I liked this article and since I am little out of blogging during the holiday season, this gave me a good article to share and not a lot of time to do it!!
More young people see opportunity in farming
By DINESH RAMDE, Associated Press
Wednesday, December 21, 2011.
A Wisconsin factory worker worried about layoffs became a dairy farmer. An employee at a Minnesota nonprofit found an escape from her cubicle by buying a vegetable farm. A nuclear engineer tired of office bureaucracy decided to get into cattle ranching in Texas.
While fresh demographic information on U.S. farmers won't be available until after the next agricultural census is done next year, there are signs more people in their 20s and 30s are going into farming: Enrollment in university agriculture programs has increased, as has interest in farmer-training programs.
Young people are turning up at farmers markets and are blogging, tweeting and promoting their agricultural endeavors through other social media.
The young entrepreneurs typically cite two reasons for going into farming: Many find the corporate world stifling and see no point in sticking it out when there's little job security; and demand for locally grown and organic foods has been strong enough that even in the downturn they feel confident they can sell their products.
Laura Frerichs, 31, of Hutchinson, Minn., discovered her passion for farming about a year after she graduated from college with an anthropology degree. She planned to work in economic development in Latin America and thought she ought to get some experience working on a farm.
She did stints on five farms, mostly vegetable farms, and fell in love with the work. Frerichs and her husband now have their own organic farm, and while she doesn't expect it to make them rich, she's confident they'll be able to earn a living.
"There's just this growing consciousness around locally grown foods, around organic foods," she said. "Where we are in the Twin Cities there's been great demand for that."
Farming is inherently risky: Drought, flooding, wind and other weather extremes can all destroy a year's work. And with farmland averaging $2,140 per acre across the U.S. but two to four times that much in the Midwest and California, the start-up costs can be daunting.
Still, agriculture fared better than many parts of the economy during the recession, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture predicts record profits for farmers as a whole this year.
"People are looking at farm income, especially the increase in asset values, and seeing a really positive story about our economy," said USDA senior economist Mary Clare Ahearn, citing preliminary statistics. "Young people are viewing agriculture as a great opportunity and saying they want to be a part of it."
That's welcome news to the government. More than 60 percent of farmers are over the age of 55, and without young farmers to replace them when they retire the nation's food supply would depend on fewer and fewer people.
"We'd be vulnerable to local economic disruptions, tariffs, attacks on the food supply, really, any disaster you can think of," said Poppy Davis, who coordinates the USDA's programs for beginning farmers and ranchers.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has called for 100,000 new farmers within the next few years, and Congress has responded with proposals that would provide young farmers with improved access to USDA support and loan programs.
One beginning farmer is Gabrielle Rojas, 34, from the central Wisconsin town of Hewitt. As a rebellious teen all she wanted to do was leave her family's farm and find a career that didn't involve cows. But she changed her mind after spending years in dead-end jobs in a factory and restaurant.
"In those jobs I'm just a number, just a time-clock number," Rojas said. "But now I'm doing what I love to do. If I'm having a rough day or I'm a little sad because the sun's not shining or my tractor's broken, I can always go out and be by the cattle. That always makes me feel better."
Rojas got help in changing careers from an apprenticeship program paid for by the USDA, which began giving money in 2009 to universities and nonprofit groups that help train beginning farmers. The grants helped train about 5,000 people the first year. This year, the USDA estimates more than twice as many benefited.
One of the groups that received a grant is Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Service, or MOSES. The Spring Valley, Wis., chapter teaches farming entrepreneurs how to cope with price swings and what to do in cases of catastrophic weather.
MOSES also organizes field days, where would-be farmers tour the operations of successful farms to learn and share tips. Attendance is up 20 percent this year, director Faye Jones said, and some outings that used to attract 30 or 40 people have drawn as many as 100, most between the ages of 18 and 30.
"I think for many people, farming has been a lifelong dream, and now the timing is right," she said. Among the reasons she cited: the lifestyle, working in the fresh air and being one's own boss.
