When Jesse Kuhn started Marin Roots Farm at age 28, he already had dirt under his fingernails. He’d studied ag in college, managed a student farm, and worked as a landscaper. But when it came to succeeding financially in the farming business, he had a long way to go. “I was charging up my credit cards like crazy and bouncing balances back and forth,” he says. “I almost had to declare bankruptcy during the first year.”

Almost 10 years and many lessons later, Marin Roots is a well-established organic specialty produce business. “It’s a lot of people’s dream to live off the land, but the reality of it is, you have to have a plan for how you’re going to pay the bills,” says Kuhn.

His journey is not unlike that of many beginners who are eager to try their hand at farming but don’t yet have all the necessary skills and resources. In a recent report titled Building a Future with Farmers, the National Young Farmers’ Coalition (NYFC) surveyed 1,000 young and beginning farmers across the US and found that access to land, capital, health care, credit, and business training posed huge challenges.

“What’s different for young and first-career farmers is that they don’t have a lot of equity,” says Severine von Tscharner Fleming, a young farmer in New York’s Hudson Valley who is also co-chair of NYFC and director of The Greenhorns, a film and nonprofit organization that advocates for young farmers. “You see a lot of student debt. Farming is a high-capital industry—an industry that really needs us, but we’re walking in without any cash.” 

Green Thumbs To Greenhorn

Kuhn’s path to farming started as a child in San Geronimo, where he had little exposure to agriculture but picked up a passion for gardening from his grandmother. “She had two green thumbs for sure, and I learned from that,” says Kuhn. When he went to Humboldt State, he joined their new agriculture program and studied permaculture on the side. He also took time off from school to work at an organic soil company and contemplate career paths.

After college he started farming a small one-acre plot, using the model he’d learned on the student farm, but realized the operation was more like a hobby farm than a viable business. So he worked as a landscaper while farming small plots in friends’ backyards, which eventually helped him build the courage to take the leap into full-time farming.

He took out a “land wanted” ad in the Press Democrat and, after receiving a number of responses, settled on a 15-acre agricultural plot on a goat dairy ranch near Petaluma. But there were setbacks infrastructure-wise, such as having to install a new irrigation system, and Kuhn began charging up his credit cards. Right when he was about to declare bankruptcy, a low-interest beginning farmer loan through the USDA Farm Service Agency came through. He was able to buy a tractor, a delivery truck, and seeds.

Through much experimentation, Kuhn found his niche growing organic specialty crops such as baby greens, roots, beans, and summer squash for farmers markets and grocery stores, restaurants, and wholesalers. “A lot of the products I was selling weren’t standardized because I was doing open-pollinated varieties, but there was certainly a market for that,” he says. He now employs a handful of full-time market and field staff.

Kuhn has had to learn much through trial by fire, particularly the organizational side of growing a successful business. He’s found support in his family (his mother helps with accounting, and his father is on call as farm mechanic), as well as in other Marin farmers and the Bay Area farmers market community. “It’s definitely tough farming,” he says. “The farmers market has been a great support network for me, meeting up with the other farmers every week, bouncing ideas off each other, seeing what they’re bringing to market, and getting their advice.”

Growing Roots

Kuhn is still a young farmer by national standards, which place the average farmer at 57. The USDA estimates that 500,000 US farmers (about one-quarter) will retire by 2030, leaving a large gap for the next generation to fill. “We have ever older farmers and ever fewer people who are growing our food,” says Fleming. “I think young farmers are especially well poised to address food security and the re-regionalization of our food system.”

As a result of the Building a Future with Farmers study, the NYFC has proposed a policy agenda including recommendations such as improving credit and savings opportunities, addressing land access and affordability issues, legalizing farm apprenticeships, and expanding training programs. (For more about legal issues related to apprenticeships, see The Farm Intern Conundrum.)

The NYFC study underscores the viability of direct marketing as a start-up strategy for new farmers, with 61 percent of their respondents selling at farmers markets and 49 percent through CSAs. “Helping young farmers means reorienting our food systems so that we’re not just supporting producers who are growing commodity crops and abandoning the small- and medium-scale producers who are more than likely selling directly to the marketplace,” says Fleming.

For aspiring greenhorns, Kuhn recommends getting a job or volunteering on a farm in order to get to know the business. When taking the plunge into starting your own farm, he emphasizes finding the right piece of land, with infrastructure already in place, and developing a niche.

But despite the challenges he’s encountered along the way, Kuhn loves what he does. “Being able to wake up on the farm is incredible,” he says. “And it’s rewarding to go to the farmers market and meet the people who are going to be eating my food.”

Photo: Gary Yost. Chart by the National Young Farmers Coalition.

