A farm region without farmers?

What would it be like to be a farm region without farmers? A friend of mine recently directed me to a Tedx YouTube video of this dynamic young farmer, Lindsey Lusher Shute, who happens to be the Executive Director of the National Young Farmers Coalition.  In her...

A land access strategy for beginning farmers

It never has been easy to start a farm. Even those who were bequeathed a fully operational and successful farm had to know what they were doing, where to find the resources, which markets to pursue, etc. to survive the first few years of farm ownership. Today, many...

Making the purchase of local foods an “act of affection”.

Knowledge does not automatically result in action. We know we should not eat certain foods. We know we should exercise more. And yet often we are not motivated to do what our brain tells us we should do. On the other hand, we are sometimes motivated to do things that...

Walking-the-walk toward a new ag economy

A new survey compares states in their commitment to raising and eating locally grown food. Vermont ranks #1 and Maryland ranks #39. The survey uses data from government sources (principally USDA and US Census data) from 2010 and 2011. The Locavore Index measures the...