“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times… it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair…”—Charles Dickens, “A Tale of Two Cities”
There is a palpable irony in the fact that small farms—whose purpose and value are grounded in sustainability (the ability to exist and develop without depleting the natural resources needed for future generations)—are at risk of dying due to lack of sustainability (the ability to maintain or support their business continuously over time).
According to the most recent data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, there were 200,000 fewer small farms in 2022 than in 2007. While that is alarming for many reasons, Brooks Lamb, in the September issue of Modern Farmer, points out at least three:
- The lost impact of small farms environmentally and agriculturally, which promotes greater diversity and supports “healthier wildlife habitat, improved soil health, and greater climate resiliency.”
- The impact on food security and local and regional food systems when products grown in a community stay in that community.
- The general public’s growing disconnect with the land itself.
“Smaller-scale farmers often have an intimate awareness of their place. Their sometimes self-sacrificial stewardship is driven by love for the land, leading to what farmer-writer Wendell Berry describes as fidelity or devotion to place,” Lamb notes.
What prompts small farmers like Topher Sabot of Cricket Creek Farm in North County and Tom Brazie of The Farm New Marlborough in South County to keep doing what they do? [Putting in 18-hour days when necessary, running a farm store on the honor system from dawn until dusk, moving cows from one pasture to another, feeding pigs and chickens, and providing nurturing food for the surrounding community?]
What keeps them trying year after year, despite post-COVID struggles to regain lost business and deal with staff shortages, economic uncertainties, and climate changes that make planning for the future nearly impossible?
For those answers, you’ll need to listen to their stories.
Cricket Creek Farm—a dairy farm producing award-winning cheese
Topher’s parents, Dick and Jude Sabot, bought Cricket Creek Farm (one of the oldest dairy operations in Massachusetts) in 2002 with two goals in mind: preserving Williamstown’s largest single tract of farmland (converting it from a large-scale operation to a small-scale dairy) and creating a sustainable cheesemaking operation. Dick—who was “an economist, scholar, farmer, and Internet pioneer”— died suddenly in 2005 before fully realizing those dreams. But Cricket Creek Farm carried on, thanks to his wife and son, who raised grass-fed dairy cows, ran an on-site bakery and farm store, made cheese, and fed the surplus whey to the pigs.
They hired outside help early on but soon realized it wouldn’t succeed unless they did the work themselves. “People we hired didn’t bring the urgency necessary to run the business,” Sabot notes. He eventually took over managing the 200-acre farm, which now boasts 100 animals, including 35 milk cows and a passel of pigs.
Per the website: “Our cows are the centerpoint of this farm. We work for them, and they work for us. Our cows graze on our pastures for half the year. The other half of the year, they eat hay that we make ourselves.” You can meet a handful of these beautiful beings via their online profiles—complete with each one’s likes (“farmer Emily, grass, sunny days”) and dislikes (“the pigs” or “fences”).
The farm produces raw milk, grass-fed beef, rose veal, and whey-fed pork, in addition to seven styles of artisanal farmstead cheeses. Ninety percent of the milk produced goes into cheese making (65 percent sold wholesale across New England, and the rest at farmers markets and at their year-round farm store), with the remainder bottled as raw milk sold on the farm.
Many of their cheeses, which are found at Guido’s, Berkshire Co-op, Nejaime’s, and Wild Oats (to name a few), as well as on the menu of many local restaurants, have earned them top awards and legions of devoted fans.
A pre-pandemic high followed by mounting challenges
Like most start-ups, running a farm involves a lot of learning, reading, conversations with fellow owners (though what works on one farm may not work on another), and much trial and error to overcome challenges to reach a more sustainable place.
Cricket Creek reached that place in 2019, just before COVID. “We were making progress on all of our sustainability goals and felt we were finally moving forward,” Sabot confides. Then, everything halted, resulting in a backward slide in the wholesale business, which has not recovered since.
The physical challenge of farm work, the complicated business model of planning a year ahead when you’re not sure of this year’s income, and all the other moving parts can feel overwhelming, he admits. “There’s no ‘off season’ in dairy farming, and it no longer works as a one-person show.”