Originally published on CUESA

In this era when consumers want to know how many “food miles” their carrots traveled and restaurant menus list the distance from farm to fork, restaurant owners are increasingly putting in their own farms on rooftops, abandoned lots and nearby agricultural plots.

The trend has caught on with high-end, Michelin-starred restaurants in California such as The French Laundry in Napa and Manresa in Los Gatos as well as more casual places, such as Pauline’s Pizzeria in San Francisco and the Fremont Diner in Sonoma.

The growing number of restaurant farms is welcome news to new farmers like Rose Robertson, 28, who, like many new farmers, is trained but without a plot of land to call her own. After interning for a year at a farm in Santa Barbara, Robertson knew she wanted to farm but also knew she did not want to be a cog in a large-scale farming operation. She worried that at a big farm, workers like her would end up, “spending your whole day picking beans,” she said.

She found a job managing the one and a half-acre garden at Ubuntu, a high-end vegetarian restaurant in Napa. The owners and staff of Ubuntu describe the garden as the heart of the restaurant, not just a side project. In the summer months up to 90 percent of the produce served comes from its garden.

“The chef says he’s not the chef,” said Robertson. “That the gardeners are growing the food that dictates the menu.”

Ubuntu’s owner, Sandy Lawrence, set out to create that dynamic, and says the importance of hyper-fresh produce is heightened because the restaurant is vegetarian. With the increasing number of young people flocking to agricultural training programs and farming internships, Lawrence never worried about finding eager farmers to employ.

“The reason we’ve been so confident is we’ve always had loads of young people who want to work,” she said. In addition to Robertson, another full time gardener and two part time workers, the garden has an internship program that attracts a constant stream of willing volunteers.

The trend represents a different kind of job opportunity for young people trying to break into agriculture in regions like the Bay Area, where land prices are prohibitively high. The average plot of cropland in California sold for about $9,000 an acre in 2010, according to USDA data, compared to about $4,000 an acre in Iowa, or $800 an acre in Montana, the cheapest state. Prices can go much higher in the Bay Area, though–a plot currently for sale in Sebastopol, Sonoma County is priced at about $21,000 per acre.

American farmers are getting old–in 2007, the average age of a farmer was 58, compared to 39 in 1945. Between 2002 and 2007, the number of farmers under 45 decreased by 21 percent. Still, in recent years, more young people have shown interest in farming and policy makers are working to recruit and incentivize new farmers. The latest version of the Farm Bill allocated $18 million for training new farmers.

Several Bay Area farms offer apprenticeships and internships for new farmers, mostly based around organic or biodynamic methods. But it is still difficult for many of the young people who complete the programs to get a paid job farming when they finish, which makes restaurant farms an appealing option to some.

Misja Nuyttens, 30, was an intern at Green String Farm in Petaluma and recently took a job starting a farm for the restaurant Central Market, also in Petaluma.

She says the experience of starting a farm from scratch has been invaluable. It’s not uncommon for beginning farmers such as Nuyttens to hold multiple jobs or look for non-traditional ways to use their farming skills. Samantha Langevin runs the internship program at Hidden Villa farm and education center in the Los Altos hills. She says she encourages interns to think about taking a diversified approach to their careers.

“The trend we’re seeing is young farmers, in addition to farmers markets, they might be selling to restaurants, they might be offering a CSA program, they might be working with a local school, whether that’s elementary to university, to offer programming on-site, they might be working with other community organizations that are looking to purchase food,” says Langevin.

Managing a restaurant garden lets farmers try out running a farm without having to take on debt or over-commit. And for restaurants, being ultra-local and having control over access to produce gives the chef flexibility. Robertson, the manager of Ubuntu’s garden, says the chef likes being able to harvest vegetables at any stage of growth. He also sometimes uses parts of the plant which are edible but often aren’t traditionally sold, such as carrot tops and beet stems. And he has Robertson grow plants that are difficult or impossible to find in the marketplace, including an edible ice plant with a lemony taste called ficoide glaciale.

Misja Nuyttens says part of the motivation for the chef and owner at Central Market restaurant to start his own garden was to be able to serve produce at its absolute freshest. Even when he purchased from farms only a few miles away, the produce would often go through a distributer that trucked items all over the Bay Area before getting to his kitchen.

Starting a dedicated garden might not always be profitable for restaurants. Lawrence says Ubuntu’s garden is sustaining itself by providing produce to the restaurant, but it helps that most of the land is on the owner’s property. Similarly, the owners of the Farmhouse Inn in Forestville, Sonoma use their own land for their garden, and have set up a share-cropping arrangement with a farmer to make it affordable. Co-owner Catherine Bartolomei says the garden could probably be more profitable if she wanted it to be, but that the larger goal is to adhere to the business’s eating philosophy.

