So why should we care about the future of farming?

[Northern Berkshire Transition]

If no one wants to do it, does it matter – someone out there will surely grow our food. The average age of the American Farmer is approaching 60 years old. Is agriculture so hard that young people are being encouraged out of farming? Mostly yes – most farmers tell you they work hard to send their kids to college – to give them a “better life” off the farm. We’ve had a few generations now in America where farmers have so successfully sent their kids off to “a better life” that now there is no one interested in taking over the farm business as they retire. In 20 years, our current farmers might all be dead or in nursing homes – so what happens when we lose this knowledge base and we aren’t taking steps to replace it?

Link to complete article:

http://www.goodeater.org/2010/06/07/cultivating-and-sustaining-the-...

Author: Jen Hashley

Jennifer Hashley, is the Director of the New Entry Sustainable Farming Project at the Tufts University Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy. She is also a farm business planning instructor for the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources and teaches farm labs for graduate students in the Tufts’ Agriculture, Food and Environment program. Additionally, Jennifer is a vegetable and livestock farmer and raises chickens, eggs, pork, sheep, and rabbit.

[Northern Berkshire Transition]

Net-Zero Farm

....easy credit and the introduction of new technologies for agriculture—electricity, gasoline-powered machinery, deep-well irrigation, and synthetic fertilizers—made farms 10 times the size possible, just as the world-wide commodities markets were born. For the first time, one man could raise tens of thousands of bushels of grain in a single year and still wind up flat broke.

More...http://greensource.construction.com/people/2010/1007_A-Sack-of-Corn...