This is a guest post by Severine von Tscharner Fleming, 27, director of The Greenhorns and farmer/activist in the Hudson Valley of New York, and Zoë Ida Bradbury, 29, Oregon farmer and Food & Society Policy Fellow.
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Coast to coast, though there are thousands inspired to dig in and grow food, but it is currently only a dauntless few who manage to gain access to the land, capital, market-savvy, and technical skills that are essential to "make it" as a farmer. Those few are brave, strong, and delightful advocates of the purposeful life, but it will take more than a few to reclaim a food system of industrial monocultures, labor abuse, and factories
Indeed, it will take the muscle and heart of a large-scale, young-farmers movement: thousands upon thousands of hands on the land -- the hands of women and immigrants, the hands of fourth-generation farm kids, the hands of college graduates and former farmworkers-turned-farmers. It will take thousands of new growers of fruits, nuts, vegetables, grains, dairy, and livestock to transform the landscape of sprawling development and corporate control into a dignified, livable, and culturally rich mosaic of ecological farming.
The young farmers now emerging seek to reclaim, restore, and resettle not only the deserted rural towns of America, but also to revive the fabric of urban life with markets, gardens, bees, corn patches and waterways. Motivated by a force of intention that cannot be rationalized economically, with lives driven by an instinct for direct action and stewardship that honors the planet, people, and place, we are the allies of every American. Our instincts are emboldened by the mercury shatter of dew on the broccoli plants at dawn, by the roar of pollinators in a flowering crop of buckwheat, and by the river of neighbors streaming through the farm-gate clamoring for "real" tomatoes and happy chickens. The hands of young farmers on the land seek to push forward an agenda of sustainability on a human scale.
There is much to learn, and there is much, as a culture, that we risk forgetting. We need these bodies, we need their work, we need their food and their protagonism. We need young farmers to succeed.
As fledgling farmers and activists within this community, we see these to be some of the key political, economic, and cultural requirements for that success:
- A hospitable policy environment that prioritizes a next generation of food producers -- not massive corporate subsidies, not cheap imports from across the world
- A regulatory framework friendly to smaller producers
- Affordable credit for capitalization of diversified farms
- Public-private partnerships to give aspiring farmers better access to farmland
- University research focused on low-input, resilient, sustainable production
- Practical, school-based, agricultural training programs (hands in the soil)
- Reformed land-use proscriptions at the community and state level -- some land and soil should never be developed
- Incubator farms to rear and train fledgling farmers and an Agricultural Journeymen program to help people navigate the path from aspiring farmer to successful new farmer.
- Processing infrastructure and facilities for fruits, meats, dairy, etc. at the local scale
- State-sponsored direct-marketing venues -- covered markets, public markets, and friendly zoning for farmers markets and farm-stands
- Comprehensive, affordable health insurance for farmers and food-workers
- Improved state-sponsored nutrition programs for at-risk, elderly and civic establishments.
- Start-up grants and an expansion of Individual Development Accounts, matched-savings program for qualified young farmers, to afford irrigation, tools, equipment, fencing, land, production infrastructure, etc.
- A cultural revaluation of farming as an ambitious, worthwhile life-venture, celebrated by family, church, and society
- Fiscal underwriting of farm-supportive NGOs and programs
- Songs, dances, parties, and festivals for young farmers in the countryside
- High-speed internet connectivity in rural places
- New farmer forums for networking, marketing, resource-sharing, processing, and farmer-to-farmer exchanges
- Access to locally grown seed and protection from transgenic pollution
- Fair wages and equal labor rights for all farmworkers, even those with "illegal" status
- Consumer education about the realities and true cost of food production
- More consumer/producer alliances such as community supported agriculture and community food cooperatives
And what is success? Success is an edible future, when local populations are fed by local fields and sensible nutrition is affordable and accessible. Where we address poverty and hunger, not with biotechnology, but with long-term access to the means of production, and with proximity to that productive plenty which we can achieve only with careful stewardship of our soil and land base -- a wealth immeasurable in dollars. Success is a smooth energy transition, a satisfying daily bread, a culture in which we have restored honor, and respect to the profession of farming.
