Welcome to my blog! For this project I am going to explore family farms and their impact. Progress may be diminishing the traditional family farm. The recent popularity of organic or home grown produce, farmers markets, and living more simply could be ensuring the small farms will still have a place in the future. However, with growing population and general demand, corporate farms may take over entirely. This is an important topic because food is a basic need, and it's important to know where our food is coming from. I grew up in farm country and I know several families with farms that have been around for a few generations. I know generally that maintaining a farm is very difficult, and it is not known for always being financially lucrative. In this blog I hope to:
Dig deeper.
What struggles do farmers face while maintaining their land, crops, and/or animals? Some farms rely solely on family members to run, and some have to hire people to help. What kind of equipment is necessary and what are the costs? Large equipment is obviously very expensive, and things can and do break down. What happens when a crop doesn't produce well that year, or some disaster takes it out? This is an especially big worry with farm animals and the many diseases they can contract. For crops, it's difficult to keep pests away. What worries does a farmer face with pesticides?
Plant some seeds.
What goes on in a corporate farm? Is it better to engineer foods to grow faster to meet demand? Is the cost of land and other expenses worth it for the family farmer to maintain? How much help still exists for farmers to keep their farms running?
Harvest.
I love going to a farmer's market in a small town, or getting fresh tomatoes from a neighbor's garden. I have always wondered in the back of my mind if this would someday go away and I would have to get produce from a grocery store forever, or grow my own. For many of the farmers I know, farming is a passion and they are loyal to what the generations before them started. But so many are struggling to stay above water and many are forced to downsize or sell entirely. Will the family farm one day become obsolete? Or will there always be a place for this piece of Americana?image 1 from
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