After the birth of their first son, Henry, three-and-a-half years ago, Dominic and Jessica Green began to evaluate their life together. “I was teaching Pilates and Dom was acting, and I would pace the halls thinking, What are we leaving behind? What is the legacy?”

That legacy would be at the forefront of Jessica’s mind is no surprise, as her family legacy is well established, and one that most Chicagoans are familiar with. She’s the granddaughter of Richard Duchossois, founder and chairman of The Duchossois Group, which owns Arlington Park, Illinois’s largest horseracing track, and the legendary Churchill Downs, home of the Kentucky Derby. Her family is heavily involved in local philanthropic organizations and are regular attendees at benefits across the city.

  Dominic gathers eggs in the early morning

With their own growing family in mind (their second son, Oliver, was born last year), the Greens took stock of their interests, namely their shared passion for food. After toying with the idea of opening a restaurant, the duo realized that their dream lifestyle involved being outdoors and working with food. “Farming was the answer,” says Dominic. Jessica signed them up for a course through Stateline Farm Beginnings, a program that helps people establish their own farms. Helmed by Angelic Organics (whom Jessica calls “the granddaddy of small-scale farming in Illinois”), the six-month course offers guidance in business planning, hands-on training, and field-day workshops from CRAFT (the Collaborative Regional Alliance for Farmer Training). Shortly after completing their course, they carved out an acre behind Jessica’s mother’s home in Barrington, which backs on to her family’s 600-acre horse farm, and dug in, practicing their skills during the 2010 season, in which they just provided vegetables to friends and family, before officially launching this year.

Lay of the Land
For a young couple to shun mainstream careers and embark on a life as farmers is a trend that is taking off across the country, thanks in part to increased government funding to young farmers—this year, $18 million dollars was given to help train growers with less than 10 years of experience. But while the idea is a romantic, novel-worthy notion, in reality, it’s a challenging, labor-intensive lifestyle. On a typical day, Dominic is in the field at seven in the morning, collecting eggs from his nearly 40 chickens, and works until sundown sowing new seeds and weeding by hand. “If you’re an organic farmer, 50 percent of your work is a battle against weeds and bugs.” The Greens’ farm is one of dozens of organic farms in the Chicago area (and one of thousands across the country). But actual organic farm statistics are hard to find: While many farms—including The Gentleman Farmer—are technically organic (they don’t use pesticides or herbicides, relying instead on natural methods like floating row-cover fabric and old-fashioned crop rotation to prevent pests and disease), most small farmers veer away from being legally certified. The process is expensive, and to many, the phrase isn’t as weighty or important as it once was. “The term organic, the designation, has been hijacked by big agriculture, so farms tend to stay away from the official certification,” says Dominic. “But customers know their farmers. They know where their food comes from and can visit the farm and see how we grow things. They can look [the farmer] in the eye, and know that if the farmer says he’s not spraying, they can trust him.”