A growing number of young Americans are leaving desk jobs to farm

Via MSN

Liz Whitehurst dabbled in several careers before she ended up here, crating fistfuls of fresh-cut arugula in the early-November chill.

The hours were better at her nonprofit jobs. So were the benefits. But two years ago, the 32-year-old Whitehurst — who graduated from a liberal arts college and grew up in the Chicago suburbs — abandoned Washington for this three-acre farm in Upper Marlboro, Md.

She joined a growing movement of highly educated, ex-urban, first-time farmers who are capitalizing on booming consumer demand for local and sustainable foods and who, experts say, could have a broad impact on the food system.

For only the second time in the last century, the number of farmers under 35 years old is increasing, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s latest Census of Agriculture. Sixty-nine percent of the surveyed young farmers had college degrees — significantly higher than the general population.

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This new generation can’t hope to replace the numbers that farming is losing to age. But it is already contributing to the growth of the local-food movement and could help preserve the place of midsize farms in the rural landscape.

“We’re going to see a sea change in American agriculture as the next generation gets on the land,” said Kathleen Merrigan, the head of the Food Institute at George Washington University and a deputy secretary at the Department of Agriculture under President Barack Obama. “The only question is whether they’ll get on the land, given the challenges.”

The number of farmers age 25 to 34 grew 2.2 percent between 2007 and 2012,according to the 2014 USDA census,a period when other groups of farmers — save the oldest — shrunk by double digits. In some states, such as California, Nebraska and South Dakota, the number of beginning farmers has grown by 20 percent or more.

A survey conducted by the National Young Farmers Coalition, an advocacy group, with Merrigan’s help shows that the majority of young farmers did not grow up in agricultural families.

They are also far more likely than the general farming population to grow organically, limit pesticide and fertilizer use, diversify their crops or animals, and be deeply involved in their local food systems via community supported agriculture (CSA) programs and farmers markets.

Today’s young farmers also tend to operate small farms of less than 50 acres, though that number increases with each successive year of experience.

Whitehurst bought her farm, Owl’s Nest, from a retiring farmer in 2015.

The farm sits at the end of a gravel road, a series of vegetable fields unfurling from a steep hill capped by her tiny white house. Like the farmer who worked this land before her, she leases the house and the fields from a neighboring couple in their 70s.

She grows organically certified peppers, cabbages, tomatoes and salad greens from baby kale to arugula, rotating her fields to enrich the soil and planting cover crops in the offseason.

On Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, she and two longtime friends from Washington wake up in semidarkness to harvest by hand, kneeling in the mud to cut handfuls of greens before the sun can wilt them. All three young women, who also live on the farm, make their living off the produce Whitehurst sells, whether to restaurants, through CSA shares or at a D.C. farmers market.

Finances can be tight. The women admit they’ve given up higher standards of living to farm.

“I wanted to have a positive impact, and that just felt very distant in my other jobs out of college,” Whitehurst said. “In farming, on the other hand, you make a difference. Your impact is immediate.”

That impact could grow as young farmers scale up and become a larger part of the commercial food system, Merrigan said.

Already, several national grocery chains, including Walmart and SuperValu, have built out local-food-buying programs, according to AT Kearney, a management consulting firm.

Young farmers are also creating their own “food hubs,” allowing them to store, process and market food collectively, and supply grocery and restaurant chains at a price competitive with national suppliers.

That’s strengthening the local and organic food movement, experts say.

“I get calls all the time from farmers — some of the largest farmers in the country — asking me when the local and organic fads will be over,” said Eve Turow Paul, a consultant who advises farms and food companies on millennial preferences. “It’s my pleasure to tell them: Look at this generation. Get on board or go out of business.”

There are also hopes that the influx of young farmers could provide some counter to the aging of American agriculture.

The age of the average American farmer has crept toward 60 over several decades, risking the security of midsize family farms where children aren’t interested in succeeding their parents.

Between 1992 and 2012, the country lost more than 250,000 midsize and small commercial farms, according to the USDA. During that same period, more than 35,000 very large farms started up, and the large farms already in existence consolidated their acreage.

Midsize farms are critical to rural economies, generating jobs, spending and tax revenue. And while they’re large enough to supply mainstream markets, they’re also small enough to respond to environmental changes and consumer demand.

If today’s young farmers can continue to grow their operations, said Shoshanah Inwood, a rural sociologist at Ohio State University, they could bolster these sorts of farms — and in the process prevent the land from falling into the hands of large-scale industrial operations or residential developers.

“Multigenerational family farms are shrinking. And big farms are getting bigger,” Inwood said. “For the resiliency of the food system and of rural communities, we need more agriculture of the middle.”

