If You Build It, They Will Come

We hear a lot about the difficulties farmers have these days. Well, Keith Richard of Green Gold Farm in Pembroke, New Hampshire, has come up with a clever solution to save the family farm: replacing acres of hayfields with four soccer pitches. For practices, he charges $25 per player for the season and and now earns seven times as much money as when he was working the land. His bread and butter is the local Pembroke Academy, which uses the fields regularly for soccer and lacrosse practice.

A regional rugby club is another frequent customer. During tournaments ($50 per hour), he often hosts teams from as far away as New York.

With the help of friends and relatives, Keith built the first two playing fields in 2000 and is in the planning stages for numbers 5 and 6.