EatingWell looks at whats being done to safeguard our food system.
Today, he’s right back in the house where he grew up.
The 36-year-old farms roughly 480 acres full time, including some of his father’s land.
Nate Ryan
Talsma is an exceptionbucking a trend that should concern anyone who eats.
Put simply, American agriculture is in the throes of a demographic catastrophe.
The men and women who produce our food are an old group and getting older.
Nate Ryan
One in three farmers is over the age of 65.
And the problem is worsening.
The country needs more young producers to ensure a healthy food system.
Nate Ryan
We have a crisis of attrition as farmers retire with no successor in place."
Her organization has found that only 10% of farmers surveyed had succession plans.
Which raises the question: When this older generation is gone, who will feed us?
Nate Ryan
According to land use experts at the coalition, the country could face food shortages.
Another critical question: Why aren’t more young people interested in farming?
For one thing, they enter a career with greater challenges than those their parents confronted.
In addition, because of climate change, these producers face more financial uncertainty.
In California, water shortages have forced growers to let more than 1 million once-productive acres go fallow.
Many of Talsma’s relatives and childhood friends joined the ranks of young people who leave the farm.
“Even at the best of times, you have to be comfortable with always being financially strapped.
You have to accept that your wealth will be tied up in land, machinery and other assets.
And there are so many factors, like the weather, over which you have no control.”
Food companies are stepping in too.
One example: Niman Ranch, which sells sustainably raised pork, beef and lamb.
It also offers financial support for sustainable farming practices, including establishing pollinator habitats.
All these differences appeal to younger farmers.
The results have been striking.
Talsma serves as an example that efforts to keep young farmers on the land can work.
His transition from a 9-to-5 lifestyle to full-time farming was gradual.
He started by raising beef cattle on some pastures belonging to his father.
Over the years, his cattle herd expanded.
Then he added sheep and hogs.
“Experience raising cattle and growing crops qualified me for low-interest loans to buy land.
My father was able to extend temporary financing until those loans came through.”
“To buy the land and equipment from scratch would have been super capital intensive.
He did the opposite.
It’s a boutique effort that generates higher profit margins than his corn-finished cow operation.
He grows cover crops instead of leaving his land bare during the winter months.
(The number of dairy farms in the state has decreased by 84% since then.)
For a time, Caroline’s aunt boarded horses on the land and sold riding equipment.
When she died in 2012, family members held a meeting on the future of the land.
Initially, the neophytes' efforts resulted in disaster.
(He said she loved the sweetish smell of the herbicide Roundup.)
Untreated, the fields reverted to what Jesse describes as gravel pits.
“You could walk from one end to the other and not step on a blade of grass.
Nothing grew there,” he says.
Their ignorance became an asset.
Most range scientists advise doing the opposite.
Out of desperation, the McDougalls decided to give Savory’s methods a try.
After all, they had nothing to lose.
The change was remarkable and nearly instantaneous.
Today, that land provides a living for the McDougalls and their two young kids.
Fields that once barely fed a dozen horses now support 200 sheep, also raised according to regenerative principles.
Like Talsma, the McDougalls have concentrated on maximizing profits through various revenue streams.
“Every farm has something untapped that can be done to make it more viable,” he says.
People like Kasey Bamberger, 29.
Today, she and her cousin, Heath Bryant, who is 10 years older, execute the organization.
“Instead of one size fits all, I can manage each field individually.
“We have always been progressive here, even in my grandfather’s day.
you could’t farm tomorrow like you do today.”
She is also experimenting with a chemical produced by Sound Agriculture, an Emeryville, California, company.
Bamberger is taking steps in the direction of regenerative practices, as well, but with a high-tech twist.
Working with Indigo, she is embarking on carbon trading.
In a sense, it’s a new cash crop.
It provides a new revenue stream for them.”
But we are running out of time, according to Sophie Ackoff of the National Young Farmers Coalition.
“We see this moment as key,” she says.
We need for the policies to be in place now.”
“Before, the needs of young farmers never came to the surface.
They are totally there now.”
