Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>]

This month: Voice of local food, endangered "species", and more
The following is reprinted with permission by the author, Zoe Bradbury ( 
http://e2ma.net/go/2536325914/2296962/86544400/23436/goto:http://www.valleyflorafarm.com/
 ), who is a young farmer in Langlois, Oregon.It was originally published in 
the iFarm Oregon ( 
http://e2ma.net/go/2536325914/2296962/86544399/23436/goto:http://www.friendsoffamilyfarmers.org/?page_id=130
 ) 2009 Program Newsletter.

Every time I come in from my farm fields and tune into the news these days, 
the headline is about food: food prices, food scares, food shortages, food 
riots. Food has America's attention these days, but folks are overlooking a 
critical piece of the brewing crisis: a national shortage of farmers.

We farmers make up a mere 1.6 percent of the U.S. population right now. 
Picture an inverted pyramid balanced precariously on its nose: that's our 
national food supply, with about 3 million of us feeding three hundred 
million of you. In food terms, our nation resembles an elephant perched on a 
pair of stiletto heels.

With the average age of farmers approaching 60, young farmers like me in 
short supply (a scant 5.8 percent of us are under the age of 35), and three 
quarters of the country living the city life, you'd be wise to wonder who's 
going to milk the cows and grow the grain for your morning bowl of cornflakes 
down the road. More and more, our collective knowledge about growing food is 
housed in nursing homes, and in another twenty years, today's average-aged 
farmer will be dead.

Proponents of modern industrial agriculture will argue that there's nothing 
to worry about -- that we don't need more farmers to feed ourselves; we just 
need bigger tractors, bigger farms, and biotechnology. Except for one big 
problem: oil.

America's industrial food system relies almost entirely on oil, which it 
transforms into everything from carrots to Coke by way of diesel-powered 
tractors, fossil fuel-based and mined fertilizers, oil-derived pesticides, 
and gas-guzzling trucks. When all is said and done, the average American 
"eats" 350 gallons of fossil fuel a year, and close to one fifth of all the 
energy used in the U.S. is burned up producing, processing, and transporting 
food. It means that as oil supplies peter out and fuel costs keep
ballooning, America is headed for hunger if we bet our lunch on industrial 
agriculture.

Our chance of surviving our food-production challenges -- unlike various 
other civilizations that have collapsed for lack of food throughout history 
-- hinges in part on rebuilding a whole new generation of farmers in America. 
Richard Heinberg of the Post Carbon Institute estimates we'll need about 50 
million new farmers in the next thirty years. What's more, these new farmers 
won't be able to operate under the illusion of limitless oil. The unfolding 
oil crunch is one reason I just bought a team of draft horses for my farm in 
Oregon.

Pulling off sustainable agriculture at a national and global scale is going 
to take a lot of things: land reform that gives new farmers access to 
farmland, land-use planning that prioritizes agriculture in both urban and 
rural settings, low-interest loans to help beginning farmers get their start, 
training and technical assistance to teach smart farming practices, and an
American government that puts an end to subsidizing industrial agribusiness 
and starts investing purposefully in a crop of sustainable family farmers -- 
starting with the fastest-growing segment of farm operators today: women, 
Hispanic, Asian, and Native American farmers.

It's also going to take a cultural shift that revalues the farming way of 
life, breathes life into rural towns, and throws a party when a college grad 
decides to take up a hoe for a living. A hundred years down the road and 
well-fed, we'll be looking back on these times and marveling at that short, 
weird blip in our history when almost everyone lived in cities, when we
didn't farm with horses and mules, and when eating bananas in Alaska seemed 
as normal as a sunrise.

As for the naysayers who insist that family farmers can't feed the world, 
there is no shortage of data showing that the net productivity of smaller 
scale, diversified farms can be equal to or greater than that of industrial 
monocultures. Turning the tanker may be slow, but in Oregon, we can be buoyed 
by a unique statistic that bucks the national trend: between 1997
and 2002, we grew 58 new farms. Only 49,999,942 to go.

Here inNew Mexico we also face a deficit of young farmers, and the MRCOG 
Agriculture Collaborative is currently working on developinga"Land Link" 
programfor our region, to help link young farmers with land, training, and 
the support they need to succeed. More information on this program will be 
coming soon!