If farming is beginning to sound like an appealing career, there are downsides. The work involves tough physical labor, and vacations create problems when there are crops to be harvested and cows to be milked.
In addition, many farmers need second jobs to get health insurance or make ends meet. As the USDA notes, three-fifths of farms have sales of less than $10,000 a year, although some may be growing fruit trees or other crops that take a few years to develop.
None of those factors dissuaded 27-year-old Paul Mews. He left a high-paying job as a nuclear engineer last year to become a cattle rancher in Menard, Texas. His wife's family has been ranching for generations, and Mews decided he'd much rather join his in-laws and be his own boss than continue shuffling paperwork at the plant.
"When you're self-employed it's so much more fulfilling. You get paid what you're worth," he said. "It's really nice that what you put into it is what you're going to get back out."
Dinesh Ramde can be reached at dramde(at)ap.org.
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2011/12/21/national/a000148S62.DTL&ao=2#ixzz1hHb3h2tM
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Monday, December 5, 2011
Nevada Farm Bureau's 2011 Annual Meeting (Part 2)
If you are paying close attention, I did go MIA last week. Sorry for those who were just ditting around their computer waiting for my next post, unfortunately, croup hit, and with 2 of our 4 susceptible, it makes for a fun two weeks of sleepless nights and long days. I think the end is in sight for this time, though, so I am back to blog!!
I left off on the tour--And, I have to apologize, again, because for someone who is kind of camera crazy, I neglected to make sure that my back-up battery was charged and by the time we made it to Churchill Vineyards, I had lost all power. So, I do not have pictures of the tour past Liberty Dairy...which brings me back to my report!
Welcome to Liberty Dairy, owned by the Cristoph's and their family. They were kind enough to show us around their 400 cow Jersey Dairy, based out of Fallon, and even treated us to cookies and milk afterwards!
At Liberty Dairy, they raise a large amount of heifer calves, which is more than they need as replacements and so they are able to sell enough each year to have a good business off of them, also. The Jersey cows are more efficient in terms of eating lower amounts of feed and producing higher amounts of milk for their size than other dairy breeds.
The cows are brought into the milking barn where they are entered into the computer by using the number on their eartag. This enables the dairy to keep track of a cows production, which is also a very important key in managing the health of the cows. Anytime they are off of production by 20% or more, the cow is flagged, and many times it is a sign of early health problems that can be dealt with before they become a larger problem.
Liberty uses a variety of feeds in a balanced mix. Most of the feeds are shipped by rail to Nevada and brought by semi to the dairy. This feed pictured is a bi-product of the ethanol industry--it is the corn that is left after processing and still has a lot of good nutritional value as a feed.
Another part of the mix is cotton seed, very high in fiber.
Okay, my brain is working overtime to remember what this was--and I am just not going to come up with it while I am thinking too hard about it.
Happy cows at Liberty Dairy.
Anyway, thanks to Liberty dairy for a great tour, and also to the Churchill Vineyards--It was so interesting to learn more about the vineyard and the wine production that they have started in the last decade. The have about 90 acres of European grape vines that take 3-5 years to become productive and then if they are not productive they have to start over and find something else that will work. I believe they said they have ten that are producing well now, 5 of white and 5 of red varieties. They have a great facitlity--most of their barrels and tanks come from Europe, also, because they are not prodiced in the US and because it requires such specific types to get the wine to turn out just right.
Anyway, if you want to learn more, check out their website at:
After finishing up with the tours, it was time to head back to the Museum in Fallon, where the Churchill County High School Culinary Arts class had prepared a wonderful dinner, and we started our first workshop with Dick Wittman.
Because I have already posted a lot about Dick Wittman in my National Conference '11 Report, and in preparation for state meeting, I am not going to rehash all the details, you'll just have to look for them if you want to know more about the great workshop and presentation that Dick gave on family farm management. We also had a great time getting to know Dick and enjoyed having dinner with him. You never come away from state meeting without gaining new friendships, new knowledge, and hopefully a desire to use it and share it.
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