Cultivating New Farmers, The Future of Sustainable Food

I remember those job fairs in high school. People from various professions came in to talk to us and answer questions about their fields. The professions represented were duly suburban - there was a dental hygienist, a lawyer, a therapist. I neglected to pursue any of the normal suburban employment options. In one of my day jobs, I am a naturalist. This does not mean that I run around with no clothes on. It means that I help others learn about and explore natural places. There's a joke about naturalists. It goes something like this - when people talk about what you do, they say, "She outstanding in her field." And they really mean it. She's out, standing in her field.

So what about those who are out standing in their fields? Are we going to represent them at employment fairs? Are children going to learn that being a farmer is a career option, and are young adults going to feel supported to learn about gardening and farming? Most of the world's population now lives in urban areas. Many urban children don't grow up around farms. Many don't have any idea where their food comes from. For a while, they may not realize that it comes from plants and animals - after all, often food comes in packages and cans, and it's pretty well disguised. Where are these children going to get to know about farming and market gardening as career options?

This spring, I visited a local farm that has a farm to school program. One of the comments of the coordinators fascinated me. She said that some of the parents of the school children were actually quite uncomfortable that the children were visiting a farm twice a month. Not because they were concerned about germs, but because they were concerned that the children would take a peek into farm life and learn to enjoy it, perhaps even consider it to be a true vocation. The parents were somewhat appalled because they were aiming high for their children, and farming wasn't considered to be a viable career option.

When suburbs cover farms and farmland is overtaken by other uses that are deemed to be more socially important, we devalue the role of the small farm and the community-based farmer. In this era of food relocalization, we need to shift this trend to revalue the small farm and the small farmer. While, localization of food does not necessarily mean that farms must become smaller, when we reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, pesticides, and fertilizers, this tends to move us in the direction of more people and fewer chemicals and machines. Those people need to come from somewhere, and they may just be suburban or urban kids who grow up with chickens in the yard or who grow up enjoying farm to school programs, if we let them.