Agriculture in the United States is in transition. Misplaced assumptions about the use of ‘our’ natural resources have allowed the country to realize an awesome and seemingly limitless productivity. At the same time, the continual production of cheap agricultural commodities has discounted our future by ignoring the real costs of energy and of human and environmental health.
In addition, rural communities and infrastructures have been destroyed as capital replaces labor, as volume production and monocultural practices expand and as markets grow more vertically integrated and corporately-controlled. Most small farmers require off-farm employment, often two or more jobs/ household, to make ends meet. Many farm children, evaluating the difficult and disappointing lifestyle of their parents, want nothing more to do with farming. Others have little hope of acquiring the farmland sufficient for a secure living and way of life.
The lack of a sensible agricultural farmland protection policy is forcing small, family-scale farmers to sell out to the developer. The land has greater value for malls and subdivisions than it does for agricultural production. Unlike most farmers, a mobile urban elite can purchase a country estate. The expansion of this population into rural towns and townships increases taxes, places restrictions on farm odor and activity, and further threatens the capacity of farmers to continue living and farming near urban centers.
What is lost is far more than individual farms; a rural ethic and the knowledge of farming itself also disappear. Urban transplants, like the public at large, no-longer know how to raise their own food, how to care for their natural environment, or how to live in a community of place. They are physically and mentally separated from one another and the source of their food supply, just as farming systems are functionally segmented, designed to suit industrial processes and long distance transportation. Endless mechanical ‘solutions’ are used to address complex organic problems.
During the project, we have witnessed all these tragic losses. We experienced the death of a farmer visionary. We have seen the urban encroachment affect the vitality of a farm. We have witnessed urban wrath on urban fringe vegetable growers. We have observed the disinterest of urban and suburban residents to work on-farm a few hours each week to obtain quality produce.
At the same time, we have seen the enormous hope and energy that an ‘enlightened’ group of smaller farmers is willing to invest in the soil and in the future. They see the value of biological diversity. They use cover crops and green manures. They are willing to re-integrated animals into their farming operations for pest control, for economic benefit and for aesthetics.
Our project has been one of learning as well as one of frustration. We have had the pleasure of working with wonderful farm families who have welcomed us into their homes. They provided us with nourishment and encouragement, even under the weight of the potential of losing their farm. We went to their funerals and were moved by their love and dedication to each other and the land.
Our farm families supported our students trying to learn from them but they also taught the students about farming ethics. Some of our expectations were beyond the farmer's capacities. Their desire to work with us was often overshadowed by their need to make a living.
Once again, it appears that the risk and responsibility for a ‘new’ agriculture has been given over to farmers. Sustainable farming practices are essential, but they are hardly sufficient. Without a supporting culture — without engaged non-farming residents, without protective township boards and county commissions, without state and national policies to constrain development — a diversified, regionally-based food and farming system can not survive.
Programs must also be initiated that bring citizens face to face with their natural landscape and its capacity to feed them now and into the future. It will mean understanding and paying the full cost of food. It will mean altering consumption patterns (eating locally and in season), rethinking convenience, and making significant life-style (and energy use) changes. A sustainable agriculture and food supply is ultimately dependent on a sustained community effort in which all residents recognize the benefits that attach to the wise use of the earth.
As researchers and concerned citizens, we can best support the efforts of innovative farmers like those in our study by 1) compensating them fully for their time and talents just as we would any other ‘expert’ and 2) actively educating local populations and governing bodies about the future of food and farming in the country and the region. We need more people to appreciate and financially support small farmers. We need more people to feel the way one resident did after putting forty of our free-range, organically-fed, research birds in his freezer. "If my mother could only see me now," he sighed, "She’d know I was a rich man."