"Building a Future with Farmers", by Lindsey Shute

“Building a Future with Farmers” is a report by Lindsey Shute, who is a profound member of the National Young Farmers’ Coalition in NY. For those of you that don’t know, the National Young Farmers’ Coalition (NYFC) is a group that is made up by, and for American family farmers in the next generation. The group’s mission is to “present a vision of policy change and achievable recommendations that will help the next generation of American farmers thrive”.

This report has been a very valuable resource. It focuses on the “challenges faced by young, American farmers and a national strategy to help them succeed”. Firstly, I would like to point out that although this report focuses on the barriers of beginning farmers towards farming success, the findings apply to older farmers as well. The three major obstacles (in order) for beginning farmers in the US are capital, land, and health care. The report highlighted the current size of the farming class in the US, which has been on a steady decline for quite some time. Shute writes, “for each farmer under 35 there are 6 over 65, and the average age of farmers is 57. It is estimated that between now and the year 2030, half a million (one- quarter) of American farmers will retire”. With the recent influence that the “good food” movement has had on agriculture, there is a great potential in the future of American farmers, but there are also big challenges.

Shute identified what’s working in the current state of small- scale agriculture as: apprenticeships, local partnerships, and community supported agriculture (CSA). She identified what’s not working as: lack of capital, land access, health care, access to credit, business planning and marketing skills, profitable markets, and education/ training.

As you can see, there are far more aspects in the current system that are not working than those that are working to help generate success among beginning farmers. This reading has been a significant step in my research. Using what I have learned about the broad issues in the system and what needs to be done to help, I would like to prioritize what would be most viable in helping farmers.