Family Friendly Farming

Modern day agriculture is no longer a family or child friendly enterprise. When a farm is nothing but confinement houses, motors, PTO shafts, silos, concrete and machinery, it’s not a very friendly or safe place for children. This, among other factors, has caused what I call a “brain drain” in many rural agricultural areas and most of the younger generation has left the farm for higher paying, honorable jobs. Therefore we have a gradual but steady demise of family farms and the farms that remain are being incorporated into ever larger holdings. For example, in 1950 we had 3.6 million dairy farms in America. Today we have less than fifty thousand, and 3% of those fifty thousand are mega-dairies that produce 40% of the milk. Over the last sixty years the mantra fed to small farmers by the USDA and agri-business has been to “Get big or get out.” Now the pressure is increased and we’re being bombarded by so-called experts in academia, corporations, and the government with the notion that we must become biotechnologically involved in agriculture because otherwise we will not be able to feed the anticipated 9-10 billion souls that will be hungry by 2050. I have no argument with predictions of such a possible mass of humanity on the scene in less than three decades, but I find it frightening that those who are setting food policy could be so ignorant of the facts or so corrupt and arrogant as to ignore the facts.

To heal this planet and recreate the fertile soils of a bygone era we do not need more chemicals or poisons. We do not need biotechnology or monocrops. What we need is a return to a sensible method of food production. We need many independent family farms that operate under nature’s template. We need consumers that make themselves familiar with food and the production thereof, and vote with the dollar accordingly.

Quote worth re-quoting...

“The old agriculture of the 19th and 20th century is dying, and the consumers can hasten that death, and they should. They are, after all, the walking wounded, offended by the chemical amateur. The consumer cannot hide in an organic garden or sleep in a subway of ignorance. Consumers will get clean agriculture when they demand it, casting their demands in knowledgeable terms and nailing those terms to the market door. – Charles Walters