His priorities have also shifted. Before getting married, working 18-hour days, one after another, was more manageable. “Now I have a wife and three children and the responsibility and desire to spend time with them,” he points out. “It’s gotten very, very hard, and the sustainability of it is highly questionable at times.”
Sabot has learned a few things after 14 years of staffing and managing people. “The animals, machinery, and land all have their challenges, but they are largely predictable. People—even the amazing people we have now and have had in the past—are not.”
Though seasonal summer help exists, “It feels like we move from one staff crisis to another,” he confides. “Farming is hard work and low pay—you need people who are passionate and super engaged, but now those people have plenty of other choices available with better compensation.”
The challenge of ‘keeping on keeping on’
What keeps him going? “The excitement of innovating, the challenge of making it work, the fact that it’s a great way to raise a family, the hope of making progress, the unique and powerful connection to the land.”
But with each passing season and added crisis, it gets more complicated. “There are a lot of good people doing good things. We produce an important product and provide an important service to the community. It feels like we should be successful. But at the end of the day, it comes down to the same question: Can it be enough?”
As Sabot explains, governmental support only goes so far. Because the dairy farm tax credit program is based on how much milk is produced each year, it provides limited help for small dairy farms. Grants are mostly aimed at highly specialized areas, and the farm subsidies we hear so much about primarily target large-scale agribusiness. “The cost of ownership of this land is very high, with $60,000 in expenses between the mortgage, insurance, and property taxes. That doesn’t include maintaining the farmhouse or additional structures,” he says.
“We need to build support and sustainability,” he states. People can purchase local goods, but that’s not necessarily enough. The amount of money needed to maintain a small farm can be much greater.
“The local and sustainable food movements are still a fringe thing in the bigger picture of our society. Most food is mass-produced. In dairy farming, having even 200 cows is deemed too small to subsist,” Sabot explains. “We’re trying to do it in an unconventional way. But we lose out on the economies of scale. Since the pandemic, frequent crises have prevented us from moving forward. Pausing to re-evaluate and potentially restructure holds a lot of appeal. Still, it is impossible in this case because we would lose 15 years of breeding cows, building a customer base, and developing a wholesale business.”
To build a broader support base, Sabot takes advantage of any opportunity to talk to people, from school groups to college students to panel discussions. Cricket Creek also hosts weddings (but is limited by the town to six per year) and small events to supplement their dairy farm.
The Farm New Marlborough—enriching the soil and feeding the community
Although his family’s farming roots date back to the mid-1700s, Tom Brazie’s own foray was in 2017. Before that, he ran a landscaping business for years. Then, watching Food, Inc. and studying Joe Salatin’s regenerative farming practices prompted a dramatic course change, inspiring him to bring rotational grazing to his home community of New Marlborough.
“First, the cattle graze, eating the grasses and leaving their natural fertilizer behind, followed by the chickens, which eat the grubs and fly larvae, eliminating parasites and spreading the cow manure,” he explains. “Without the chickens’ involvement, the cows won’t eat the grass where their manure was for a year, but with the chickens, the same pasture is ready for grazing in three weeks. This system of managing the animals and land is healthier and more sustainable for everyone involved—especially those who eat the nutrition-filled byproducts.”
After finding an investor (Frank Kern), an old school with land and buildings to “repurpose,” and a lease agreement with The New Marlborough Land Trust, he set his plan into motion. The former school gym now stores hay, the athletic closet holds grain sacks, and the dorm houses animals. “We’ve been figuring things out as we go,” Brazie notes, “but it’s worked out amazingly well. We currently farm just under 500 acres, but I own roughly 170 acres—the rest is based on a lease or a handshake.”
When asked about the greatest challenge of farming, he answers, “The farm never shuts off, but we have to fit into a world that’s only open nine to five. So when something breaks down and you need an electrician, plumber, or parts from the store, you need to figure out how to get to the next day.”
Brazie starts his chores each day with the sunrise and ends with another solo round in the early evening. Of course, Tom’s wife, Laurel, and children, Foster and Figgy (Adeline), are also engaged in every aspect of life on the farm—but he insists, “The animals do most of the work—that includes two groups of cattle, two flocks of egg-laying chickens, meat chickens, and a whole lot of pigs!”
