In my last post, I noted that we do not have enough young and beginning farmers to replace those who will retiring or otherwise changing control or ownership of their farms. In this post, I will cover why they have trouble getting access to land. It is ironic that...
Farming in the U.S. has gone through an incredible transformation in the last century, from highly diversified to highly specialized. Over that period, we’ve gone from 6.4 million farms to 2.1 million farms. Meanwhile, average farm size in the U.S. has increased...
Why do we need small farms? The world-wide trend in agriculture has been to specialize and scale-up. Bigger operations can be more efficient and reduce the cost of agriculture products. So why have a whole conference about small-scale agriculture? Should we even be...
Frederick County, Maryland is blessed with a pleasant climate and productive farmland soils. Frederick had 181,512 acres of farmland in 2012, according to USDA Ag census figures, the most farmland of any county in the state. The market value of agricultural products...
