In 2018, John Chester released the critically acclaimed documentary, “The Biggest Little Farm.”
In the film, Chester and his wife, Molly, purchase a 234-acre farm in Moorpark, California, and painstakingly transform the arid land into a functional, sustainable farm over the course of seven years.
The documentary, which The Times hailed as a “lovely, soul-feeding film,” is now getting a long-anticipated follow-up with the November 8 premiere of “The Biggest Little Farm” docuseries on YouTube.
In the series, the Chesters continue the challenging — and still oft rewarding — task of finding harmony with nature.
“One of the taglines for the series is ‘The Way is Wild,’” Chester told Good Good Good. “And, you know, it really is about being comfortable with the feral unpredictability of inviting the natural system back to life.”
For example, Chester points to a “gopher” situation that got out of hand.
“On our farm, we would spend — as crazy as it sounds — probably about $100,000 a year catching about 10,000 gophers.”
According to Chester, the gophers were running rampant and attacking the roots of trees across their farm, destroying entire root systems.
“If it's costing us about $10 a gopher to trap … then what is the value of any predator that eats that gopher?” Chester recalled asking. “And so when we started doing the numbers, we came up with this crazy sort of report after several years showing that barn owls were eating around 35,000 gophers a year on our farm.”
For years, the farmers had also dealt with coyotes, which had encroached on the territory to feed on their chickens. But when they took a second look, the Chesters realized that the coyotes were more helpful than harmful.
“Coyotes were eating what we ended up determining was about $50,000 worth of gopher,” he said. “There are 10 coyotes on average around the farm, divided into two to three different packs. And so here you have this, essentially this return on the investment in creating habitats and not necessarily going to kill every single thing that’s a source of an issue, like a coyote killing some chickens. You have to kind of weigh it against the value of the coyote.”
The “gopher” situation ended up shedding light on a slew of natural predators and prey in their local ecosystem.
“Baja California chorus frogs, they’re eating thrips,” Chester explained. “And thrips are one of the, you know, primary sort of adversaries in the early development of an avocado.”
The winged insects bite avocados when they are “baby-sized,” and that bite eventually turns into a scar. It’s a purely cosmetic problem that doesn’t affect the quality of the fruit, but it does downgrade the market value of the avocado considerably.
“There was a period of time where we were getting a lot of damaged fruit, but we’ve never had to fight it, because there are so many predators of the thrips because of this diverse system that we've created,” Chester explained. “Gopher snakes, weasels, badgers, all of these creatures are also going and fighting and mitigating the gopher issue.”
It’s all part of the Chesters’ greater farming philosophy, which welcomes nature back into farming.
“You have to be comfortable with the feral unpredictability of inviting the natural system back to life,” Chester told Good Good Good. “The decision to make tough calls and tough decisions never stops.”
“We’ve become, I think, easily complacent with what it means to understand these various systems and detached ourselves from being able to decode it,” he added. “But it’s fun, right? And so for this generation of farmers that are getting into regenerative or biodynamic farming, it is an active participant sport that never stops.”
For the Chesters, it was important to keep their new series free and accessible.
“I [thought] if we can figure out a way to give this thing away on YouTube, it will have the opportunity to reach the global audience that may be inspired and feel the hope for their future and develop a new way of seeing this infinite resilience that exists in these natural systems so that they can be the innovators of tomorrow,” Chester said. “We don’t need people more scared about what's happening. We need them to lean into this with curiosity.”
The impact of “The Biggest Little Farm” and its emphasis on sustainable farming goes beyond their new docuseries.
In January 2027, the Rodale Institute, American Farmland Trust and FarmLore Films will launch The Biggest Little Farm Classroom, a STEM curriculum that teaches children about regenerative organic agriculture.
“We want children to grow up knowing that healthy food and healthy people start with healthy soil,” Jeff Tkach, CEO of Rodale Institute, said in a press release. “The Biggest Little Farm makes that connection through a story that invites them to wonder, ask questions, and explore. Our hope is that what begins as curiosity grows into a lasting commitment to caring for the land and the life it supports.”
The course will be available to download for schools everywhere. For the Chesters, it’s a dream collaboration years in the making.
“Teachers have told us that since the film came out, it changes lessons from forced learning to real curiosity,” Chester said. “Wendell Berry said ‘it all turns on affection.’ The story opens kids’ hearts and helps them fall in love with the natural world. We care for what we love, and we become more curious about it. Then the science follows.”
See the trailer for the new docuseries here:
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Featured Image: 2026 FARMLORE FILMS, LLC
