The Hands That Feed Us

I’m a bit obsessed with the romance of farming. But, that’s not what a farmer who’s overworked and under-thanked wants to hear. This episode is about the suitability of the word ‘romance’ in farming, and what farming is ultimately all about.

If you spend a lifetime making interest payments on a piece of land, do you ever really own it? How do young farmers get started if the cost of farmland outstrips the amount they can earn from it?

What happens when it’s time to pass a farm on to the next generation? Should it be sold to the highest bidder? Inherited by the oldest son? How do we make sure that the wealth stays with the farm — and that the next generation can afford to take over?

A big advantage of the farming lifestyle is community. Which makes it that much harder to farm successfully as a single farmer. Rachelle Ternier at Prairie Garden Seeds has some unusual ways to build a ‘we’ as a single farmer.

Small prairie towns are disappearing. There aren’t enough people left to keep the towns viable, and the young people leave and don’t come back. Revitalizing these towns means convincing the youth that the small-town life is a viable one.

What levers do we have to take commerce out of the commodity market? To live outside the logic that says the lowest price is the best price? At Farm 140, I found a room full of people figuring out how to do just that.