While more and more restaurants are finding ways to make it work, putting in a garden is not a business move that would make sense for every eatery.

Providing boutique vegetables for high-end diners also might not be the philosophical goal for many of the area’s young farmers, although Nuyttens does find connection to a greater cause in her work with the Central Market garden.

“It is a bridge to increasing awareness about the benefits of food grown this way,” said Nuyttens. Restaurant farms, she says, provide, “a springboard for this movement, allowing a new generation of natural process farmers to get established.”

Above, Oxheart carrots grown in Ubuntu’s garden. Photo: Rose Robertson. Below, Ubuntu restaurant’s chefs standing in the garden. Photo: Karen Mann.

This post is part of an ongoing partnership between Civil Eats and the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism News21 course on food reporting.

Ana Catalán may seem young, but don’t let this 23-year-old fool you; when it comes to farming, she’s wise beyond her years. As the youngest child and only daughter of María Catalán, matriarch and owner of Catalán Family Farm, Ana plays a crucial role in the workings of this Hollister-based organic farm.

“I am basically trained to run the business right alongside my mother,” she said on a recent Thursday at the Ferry Plaza Farmer’s Market, while waiting in line at the Blue Bottle kiosk for her second (or was it third?) soy latte of the day. Anna’s three older brothers all work for the farm as well—one manages restaurant relations and orders while the other two sell produce at farmers markets for a commission—but, as Ana sees it, “together, my mother and I are the brain of the business.”

Being the brain of the business generally means working seven days a week, either at a market, in the office, or around the 15-acre farm. It’s not a lifestyle Ana shares with many other people her age. “I honestly only have close friends, because they understand that my job consumes my life,” she said.

Boss-Ladies

When it comes to co-supervising the farm’s crew of workers (a group that ranges in size from six full-time people in December to 40 part-time workers in the summer harvest months), Ana takes cues from her mom. Once a farmworker herself, María graduated from the Agriculture and Land-Based Training Association (ALBA) over 15 years ago and has run her own organic farm ever since.

But getting established as a woman farmer (and single mom) wasn’t easy; many in their extended family were skeptical. “People did not value organic farming as they do now,” recalled Ana. “It was a hard time. My mom knew how to farm, but she didn’t know about marketing. She invested a lot and lost a lot.”

Throughout it all, the drive to treat workers with respect has remained central. “My mom tries to be the best boss that she can be,” said Ana. “She says, ‘I’d rather pay my last dollar to my worker than pay myself.’” Like on any farm with a shifting, seasonal workload, retention can be a challenge. But, Ana said, “No one who has ever worked for us hasn’t wanted to come back.”

Not that it’s easy supervising people twice your age. Ana is a social person and she says it took her a while to figure out how to draw the line between work relationships and personal ones, since she spends so much time at the farm. “I tell them, ‘Once we’re working I’m your boss; off the clock I’m your friend. That stays there and the job stays here. Don’t think I’m going to mix it up.’ But I started so young—it took me a long time to figure this out,” she said.

She Hearts SF

Ana has been coming to the Ferry Plaza since she was 19; these days she runs the Catalán booth on Thursdays and Saturdays, along with one or two other markets in San Francisco. And although the drive from the farm can be grueling at times, she loves coming to the city for its exciting mix of people, food, languages, and cultures. “I started off doing markets in Berkeley. It was fun; but the City has my heart.”

It’s hard to say which came first, Ana’s love of San Francisco or her sense of independence, but there’s no doubt the two things are related. Last year, Ana moved off the farm to an apartment in San Jose with friends–a decision that requires her to drive 45 extra minutes every day (on Saturdays, it means she often leaves her house by 3 am).

“I was the first in the family to move out. In my culture, for a woman to be out of the house, unmarried, and without children…it’s a big deal,” she said. But Ana held her ground. “I’m the only one of my cousins who didn’t get pregnant in high school. I do want to get married and have children some day, but I want my kids to be raised in the home that I choose.” She’s had to have “a lot of sit-downs” with members of her extended family, who like to say she’s become too Americanized.

Since graduating from high school Ana has taken classes at several different community colleges in Gilroy and the Salinas area. But, in the end, it’s always hard to prioritize because the farm has to come first. On the bright side, she said, dealing with family politics primed Ana for her favorite class: Political Science. She thinks often about moving in with relatives in Southern California in order to get just far enough away from the farm to focus on finishing her degree. But for now, it’s hard to leave a family that depends on her (“everyone knows me as Maria’s daughter…I’m her Junior.”) and a job she loves.

