Fifteen years ago, Matt and Anne Burkholder traded New Hampshire's White Mountains for Nebraska's Great Plains, taking over land that has been in Matt's family for three generations. Today their 5,000-acre farm mixes organic corn on some fields with genetically modified batches on others. Their cattle feedlot is industrial-size, yet the 2,700-head herd has room to run. It's a mix that challenges conventional notions of farming as either corporate or artisanal.

Dartmouth College grad Anne Burkholder earned $6.85 an hour learning the cattle business from her father-in-law in the 1990s.