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“If you don’t make mistakes,
you’re not trying hard enough,” Tom Larson says.
Photo by Tom Wolfe |
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Tom
Larson
St. Edward, Nebraska
Updated in 2005
Summary of Operation
90 to 100 stocker cattle and flocks of chickens
Organic grains, popcorn, soybeans for tofu, barley for birdseed
and forage turnips
Problems Addressed
Demanding labor requirements.
Tom Larson’s father, Glen, began raising corn and alfalfa
as feed for beef cattle and hogs on the Nebraska farm after World
War II. His farm, described by his son as “very traditional,”
followed standard dictates: a clean monoculture system. Glen Larson
plowed, disked and harrowed to get straight crop rows with no weeds.
Just preparing the field required up to four tractor passes, with
another two to three for cultivation. The laborious work kept Glen
Larson busy from sunup to sundown for much of the season.
Low profits. A former conventional
farmer who followed in his father’s footsteps in the mid-1970s,
Tom Larson took stock of the operation, its size and the labor requirements
in the mid-1980s and found it lacking. The 156-acre farm was reliant
on just a few commodities, and was too small in the prevailing “get
big or get out” economy to make ends meet. Meanwhile, he spent
hours and hours atop a tractor to produce feed for livestock.
Background
Larson decided to strive for maximum returns rather
than maximum yields, and adjusted his operation accordingly. He
diversified by planting a greater variety of crops, became certified
organic and began a cattle stocker operation in a unique grazing
system. He also raises poultry in the garden. His profitability
goals go hand in hand with soil improvement.
“There are crops that deplete the soil and there are crops
that build up the soil and we try to have a mix of those,”
he says. “We grow whatever mix it takes to be profitable in
a very long-range outlook.”
Focal Point of Operation
— Diversification
Once Larson decided to diversify, his path was set.
Over the next decade and a half, he would try new ventures, focusing
both on their outcome in the marketplace and their place in his
rotation. His new motto: Spread the economic risk through diversification.
A major change came when Larson began raising pasture and forage
crops for grazing rather than harvesting grain and feeding it to
confined livestock. Larson double-dips wherever possible, selling
organic grain in the marketplace but also sending his cattle into
the crop fields to graze grain stubble in conditions carefully controlled
to maintain a steady diet.
“We’re turning sunlight into dollars through grass
and alfalfa,” Larson says.
Glen Larson used to tell Tom that they raised cattle to pay their
property taxes. Their old system of growing and harvesting grain
as livestock feed helped raise fat cattle, but the cost didn’t
justify the return.
These days, the cows are gaining weight just as fast from eating
forage turnips and the stubble after grain harvest. Larson says
that forage turnips provide as much nutrition as high-quality alfalfa.
To diversify in a way that would help the soil as well as the bottom
line, Larson introduced a small grain, a coarse grain and a legume
that he plants in narrow strips for weed control. Those products
are produced for human consumption, not for animal feed.
“Being on limited acres, we looked at crops that would net
more dollars per acre,” he says. “I’m not really
interested in production per acre. It’s the net dollars per
acre that I can generate.”
The farm is configured in narrow, 12-feet-wide strips arranged
in a striped pattern across the landscape. As such, Larson’s
grains and forages grow side by side in a rotation orchestrated
for environmental benefits as well as profits. Typically, he plants
small grains in the spring, then harvests them in July in time to
plant forage turnips for his livestock.
His standard rotation: growing corn the first year, followed by
a double crop of barley and turnips. In the third year, he plants
soybeans, followed by a year of corn. He concludes the long rotation
with one or two years of alfalfa, which he grazes about two times
a year in a managed paddock system.
Cattle graze within 27 paddocks. When his stocker operation, which
centered on raising 100 heifers from early spring into late fall
before selling, lost money in the mid 1990s, Larson began renting
his pasture to a neighbor for several months a year. Key to their
diet are the forage turnips he plants in mid-summer but never harvests
with a machine.
“The turnips walk off the farm on the hoof,” he says.
“The cows get a nice salad every day between grain stubble
and turnip greens.”
The protein content of the mix is about 12 percent, compared to
6 to 8 percent in a cornstalk/hay ration.
Larson constantly reassesses his rotation, choosing crops that
“we’re able to sell without a lot of hassle or effort.”
He grows organic soybeans for the tofu market as well as popcorn.
He used to raise oats, but low market prices prompted him to try
Ethiopian barley, which he sells to a birdseed processor at about
twice the price.
Larson markets his crops through a variety of organic channels.
He uses local processors and the National Organic Directory from
the California Alliance with Family Farmers as main sources. After
establishing good relationships with wholesalers, Larson now needs
to spend little time on marketing.
Economics and Profitability
In 1992, a community college in Columbus, Neb.,
conducted a survey of farm and ranch budgets for 95 area families.
