Partnerships, and a new beginning
Farming is a difficult thing to do alone. I began my farming in an apprenticeship, and there I worked with many others doing chores, going to market, and learning the ins and outs of a tractor. But for the past three years I have done most of my farming alone, and that has presented me with many challenges. They are the challenges of labor, and planning, and most of all, loneliness. I am a person who enjoys solitude, but I also enjoy working with others—it is easier for one thing, but there is also the advantage of two heads. Working with others who are knowledgeable usually leaves me with a sense that the job was done better than if any of us had done it alone.
It is not as though I have been totally without help the past three years. I have had neighbors who would help with this or that, and I often talked with my farming mentor about any problems I ran into. But my day to day farming was pretty much just up to me. I am happy then that I am moving into several partnerships of different kinds.
The lease on the 80 acres I have been farming for the last few years has ended, and though I don't have to move off it right away, I have been looking at other options. For one, I want to move my farm closer to Little Rock so that my customers can more easily visit, and I can more easily (and without as much driving) get products to them. My farm is currently about an hour drive outside of Little Rock. And though living so far out has its advantages, it has been an increasingly unsustainable option as I fill last minute restaurant orders and make weekly deliveries to a local food club. The land I have been leasing is also too expensive. It is good land, but it is too much for me and I have been paying far more than I should be. So I began to put the word out that I was looking to lease land at a good price closer to Little Rock.
I wasn't far into my search when my friend Tim asked me if I might want to partner with him to farm the land he is leasing. It is a beautiful 40 acres preserved in a Nature Conservancy land trust from the developments that are going up around it. It is a perfect place to raise chickens, turkeys, rabbits, and perhaps some cattle. It is a partnership I am looking forward to, and it should be a fruitful one as we hope to create a tight link between our farm and the city. I will continue to raise vegetables and herbs on my own, but I have moved that effort closer to Little Rock as well.
But there is a bigger reason I am moving to Little Rock. I am getting married soon, and my fiancee works for Heifer International, a global organization that helps the world’s poor feed themselves through better agriculture and community development. She would have had to commute to work a long way from where I live now, and in our new place she will be able to walk there. I will make the short drive to the farm as I have always done.
Moving to Little Rock will mean sacrificing some of my ideals. I had hoped to be a part of the community of Morrilton for a long while, but that has been a lonely ideal. And now as I move to Little Rock, I am looking forward to new opportunities with a farm that can be easily visited by customers and with all of the local food efforts that are expanding there. Wendell Berry once wrote that, "We live the given life, not that planned." I am feeling some of that now. But I am hopeful about what the gift of these new partnerships will mean for me and the new life I hope to grow.
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