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Ask any 5-year-old: Few tools symbolize the farm like a trundling tractor. In fact, you’d have to reach further back in time to find an equally enduring symbol: the horse. And while there’s little doubt that tractors have revolutionized farm labor and made farms much more efficient than they were in past centuries, a growing number of farmers are taking the back-to-the-land ethos as far as it will go and choosing horses and mules over John Deere.

“Maybe it’s a [glimpse] into the future,” says Adam Davidoff, co-owner of New Family Farm in Sebastopol, Calif. Davidoff is 25 and relatively new to farming; he works with a team of three draft horses to pull various farm implements that prepare beds, cultivate, plant, and harvest row crops. But he also sees horsepower as a proactive approach to mitigating negative environmental changes. Instead of buying manure or fertilizer, farms with draft animals have a built-in source; they also compact the soil less than machines — a big concern for farmers who want to develop and conserve healthy soil for years to come. He also sees them as a kind of back up plan. “If we have some sort of a collapse … draft horses could become a lot more viable,” he says.

Farmers may choose to lead draft animals for sustainability reasons, but they quickly learn it also changes the pace of the operation. In sharp contrast to working with tractors, Davidoff explains that horses slow you down. “Stopping, breathing, and rubbing their bellies — just letting them settle into it — forces me to take smaller and slower steps.” He believes the horses have had a profound impact on other aspects of the way he farms.

A farmer who relies primarily on animal power has to cultivate patience, Davidoff explains. “When you work with horses, you have to let go of the expectation that you’re going to get everything done today.” He works longer hours, but at a slower pace than he would on a mechanized farm — and he enjoys it more. “None of it’s drudgery and dreary,” he says. “It’s beauty made extremely efficient.”