The Farmer’s Daughter

“There’s just something about the farm when you’re harvesting. The work that you’ve done has paid off and you get to see the fruit of your labor, literally,” said Ana. “I like waking up before sunrise and going out on the field. The air is so fresh; it’s really beautiful out there.”

On top of growing vegetables, Ana has also been planning to expand on a canning experiment she started last fall; “I want it to be like Happy Girl Kitchen, but Mexican,” she says. And no matter what happens next, it’s clear that Ana enjoys being at the helm of the farm she’s built alongside her mother.

“When I was 13 I was so embarrassed to tell my friends that I had to get dirty and help in the fields. I didn’t want them to think I was just another farmworker.” Now, she said, “they’re all like, ‘Can you hook me up with a job?’”

Originally published by CUESA

As the average age of farmers in the U.S. continues to raise, young farmers are beginning to sprout up across the nation. The recent documentary GROW!, directed by Christine Anthony and Owen Masterson, showcases the resurgence of young organic farmers in the state of Georgia. The film highlights 20 individuals across 12 farms who have found their way back to the land, whether working on a family-owned farm, buying their own, or, in most cases, using another farmer’s land to grow food for their community.

GROW! is a story that does not seek to convince the moviegoer of any particular viewpoint, but instead offers the opportunity to understand a new generation of farmer and why they seek to live a lifestyle removed from the hustle and bustle of the corporate world. “It’s a beautiful story and we wanted these young farmers to tell it in their own words; no narrator, no scientific experts, no hand wringing gloom and doom, just an honest, on the ground account of a movement taking place at this very moment in time,” said directors Anthony and Masterson.

While we might be tempted to write their farming endeavors off as young, idealistic attempts at a simple life that simply no longer exists, what we get is a picture of hardworking, passionate and, yes, idealistic 20 and 30-somethings who feel called to a “real” job with tangible results. Not least of their reasons for becoming farmers is a desire to fight injustice and create a healthier, more sustainable world by growing “clean, fair food.” Being self-employed has its perks too.

Far from the back-to-the-land movement of the 60s and 70s where, as Anthony and Masterson suggested, individuals were mainly concerned with dropping out of society and being self-sufficient, the young farmers of today are “fully engaged and participating in all aspects of society.”

“After the excesses of the 80′s and 90′s there is a sea change of values. A lot of young people no longer are drawn to earning a bunch of money working hard for somebody else in an unrewarding career.”

Add to this the fact that many young people are graduating college to find there are no jobs in their chosen career field, whether it be in accounting, chemistry or medicine, like some of the farmers in the film. But there are deeper reasons for becoming a farmer. “A lot of people of this generation want to work towards changing this world for the better, be it the environment or simply improving things in their local communities.”

As Rebecca Williams of Manyfold farm put it, “I got into farming because I like the idea of feeding people, and I like the idea of feeding people stuff that’s good for them, that makes them feel good, that makes their days better, that’s pleasurable and nourishing.”

The directors hope the film will inspire more would-be farmers and retired land owners to find each other and continue a legacy of small, organic farming, while working to change laws in support of small, sustainable farmers. They also hope it will encourage viewers to think about where their food comes. But viewers should also be prepared to leave with a desire to do more. As one moviegoer stated, “[it] makes me want to quit my job and become a farmer.”

To schedule a local screening of GROW! for your community or classroom, contact the filmmakers through the film’s Web site.

Filmmaker Junko Kajino grew up on a farm in Japan and, although she now lives in Chicago, she’s remained interested in the organic farming community back home. In the weeks since the nuclear disaster at Fukushima Dai-ichi, Kajino has kept a close eye on the organic rice and vegetable growers in the area and she noticed certain themes in the messages appearing on blogs and social media sites. “They focused on how to reduce radiation, how to cultivate their contaminated land, and what they can grow in their polluted soil,” she recalls.

Despite the severe damage to their land and the heightened concern about ongoing radiation, Kajino says, the farmers were not complaining. Instead, she says, they’ve  started talking about what to plant. “This was the hope I saw in the last several months and I need to document that.”

This spring, Kajino and her filmmaking partner Ed Koziarski will travel to the Tohoku region of Northern Japan to follow several farmers who are working to rebuild. The farms they plan to document—in a film titled Uncanny Terrain—are just outside the evacuation zone (recently extended to 30km), and many are within the 80km warning zone declared by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Still other farms are further away, and have had no reports of nearby high radiation, but they’re still affected by the stigma against food (and people) from the Tohoku region.

