The view from an American small farmer - How to achieve sustainable food production for increased profit and well-being

Peter and Hilarie Larson and their three children have a 45 acre farm located at 604 Van Ostrand Road, Lansing, New York. They are located in the finger lakes region of central New York, near Ithaca. Their family has farmed this land for seven generations, ever since it was deeded as a revolutionary war plot.

More information about their Just a Few Acres farm here

Peter Larson has written a book A Year and a Day on Just a Few Acres

When Peter Larson, a 44 year old principal at an architectural firm decides to leave his job to restart his family’s seventh generation farm near Ithaca, New York, he encounters doubting ghosts of his former self, hundreds of frankenchickens, fifty personable turkeys, three pigs, one enduring friendship, and the true self he has searched for his whole life. Filled with the psychology of change and down to earth stories of farming and homesteading, this is the true story of making the leap so many wish for but dare not.

Youtube channel here

Some video excerpts:

20.10.2020 The problems with big farms and the ever-increasing scale of industrial agriculture are beyond a simple black and white solution. It’s important to differentiate between the agricultural system itself and the farmers who work within that system. Given the choice of a world of small farms vs big farms, which would we choose? In this video I give my farmer opinion on the state of industrial commodity farming and the decline of small farms. It’s been a long time since farmers determined farm economics and their own destinies. Instead, farms’ success or failure are dictated by three main groups:
1. The large agribusiness corporations, including Cargill, Dow Dupont, Archer Daniels Midland, Bayer (Monsanto), John Deere, and Case New Holland 2. The banking industry 3. The government and agriculture subsidies, starting in 1971 with Earl Butz and the US Department of Agriculture
These large forces have combined to reshape commodity farming, and have pushed farms to be ever larger, increase efficiency, and decrease the price of commodities. Large farms’ effects have cascaded across America, causing a growing disconnect of the population from their food supply, changing the rural landscape once dominated by small farms and small towns, reducing species diversity, creating a more fragile food system, and hurting food quality.
However, we should not blame large farms for the effects they have caused, and under no circumstances should we fault the farmers that are working within this system. Instead, we should be pointing the finger at the forces that have shaped modern farming. We should realize that a world of “get big or get out” is not necessarily better, and that economics is not the sole determinant of what is best.

19.03.2020 According to the USDA, we’re in the soybean business, even though all our land in planted in pasture! And if the price of soybeans falls below a certain level, the government will pay us for our (imaginary) soybean crop under the USDA’s “agricultural risk coverage,” or ARC farm subsidy program. This nonsense is just the tip of the iceberg. Join me as I rant about USDA farm commodity subsidy programs, the role of the Farm Bureau in lobbying Washington, and how this is all screwing up our country’s agricultural system.

3.04.20 There are many tax breaks available to small farms! In this video I review the importance of filing a Schedule F, Federal small farm income tax deductions, sales tax exemptions, and the many state programs for small farm property tax reduction. Taking advantage of these tax breaks can make a huge difference in the profitability of your small farm!