Complimentary Blueberry Juice

This morning I was asked to be on local CBC Radio One to speak about the higher than average rainfall and how it affects vegetable growers. At the end of the brief interview, I was asked by the broadcaster why I wanted to farm, despite the broad trend of young people leaving the farm behind. I wasn’t satisfied with my answer, and realized I could have said some far more important things than just “life brought me back here and I’m good at it.” Since I’ve had all day harvesting to think about it, I will answer the question further here.

The question of “why are younger generations leaving the farm behind” is something that is happening across the country and, as far as I know, broadly in the west. Many do not see a future for themselves in agriculture. After all, if they did, they would stay and continue. Long hours, hard work, expensive equipment and chemicals, and as I was brought on this morning to talk about, inclement weather can change your outcome (if you haven’t designed your farm to be prepared for it).

Why would a young person take all that risk, when the property, because of the commodification of land and housing, is worth far more than they would ever make farming?

Take the easy way out.

Most do.

But the views on agriculture that lead to feeling like there is no future in the industry are broken and false. There is so, so much to be excited about in the agricultural space. One does not have to do things as it was done before. The leaps and bounds of science – particularly in the biology, soil biology and plant physiology spaces – in the last ten years alone are immense. They have profound implications for agriculture, and it means there’s a new game out there.

The frontiers of agriculture are always changing. This is a historical fact, agricultural innovation has been ongoing for millennia. I feel like the general contemporary view of agriculture is stagnant, like it hasn’t changed, like few alive today can remember a time when it wasn’t tractors and giant monocultures sprayed with chemicals and using fertilizers. The changes that are happening and about to happen have not penetrated the public writ large, and, I suspect, many young folks who feel they have no future at the farm do as well.

So why did I choose to farm?

Life did bring me back here. But first I spent my child hood catching frogs, then I spent 6 years in university studying plants. I would drop out before getting a degree, feeling my efforts useless there, and I found myself with no future. All the things I loved and wanted to study and work with, the plants and animals, wetland systems and forests, only seemed to be government jobs or whatever “environmental consulting” means. It didn’t seem to be something society valued. There was no “job” waiting for me. In many career consultations in university, nobody suggested to me in university that farming might be an option. After all I was in biology school. Farming? That’s over there, in the agriculture school. 

But farming is biology. And here, right in front of me, was a framework wherein I could apply not only the things I learned, but that was also vehicle to explore the natural world, to conduct my own trials and experiments, to observe nature and solve very interesting problems. 

I wish I thought my future was here a long time ago (I’d be so much further ahead now!)I’m glad I’m here now doing this important work and expanding the realm of whats possible. The work is not weeding and harvesting. The work is the innovation, the trying new things, the imagination, the steady progression to better. It happens to involve pulling weeds and harvesting. That’s incredibly exciting work! I wish more understood that this is what it could be like. 

This morning, I watched a pair of Tree Swallows feed their young hatchlings, I saw my cover crop begin to germinate, I took a walk and saw the wild flowers blooming in the lush forests and diverse vegetation, I watched my honeybees begin their foraging flights for the day, and I harvested veggies that I have spent years dialing the methodology to grow and I will spend years more doing it even better.

Why would you walk away from that?

Graham

thanks for reading complimentary blueberry juice