When is a small farm too big?

The Sustainable Family has been doing a lot of planning over the last month or so about how we are going to lay out our little 5 acre farm, given all the new additions that are coming this year.  Basically, if there is anything online or in print that talks about how to most efficiently utilize your acreage for food production, we have read it.

There is a lot of information out there to be had, and it is a very interesting mix of advances in agricultural technology and "old timey" farmer wisdom.  Here is something that I ran across the other day that I thought I would pass along.  It is part of a paper presented at a small farm conference back in 2002 by John Ikerd, Professor Emeritus at the University of Missouri.

How do you know if your farm is too big? Your farm may be too big if…

· If the fence rows are either gone or so clean you no longer hear the birds singing.

· If gullies appear on slopes and road ditches are filled with muddy water after a rain.
· If the soil feels like pavement under your feet, or you don’t like walking across it anymore.
· If the farm begins to look more like a sea or desert, rather than a patch work quilt.
· If your cows no longer have names and your children wouldn’t know them if they did.
· If your animals never feel the sun, don’t have room to walk, or never touch the dirt.
· If your farm no longer smells like a farm but stinks like a sewer or a factory.
· If it’s no longer safe for anyone but an adult to work with your machinery or chemicals.
· If you work harder and harder, but it always seems there is more work to be done.
· If a bigger tractor, combine, or new pickup truck seems like it might solve your problems.
· If your banker or contractor owns more of your farm than you will ever own.
· If the farm is keeping the family apart, or tearing it apart, rather than bringing it together.
· If your children begin to dislike farm life and vow not to return to the farm.
· If you no longer feel good about asking your family to live on a farm.
· If you’re too busy to bother with community affairs, and rarely go into town anymore.
· If you drive right through “your” town to buy things in the city, just to save a few dollars.
· If neighbors complain about dust, noise, or odors from your farm, and you don’t care.
· If caring for the land no longer gives purpose and meaning to your life.
· If continuing the farming tradition feels more like a burden rather than a privilege.
· If you’re too busy to notice changing seasons, to watch the sunset, or to feel the wind blow.
· If farming is no longer exciting, no longer fun, if it’s hard to face a new season.
· If you have forgotten why you wanted to be a farmer in the first place.

If very many of these things ring true, odds are your farm is too big.