Field Work: A Family Farm

"Field Work: A Family Farm" tells the story of the Swansons, farmers who struggle to stay family-size in an era of mega-farms. In the last sixty years, technology and economics have reshaped America's agricultural landscape. As farms grow huge and land prices rise, the younger generation is fleeing farming. But Judy and Charlie Swanson pursue a dream of farming with their sons as one extended family. When son Jeremy purchases his first eighty acres, he plants a stake in the ground the likes of which few of his generation will know. Following the family through several seasons, filmmaker John Helde encounters a cast of determined and individualistic characters, drawing a portrait of one Midwest community as he tries to unravel where that American icon - the family farm - is headed in the twenty-first century.