The Changing Face of Farming

Growing up in the Midwest, my image of farming was flat cornfields that extend until they touch the horizon, run by the same family that owned the land 200 years ago. In his book Wandering Home, Bill McKibben brought my attention to a different kind of farming. On his journey from Ripton, Vermont to his home in the Adirondacks, Bill stopped at his friend Chris Granstrom’s farm as well as the Middlebury College Organic Gardens. These visits proved that the face of farming has changed from a career passed down from generation to generation to a new venture taken on by hopeful college graduates with little to no experience in the area.

            While college was originally treated as a way to get opportunities off the farm, farming is now accepted as a legitimate career path after obtaining a college degree. A 2012 New York Times article entitled “After Graduating From College, It’s Time to Plow, Plant and Harvest” focuses on this rise in popularity and notes that the “Agricultural Census in 2007 showed a 4 percent increase in the number of farms, the first increase since 1920, and some college graduates are joining in the return to the land.” With the growing focus on living an environmentally-conscious life and eating locally, it makes sense that more young people would be drawn to the root of the movement through college farms and summer experiences such as “WWOOFing” (volunteering on an organic farm).

            Though McKibben wrote specifically about the surge in first-generation, college-educated farmers in Vermont, the Adirondack agricultural environment has benefited from this trend as well.  The 2014 article in the Adirondack Explorer entitled “A New Crop of Farmers,” profiles several young farmers who have experienced success farming the land in the Champlain Valley. The article credits the rise of the Slow Food Movement and the “fundamental shift in thinking about food and where it comes from” as the reason behind the surge of young adults pursuing careers in agriculture. Compared to Vermont, where farming has long served as a substantial part of the economy, the decline in agriculture in the Champlain Valley over recent decades left many opportunities for first-time farmers in New York. Though these hopeful farmers face many hurdles during their first years, they learn from their experience and have proven that small-scale farming in the Adirondacks is a viable opportunity. With the support of organizations such as the Adirondack Farmers' Market Cooperative and the use of creative techniques such as growing in greenhouses and hoop houses to combat the long winters, farmers are able to sell their home-grown food locally and support themselves. 

Sources:

Wandering Home, Bill McKibben

“After Graduating From College, It’s Time to Plow, Plant and Harvest,” by Natalie Kitroeff, The New York Times

“A New Crop of Farmers,” Tracy Frisch, The Adirondack Explorer

“Farming in the Adirondacks,” Adirondack Journal