Among those they plan to follow is 28-year-old Masanori Yoshida, who left his job as a chef in Tokyo to work his family’s land. In the past, he’s grown what’s called “firefly rice,” named for the lack of pesticides used in the growing process that have allowed the glowing insects to return. “We don’t know if our crops will be safe,” Masanori told the filmmakers. “We can’t ignore this issue. But we won’t stop cultivating our land”

Megumi Kondou is another example. She is still awaiting government approval to return to the farm she evacuated after the earthquake. Rather than rice, she is considering growing canola, which she believes may help reduce radiation in the soil, and is a potential source of biofuel.

There are significant questions at hand about how and when the land in this area can be used. As Koziarski and Kajino wrote on the film’s fundraising page, whether the land can be returned to its natural state, “or whether the farmers must abandon their ancestral homesteads, remains to be seen.”

Koziarski says he’s motivated by what he sees as tragic irony. “These farmers have done everything they can to be responsible stewards of the environment,” he says. “They now see their efforts undermined by the irresponsibility of executives and government officials who concealed the risks of nuclear [energy] in Japan.”

Kajinko echoes this statement. “Some of these farmers have been avoiding these energy sources, [and trying to] live a self-sustaining life. Now they have to find the way to live side by side with radiation. But I believe that they might find hope. And I think that we might all need this lesson sooner or later.”

Learn more about the film, see Uncanny Terrain on the fundraising site, IndieGoGo.

Food is the pulse of the millennial generation as thousands of young people are propelling the new good food movement forward by planting the seeds of a more just and sustainable food system. Across the country, students are activating for social change on campuses, while hundreds of new farmers and gardeners are digging into neighborhoods, and innovative food ventures are sprouting up. Come meet some of the best and brightest of these young food activists on Tuesday, May 3, as Kitchen Table Talks, in conjunction with UC Berkeley’s School of Journalism, hosts a lively discussion with some of the leading youth voices whose mandate is food.

Joining us in conversation will be:

Nikhil Arora is a former Hass School of Business graduate and the co-founder of Back to the Roots, which produces grow-at-home mushroom kits grown from recycled coffee grounds. On pace to collect and divert over one million pounds of coffee grounds this year, it recently launched in 250 Whole Foods nationwide and can be found at Peet’s Coffee, as well as other natural food markets. Back to the Roots has helped sustain 10 urban schools gardens by donating their premium soil amendment.

James Berk is an owner-worker at Mandela Foods Cooperative (a program of Mandela Marketplace) a locally-owned and operated full-service grocery store and nutrition education center located in West Oakland, a community long underserved in grocery retail. Berk also does youth empowerment work with West Oakland Youth Standing Empowered and works with the Healthy Neighborhood Stores Alliance, which focuses on getting nutritious food and positive businesses practices into convenience stores. He has been honored for his work with the Robert Redford Center’s The Art of Activism award.

Yonatan Landau is the co-founder and director of the Cooperative Food Empowerment Directive (CoFed), a network, training program, and research institute that helps students create sustainable food cooperatives on their campuses. Before his current gig, he launched a successful campaign to prevent the first fast food chain from opening at UC Berkeley and helped raise over $120,000 for a cooperative alternative, the Berkeley Student Food Collective.

Samin Nosrat creates community around food with her varied endeavors as a cook, teacher, writer, and accidental activist. Since Eccolo, a restaurant she helped run, closed in 2009, she has tirelessly questioned and experimented with what it means to be a professional cook. She is known for the Pop-Up General Store, Tartine Afterhours dinners, Home Ec Cooking Classes, and the most recently successful Bakesale for Japan. At the heart of all of her work lies the fundamental belief in the power of food to create meaningful connection.

Hải Võ organizes with Live Real, a new initiative building community with youth across the country around food cultures and policies based on respect for ourselves, each other, and the Earth, and is currently recruiting Real Food Fellows as part of the initiative.  A member of the California Food and Justice Coalition, he is helping coordinate community activities for the Community Food Security Conference this November in Oakland.  Vo has organized and participated in youth-led food justice initiatives, including the Real Food Challenge, California Student Sustainability Coalition, and the Student Farmworker Alliance.

Haleh Zandi is a co-founder, permaculture landscaper, and community organizer with Planting Justice, a non-profit organization based in Oakland, CA dedicated to food justice, economic justice, and sustainable local food systems. She strives to implement notions of human rights into practice by taking back public spaces so that every community, within Oakland and to Tehran, has access and sovereignty over affordable, nutritious food.

When: Tuesday, May 3 from 6:30 – 8:30 p.m.

Where: UC Berkeley School of Journalism, Room 105, Northgate Hall, Berkeley, CA

This event is free and open to public. Space is limited, so please RSVP with consideration.

