More and More Young People Take To Sustainable Farming
Newspapers sure do love their human-interest recession stories. When those stories involve people quitting their jobs for something more fulfilling, that's even better. But the perfect story, of course, is people taking to the land, turning to farms, and making a fresh start. Of course, we love every word of it — especially as so often it's toward sustainable and organic farms.
The latest update on the trend is a long piece in the Washington Post explaining the story of a young woman who went from making $110,000 a year to making $7 an hour. But it's not all clichéd stories of going back to the land. It's reported that farmers are getting a boost and a better chance at success thanks to Community Supported Agriculture, "a system that lets customers pay in advance for a weekly share of a nearby farm's crop."
Last Spring, we heard about the young adults who are "Leaving Behind the Trucker Hat," quitting Williamsburg, and scratching an itch that wasn't relieved by a little backyard gardening. Indeed, eighteen month ago someone making a documentary on about the trend explained "Young farmers are an emerging social movement." On average organic farmers are younger, and the number of small farms is indeed growing dramatically. Perhaps the next farm census will shed statistical light on how true the trend is in farming outside of these cases.
One thing is for sure: There is a dramatic change happening. And the trend is toward sustainability. The number of sustainable farms on a list for prospective students has increased from six in 1989 to 1,400 now — 236 alone were added in the first five months of this year. It really doesn't matter who's running them, but as students from Yale report, a summer spent working on a sustainable farm provides an incredibly enriching experience.
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