MNN - Mother Nature Network

 

Greg Hetrick, 49, always knew he would grow up to run Village Edge, the farm that’s been in his family for five generations. “My parents didn’t tell me that I had to come back,” he says. “I just didn’t want to go to college after high school. I was happy working on the farm.” Today, Hetrick and his brother Dennis run Village Edge together.

 

Greg attributes the company’s modest but continued success to being open to change and investing in new equipment—but only when they have the resources. “My father always said if you didn’t have the money or couldn’t get it soon, then you didn’t spend it,” Hetrick says. Slow growth has been another key to sustaining the business; he’s kept the current herd of 130 cows for about a decade.

 

Hetrick began adopting sustainable farming practices in 1991. After the farm received its organic certification in 1997, Village Edge partnered with four other farms to found Organic Choice, a jointly held corporation that sells its milk—together with milk that it buys from other small farmers—on the open market, helping all of them to reduce costs. This new venture has been a good lesson in how to run a business, says Hetrick, who now regularly attends sales and marketing meetings. That’s in addition to a seven-day workweek that starts at 4:30 every morning, when Hetrick begins the first of two daily milkings, and progresses to tasks like cleaning out stalls, routine veterinary work (using homeopathic remedies in place of antibiotics), and harvesting and preparing hay while the cows munch fresh grass. “There’s nothing better than seeing a cow out at pasture,” he says. “You see these old cows out there kicking their heels up, like a bunch of little children running out in the playground.” His son and nephew pitch in, along with foreign exchange students he’s hired. He makes a point of eating every meal with his family.

• Lundberg Family Farms - California