Kitchen Table Talks is a joint venture of CivilEats and 18 Reasons, a non-profit that promotes conversation between its San Francisco Mission neighborhood and the people who feed them. Food generously donated by Gather Restaurant.

It’s not the first farmer apprenticeship program of its kind, but the University of Vermont’s upcoming curriculum aims to be just as revolutionary as its university counterparts. Farming apprenticeships at Michigan State and UC Santa Cruz, have already proven that college graduates are not only ready for intensive, professional training in sustainable agriculture, but are capable of turning their experiential education into sustainable jobs.

As the demand for small-scale, locally-grown produce steadily increases, the mission of UVM’s apprenticeship is quite clear: provide graduates with an education and support system that encourage them to create and maintain sustainable farms and food businesses.

The university recently launched its own research initiative, the Spires Of Excellence in Food Systems, to promote education, training, and outreach in the field of sustainable food systems. Students of this particular apprenticeship will have the opportunity to learn along side program directors, Corie Pierce and Susie Walsh Daloz, two experienced farmers in their own right who have also had much success as educational trainers at the university and elementary school level. They, along with a community of participating farmers (Intervale Community Farm, Half Pint Farm, Bread and Butter Farm) and food businesses (City Market Coop), will introduce students to fields and marketplaces that will become their classrooms.

The university has received overwhelming interest in the program, which will begin on May 31st and finish five months later on November 4th. Different from other farm apprenticeships, there is an application fee of $4,800 for student enrollment. But Susie Walsh Daloz views the cost as a long-term asset: “We believe it’s a great investment to gain a comprehensive view of running a farm, or local foods business that can be quickly recouped after a student launches his own enterprise.” At the end of their 5-month training, students will receive a Certificate in Sustainable Farming from UVM’s Continuing Education Department. They will also leave equipped with a tremendous skill set, having learned from farmers, harvested their own land, and participated in Burlington’s local economy.

Students begin each week with a farm walk at Intervale Community Farm. Regular review of the land is practice in evaluating short-term farm duties and season-long strategy for productivity. “Thinking like a farmer,” is how Walsh Daloz describes Monday morning assessment. From there, the students spend time farming their 2-acre university plot, where crop selection and overall farm management is entirely their responsibility. Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays, students work at participating farms. Their experience weeding, harvesting and planting, is also an opportunity to “engage with the farmer in the planning and big picture thinking on the farm,” Walsh Daloz explains. Wednesday are reserved for classroom labs, which can mean anything farm trips to lectures by farmers, UVM professors, and other local food activists.

The curriculum is rigorous and full-time. It is also not intended for undergraduate students. But Walsh Daloz envisions a student-base rich with varying motivations: “Ideal applicants for this program have a passion for joining the sustainable food movement and can come from a wide variety of academic and work backgrounds: new and aspiring farmers, career changers, back-to-landers, urban and community gardeners, students of sustainable agriculture, environmental studies or nutrition/culinary arts, educators, and activists who want to promote and sustain local food systems.”

Upon completing their apprenticeships, students are encouraged to create their own farming opportunities—a chance to put their education into practice. It is Walsh Daloz’s belief that “people graduating from this program will go on to educate others–through a CSA, a local food restaurant, an educational garden project–about the important and integral role of sustainable food systems in our lives.”

The question of how to bring small-scale farmers back to the land is a thorny issue. Land preservation, government approval, and start-up costs are real challenges to the larger food system framework. But beneath the politics of economy and environment, is the strength of a skilled farmer. A farming education is intuitive—the mind learns to observe and care for the needs of the land. It is also instructive about the greater effect of local agriculture: Give an apprentice the opportunity to witness a growing season, to manage an acre or two, and she will harvest enough food for her own kitchen and sale at a local farmer’s market. That is the defined deliverable of this apprenticeship. As graduates engage with other farmers, they learn the value of partnership and together, they create a powerful marketplace.

For Walsh Daloz, the supporting farmers of UVM’s apprenticeship program also have much to gain from a shared local economy. By allowing “more motivated folks [to help] on their farms, [they] support and grow even more new farmers.”

“We are all working towards the same end,” Walsh Daloz says, “and [we] are happy to have found a way to collaborate.”

To learn more about the 5-month Farmer Apprenticeship Program, visit: http://learn.uvm.edu/sustainability/farmer-apprentice-program. Applications received by May 2, 2011 will be given priority. Rolling admissions accepted, depending on space.

