Alan Pittman

My grandparents operated a successful small-scale vegetable farm in West Virginia where I grew up. As a kid, I often helped them plant and harvest their crops. I grew up to become a journalist—writer, editor and photographer—but I've never forgotten my roots, and now my wife and two young kids are interested in making a significant lifestyle change to become small-scale organic market farmers. I've spent the past year intensively reading about the biologically intensive cropping systems and techniques of micro-farming pioneers such as Eliot Coleman and Jean-Martin Fortier. Their low-tech, high-yield methods are not unlike what my grandparents did. I'm clear-eyed about the hard work it takes, but this is something our family is excited to take on.