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Jan 25th 2012
YFC 2011: The Future of Farming
Of the hundreds of facts and figures emanating from the 2011 Young Farmers Conference, a few provide insight into the surging interest in farming among young Americans and what is helping animate this movement.
- - While the average age of U.S. farmers today is 57, the average age of organic farmers is 34.
- - America loses 2 acres of farmland per minute.
- - Corporate control over food and agricultural production has intensified: today, 75% of our food is produced by only 192,000 farmers, out of a total of 2.2 million farmers.
- - The planet’s ecological capital has eroded severely: 25% of land has been degraded.
Fred Kirschenmann, noted farmer, theologian, philosopher and president of Stone Barns Center’s Board of Directors, called on young farmers to help create a new paradigm in America’s food system to carry us into a future riddled with challenges, such as a world population that just topped 7 billion. “We need to grow food in partnership with nature rather than through domination,” he said in his closing remarks.
In a conference session titled “Agriculture 3.0—The Future of Farming,” Steffen Schneider, of Hawthorne Valley Farm, said this paradigm shift is already afoot. As we move from Agriculture 1.0 (traditional peasant wisdom agriculture) and beyond Agriculture 2.0 (industrial agribusiness), Agriculture 3.0 “is poised to be a vehicle to fix a lot of problems plaguing society today,” he said, among them environmental degradation, people’s alienation from the land, the obesity epidemic and human diseases.
“The future cannot be based on unlimited material growth, and young farmers are already moving beyond this,” said Kirschenmann. “Young farmers have a smart, clear vision of what’s needed—and their movement couldn’t be more timely.”
So, what is this young farmer movement—and is it the future of farming? What are the ties that bind together these young and beginning farmers from across the country into a movement?
Conference-goers helped give voice and meaning to the concept and its implications for the future. Common denominators include an embrace of small-scale, sustainable farming methods and environmental and social responsibility, and a rejection of heavy chemical and energy inputs and industrial-scale farming. Yet these mostly first-generation farmers do not reject all of the wisdom of their elders, nor all of what’s come before them. They take the best of traditional knowledge and know-how and combine it with their own brand of experimentation and new technology. Their common goal is the creation of a diverse and regionalized food economy over a mechanized, globalized system.
Jake was a bit of an anomaly among the farmers gathered at the conference: one who grew up on a farm. Only an estimated 12% of young farmers today grew up on farms. But Jake’s path back to the land mirrors that of his peers. After receiving an MA in fine arts and spending several years in art residencies around the country, Jake took up a farming apprenticeship in Virginia that convinced him to return to his family’s sheep and cattle farm near Bowdoinham, Maine. “The cool thing about my folks is that they’re pretty much completely open to whatever we want to do there,” he said.
The “we” are Jake and his farmer-girlfriend, Abby Sadauckas, who together are currently mapping out plans to combine farming forces and make their operation certified organic. (Both are deeply involved with the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association.) The couple met in art grad school at the Vermont College of Fine Arts, and Abby currently raises cashmere goats, laying hens and a small flock of geese about an hour north of Bowdoinham.
Despite some hesitancy to identify themselves as part of a “movement,” Jake and Abby concede that the tide of young farmers is indeed rising. “The return to the land is important and real,” said Abby. “I think the common thread is, we can change the world—our farm and this farm and that farm, all together.” With a grounded caveat from Jake: “If not the world, then your community and state. If we can move toward feeding the state through local and regional food networks—that’s a start.”