Photos: Rebecca Bloomfield, Charu Singh

Honeybees might be a good metaphor here, not just because they hustle hard and need to come together, but also because they like to dance. Greenhorns have organized over 30 parties for young farmers over the last two years, from a bicycle-powered Goat Spit in Brooklyn; a Rabbit Roast upstate; to a Maine Chautauqua and old school mixers in places as far flung as Portland, Charlottesville, Petaluma, Detroit, Burlington, and Vashon Island. This fall we are swarming west with free mixers and farmer preview screenings of The Greenhorns documentary in California.

Social gatherings are a crucial fourth piece of the young farmer puzzle, alongside better land access, interest-free start-up financing loans, and new farmer training and development at all levels of our educational system. Greenhorns mixers are venues where young farmers can hang out, but also learn how to break down a pig, identify beneficial insects, harvest seaweed, write a budget, and make compost tea. They can connect with local and regional ag nonprofits and service providers. They can kick back with a beer and a plate of delicious farm food, and get up and dance to live music. What an essential pleasure for the new land insurgency! As one young farmer from Washington state told us: “I need these kind of networking events for support and momentum.”

If you listen to some young farmers’ bleak social options you will see that these are events with purpose: “Since starting a farm, we have had almost no time to do anything fun,” writes an entrepreneur from California, who had to let go of her first farm business and take to living in an RV. Within 24-hours of her blog posting, there were 18 replies from fellow farmers across the country offering consolation and new work. The community of support is available and waiting to be rallied.

Today’s young farmer movement is a motley crew in terms of gender and ethnicity, so let’s get comfortable being diversely characterized. We can convene under the banner of a quilting bee, but just as easily for a film screening in the countryside or a West African dance session in an old barn. Greenhorns are preparing a guide called “Punk Yeoman Event Prep” that will walk young farmers through the process of staging their own get together. (You can also vote now for our Free Range Youtopia Grant to create a dynamic online event planning template and archive for young farmers everywhere.)

Following on the success of our battery of beta-testing events, the next step is securing government support for cultural enrichment for young farmers. There is precedent for this in France, where the Jeunes Agriculteurs receives funding from the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD) to “ensure economic and social vitality.” In 2007 the JA hit the streets of Paris with a “Techno Parade” promoting French agriculture. Our Greenhorn goal to institute party posture among farmers nationwide is far less costly and more aimed at bringing farmers together, but you get the idea.
But right now, we really need your help. Until the end of this week (10/22), Greenhorns are accepting donations to our campaign for America’s young farmers on Kickstarter. In exchange we are offering copies of our Guide for Beginning Farmers, handmade tote bags and bike flags, heirloom seeds, and invitations to farmer parties. Please consider helping us reach our goal so we can add networking features to our online map, distribute our film in more places, and host more parties for young farmers. Subsidize celebration! Share the link with friends, family and Facebook.

We, as young farmers, are seeding social change through an American agricultural revival. With your support, we can keep our events free and not-for-profit.

When I first heard about it, I thought I understood what Food, What?! founder Doron Comochero meant by “youth empowerment.” It meant turning around high school kids’ attitude about school and their futures, and changing their eating habits to better themselves and their planet. It turns out that was only the half of it. On a beautiful fall evening recently, the Food, What?! staff held a fundraising dinner on the UCSC farm. Food, What?! “staff” are the students enrolled in the program.

While City Schools board members, parents, and other Food, What?! supporters enjoyed a delicious meal prepared and served by students from the produce they had grown, student interns stood one by one to tell their stories. One intern had arrived in the program speaking only Spanish, and had learned to speak English working side by side with other students. Another intern said, “I wanted to look good in other kids’ eyes,” and Food, What?! taught him to see himself in a positive light. “It’s a life skill,” he said, “lending ourselves to all that positivity.” Positivity versus negativity; instead of complaining about fog, wind, heavy labor, and stinging insects, students withstood the tough working environment by encouraging each other. Clearly Doron had been talking with them about more than chard.

Doron and fellow Food, What?! founder Abby Bell also helped their interns to see themselves in a positive light by teaching them public speaking. Which was why–while we enjoyed baked polenta made from farm-grown corn, as well as vegetable kebabs, bean salad, and apple crisp all made from farm produce—the interns were standing one by one to tell their stories.

One student, a graduate of the program, spoke about her mom raising her and her brother single-handedly while working full-time. Her mom had a culinary background and was a great cook, yet with little money and a full-time job, she had fallen into the habit of providing fast food dinners. But the stories her daughter brought home from Food, What?! began to change how they ate. The way her daughter described it, instead of giving what money they had to a fast food chain, they increased the value of their dollar by giving it back to the community and preparing simple, healthy meals with the produce they bought.

