Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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Documenting Young and Passionate New Farmers
http://organicconnectmag.com/wp/2011/11/documenting-young-and-passionate-new-farmers/#.Ttzs5NSZHGA

Industrial agriculture has left our soil infertile, has destroyed 
biodiversity, and has produced foods lower in nutrients and abundant with 
pesticides. On top of that, according to the new documentary Greenhorns, the 
average age of the American farmer is 57. Where is the next generation of 
farmers, and how are they going to usher in a new age of sustainable 
agriculture? Greenhorns documents the answer. They’re here, they’re young, 
their farms are sustainable, and they’re passionate about what they’re doing.

Greenhorns is the product of producer and director Severine von Tscharner 
Fleming. Severine grew up on a farm, studied agriculture in college, and 
finally became a young sustainable farmer herself. She was inspired to make 
the documentary by the proliferation of negative messages on farming.

“I was in college at UC Berkeley,” Severine told Organic Connections. “I had 
been organizing educational seminars, workshops and speakers to talk about 
sustainable agriculture, and then I got the idea to do a film festival. The 
movies that I was showing about farming were all great, but they were kind of 
negative. So I felt as if we needed one that was a bit more positive. When 
some of the filmmakers whose films I was premiering came out, I said, ‘Let’s 
go on an adventure and shoot some film,’ and they said, ‘Great!’ That was the 
start.”

As she traveled across the US shooting the movie, Severine discovered young 
farmers working sustainably throughout the country—many more than people may 
think are out there. “It’s funny, because when I started, it was just a 
hunch, like, ‘Man, I bet a lot of people are feeling this feeling!’” Severine 
recounted. “I had apprenticed in college during the summers and so I knew 
that there was an organic farming scene in Northern California. I was aware 
there was something going on, but I didn’t realize at the time how widespread 
it was and I’m still continually amazed.”

In the film, we see numerous inspiring stories of young people starting and 
running farms of many types. One couple met in college in Pittsburgh, decided 
to leave the city behind and are now farming wheat in West Virginia and 
selling their bread to local towns. A young man in Georgia grew up on a farm, 
moved away, then realized how much it meant to him and returned, helping 
convert his father’s conventional farm to a sustainable one. A San Francisco 
woman who had been watching a broad vacant lot from the roof of her building 
tracked down the owner, asked if she could farm there, and he agreed. There 
are many more.

The tales are as distinctive as the people involved. “It’s a very individual 
question as to why farmers decide to do it,” Severine said. “For me, it has a 
lot to do with spending time outdoors, being a productive member of society, 
being political, and having the space and time to think my own thoughts. For 
others it has to do with climate change and relocalizing the food system. 
Some people are passionate about plant breeding, or they’re passionate about 
heritage animals, or they’re passionate about cheese.”

While she was filming, Severine found herself organizing events to help get 
new farmers started. “As we were trying to raise the money to make the film, 
we were also figuring out what story we were going to tell and what the 
issues of the young farmers were,” Severine explained. “When we began 
filming, we were traveling to various farms and interviewing different 
farmers, and somehow it turned into organizing events. There’s not really 
been a line between the documentary process and the community organizing part 
of it; throwing parties for farmers has been a big thing since the beginning. 
They are never only parties, however; they’re always a party with a lecture 
or a party with a workshop.

“The purpose of the parties is to bring farmers together with non-farmers. 
Those who are not yet farming can start thinking more practically about how 
they’re going to start farming. There’s also the opportunity for peer-to-peer 
networking. It’s about building a strong community so that the people who are 
entering agriculture feel supported, know what the next steps are, and have a 
sense of what to expect. They can become a part of the gossip, the flirtation 
and the eating—the culture of farming—and they’re not all alone.”

Thus was formed the Greenhorns nonprofit organization, the purpose of which 
is to recruit, promote and support young farmers in America. Greenhorns’ 
network of young farmers has expanded beyond Severine’s wildest imaginings, 
as she discovers in her regular travels around the country to host events for 
new farmers. “We have 7,000 in our network currently,” she said. “I’m on my 
way home now from Idaho, Eastern Washington and New Mexico, and it’s 
everywhere! We had a theater in Bellingham, Washington, and there were 150 
young farmers there. We were in Spokane and there’s a whole urban farm scene 
in Spokane. Baltimore has an amazing urban farming scene. Philadelphia . . . 
Even in places that don’t have particularly hospitable climates and are 
post-industrial cities, if it’s an area that is affordable to live, then a 
lot of people with energy are moving there and are getting involved in 
something that feels real, powerful, life affirming and very relevant.”

As the film rolls out in showings, Greenhorns is asking for donations both in 
money and organic food from local purveyors for events

Part of the Greenhorn mission is to make a difference in US farm policy, 
which, throughout the years, has supported mainstream industrial agriculture. 
Out of the Greenhorns organization and projects grew the National Young 
Farmers’ Coalition, a group of young and sustainable farmers organized for 
collective success, who are now pushing to have their voices heard in 
Washington and to gain support through the Farm Bill. A survey of a thousand 
young farmers, posted on the National Young Farmers’ Coalition website, 
enumerates the barriers to starting up a sustainable farm today. These 
include access to capital and land—and programs such as the USDA’s Farm 
Service Agency (FSA), formed to assist beginning farmers, are currently not 
of much assistance.

“The major challenge that we face is access to land,” said Severine. “We have 
also found that the FSA, which is a government loan agency, is not really 
that interested in loaning money to new small and sustainable farms. 
Ultimately the character of the food system that we want is one that is 
inclusive of new players, and also one that is more diversified and more 
regionally oriented. If that is the character of the food system we want, 
that will of necessity mean that we have to allow for more diversification. 
So in a sense we’re asking to have a chance to participate in this 
restructuring of a system that many people agree needs restructuring. That’s 
essentially the core of our political argument.

“We want a stake in America,” Severine concluded. “I think that there is a 
huge demand for the products that we want to grow, such as pastured pork, 
pastured poultry, fresh vegetables and fruit; the market is just voracious. 
That means that we have an opportunity. There are a lot of farmers retiring, 
and not all of them have heirs—in Iowa 42 percent of farmers that say they 
will retire within the next three years don’t have an heir, and Iowa is one 
of the more concentrated places. We’re going to keep on, and it would be nice 
for federal and state policy to point us in that direction; an acknowledgment 
that the course that we’ve been on with our food system is not sustainable, 
and that we can bring the needed changes.”

For further information on Greenhorns’ film and movement, visit 
www.thegreenhorns.net.

To learn more about the National Young Farmers’ Coalition, visit 
www.youngfarmers.org.