It’s too early to say at this point whether young farmers will effect that sort of change.

The number of young farmers entering the field is nowhere near enough to replace the number exiting, according to the USDA: Between 2007 and 2012, agriculture gained 2,384 farmers between ages 25 and 34 — and lost nearly 100,000 between 45 and 54.

And young farmers face formidable challenges to starting and scaling their businesses. The costs of farmland and farm equipment are prohibitive. Young farmers are frequently dependent on government programs, including child-care subsidies and public health insurance, to cover basic needs.

And student loan debt — which 46 percent of young farmers consider a “challenge,” according to the National Young Farmers Coalition — can strain already tight finances and disqualify them from receiving other forms of credit.

But Lindsey Lusher Shute, the executive director of the coalition, said she has seen the first wave of back-to-the-landers grow up in the eight years since she co-founded the advocacy group. And she suggested that new policy initiatives, including student loan forgiveness and farm transition programs, could further help them.

“Young farmers tend to start small and sell to direct markets, because that’s a viable way for them to get into farming,” Lusher Shute said. “But many are shifting gears as they get into it — getting bigger or moving into wholesale.”

Just last year, Whitehurst was approached by an online grocery service that wanted to buy her vegetables. While Owl’s Nest produces too little to supply such a large buyer on its own, the service planned to buy produce from multiple small, local farmers.

Whitehurst ultimately turned the deal down, however. Among other things, she feared that she could not afford to sell her vegetables at the lower price point the service wanted.

“For now, I’m focused on getting better, not bigger,” she said. “But in a few years, who knows. Ask me again then.”

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hardscrabble farmer
hardscrabble farmer

“I get calls all the time from farmers — some of the largest farmers in the country — asking me when the local and organic fads will be over…”

Local and organic perceived as a fad.

Francis Marion

Recency bias. People have a hard time understanding that the way things are right now is actually anomalous historically.

It wasn’t that long ago that big factory farms were the exception. We quickly forget.

Times are changing. Life in North America is slowly reverting to the middle in many ways. If we can make it there socially and politically it will be a better world.

As my business partner tells me constantly – one day at a time.

BL
BL

Until people get back to the dirt and nature, they cannot begin to be real humans again. TPTB disconnected people from nature/God and it is good that they feel the need to go back to reality. The over stimulation of Babylon is burning people out in droves.

Francis Marion

+100 Yes.

Iska Waran
Iska Waran

I’m not sure that growing arugula is actual farming.

Grog
Grog

I tried virtual farming once.
But then, I got hungry.

hardscrabble farmer
hardscrabble farmer

What would you describe it as?

Alfred1860
Alfred1860

To start out from scratch and be successful as a farmer in todays food market (i.e. I’m not talking about people who’ve inherited a farm) you have almost be more of a marketer than a farmer. There are so many regulatory hoops to jump through too.

wdg
wdg

Depends where the farm is. I live in a major city but spend the summers on a small 65 acre hobby farm – 20 acres of tillable land plus a large woodlot – that I own in New Brunswick. It is on a major river not far from the Atlantic coast and farms there are relatively dirt cheap. The only commercial farming is dairy and they are few and exist because of subsidized dairy quotas allocated by the government. The land is reasonably fertile and in the past sustained hundreds of small family farms. A similar situation exists in Nova Scotia and PEI. Cities are concrete, steel and glass jungles that destroy the soul and corrupt the mind. That is why I spend five months each summer on the farm as a form of therapy. And the food grown there is amazing – sweet tomatoes ripened on the vine, corn to die for and of course shared with hungry raccoons, onions with a smell and taste that is incredible, squash and carrots that are beyond compare, apples that taste different than those sold in stores, etc. I forgot how bad commercially produced food that we purchase in the large grocery stores really is. The vegetables look similar on the outside but they are markedly inferior in smell and flavor not to mention nutritional value. Commercial farming destroys food crops and soils, and is clearly not the answer. So if you are a commercial farmer with a large acreage, go organic now or suffer the consequences.

Anonymous
Anonymous

Why would she lease the farm from someone else if she bought it? So she just purchased the equipment but leases the entire farm? Gonna sell alot of overpriced arugula to make this business plan work and support 3 people of 3 acres.

Upper Marlboro is pretty flat as well. East of Andrews AFB. A steep hill would be an ant hill. Old tobacco land.

