And by the way Krellin, I am back from WORK now. In my free time I log onto Webdip. During the WORK day I do WORK.

It is called WORK ETHIC.

Perhaps you should look into it before you bitch about the lazy youth of today.

Meanwhile, nobody is going into farming. I've read articles suggesting that in the not too distant future, we're going to have a national problem because there will be no one to run American farms after the current generation of farmers retires/dies. Their kids don't want to continue the family business and students generally are discouraged from agricultural studies in favor of engineering, medicine, business, law, etc.

I grew up on a farm that was in our family for 100 years. It went bankrupt about 8 years ago. It's not just that the kids are discouraged from doing it, food prices that distributors pay to individual farmers are pretty low and don't allow family farms to continue to exist, really. The serious money is in the largely hands off corporate farming. Also, quite a bit of the assistance the department of agriculture gives to farmers doesn't actually go to farmers...they subsidize "cotton fields" that now have suburban housing on them. In fact, there are some developers in the South who will advertise that your new home purchase will include a cotton subsidy.

Farming is less profitable than social work in the US. Which is pretty bass ackwards when you consider how important food is.

You know - I buy my automobile from a factory, because mass production lowers cost.

While I appreciate the plight of the "family" farmer - it just doesn't make sense anymore to have a guy farming 100 acres...the land should be leased for fixed rate contracts to corporations with the agreement that you get paid, crops or no, as long as you follow corporate standard of production. It unfortunate that a "way of life" should "have" to disappear...but I'm sure the buggy-makers, and the buggy-whip makers felt the same way. It's "progress"...

If small farms could grow higher valued crops that they could locally dispense....say some nice green bud...that would go a long way towards helping local farmers. "Yeah, dude...huh huh....Farmer Sacred has this *killer* blend mannnnn....YEAH!" And farmer Sacred laughs all teh way to the bank! (And, really, who wouldn't buy some fine green from Farmer ScredDigits...yeah, mannnnn...)

Your automobile was also never a living thing.

I mean, I agree to some degrees (it was a 2,000 acre farm, though, so it was quite a bit bigger than you might think). I do want to say, though, that most people who try to talk about how much they support ethical growers (normally meaning family farmers) really just use that as an excuse to mark shit up. Whole Foods being the worst offender. They pay the same milk prices as anyone else, it just costs more to buy it there because you're "helping the small farmer."

In any event, farm life wasn't for me, so it going out of business only impacted me insomuch as it impacted some of my relatives (my parents had never really worked it, it was my grandma and uncles). I wouldn't be selling you ganja from my farm...maybe my cousin would be, though. :)

I recently moved into a fairly rural area. I live in a residential area but we can drive to a couple local farms that sell a good bit of produce. I believe I am headed out now for just that purpose. I love buying delicious heirloom tomatoes and free range eggs and supporting my local community. I get to eat delicious food and feel smug.

My parents have a place up in teh thumb of Michigan -- all farm country -- which means *awesome* roadside stands for *fresh* fruits and veggies. I love it...I am a huge, huge fan of local farming, Sacred....I just don't see the equation that makes it work. I hate that all my fruits and veggies in the store are not ripe and taste like shit....it sucks...my parents have chickens, and the fresh eggs, fed "real" food, taste *so* much better than store bought....but again, when a farmer has a bad year...what's the solution?

But I still would love to see a few local ganja farms...lol

Well, a problem is that beyond fruits and vegetables, not many things can be sold in those roadside stands and farmers markets. Things like milk, especially, are very difficult to sell in a format like that since before consumer sale they need to go through some processes that can't be done at small farms. Other things that need to stay refrigerated like meat and cheese are cost prohibitive to do in that fashion. I dunno. What's the solution for when anyone has a bad year, farmer or any kind of business? It's tough all over.

One thing that happens in all kinds of businesses and I witnessed it happening at the farm is the burden of growth. Land in a lot of rural areas is dirt cheap. So when you are borrowing against the value of your land and the land value goes down, it behooves you to buy more land in order to keep the same amount of collateral. And then eventually that becomes untenable.

One thing that's neat that I've seen succeed is leasing out land during the offseasons to hunters. There's a lot of hunters who are glad to pay x amount of money for exclusive ability to hunt on a large parcel of rural land. It's an idea that lets farmland that would normally be fallow for a few months still be productive.

Around here, we're seeing some of the high-end restaurants help sustain small local farms by contracting directly with them for supply of quality produce. Sort of like getting the benefit of a farmer's market without actually going to to the market. Restaurant knows it needs 1000 lbs. of arugula and 800 lbs of heirloom tomatoes every week, so reliable dependable organic Local Farm provides it directly. Works well as long as the restaurant stays in business.

I wasn't just talking about small farms, though. According to these articles, there's basically nobody next-in-line ready to step into the shoes of running the corporate farms either. I mean people with actual farming/agricultural real-world knowledge, as opposed to a generic MBA who might come in and learn OTJ.

There are local ganja farms all over Northern California, particularly in Humboldt County.

My wife and I buy a share every year in a local CSA. It _is_ more expensive than buying the food elsewhere (except, as mentioned, Whole Payche... Foods). But we like supporting the local farmers, and we know that the money is going to them (nice to support the local economy), and we _see_ the farm every time we go to pick up our share. We can pet the pigs and see the chickens walking around.

A side benefit is that we eat a lot healthier since the farm doesn't do half-shares, and we don't like to waste. For that reason, on the whole, we probably just about break even (financially) since we don't buy as much meat and other things from the grocery store. The food also tends to taste better -- less salad dressing, tastier stir fry, interesting vegetables you don't typically see elsewhere, all the basil you can pesto-ify.

CSAs are worth looking into if you have any nearby. Even if you're in a fairly urban area, you might be surprised. There must be a dozen or more in the Boston area.