The Biggest Little Farm 2018
I had never heard of this movie until it showed up as being rented by my Mom at my sister’s recommendation on my family Vudu account. This is a documentary about and by a man and his wife who leave their Los Angeles apartment, get a loan, and start an organic farm in California. This is not a great way to start a farm. They seem to have no background or experience in planting crops or raising animals other than some balcony gardening and owning a dog. Farming isn’t easy and doing the kind of farming they are doing is much harder. Instead of raising one crop, they want as much diversity as possible, so they are raising dozens (hundreds?) of crops and raising all kinds of animals. They spend a bunch of money on a building for worm composting which seems like a huge investment for limited payoff. We don’t learn the nuts and bolts of their operation, so I don’t know how things worked out financially but they got a run down farm that at least already had a well and plenty of water in the aquifer, which is an enormous plus in that area, essentially a desert.. The movie follows these two as they start from almost scratch and work for years trying to get their farm running in harmony with nature. There are a lot of challenges and many ups and downs, but they stick with it for years and it seems to be working. Parts of it seem maybe too easy and I wonder what kind of compromises they make with some of their ideals in order to get a product. Every now and then I would figure out a solution to some problem before it was revealed, but mostly it is amazing to watch how some things work out. They are blessed to be able to sell what I imagine are very expensive farm products to people who are able to pay a large premium for sustainable organic food. Still, it is a neat story about one of the most basic professions, and therefore something anyone can relate to.
Written: 26 Apr 2020