The average net return on irrigated corn came to $22 an acre. That
might have been a livable income for most of his neighbors, who
have an average farm size of 800 acres, but to Larson, at one-third
the size, those returns spelled foreclosure.
Realizing he needed to earn three to five times more value per
acre, Larson decided to raise food crops.
“Having a small operation, $22 an acre does not cut it,”
he says. Being certified organic has given us access to different
markets than we had, and it’s much more profitable.”
According to a state extension educator, Larson brings in between
$150 and $200 per acre, while his neighbors earn just $20 to $50
per acre. With their larger land base, Larson figures their standards
of living are about equal.
Larson continues to nurture a hobby that helps keep the operation
in the black: retrofitting farm equipment for his unique needs.
Much of the equipment on today’s market is built for larger
farms, so Larson continually reconfigures old equipment. He has
modified planters, cultivators and harvest equipment. Rather than
buying a new tractor outright, he lowers the out-of-pocket expense
by trading in an old one he’s fixed up.
Experimenting with new crops often brings good rewards. Switching
to Ethiopian barley was a better investment than oats, which brought
just $2.40 per bushel. He receives about $8.40 per bushel for organic
barley, although he gets lower yields. In real numbers, the barley
is about twice as profitable.
Environmental Benefits
The crop strips and rotations in Larson’s organic system allow
him to eliminate purchased chemicals without a noticeable increase
in pest pressure.
After a heavy rain, Larson sees little water pooling or running
off his farm, which he attributes to improved soil structure with
better infiltration.
“If we have a significant rain event, I can go across the
road and look at the neighbor’s field and see quite a lot
of water standing around,” he says. “We have a soil
structure now with good infiltration capacity.”
To control weeds, Larson plants with minimal soil disturbance and
seeds at twice the recommended rate. The dense cover of small grains
early in the season crowds out weeds. He also retains crop residue
on the soil surface not only to deter weeds, but also to increase
water infiltration and slow erosion.
The system also seems to attract more wildlife, particularly songbirds,
as well as deer, raccoons and opossums. “We have all sorts
of these creatures running around, and I think they’re an
indicator of the health of the ecosystem,” he says.
Community and Quality of Life Benefits
Larson makes time for his family. When he raised
only a corn crop, he spent intense, busy weeks in the field clustered
around field preparation, planting, cultivation and harvest. By
raising four crops, he has spread his work across the calendar,
planting about one-third of his acreage at one time rather than
100 percent.
“I do the same amount, or maybe a little bit more, but it
is spread more evenly through the year,” he says. He found
a neighbor with whom he exchanges farm chores so they can both travel.
“If you walk in a graveyard and look at the headstones, you
see names, but I don’t think you see any of them that say:
‘He worked every day of his life and that was it.’ To
me, the events in life that make up quality of life are the little
trips you take and the good times you have together.”
Larson’s type of farm is so different from his central Nebraska
neighbors that he has bonded with others in the sustainable ag movement
far from Saint Edward.
“The way I farm puts me outside this community, and I think
that’s a common experience for people in sustainable or organic
farming,” he says. “I see myself in a network of people
in a community of interest.”
Larson travels frequently, both in the U.S. and abroad. Nebraska’s
Center for Rural Affairs often asks Larson to speak about his farming
system both locally and regionally. Larson rarely turns down an
opportunity to speak to farming groups, even if that means traveling
to South Africa, which he did in the year 2000 at the behest of
a South African mayor who heard him speak.
“I think I offer them hope,” Larson says of his diverse
invitations to present. “I talk about succeeding on a small
scale and learning from your mistakes.”
Transition Advice
Farmers should not be afraid to try new things,
Larson says, but they should do so on a small scale. Networking
with other farmers is key to success, especially because beginning
farmers can learn from the mistakes of others — although they
should expect to make plenty of their own.
“If you don’t make mistakes, you’re not trying
hard enough,” he says. “I just don’t like to make
big, ugly, expensive ones. We take the tactic of trying very small-scale
experiments and keeping track of the results.”
The Future
Larson plans to continue tweaking his farming system
year by year, seeking not only better profits, but also new challenges.
“I would be very frustrated if I was in a job where I did
the same thing, day in and day out,” he says. “Some
say they’ve been in farming for 35 years. Does that mean they
have 35 years’ experience, or do they have one year of experience
35 times? I like the challenge of having a little variation from
year to year.”
To Larson, good stewardship means measuring his impact on natural
resources against the desires of future residents of the land.
“If, 200 years down the road, an anthropologist would look
at this particular farm and find no evidence of whoever was here,
then I’ve been a good steward with a vision beyond my life
span,” he says. “Some of the Native American religions
center around doing nothing that will adversely affect the next
seven generations. I think that’s a realistic goal to strive
for.”
 Profile
written by Valerie Berton
For more information:
Tom Larson
3239 315th Avenue
St. Edward, NE 68660
(402) 678-2456
tlarson@megavision.com
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