Farming in the shade

I recently put my hands on a copy of American Farmer: The Heart of Our Country , a gorgeous coffee-table book filled with amazing photographs. Every so often there is an interview tucked in between the portraits. Last night I read this, a comment from Doug Mosebar, from page 24: "We're approaching a tipping point in America, where unless we're very careful we're going to end up relying more on imported food than the food we're producing on our own soil. And I think that's pretty scary. Something's got to give. But I think often times in life things have to get worse before they get better. So as this situation gets worse, I think there will be enough public outcry that it will give politicians enough, I'll say mettle, to do what needs to be done. Because we're all in this together. We tend to, in our culture, compartmentalize ourselves and act as if one segment doesn't affect the others, but it really does." The book was published in 2008. ...

One of the things that we became interested in early in our farming career was the preservation of agricultural land. The Farmer went on a bus trip to Pennsylvania and Maryland to see how they've preserved their farmland using Purchase of Development Rights, and (his preference) Transfer of Development Rights. Since then (off and on) he's served on our county's committee to preserve farmland. Our farm is situated in a triangle between 3 cities. Until the recent recession, sprawl was happening (in our direction, from all 3 sides) at an alarming rate. It's slowed somewhat, but we are still in that triangle. And we still speak to folks all the time who think nothing of selling a perfectly good house to buy 10 acres out in the country and build a new house. We are still concerned about the sprawl and about the recent attacks on animal agriculture. But we're very (!) encouraged by the growing awareness that our food sources are important. I found this video clip from the...

This week is National Agriculture Week. Go hug a farmer. (Just kidding.) Here are some Michigan farm facts: • Agriculture contributes $71.3 billion to Michigan's economy annually. • Agriculture employs more than 1 million people. That's a quarter of Michigan's work force. • The state's agricultural economy has been expanding at a rate five times faster than the growth rate of the general economy. • Ninety-five percent of Michigan's farms are single-family operated and/or family partnerships. • Of the few Michigan farms structured as corporations, 99 percent of those are family-owned and involve multiple generations and family members. Agriculture is currently the #2 "industry" in Michigan, and despite the rosy statistics, it faces some serious challenges both here in our state and across the nation. At a time when more people are starting to think about where their food comes from, farmers are facing increased pressure from environmentalists and regulatory...