know that were not some big conglomer-
ate producing their food.
From the other side of the conflict, Jillian
Varney admits she has softened her own at-
titude. Shes still a firm believer in organic
550
produce and sees widespread chemical use
in farming as a threat to groundwater and
soil. Their use saddens me, she says.
cows today
Still, she looks more sympathetically on
the conventional farms whose proprietors
are her neighbors: I used to have a lot of
animosity and disgust associated with
farms like that. But now that Im a farm-
er, theyre dependent on the weather, just
as we are. Theyre trying to make a living,
just as we are. Theyre real people, too, with
real families and kids, just as we are. Its
been humanized.
Erik Gunn is a contributing editor at Mil-
waukee Magazine.
AUGUST 2016 MILWAUKEEMAG.COM 59