He’s going to farm no matter what

He’s going to farm no matter what

By Francis Carlet and Thomas Gilson
Photograph by Thomas Gilson

Lyle Edwards, Jr. is 24.

After traveling some around the country, he has decided he is “going to farm no matter what happens to the economy.” And he is going to do it without making an enormous initial capital investment. For him, farming is big business. “Too big, too complicated, too expensive. But,” he adds, “I’ve wanted to farm ever since l was a boy, watching my grandfather farm. I’m going to milk these cows no matter what.”

With a makeshift farm operation in East Peacham, along with some help from his brother, Mark, Lyle is starting out in a profession that is old and very difficult. A little over half a year ago, Lyle borrowed enough money to purchase a milk tank, twenty-four cows and a few wrenches. He rented a barn in exchange for improvements made over the first six months. The barn doesn’t have the luxury of a manure removal system, much less a loft for hay storage. Needless to say, the wheelbarrow is still an integral part of his operation.

He has a prefabricated grain bin, one registered Holstein, and a bookkeeping system that, though workable for Lyle, is very primitive. The tractor outside is not his, nor are the twenty-five, or so, acres that go with the rental agreement. Lyle still lives with his parents ten miles away. Along with his determination to stick it out is his philosophy that “the simpler the better” is the only way to go. He’s planning on trading his labor for feed and maybe a little pasturage, •

Though he recognizes the need for herd development and keeps a fairly sharp eye on each cow’s performance through Dairy Herd Improvement Association, and though he is working ultimately toward a totally registered herd, he wants to do it on his own terms, in his own way.

Part of that way will be his grandfather’s way, using older and simpler methods with less dependence on today’s elaborate machinery. As he says, “I want to farm in a small way, because once you become a big farm, you aren’t farming any longer.”

Romantic, to be sure, but the determination and skill are there, and though he will have to invest more capital in this very basic operation, he intends to make that investment at his own pace.

“When I first started out, everyone wanted me to think on a bigger scale, but I had already worked on the big dairy farm factories in Tampa, Florida, milking 1200 a day. That isn’t for me. You’re not farmin’ then.” And though that is not the type of big time dairy farming that Vermont suggests, he doesn’t want to be big even in the Vermont sense.

Lyle says, “It’s not so much how much you spend as how much you keep.” So he is going to trade his labor for feed, stay away from big machinery and concentrate on paying for his cows.

Then he’ll be thinking about owning his own farm. And starting a family. The family farm unit is really the only viable way, as Lyle sees it.

“I don’t want to get into one hundred cows. There’s no end to it. I couldn’t pay for it in three generations, let alone twenty years.”

Modern farming would have trouble accepting very much of this. Over and over the story is repeated: More and more equipment required to run ever growing farms, as the margin of profit becomes more and more difficult to maintain. And the larger size operation must be spread over a larger size production unit. Bigger, bigger, bigger.

To be a strong economic entity, a farm must be competitive. But Lyle Edwards, Jr., is going to try it out differently” He wants to think of alternate sources of power, perhaps, as he says, “trying out a windmill.” And he wants to think of alternate ways of supplying feed for his cows.

He is going to try out all the ideas he has had, though admitting realistically that many of them might not work. But he’s for trying them anyway.