Thanks, Tom, for yet another elegant and evocative essay.  There is something solid, beautiful and satisfying about that division of labor: one spouse teaches, and the other runs the farm.  My understanding is that the conventional American school year, with its long vacation between mid-June and the beginning of September, was originally designed to accommodate farming families, who needed to have their children help out during the growing season.

"Prison guard" has associations of a less happy sort ...

By the way, has your growing season been noticeably growing longer, what with global warming kicking in?  Are you planting earlier?  Do you count on larger harvests?

I do not think my husband has heard of the Community-Supported Agriculture program, but I believe he would be interested.  He is a devoted customer at the farmers' market that is set up a couple of days a week here on Broadway, between 114th and 115th Streets.

Thank you for this eye opening article.  I come from a farming family but was never part of the "big" decisions.  Recently after the passing of several of the large shareholders, talk of selling began.  It breaks my heart to think of it and have asked if we could try to put together a group of other family members to try to buy out the others. Hence I have been researching different farming models.  I was curious if the loss (24.8%)you quoted included food provided to the family from the farm.  

Biogas from manure and farm waste, wind and solar energy producing income by selling kwhs into the grid can make farms profitable again.

That can support a switch to rotational grazing and eventually to organic farming, using the organic fertilizer from the waste digestor.  

It's the new wave.  Here in wisconsin 25% of dairy farms have gone to rotational grazing.  And a substantial movement to biogas energy sales is underway as well.

Farming is a riskey biz only for small/family farms. The huge subsidies given to the Agribiz farms,at taxpayer's expense make their work easy. If you take away the artificial price supports that Agribiz gets, organic/family/small farm practices are actully more efficient and economical...and the benefits to both the environment and the health of all of us are priceless.  We all need to be aware of and to support all of the alternatives to Agribiz and to make Congress change the Farm Programs to truly reflect who needs supports and who doesn't. As usual Tom, great essay!  

The USDA has updated the hardiness zones to reflect a warmer climate.

At least one of the regional flower societies (think "Best in Show", but with daffodils) is considering moving shows to earlier in the year because of the earlier spring.

Sorry to hijack the thread, but a friend of mine asked me (knower of all things organic, presumably) why, specifically, ionizing radiation is not allowed in organic farming.

I assume that, given the holistic intention of organic farming to promote healthy soil, plants, animals, etc., radiation of any form is simply considered "bad."  But is there any specific reason?  A loss of nutrients in food?  Damage to soil?  Etc.?  Not sure how historically that rule came about, so thought I would ask our learned Gristmillers and see if anyone knew.  

Thanks,
Kaela

High-energy radiation might be okay for plants that are destined for the plate right away, but I can see two major causes for caution here:

(1) Radiation causes genetic mutations (ask a farmer in Southern Chile), so if a fertile seed happens to be irradiated and then germinate, who knows what kind of frankentomato might emerge.

(2) If any of the organic matter becomes chemically active, it might (at best) kill vitamins or (at worst) be actively harmful to ingest.

A friend of mine and I were discussing whether there was any endeavor beside screenwriting that was less sure of a successful result given the amount of hard work and tender loving care goes into it. I said "Yes. Farming." Not that that was much comfort to either of us.

...but only if you start with a large one:

#1: Train horses, especially ones that cost a fabulous amount of money (because they're always the ones who require the most expensive special treatment).

Of course, screenwriting (well, writing in general) and training horses are the pursuits of a relatively leisured society, while farming, well, isn't.  I think farming still "wins".