"Do only what is necessary." This simple principle has made farming fun again for Tom Larson, a 3rd generation farmer/rancher in east central Nebraska. On low rolling hills about 120 miles west of Omaha, Larson farms a "short quarter" (slightly less than 160 acres), with about half of his acres in a cattle grazing system, the other half in organic row crop production.

"I never intended to become an organic grower," says Tom. "For me, it has been a very gradual change from the conventional system, in which farmers work the field two or three times in the spring. I found myself asking, 'Is twice enough?' So I tried that for a while, then asked, 'Is once enough?' Now I don't work the soil at all prior to planting. The less equipment I have, the happier I am. When I want to simplify the system, I run test plots to see if the elimination of one step has an economic advantage or disadvantage."

Field day on the Larson farm (Tom, center)

A short quarter is a very small farm for this part of Nebraska, but, by accessing premium organic and pastured beef markets, Tom's farm is on average 3-5 times more profitable per acre than his neighbors.

"I have exchanged a lot of equipment costs and annual capital expenditures for increased management and labor. With less debt load and adequate returns, I have a very comfortable standard of living. Some farmers are moving their equipment up and down the road to farm acreage sometimes 30 miles apart. My neighbors are always doing something. With just my one small farm to worry about, I can be away for 30-40 days of the year, and I like to travel. This kind of farming is flexible and low-capital. To me that's fun."

Tom uses an innovative combination of crop and grazing rotations to get the greatest possible yields from the land he works. For his organic row crops, he uses a narrow strip system, with rows of corn, followed by soybeans and oats or barley. This small grain strip is harvested in mid-July and replanted in turnips. Then by the time the corn and soybeans are harvested, he can move his cattle onto the field to graze on crop stubble and turnip greens. Every year, he rotated the strips, in early spring planting small grains in the corn strip from the previous year, corn in the soybean strip, soybeans in the small grain/turnip strip.

To maintain soil fertility, Larson spreads cow manure on the corn strips each year. Every fourth year the entire field comes out of row crop production, and is seeded to alfalfa and grazed by cattle. "A cow will leave about 80% of what she eats back out on the ground. One year of recycling nutrients on-site gives a good fertility shot to last another 2-3 years."

About half of the farm is dedicated to an intensive pasture grazing system. Each year he moves about 60 animal units through a system of thirty 2-acre paddocks. Each paddock has an outlet to access water from gravity-fed underground irrigation pipes. The water is brought to the surface in a 50-gallon tub with a float valve, which is moved from paddock to paddock with the cattle.

"I rotate the animals through this grazing system for two months in the spring, then put them into the alfalfa seeding where they graze for 2-4 weeks. Then they go into a little area where I grow grazing maize, then back into the pasture system for one or more rotations until it's time to put them into the crop stubble and turnip greens. Cattle develop a taste for the turnips. They say 'You can cut the legs off a cow and they'll still walk to Omaha for a turnip.'"

With his organic grains and soybeans, crop rotation is Larson's primary weed management strategy. "If you plant a certain field in corn year after year, you'll get a certain population of weeds that can tolerate or favor that system. With a different crop in each strip each year, my strip-system has a built-in rotation. This seems to reduce the weed and insect pressure - keeps everything confused, including the neighbors."

To control the weeds he does get, he lets the weeds do the work. "Research in the last few years at Iowa State University has shown that if you let early season weeds grow, express themselves, and then kill them through tillage, they act as a natural herbicide. Once they are up and growing, most plants will emit some kind of gas in the air or soil profile that suppresses germination of seeds of the same species in the area." Larson uses a small modified grain drill to plant seed as he undercuts and kills the weeds - all in one pass.

Corn, bean, oat and turnip strips in late summer

"I do only what is necessary. Sustainability is the ultimate goal - the social, economic, and environmental issues and how we balance those - and organic farming can be part of that. There is no one sustainable model that I know of. Since farming and ranching are so different from one place to another, we can look at several models of sustainability, and compare them to determine which is the best for a particular area. But we can't say that one model fits everything. In some cases that scale may tip one way or another, and the people and policies in that area should determine that."

"We need to get the American public to realize that for a secure food system and healthy communities, these smaller more diversified operations are desirable, because they tend to focus on a balance of economic, social and environmental issues. We can affect this through public policy debates. There are models across the world we can learn from, that reward farmers and ranchers for doing a better job, and others that focus on punishing producers that don't pay attention to issues. The basic stick and carrot routine. We need a combination."

"The only thing that differentiates between a fool and a visionary is the passage of time. If I'm still in business in 20 years, we'll know. In the meantime, I'm having fun farming."

Tom Larson
RR #1, Box 250 St.
Edward, NE 68660
Tel: (402) 687-2456

[Table of Contents]