Four years ago, a mortgage broker and his wife moved from Naples, Florida, to North Carolina in the wake of the 2008 recession and bought 40 acres of land to start a farm.

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In Snow Camp, N.C., an unincorporated community in Alamance County, John Campbell spends his days working on what he calls an "act of faith." He wakes up before 8 a.m. everyday to tend to Dinner Bell Farm, a farm nestled in the North Carolina countryside just 40 minutes south from UNC-Chapel Hill. Using regenerative techniques to give back to the Earth as much as he takes out, "We’re market garden farmers. I grow things for this garden that I sell to restaurants and CSA and to farmer’s market," he says. He helps supply about 5,500 people in Snow Camp and even more beyond with fresh, local produce.

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And with Dinner Bell Farm, he wants to leave a legacy, a feat easier said than done. "I’m reworking this, whether it’s really gonna work or not. ‘Cause I’m afraid it isn’t working," Campbell says. "I could have a job, I could make $50,000 pretty easy doing something... I make 0 per year. And then I spend everything that the farm makes." His children, Sarah and James have recently expressed interested in contributing to the four-year-old farm. "I wanted, when I started, to create a business here in this field that [they] could take over if they wanted to."