Call to arms
Arms strong and hands calloused, eyes open to the beauty of every morning, spirits prepared for the long row still to hoe, hearts full with the support of family and community, let us unite, young farmers, and fight for the right to farmable land, the pursuit of an equitable marketplace, and for recognition from society that we are here, indispensable, a cornerstone of our food future. Let us welcome many new entrants into agriculture, striving to share our lessons, seeds and stories with generations to come. Now is the time for action.
The work of the greenhorns is sponsored by Organic Valley, Xtracycle, and the generosity of our supporters. We are looking for more funding to complete work on the documentary film The Greenhorns. Please email The Greenhorns for more information.
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Comments
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Jonas Posted 12:52 pm
15 Sep 2008
That's what young farmers 'all over the world' are really asking.
For the rest, I think the model of expensive, eco-friendly and culturally rooted food is good for niche markets (Europe, U.S., Japan). But it is obviously not yet a model for the developing world. Where people need plentiful, affordable food - no matter how it is produced (because having food is better than not having food).
Not yet. Once the people in the developing world have become as wealthy as us (in crude, hard, simplistic terms), they too might begin to look at kinder food. In order to get there, they do need a highly efficient, cost-effective farming system. I'm not sure whether the model proposed here would fit their needs.
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Russ Posted 5:18 pm
15 Sep 2008
This is just a variation on the Lomborg-Easterbrook delayer ideology, that the right response to climate change is to wait for the rest of the world to get rich, and then the problem will magically solve itself, but in the meantime do nothing - no carbon price, no regulation, no help for renewables, nothing...
It's just a misdirectional way of sticking up for the status quo.
Didn't you notice, Jonas, that this manifesto is focused on American domestic issues? Maybe you don't believe in fixing one's own collapsing house if all the houses in the neighborhood are falling apart, but many of us believe you can't do everything at once, and you have to start somewhere.
Of course you're right about the subsidies, and I don't think anyone in the slow-food, small farm, localization movement disagrees with that.
On the contrary, opposition to agribiz subsidies is implicit in this programme. It's not listed above, but then every point listed is affirmative, what people want and need, not what they're against.
This is an inspiring and salubrious vision for a social and biological transformation. Linked with a plan for political reorganization along the lines of watershed districts and decentralized renewable generation, we have the ideas which can carry us through the flame of Peak Oil, the probably violent unraveling of the debt economy, and energy descent.
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vakibs Posted 6:46 pm
15 Sep 2008
and the title says "we young farmers, all over the world.. "
Jonas is right.. word for word.
Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.
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Russ Posted 8:12 pm
15 Sep 2008
"Coast to coast", "the hands of women and immigrants, the hands of fourth-generation farm kids, the hands of college graduates and former farmworkers-turned-farmers", "the young farmers now emerging seek to reclaim, restore, and resettle not only the deserted rural towns of America, but also to revive the fabric of urban life with markets, gardens, bees, corn patches and waterways".
Sure sounds like America to me.
Beyond that, the mainfesto, as Jonas but not you recognized, clearly presupposes a 1st world democracy.
Next time read more than just the title.
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Jonas Posted 12:30 am
16 Sep 2008
A local food movement in Europe or America could be a real threat to farmers in Kenya and Cameroon.
Also, the author of the article calls for loads of money to support the proposed farming concepts. Isn't it so that there's not an infinite amount of money and that, thus, you do have to make choices (as a government)?
Why don't we come to some brilliant meeting point: abolish the billions of subsidies thrown at wealthy industrial farmers in Europe and America (farmers who don't need the money), and give half of these billions to Zoe's farmers, and the other half to the farmers in the developing world, who could use the money to modernise.
What's so horrible about this?
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Rebecca T of HonestMeat Posted 1:51 am
16 Sep 2008
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Tom Philpott Posted 1:53 am
16 Sep 2008
Victual Reality
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Tom Philpott Posted 1:59 am
16 Sep 2008
Victual Reality
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Russ Posted 2:38 am
16 Sep 2008
But as energy descent and the implosion of the debt economy take hold and all that funny money evaporates, nations which are now elephantine will have to get smaller whether they want to or not. There will no longer be the oil or the credit to keep civilization going like this. That's one of the reasons for localization - to prepare for this inevitable correction and drawdown.