COVID crush and the struggle to recover
Like Sabot, Brazie notes, “Prior to COVID, the farm was growing at a really nice pace,” with 85 percent of the business coming from restaurant and wholesale contracts. That came to a sudden halt when everything closed. “Restaurants that had contracted for beef, pork, and chicken closed their doors overnight, with no idea when they would re-open, so we got stuck with everything—60 pigs, 70 cows, and 5000 chickens,” he shares.
Every step is rewarding, from seeing a new calf or piglet being born, to watching the animals click their heels with excitement as we move them from one pasture to another,
Also like Sabot, Brazie reiterates that everything on a farm is planned a year in advance. “For example, the piglets we are feeding this morning, born a week ago, already have their slaughter dates booked—you can’t do it any other way.”
That surplus, which hit during peak production with no one willing or able to buy it, cost him a lot. While the farm store attracted more customers during the pandemic (literally feeding the local community when supplies were scarce), business decreased once grocery stores were fully functioning.
In 2021 and 2022, he tried to get back into the restaurant and wholesale markets. “We anticipated the country would open up again and were encouraged to keep growing, but we still struggled because all the other expenses had gone up by then, so restaurants still wouldn’t commit. I would have liquidated if I could have, but no one would buy,” he admits.
Instead, he downsized his herds and staff significantly (both remain small), which has also affected the land. “Without more people to buy our products, we can’t raise the number of animals that the land will allow us to, which means we can’t keep the fields as lush or produce the same amount of topsoil,” he explains.
Last year, he produced 1,500 yards of topsoil; this year, only 15. And the economic challenges are constant. “We generate $2,000 per week in business (on average) through the farm store, but the animals need $1,000 of grain per week, 600 gallons of water per day, and three daily bails of hay to get through the winter,” he says.
Brazie, who had a great farm team all summer, is now back to doing most things himself. “My crew gave everything they had to the farm for over two years, post-COVID. At some point, they have to start looking out for themselves,” he says, highlighting, as Sabot does, the difference in pay scale between farming and other job choices.
Beyond all the things you might be aware of that can go wrong on a small farm, there are countless things you might not know—such as an oak tree dropping its acorns can cause the pigs to get out of their paddock. Brazie recalls a quote from The Biggest Little Farm about ‘creating new problems with every solution’ and says, “It’s true.” This prompts a story about when he moved both farm dogs to guard the egg-laying hens because a bear was circling in, only to find that a fox attacked all his meat chickens as soon as they were left alone.
A new focus on—and faith in—the importance of community
“We’ve decreased production and are solely relying on the community now,” Brazie explains. “The whole world is moving toward local agriculture, both as a means of building community and addressing global warming. All the evidence suggests this is healthy and can be abundant and promising. We’re currently using four out of 30 chicken tractors, but we could easily be raising 3,000 pigs a year (rather than 50) and up to 10,000 meat chickens (rather than 1,500) without anyone noticing it,” he shares. “There are roughly 1,200 New Marlborough residents, but 130,000 people live in Berkshire County. Local farmers can feed them all!”
“My number one goal is to create a space for feeding this community,” he emphasizes. “I know this farm will be very important in my kids’ lifetime as food sourcing and supplies become more of a challenge.” He admits plenty of risks are involved, but his optimism remains strong. “There have been so many miracles that have kept this place alive since the beginning. I put all my faith in the community, that they’d see the farm as an asset and help me along. Their support has kept me believing in it,” he shares, adding, “The community is the final piece of the regenerative farming wheel.”
Beyond supplying food, serving the community for Brazie means providing time and space for people to come together. To that end, he ramped up the Friday night farm dinners this year, which grew in popularity under Maggie Arian’s leadership (and excellent cooking) to over 100 people a week throughout August and September. Welcoming young people and showing them the ropes is also hugely fulfilling for him, as seen in the monthly hayrides and school visits he offers.
“If I had the means, I’d love to create a diner next to the farm store where locals could meet on a daily basis and enjoy healthy food and conversation,” he comments. (Based on the success of the Friday dinners, there’s no doubt it would do very well.) “I’d also like to create dorm-style housing in the main house and upstairs of the barn,” he adds. “We need more seasonal employee housing to support all the local businesses.”
