One Couple Who Made a Difference

Last evening, Jenny and I saw the phenomenally successful documentary, “Biggest Little Farm” at Sarasota’s Burn’s Court Cinema.   I’m glad we went.  The movie is about a young Southern California couple, who acquire and revive Apricot Lane Farms, an orchard and livestock spread of 200 acres north of Los Angeles. 

John and Molly Chester, a cinematographer and TV chef respectively, are new to farming and launch the project seemingly because their barking dog, Todd, gets them evicted from their Santa Monica apartment.   

Obviously, acquiring a farm and bringing it to life, are expensive and work-intense projects.    The documentary, however, races through the gritty early stage when John and Molly manage to raise funds and inspire friends to be their supporters.  They make another brilliant decision.   They hire Dr. Alan York, a professor of agricultural science, as their coach and consultant.   Dr. York, who dies of natural causes in the midst of the project, comes off as a quirky philosopher of manure.  In fact, he was an acclaimed agriculture academic who directs the rebuilding of the farm.

The movie, expertly filmed by John, tells a simple story.  Nature is an interrelated system.   Much of John and Molly’s eight year venture took place during severe drought years in Southern California.  But under York’s guidance the Chesters were able to stay green, produce saleable orchard fruits, and absorb a monumental downpour which brought flooding to many of their neighboring farms. 

The farm suffers discouraging losses by invading birds, coyotes, and snails.  There are several grim scenes when hundreds of dead ducks and chickens need to be heaped in sickening piles.  But Molly and John press ahead without resort to poisons or bullets.  And their trust in nature’s self-balancing genius is, after eight years, rewarded by a lush productive farm that now welcomes visitors who come to be reminded of the of the old-fashioned diverse form of agriculture.

The story is told through John’s cinematography, which is aided by drones, mini-cameras, and night photography.  The full-scale documentary was not the goal of the project in the beginning, despite the fact that John was creating film footage from the beginning.   Not mentioned in the story was the fact that John produced two short films for Oprah Winfrey focused on a couple of the mini-dramas with some of the farm livestock.  Apparently, the success of these led to the decision to make the documentary that we saw last night.

As I sat in the theater, questions about the drama behind the farm began to accumulate. 

John and Molly are exceedingly compelling personalities.  Both are  media professionals, a fact obscured by the narrative that they were thrust into the Apricot Lane Farms because of an eviction over their lovable rescue dog, Todd’s, incessant barking.   The high definition filming, that glories in closeup shots of feces, dead livestock, and maggots, sails high over the gritty human realities of buying a million dollar farm, rebuilding it, and employing what I’ve discovered totaled a 60 person staff. 

I’m thinking that for most of the people in the Burns Court Theater last night it was not a revelation that ecosystems are beautifully balanced totalities of diversity and inclusion.   It would have been gratifying to learn how John and Molly put together this compelling story.   I wanted to know much more about how two young people became eco-entrepreneurs without resorting to apocalyptic fear-mongering in the face of growing environmental panic is itself a miracle. 

The story of one couple managing to do something is a triumph that exceeds the farm’s success.  Here were two people who worked their way into making a contribution.  And they clearly were having fun without resort to sermonizing, radicalism, or martyrdom.  Global warming or mass extinction are never mentioned, though every viewer would know that the drought that engulfed California during the farm’s early years was testament to global warming’s encroachment.  Molly’s pregnancy towards the end of the film and the shots of their little boy in high boots learning about the animals was ample evidence that the Chesters are flourishing. 

John and Molly have blazed a path that many of us need to follow.  We don’t need to farm.  But we do need to organize for change. 

This is a good movie.  It’s kid friendly.  But you can’t watch and forget.  The drama behind the farm is what really needs to be studied.