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  • From: KAKerby AT aol.com
  • To: market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] a research project is born
  • Date: Tue, 2 Nov 2010 13:23:49 -0400 (EDT)

Alison, thank you.  Your comments represent exactly many of the concerns I see represented by those folks who are looking to the universities to produce not only employees, but the next generation of farmers to carry on what we work so hard to produce.  That's a whole lot more involved than just training up a vocation.  Whatever answers we come up with as a nation, have to answer both that immediate "keep the business going" aspect, as well as the deeper "preserve the integrity of the farm" aspect.  Steep requirements.  Scary to think of the alternatives if we fail.
Kathryn Kerby
frogchorusfarm.com
Snohomish, WA
 
In a message dated 11/2/2010 5:39:40 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time, alison.wiediger AT hart.kyschools.us writes:
I'd like to chime in on this as well.  We sometimes do farm tours for university ag classes.  One, it is always disturbing how little they know about really important things - like identifying insect life stages, weeds, soil improvement, marketing.  More disturbing, however, is how few, if any, intend to farm.  From many what we hear is that their parents have funded their education, and expect them to use it in a better way than farming - even if farming is what they really want to do.

We look at the cost of farmland, then at the cost of infrastructure, and wonder how any young people start to farm.  It is literally impossible to cash flow the cost of most farmland in our area (SC Kentucky) and we don't have costly land compared to many parts of our country.

Finally, we'd like to see a program (and some states have them) for pairing young aspiring farmers with farmers wanting to retire.  Allow those who want to farm to acquire the farm and the knowledge to farm it while the "old folks" are still there to help.  We know we can't farm forever, and don't have any children to leave it to.  And, even if we did, many children don't want to "farm" the farm.  IT would be nice to know our work and farm would continue after we are gone, rather than be divided up for yet more urban sprawl.

Alison Wiediger, Au Naturel Farm



Bottom line, most young people who grow up on farms don't see how they can survive the risk and farm like their parents. And they may not know how to farm any other way. Its become a very narrow discipline the way it is practiced now. The Universities are not training folks to farm new ways, because no students will register for such classes. And student registration drives policy at Universities.

Bill



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