Dr. Richard
Dr. Richard

There are a number of compact market (truck) farms that are making $65,000 to $200,000 per acre selling certified organic product directly to consumers and restaurants. High profile examples include Neversink farm in NY ($350,000 in annual revenues on 1.5 acres), Curtis Stone in British Colombia, and Jean Martin Fortier in Quebec. This is doable for small farms that are within driving distance of major markets like DC or NYC. Even wholesale certified organic growing can generate $25,000 to $80,000+ per acre (see Appalachian Harvest’s growers in Duffield VA) . This is an economically viable niche market as long as one follows the best practices. Small farms can be profitable and economically viable but not by farming using 1950s-1980s practices or by producing bulk conventional commodities (corn, wheat, soybeans, cattle) sold wholesale.

hardscrabble farmer
hardscrabble farmer

Look at the author of the piece. Does she seem well informed about the topic? comment image?format=750w

She lives in D.C. claims to be an Internet blogger (her blog features one post in the past three years) and she’s the WaPo’s agriculture editor because she once wrote a piece on Gamergate. Her entire article makes it seem like women are at the forefront of the neo-agrarian movement (they represent approximately 12-15% of new farmers).

She wouldn’t know a hill from a dale, but at least the piece was published.

Anonymous
Anonymous

Farming is the most basic activity of any nation. Without it you are either dependent or dead.

It’s nice to see a positive trend developing in it, something not so common in recent days.

Mark
Mark

I’m a big fan of the magazine “The New Pioneer” as it is a showcase and a manual for those who want to live a self-sufficient, small farm, rural life…and you don’t have to be young, just healthy with energy.

I bought my 14 acres two years before retiring at 65 and now three years later I’m producing a significant amount of veggies, fruit, berries, eggs, pond fish, with rabbit meat and goat milk coming soon, along with pecans and chestnut trees maturing. With canning, a root cellar and a quality food freeze dryer – feeding yourself all year is possible.

The work will keep you fit, focused, challenged and your belly full. I find significant rewards in many ways far past the food.

motocephalic
motocephalic

good for you
I have done the same, and find equally rewarding.
Takes a while before you figure it out, but eventually, the lucky ones do…

Oilman2
Oilman2

One of my sons switched his major from Theater Design (where he had received several scholarships) to Horticulture, I had just bought 40 acres to build a little retirement farm on as I took off down the last road career-wise. He asked if he could be my partner, and has put years of sweat equity in his own paltry cash from his day job running an orchard into the little 40-acre patch we have.

It has taken us 5 years to partially clear some acreage, establish grass, build a small house, workshop and a few small barns to house everything. It is only this year that we are about to begin actually growing for other than test purposes. Buying existing farms sounds great, but the cost is not cheap. Like I always tell my son – the best case is you have time and money. The normal case is you have more of one than the other.

Alfredo1860 is correct – you need to be as much of a salesman as a farmer to make small farms work. What I enjoy about farming is that it is never just one thing – it is a system and you have to work it from the soil to the local market. There are myriad ways to fail and get sidetracked.

I agree that young people are returning, but not in droves. And many make a token effort and then run back to the city life and careers there. But more are staying, and perhaps the best thing is if these young people had some of us older types around – that know how to fix things and what comes first or second in operations. Shortening their learning curves benefits everyone.

HSF – that chick in the video…man, what can I say but sheesh…

BeeUrSelf
BeeUrSelf

Oilman2 – I do not know if you saw a post by HSF, probably 1 1/2 years back.
He linked to some information that linked perma-culture with organic, for gardening.

The best information that I had ever seen. Gardening made easy, simple. I now grow more vegetables than I can use for myself, my family, and even the chickens – on a very small piece of land.

Goto youtube, search L2SURVIVE, and watch some of the Paul Gautschi / Back To Eden Gardening.

The earliest videos are the best in my opinion.

Melvin Bowden
Melvin Bowden

My cousin always said that the best way to make a small fortune in farming was to start with a large fortune.

hardscrabble farmer
hardscrabble farmer

Not everything of value can be translated into dollars and cents.

How much healthier would your diet be? How much better would you sleep at night? How much less distracted would you be by petty concerns related to nonsensical social issues, high tech gadgetry, media, etc? What about the pass through value of improving soils, water and other conditions on the acreage you inhabit? The savings on commuting, fast food, specialists to handle your myriad life issues?

I could go on, but you get the idea.

A Farmer wins the Powerball lottery. Reporter asks him what he plans to do with all that cash. Farmer replies, “I guess I’ll must keep farming till the money runs out.”

Peaknic
Peaknic

Amen, HSF. All that and a cleaner environment for my children to live in. Proud to say, not a drop of Roundup on my property since I bought in 2004 and now a rich amphibian sanctuary. Trying to figure out how to monetize it in a way that will provide for the transition.