Now, I don't know which country you're in or how relatively solvent it is. But America faces critical challenges to somehow maintain its existing infrastructure long enough to provide a transition space while we build a renewables-based energy system and post-sprawl societal and farming layout, and do all this under the shadow of an oil crunch, and do all this with real wealth, which will only be a fraction of the funny-money debt wealth America has been fraudulently running up since the 70s, and do all this while keeping a lid on the fascist recrudescence we see starting to crawl out of the sewer these days grunting "Burn Baby Burn".
Is all this even possible? One thing's for sure - America is going to need every penny and every drop of sweat just to salvage something of itself. It's not going to be able to continue as an imperialist.
Also, the author of the article calls for loads of money to support the proposed farming concepts. Isn't it so that there's not an infinite amount of money and that, thus, you do have to make choices (as a government)?
Indeed, choices which are going to get harder and harder. Just look at how much theoretical wealth which existed at the beginning of the year no longer exists.
Why don't we come to some brilliant meeting point: abolish the billions of subsidies thrown at wealthy industrial farmers in Europe and America (farmers who don't need the money), and give half of these billions to Zoe's farmers, and the other half to the farmers in the developing world, who could use the money to modernise.
What's so horrible about this?
Nothing horrible about it in principle, but with whatever shrunken residuum of "billions" is left once the debt unravelling shakes out, it's going to be very tough to find just the money to give a boost to domestic small farmers, as well as the renewables and electrified mass transit infrastructure (every cent of which will have to be prised from the grip of the special interest dead-enders and bunker-hunkerers).
In spite of its triumphalist propaganda, America is basically bankrupt, with its physical assets (many of them by now depleted or degraded) currently in the hands of a few monopolists. So for the American people just to take back their property is going to be an excruciating task, and who knows what condition it's going to be in, or what we'll be able to do with it.
Maybe things are different in your country, and maybe the things you advocate might be feasible there, but you're mistaken if you see America as this intact wealth colossus. That's just a castle built on sand.
So that's why I object when you attack the so far modest grass-roots attempts here to put ideas into play and scrape out an outline of what a more benign type of farming organization would be.
Agriculturally, ecologically, economically, politically, and socially the current system is toxic. By trying to play off one group of victims against another you only help keep it so.
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pasm Posted 4:22 pm
16 Sep 2008
When the average American farmer is 55 years old, and it takes probably 5 to 10 years for a farm enterprise to turn a profit (from what I've read and from talking to older experienced farmers), the emphasis on "young" new farmers (often defined as under 35 I think?), can be looked at as a long-term investment in food security. I hope that 10 years from now, I'll still be growing yummy, healthy food for my community. I'm actually a big fan of the Farmer-Veteran Coalition (http://www.farmvetco.org/) which helps another subset of Americans enter ag. We self-described greenhorns are just one group among many trying to farm sustainably.
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AdamG Posted 2:11 am
18 Sep 2008
You argue we need to support farmers from Third World countries to the expense of the wealthy industrial farmers in America and Europe. I farm in America, California even, and I would like to meet some of these wealthy farmers you speak of. Wealthy in land and equipment, maybe, but money, geneally not.
I would argue that we farmers fates all over the world are one and the same. By keeping prices paid to farmers low, we keep all farmers in institutionalised poverty. In industrialised countries, farmers are forced to capitalise in equipment, chemicals, etc. at ever increasing rates in order to even attempt to compete. In Third World countries, where productivity rates per hectare and per worker are much lower, low prices keep farmers in poverty by not giving them enough capital to invest in modernisation. In many cases, modernisation simply means metal farm implements, draft animals, improved (and really improved, not GE) seed and livestock, etc. as there is much of the world where farmers tools have not progressed much beyond neolithic times.
By keeping farmers undercapitalised, the productivity per hectare and per worker remain low. This leads to both food insecurity and over dependence upon usually pricey imports. This results in even more extensive flights of capital to the exporting countries (where it doesn't make it's way to those countries farmers, either) limiting the amount of capital available for investments in other industries.
By saying we have to support one group at the expense of another is just further buying into the staus quo. We can have fair, equitable, and dignified work for everyone. We can have healthy, wholesome, and ecologically appropriate food available to everyone.
To argue otherwise is to concede defeat.
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Saara Posted 3:51 am
20 Sep 2008
The Grange offers some insurance services, and most importantly political power. It seems that young farmers can join this existing organization and modernize it. More info at http://www.nationalgrange.org/
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