Old farmers

Our farm is only 23 acres, but it is still too much for me to farm.  I have one Farmall-B tractor (c. 1956, and it never runs right), a two-bottom plow, an old disk, a small harrow, and an antique cultipacker.  

As a consequence, I plant about a half-acre garden, and I rent out the rest to a real farmer, a neighbor of ours who farms hundreds of acres and has all kinds of equipment.  Unfortunately, Mr. Rudelitch is even older than I am, and he is having health problems.

We hear about the increase in young farmers, in the farm-to-consumer movement, in an expansion of boutique farms, in free range chickens and pigs grown without gestation crates.  That, however, represents a sliver of American agriculture.

Today the Times News ran an article from the Associated Press entitled “Number of farms declines.”  According to the article, there are 2.1 million farms in the U.S., down over 4% from 2107.  The average age of farmers is 58.3 years, and 1/3 of the farmers are over 65.  Farmland acreage decreased from 922 to 915 million acres, and the average farm grew from 418 to 434 acres in that period.

Family farms disappear, factory farms increase, food becomes more tasteless, and crops use more fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides.  None of these trends bode well for the U.S.  We really need a change in agricultural policy.