Doron calls it “youth dollar power” and a vote for food justice. And that dollar goes both ways: Students enter the program as paid interns for the spring, summer, or fall; they open checking accounts and learn to manage their money; and as Food, What?! “staff,” they hold Board Meetings at the end of every year to discuss what has gone well and what needs improving.

Below the UCSC campus in public elementary schools, students of different races mix in the classroom and on the playground. But as they grow older a separation often occurs. Not so on the Food, What?! Farm, where students of diverse backgrounds labor side by side and prepare their meals together. They and Doron and Abby think of each other as family.

But Food Justice is flourishing in our elementary schools as well. This fall City Schools’ chef Jamie Smith raised the number of families applying for free and reduced lunch by 300 students or 10 percent. This gives a needed boost to school lunch funding and brings more students together around the table. And with studies showing that good nutrition raises academic performance, our new school food program may even make the proponents of standardized tests happy. Meanwhile, Food, What?! interns deliver CSA produce to the Beach Flats neighborhood and at least one local elementary school, further unifying the community behind something that’s good for all of us.

In an attempt to explain what seems to be the seed of a cosmic shift in how farming is practiced and portrayed in America, I offer you my story:

I’m 26 years old, and after a three year stint working on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, and navigating the concrete jungle, I needed out.

I was interested in much more than a career change. My mind, my body, my immune system, my belief system, my soul, my skin, and my fingertips—every piece of me began aching to evacuate the city immediately.

Without any major physical ailments or health concerns to speak of, my ill feelings inspired me to reexamine what I, as a human being, truly needed to get by. All the things I felt I needed—fresh food raised naturally, exercising and sweating in the sun, getting dirt under my nails, breathing fresh air, walking on earth, feeling accomplished by my labor—these very personal things I craved were being hustled, bustled, and trampled on by my own over-stimulated, under-satisfied, never-sleeping, big apple life.

Exposed to organics, local farmers, and the flourishing Brooklyn farm-to-table restaurant scene, I had gotten a taste of what was possible and there was no turning back. I was hooked—something from deep inside me began to slowly bubble towards the surface.

As I looked around me–whether it be America as a whole, a particular state I was in, the strangers sitting across from me on public transit, or even my closest loved ones–I’ve seen that we are becoming a sick people. Fat and obese people everywhere, widespread learning disabilities amongst children, and cancers riddling away entire family trees are now cultural norms.

Finally there came a point in time (about a year ago to the day) when I refused to continue going along for the ride. There are wrongs—serious wrongs—being committed to our land, to our people, and to our freedoms on a daily basis at the grocery checkout counter. The expression “you are what you eat” is no old wives’ tale, it’s pure truth. At any given second our cells are dying and new ones are being reproduced using whatever we put in our mouths. Do you want to replace your dead cells with nutrient dense vegetables and healthy, well-balanced animal fats—or processed and packaged toxins?

Organics pioneer, Sir Albert Howard, wrote in his 1943 book An Agricultural Testament, “artificial manures lead inevitably to artificial nutrition, artificial food, artificial animals, and finally artificial men and women.” This cycle is an ever-worsening situation for our country, and it realizes an unholy amount of cash flow for the nation’s worst perpetrators against the public health and well-being.

Young people everywhere are living with these effects first hand. The drastic changes, consolidations, short cuts, and widespread use of drugs and chemicals in conventional agriculture have all taken place right under our grandparent’s noses. Food did not used to be like this, and the older generation is our witness. While old timers can cheerfully reminisce about the days when they had chickens out back, or picked berries with their papa, people my age are first beginning to bear the true consequences of industrialized food. Young people can see it in their broken families, in their autistic sisters, and in their asthmatic cousins who survive on diets of fruity pebbles and Ritalin. We see it, and we want to change it.

For the first time in many generations there is an uprising of young men and women stepping onto America’s fields, digging into earth, and making a sustainable and satisfying life for themselves. We are doing it not only because we want to, but because we need to. We are passionate, we are educated, and we are on a mission to heal our communities, our families, the land, and ourselves.

And so, from Wall Street one day, to rural Georgia the next, I am currently farming under the tutelage of farmer/restaurateur Jason Mann.  Through our vegetable wing, Full Moon Farms, and our pasture raised meat cooperative, Moonshine Meats, we feed the community through a successful community supported agriculture (CSA) program, as well as supplying Jason’s two farm-AND-table restaurants that please both mouths as well as minds (Farm255 in Athens and Farm Burger in Decatur).

I’d like to close this post with a quote from a fellow young farmer, and good friend, that I think embodies the spirit of our movement. This was the closing to a farewell email he wrote on his departure from our Athens community: “It may not seem like it all the time, but our paths are both humble and righteous, and we cannot go wrong.”