A shared love of the land and the process
Circling back to the opening question—”What prompts small farmers like Topher Sabot of Cricket Creek Farm in North County and Tom Brazie of The Farm New Marlborough in South County to keep doing what they do?”—we arrive back where farming originated.
“Historically, farms were often a center point of community. That changed for a while, but now there’s a movement back to that,” Sabot says. “It’s about producing food, educating people where their food comes from, maintaining open space, improving soil, and balancing the ecosystem.”
“It’s a very unique experience to act as a steward of this land,” he continues. “I understood it on an intellectual basis when I first got into farming, but now I have an emotional understanding as well.” Pun very much intended, he adds, “It’s grounding.” Although many people have no connection to the earth, he walks the fields and puts his hands in the rich Berkshire soil every day.
Asked what keeps him farming, Brazie responds, “I couldn’t begin to say. Every step is rewarding, from seeing a new calf or piglet being born, to watching the animals click their heels with excitement as we move them from one pasture to another, to walking the fence line and seeing all the work they’ve done and how the land has responded to their actions.”
Beyond the connections with the land and animals, it’s the people connections. “To bump into a farm customer and have them rave about how delicious the pot roast they prepared for their family the night before was, or see the smiling faces and all the children running around at a Friday night dinner—that really feeds me,” he acknowledges.
“I can’t emphasize enough how miraculous it is that this farm exists, or that it keeps going even when nothing adds up on paper,” Brazie continues. “Financially, it’s a tough row to hoe. But to be given this opportunity, and to be pushed so powerfully to keep doing this, I just know it’s my calling. The hope that I am going to be able to build something that the entire community and the next generation can benefit from—that I can offer something that will have a significant impact for a long time—that keeps me going.”
Will we sustain the farms that sustain us?
We love our scenic hills and hay rolls, grazing cows, lush grass, and open spaces—though they are all things locals and visitors alike often take for granted. Regenerative small-scale farms that Sabot, Brazie, and other dedicated farmers are creating—and maintaining—on our behalf will only be able to continue if we commit to sustaining them. “Up here in Williamstown, there’s not a huge amount of farmland left. If we want to keep it, we need to invest in it,” Sabot reminds us.
These farms are committed to supporting our communities. Will we commit to supporting the farms to ensure that they can keep doing what is good for the land, our bodies, society, and our communities? Are we willing to support them the way we do our daily coffee stop, monthly magazine subscription, or local movie theater? Could a few large schools, art galleries, spas, and established businesses commit to spending $10 to $20,000 annually to support the farm scenes featured on their website images? Could more families buy monthly Community Support Agriculture (CSA) subscriptions to provide a continuous cash flow regardless of the season?
“A few ongoing contracts could make a big difference,” both Sabot and Brazie agree.
As Wendell Berry asks in his book, Bringing it to the Table: On Farming and Food, “Why do farmers farm, given their economic adversities on top of the many frustrations and difficulties normal to farming? … always the answer is: Love. They must do it for love,” he concludes.
For further information about Cricket Creek Farm and The Farm New Marlborough, please visit their websites. Better yet, make a plan to stop by and visit their farms—some great events are waiting for you this weekend!
Upcoming events
Pasture Walk at Cricket Creek: October 13, 2 p.m.
Join Topher Sabot on a pasture walk through the fields to bookend the farm’s season. Register at info@cricketcreekfarm.com; suggested donation of $10 can be made in the farm store.
Fall Picnic at Cricket Creek: October 14, 12-4 p.m.
Bring your own picnic blanket and enjoy the beautiful fall foliage from the lawn at Cricket Creek Farm, while sampling Berkshire Cider Project’s hard cider, artisanal cheese, and a grilled autumn menu provided by Door Prize! Sign up through Facebook.
Harvest Festival at The Farm New Marlborough: October 14th, 12-8 p.m.
Come for food (house made by Maggie Arien), vendors, hay rides and farm tours, games, pumpkins (from Gresczyk Farms), and live music. There’s something for everyone!
