Kings County may be the land of big agriculture, but the small farmer is still around.

Except, unlike the giant agribusinesses that cover thousands of acres, the small-timers keep going by having a second career.

Whether it's firefighting, crop insurance, engineering or some other outside career, these little growers -- defined by the Agriculture Department as having 1,000 acres or less -- figure out a way to keep growing things even when it doesn't really pay to do it.

Call them stubborn. Call them lovers of the land. But whatever it is, it keep them driving the tractors, spraying the pests and harvesting their crops long after profit considerations have evaporated.

The numbers

The increase is the average size of an American farm is a bit misleading.

Steven Blank, an extension economist at the University of California, Davis, is quick to point out that while 6 percent of farm nationwide crank out about 33 percent of the total product, the sheer number of small farms still accounts for most of the production.

They are scattered all over the United States, with plenty of them tucked away outside the cities in the San Joaquin Valley.

If you look at the statistics, the relationship is almost ironclad: The smaller the farm, the greater the likelihood that the operator has another job.

Blank called it "risk management." For small guys who don't have a lot of land to experiment with, farming usually means one crop or one kind of crop. So if the market crashes for whatever it is they're growing, the farmer is in big trouble.

It's different on, say, a 5,000-acre farm on the Westside of Kings County. There, the soil is well suited to growing a wide variety of crops. And because of the size of the farms there -- assuming, of course, that they have enough water -- farmers can grow a wide variety of commodities.

The idea is the same as a good stockbroker: Diversify your portfolio so that if some stocks go up and others go down, the overall effect will stabilize.

Since planting several different crops usually isn't an option for the small farmer, the stabilizing solution is to have another career.

"Off-farm income is more stable than farm income is over time," Blank said.

What that means is that small farmers essentially do it for fun. If they make a little extra money, great, but if they don't, it's not going to break the bank because they've got backup income.

In fact, according to Blank, small farms generally lose money, mid-sized farms are usually touch-and-go and large farms make the most money.

But bleeding cash hasn't kept the small farmer away from the land. They hang on to a few acres here and there, because they like the lifestyle, Blank said.

The joy of farming

There have been times when Chris Ezaki though about the idea of giving up on his little 20-acre patch near Kingsburg. But then the 40-year-old descendant of Japanese immigrants climbs on the tractor again, drives through his orchard of organic peaches and is reminded of why he keeps coming back.

"I like things to grow," Ezaki said. "I like to see things progress."

He must like it because he's cramming it into the narrow time frame allowed by the two other careers he has.

Ezaki's mainstay is a full-time firefighter position with Tulare County that he started in January. He also works for a crop insurance company part time.

All of which takes the pressure off his main passion: Driving a tractor, fiddling around with different irrigation strategies and managing weeds and pests.

And, this year, producing 6.5 acres of organic peaches.

It's almost like it's in his genes. It's certainly in the family history.

Ezaki's maternal grandparents farmed the same land, plus some extra acres they had. It provided them a living, albeit a modest one. But then Ezaki's mother and her brothers and sisters came of age, and his grandparents hinted to them that they might want to consider other careers.

They took the hint.They chose other careers: Pharmacist. Dietitian. Optometrist.

But Ezaki vowed he would keep the farm going, especially after his maternal grandparents died in a car crash in 1985. He was 16 at the time, and already knew a lot about the harvest, having driven a tractor since he was 3 years old.

With the help of his great uncle, he rounded out his knowledge and learned how to manage the farm year-round.

But he never relied on it for his livelihood. He snuck it in between classes and Kings River Community College (now called Reedley College). He did it after getting home from a job at a hospital. He did it in between call-out for his crop insurance job.

Now he's doing it in between 48-hour shift at a fire station in Springville. Forty-eight hours of manning a fire station, back to farming, repeat the process.

Ezaki can't quite put his finger on what exactly it is that makes farming so much fun. He uses the word "freedom," but then falls back into musing.

But actions speak louder than words. The farm is still going. And Ezaki is already looking forward to retiring so he can spend more time on his beloved tractor.

The 'Energizer' farmer

The story of Steve Fukagawa sounds a lot like the story of Chris Ezaki.

In fact, the similarities are more than superficial. They both grew up in the Kingsburg area, their grandparents were good friends and they both are part of the unique legacy of Japanese-American farmers in the area.

Except Fukagawa, now 59, didn't start with the multiple career thing. Until 1999, he figured he was going to be a farmer forever. But that year, a bad freeze wiped out overnight $100,000 worth of tree and vineyard crops.

So Fukagawa went looking for an engineering job, and found it at Caltrans.

He can thank his father for that.

George Fukagawa sent his son to Cal Poly in 1967, telling him that if he didn't major in something other than agriculture, he wouldn't be getting any financial support from him.

So Fukagawa graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering.

"He said, 'If things ever go bad on the farm ... you've got an education to fall back on,'" Steve recalls.

Fukagawa, like Ezaki, has a hard time putting into words the draw, the pull, of tilling the ground and watching things grow from the soil.

By day, he's at the Caltrans office in Fresno. When he gets home, he switches to farmer mode and hits the 65-acres of organic plum, peach, pluot and nectarine trees that are more or less a family inheritance.

He said it remains a struggle. Crop prices haven't kept pace with growing planting, pest-killing and other costs. Ezaki depends on the consumers' willingness to pay the premium prices for organic produce.

It's been break-even at best for the last five years, he said.

"There's no guarantees in this business," he said.

If, as Fukagawa believes, you have to be half crazy to stay in farming, he's more than willing to apply the label to himself.

So, at 4:30 p.m., more often than not, he's home from work and out in the field.

"I think the small farmer in America ... I don't think you can wipe them out. They've got the will to survive," he said.

The reporter can be reached at 583-2432.

On the land, off the land: California's numbers

--Number of farms: 81,033

--Number of farmers who work off the farm at least part time: 54,711

--Number of farmers who describe their primary occupation as being off the farm: 40,123

Source: USDA Census of Agriculture, 2007

(Aug. 9, 2009)