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Gerlock: For those without family ties, finding land is one
of the biggest obstacles to starting a new farm.
Besides that, imagine paying a
couple hundred thousand dollars for a new tractor,
or 250 dollars for one bag of seed.
Not many people have the kind of money it takes to
get a new farm off the ground, but Ryan Robertson
met one couple who did it by thinking small.
Robertson: Just outside of Columbia, Missouri,
on Honey Creek Farms, Dan & Laura Pugh
make their way through their field.
It's harvest day on the farm.
Today's bounty?
Fresh arugula, spinach, kale,
and other assorted greens.
Dan Pugh: Right now I only have about a half-acre
in vegetables.
We'll be expanding to this area up here and
eventually those fields out there, so.
Total, all at one time, it will be about 2 acres.
Beyond that it gets pretty hard to manage in
vegetable production but you can do a lot in just an acre.
Robertson: Dan and Laura are two years
into their new careers as farmers.
Self-proclaimed "city kids,"
neither had any ties to farming growing up.
But one day, Dan decided to go to a land auction.
That's when the Pughs became landowners.
Dan: It was in one family for the past hundred years.
Robertson: The Pughs paid $2300 an acre for their 50 acre farm.
A steal in today's market.
By traditional standards, it's a terrible place to farm.
But the Pugh's aren't traditional farmers.
They're what many call "alternative"
or "sustainable" farmers.
While their primary focus is vegetable production,
like most farmers, they're diversified.
Dan quit selling medical supplies, but Laura still
has a job in the city working for a professor
at the University of Missouri.
For now, they're dependent on that off-farm income.
Dan: The first year, we're paying for the building
and all of the equipment, the animals,
everything that goes with it.
There's a lot of up-front cost in those terms,
so it's just getting some money in.
But it's going to be a few years before we're on the
flip side of it where we're breaking even,
making money on things.
Robertson: Even though small farmers aren't making large
profits, the USDA says the greatest increase in farm
numbers is for small farms, with annual sales
less than $10,000 a year.
Hendrickson: Farmers are older, but what about farm workers?
Robertson: At the University of Missouri,
Dr. Mary Hendrickson teaches the next
generation of American farmers.
She says it's no coincidence more small
farms are popping up, given the historically
high land prices.
Mary Hendrickson: They seem to be quite high right now,
and that makes it difficult for
beginning farmers to afford land.
We know that for a lot of our farmers who are trying
to do direct marketing and things like that,
they often run into problems around cities, right,
because land is more expensive for development
and things like that.
Robertson: Hendrickson says not only will many of the farms in
the future be smaller operations; they will also
have more diverse operators, including
immigrants and women, like Laura Pugh.
Laura Pugh: It is possible and a million people will tell you
it's not possible-that you're crazy and stupid
and all of that, but it is possible.
Robertson: It's that kind of optimism which has kept
American farmers on the land,
and bringing their products to market.
And now as land ownership changes hands,
the middle is disappearing, leaving larger farms and small
start-ups both hoping to meet the needs of a hungry world.