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Northern Michigan Small Farm Conference grounds communities

The organizer of the Northern Michigan Small Farm Conference says growers are still facing similar challenges as they did during their first event in 2000.

Brad Kik tells Brownfield, ”I think that the pressures that are on farms and on these small farms are still there, and they’re big and they’re serious, and we’re talking about climate change and we’re talking about development taking over good farmland.”

Kik says some farmers want to stay small, and they play an important role in farmland preservation.

“You don’t preserve farmland by putting a fence around it,” he says. “You preserve farmland by putting farmers on it, and sometimes that means allowing farmers to adapt and keeping the farm economically viable over time means making some changes.”

The American Farm Bureau estimates that less than a quarter of farm household income for farm families came from farming itself in 2023. For farms making less than $100,000, more than 60 percent of operators work at least one day a week off the farm.

Kik says rarely are small farmers able to make their living full-time from the land unless they get bigger or vertically integrate.

“Partly the way they’re making it work is they’ve opened their own retail spaces, and I think that’s a big change, it’s like the evolution of the farm stand into what is now a market,” he shares.  “And, interestingly, perhaps that’s driven by the fact that small groceries are closing all over.”

He says the conference this week is focusing on technical and hands-on solutions through farm tours and collaborative problem-solving for communities.