Stucky

To Hardscrabble Farmer

PLEASE don’t laugh at my amazing ignorance. Really.

Can farming be learned from a book? Is it flowchart-able … do this, then that, if this go here otherwise go there … that type of thing?

Not asking for myself. I’m to old for that. But, I have a very close friend, in his 40s, who actually talked to me about “maybe farming”. He has about 40 mostly cleared acres in western Jersey … prime farmland, I think.

BeeUrSelf
BeeUrSelf

I am, of course, not HSF – but here is my 2 cents.

“Can farming be learned from a book?”

I think that, if you have zero experience, then the book (s) can get you off the starting block and pointed in the proper direction – learning from others that have gone before you type thing.

But, there is nothing like experience after that.

Vixen Vic
Vixen Vic

Almanacs can be good for giving you the planting guidelines for your area. Many have articles on tried-and-true methods. Some tell you what to plant during a specific season. I use the “Farmer’s Almanac.” Here’s a link: https://www.farmersalmanac.com/

Seed packages also tell you a good bit, from the season to plant, the type of soil the plant prefers, to the amount of water and sunlight required.

Books, of course, are good starting points. Eliot Coleman has some good books on organic farming. Mel Bartholomew has good books on square-foot-gardening.

But after the books, you get out there and do it. You will learn a lot from your failures and become a better farmer/gardener.

Peaknic
Peaknic

I always recommend reading about something before trying it. Then do some more research. Life is school; do your homework.

Then craft your dream and get started. You won’t move forward until you have a concrete objective.

You also need to be ready to throw that dream out when you realize it isn’t possible (99% won’t be), but you will adapt your dreams to your actual situation and do what you need to do to be successful. Or you won’t and you’ll fail, and that will teach you more lessons.

TPC
TPC

I’d like to raise grass-fed beef. Few hundred acres, some hardy cattle, and relatively temperate missouri weather is perfect for it.

Sure, I’d “make more” money on row-crop or factory farming, but the massive inputs and government subsidies necessary to make that a reality are not to my taste.

Wife and kids. A herd of beef. Gun range. And enough veggies/small animals to keep the family happy.

Its a dream.

Zarathustra

Why dont you write Rep Thomas Massie (R) Ky. He raises Wagyu cattle, a japanese breed on his
small kentucky farm. He is a very nice person and I think he’d respond.

Vixen Vic
Vixen Vic

If you decide to do that, TPC, and you are producing organic, grass-fed beef, you may be able to hook up with Organic Prairie and/or U.S. Wellness Meats, who sell online and partner with farms. If would be worth a shot.

Admin, U..S. Wellness Meat has an affiliate program, if you’re interested. I buy from them whenever I can afford to. They have great meat products there.
Here’s the link. https://discover.grasslandbeef.com/affiliates/

Robert
Robert

Lotta dreams above. Better put a little aside for the year it doesn’t rain. Or the year it’s too wet. Or the army worms eat it all up (not going to use sprays, are you?). Wait until you’re health starts breaking down–better have a bunch of kids around to help you.

I wish you all the best in your endeavors, but the idyllic life you seek is the life your great great grandparents couldn’t wait to leave. I was born in 1938. I grew up on the farm on the tail end of farming the way it had always been done, with horses, large gardens, wind mills and outdoor plumbing. I was there when chemical pesticides were introduced, when tractors became widely used, when antibiotics in animal food were introduced. We went from rotation of crops which kept the soil healthy and kept weeds down to the near continuous corn/soy beans system now that depends on chemicals to exist. We went from raising livestock mostly outdoors on pasture to the god awful confinement systems now in use.
I left farming in 1984. Looking back at what’s happened in my lifetime to agriculture and the life it used to be, I have to wonder at the thing called “progress”. I don’t envy those of you who want to go back to the land, but I’m proud there are still those willing to try. God be with you.

Vixen Vic
Vixen Vic

I think this is a great trend. If I were younger, I would become an organic or permaculture farmer. Right now, I settle for backyard square-foot gardens for produce.
Think about it, do you really want your food coming from the mega-corporations? I much prefer people who care and take pride in their produce. We definitely need the younger people getting into the game.

hardscrabble farmer
hardscrabble farmer

Just received an invite to do a TED talk on the neo-agrarian experience. You think I should risk it? My only caveat would be that I’m not wearing the headset microphone.

And we started with a book called Five Acres and Independence. So absolutely, read up.

More importantly it can be done, you can make money and it isn’t as difficult as you might think.

Stucky

Where’s the risk??

I say, do it!!

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