A Family Farm: Generations in the Making
By: Katie Driver
When you hear the word “farm,” what comes into mind? Maybe you think of open, sprawling fields, or those owned by corporations. But what about the farms all over the country owned and run by families for hundreds of years? Did you know 98% of all farms are family owned and account for nearly 90% of U.S. food production? This percentage is highly dependent on farmers expanding and preparing their operation for the next generation, namely their own children. My husband, Ethan, and I farm on his sixth-generation family farm in Northern California where we grow rice, vine seed, sunflowers, corn, milo, wheat, barley, and walnuts. Our wish is the same as many family farms around the world: that our children will carry on our farm’s legacy and continue growing food for communities around the world.
My experience in the agriculture community is unique as I maintain a foot in both my farm and as an employee of a pesticide company. I was raised on a small cattle and swine farm in southwest Oklahoma and was very involved in FFA. I was studying agronomy at Oklahoma State University where I met Ethan in my sophomore year, and it was clear we both shared the same passion for agriculture and that was the path for our future together. Our relationship brought me to California where I received my PhD in agronomy from University of California, Davis. When I’m not busy farming, I am a technical service manager at UPL in Northern California. In this role, I work with our sales team, industry, and university partners to support the UPL product portfolio.
When Ethan and I began our relationship, he made it clear that not going into farming was not an option. His passion was and is working his family’s farm and he was determined to carry that passion on to our future children. I think it’s worth putting into perspective just how long six generations is – that’s almost 200 years! In fact, our family records show that the Driver family started farming in 1857 in California. Many family farms across the country are at least that old, or even hundreds of years older, with those families caring for their land to bring it through another hundred years. Ethan grew up in the field alongside his father and grandfather, learning how to care for the land and making the best choices for a sustainable future, and we want the same for our children so they may make a positive impact on our world.
Watching our children grow up in the heart of our farm is one the most special experiences and these are some of my favorite memories of agriculture. I love taking them to the field to work with us and seeing what we do every day. They love to ride the equipment (with supervision and assistance, of course!) and see the crops and our everyday activities and operations. Farming is a 24/7 job, and the work doesn’t stop, so they have been tagging along since they were born and have grown fond of the farm and take pride in it. Even when they are at home, they are “playing farm” and are showing interest in it. Giving them firsthand experience, like Ethan’s when he was their age, has propelled their love for what we do.
My greatest hope is that at least one or maybe all three of our children want to maintain our farm in the future, but with less roadblocks than we face now. Farming is a hard job, and it can be incredibly expensive: equipment, inputs like pesticides and fertilizer, land, training for workers, and permits all have real costs. While California is one of the richest food sources in the world, we face several obstacles that will force many family farms out of business, such as regulations based on misconceptions and misinformation rather than science. Our changing climate is also a concern – everything we do on our farm, from pesticide usage to land management, is done through a sustainable lens to maintain healthy and thriving land for the future.
With the challenges farming brings, why do we stay in it? To put it simply - we love it. There is nothing else that we would rather do and those who came before us and started our family farm have worked too hard for us to quit. It is a sense of belonging and pride that we wouldn’t trade for anything. I hope to see my children have the same love, passion, and memories with their own families on our farm that Ethan and I have experienced together, now and in the years to come.