Young Farmers: A Growing Movement

[marmar]

from YES! Magazine:



Young Farmers: A Growing Movement
In spite of the daily discouraging environmental, political, and economic news, coaxing living things to grow somehow seems to make folks optimistic.

by Fran Korten
posted Sep 20, 2011


Recently during lunch at the YES! offices, online editor Brooke Jarvis made a casual comment I found quite stunning. Brooke, a sharp, talented 20-something, said “I don’t know a single person under 30 who doesn’t want to own a farm.”

What? Own a farm? I turned to several 20-somethings at the table and asked if they agreed. They did. They waxed eloquent about their love for lambs, ducks, chickens, bees. (No one mentioned weeding.) They confessed they weren’t sure they would ever actually own a farm, but their yearning was definitely real.

I think that just five years ago the 20-somethings in our office were not longing to own a farm. Something in our culture is changing. A growing segment of people don’t want to just buy organic, healthy food. They want to grow it. This new lust to farm seems to cross class, race, and politics.

For example, Robert Jeffrey Jr., an African American pastor in Seattle, started Clean Greens Farm to bring produce to the inner city, where fresh food is hard to find. He’s gotten a tremendous response from young people of all races ready to get their hands in the dirt. ..........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/new-livelihoods/a-growing-movement

[tech5270]

1. I'm a tired old fart but I can tell you there's nothing better

than getting your hands in the dirt, sorry I should have said soil. Growing things isn't really hard work, they pretty much do their own thing we just provide a place for them to flourish.

[jwirr]

2. And we need to redefine the meaning of "farm", My family own two

farms (acreage where food is grown). One in Iowa that is 5 acres and is not as active because my brother who is mentally ill lives on it, but still grows grapes, raspberries, black walnuts and any other thing that crosses his mind. The other in NE MN. This one is 30 acres and includes sugar maples, chickens, berries, gardening both with and without greenhouses, chestnut trees, apple trees and any thing else the crosses our minds. We also have another garden (farm) on my granddaughters lawn. We call them our refugee acreages (places the family can evacuate to if needed).

What I am getting at is that a farm does not have to be big to be a farm. In fact a farm can be a window greenhouse or a balcony garden in a city.

Best of luck to the young want to be farmers.

[TlalocW]

3. I'd like to own

A walnut farm. No weeding, good cash crop. Let me walk in the woods whenever I wanted.

I'd also like to be a beekeeper, but I'd be afraid I wouldn't be up to the challenge of stopping a bee stampede.

TlalocW

[Tsiyu]

5. Getting the hulls off is fun

Had a farm with black walnut, pear and apple trees. Pear and walnuts did great; apples were squirrel treats before I could get to them. But those black walnut hulls were very difficult to remove. We ran the truck over them, finally.

I suppose when you have a bigger operation there are tools to help with that nasty task...:)

[TlalocW]

6. My neighbor when I was a kid had a black walnut tree in his yard

He was an older gentleman so he attached a frozen orange juice can to a broomstick to use as a kind of scooper and would go clean his yard regularly, scooping the nuts into a bag he wore around his shoulder. Over time, he quasi-tamed a squirrel that would ride on his shoulder, and he would give a nut to the squirrel every now and then while he worked.

We were a small town so we chased him out of town for witchcraft.

TlalocW

[Tsiyu]

7. Oh, I hoped you had a way to get hulls off!!!!

You know what a gooey, nasty mess it is though.

I hope Mr. Squirrel-Whisperer is okay somewhere else. Here in our "small towns" lots of people may or may not have squirrels and racooons as pets and everyone is cool with that. The loggers find the babies when they cut down trees and bring them to people who bottle feed the babies and raise them. They may or may not have very nice living conditions. ;) The state would just kill them and people can't bear it.

[TlalocW]

8. Just kidding about running him out of town

He was a nice man, and he's passed on. I think some of his gifts were passed on to my mother who when she moved from our hometown to my sister's town 40 miles away, she started taming neighborhood squirrels. They would come inside from the backyard, and she would sit on the carpet and give them nuts.

TlalocW

[Tsiyu]

9. It was a funny ending

in the way small towns are. :)

Yeah, the Squirrel Whisperers. Gotta love 'em. I know the squirrels do.

[bullwinkle428]

4. I blame it all on Farmville...

:evilgrin: