The 2012 Ag Census gives us a blurry vision of trends in organic production. National media has been reporting steady increases in consumer demand for organic. Are producers as excited about growing food organically? As reported by the National Sustainable Agriculture...
In the U.S., the local food movement still represents a tiny percentage of total agricultural sales. However, it has been growing rapidly and it has captured the attention of the media. The USDA Census of Agriculture has begun to track the trend. How do states...
It had been 8 years since the last national land preservation conference. I was happy to attend the most recent one in Hershey, PA last week, entitled Saving America’s Farms and Farmland: celebrating 40 Years of Farmland Preservation. It was a chance to...
With all the methods of communication available to use today, one would think that we are well-connected. Not so! I suspect that our rural country stores a century ago provided a better opportunity for meeting and communicating with a broader range of community...
The tenant house may become a key to the future of agriculture in Maryland. Here are the reasons for my surprising conclusion. First, Maryland’s land preservation programs were first developed at a time when farmers needed more land and fewer workers. Successful...
On Friday, I will be speaking at the 2014 Maryland Land Conservation Conference. Preparing for the talk: Helping the Next Generation of Farmers Get Access to Farmland, I began to think about how we got to a place where beginning farmers need help getting started. When...
