How do we protect small farms from disappearing?

How do we protect small farms from disappearing? 

This is a big and complicated question. Last week, I wrote about why I think small farms matter for you, the one choosing which food to put on your table. But the disappearance of small farms isn’t a new trend - it’s been happening in some sense since the end of the Civil War. 

But it certainly does seem like it’s accelerating. Last year alone, we lost 15,000 small diversified family farms and ranches. 

And the loss of small farms isn’t always intentional or straightforward. 

Let’s look at a recent case in our own county. Enbridge, a large natural gas company, has proposed building a 28-mile natural gas pipeline through existing farms in Chatham County. 

As landowners testified during a public hearing this week, doing so will be catastrophic to them. Many will be unable to continue farming, or keep farms that have been in their family for generations. 

But the gas company and its employees don’t see it this way. This is progress. The housing developments are already happening. The data center is probably coming. This is just the price to be paid for the innovation of the future. 

And it’s at this point that I like to stop and ask - who is this future for? And what does it look like? 

If the future is pointing toward the loss of small farms, and growing reliance on a central, industrialized food system that sources food from a few humongous farms, then we already have clues this is a problem. 

This summer, there’s been an ongoing cyclospora outbreak that isn’t anywhere close to being solved. Vegetables and fruit are being recalled left and right without solving the problem, leaving us unsure what’s safe to eat at the store. 

And how about the meat industry? Livestock are dying in historic numbers this summer, due to the combination of extreme heat and inhumane living conditions in feedlots. Right now, the number is estimated at between 15,000 to 20,000 cattle dead this summer alone. 

Imagine the economic fallout that will be coming from this, when beef is already at record high prices.

Is that what we want? To lose small vegetable farms and only have food we’re anxious about, or food that will make us sick, as an option? Meat that comes from sick, stressed, and poorly treated animals? Meat that’s unhealthier for us in the long run? 

Is this truly progress? Is this a future that is better for us? 

And this points to what’s happening outside of farming systems, too. Cameras that not only surveil us, but give wrong information that implicates innocent people. Large language models that propose taking our thinking and creating away and doing it for us. 

Data centers that facilitate all of this technological “advancement” by draining and polluting our water, creating noise pollution 24/7 that harms animals and people, and using so much energy that companies can no longer service residents. 

The future is never set in stone. We can always question where we’re going, and whether we should continue down that path. 

Do we want a future that mows down forests and paves over thousands of acres to build cheaply built homes that all look the same and contribute to rising temperatures? 

Do we want a future that forces you to communicate through language models or digital means, rather than directly with a person? 

Do we want a future that wipes out small businesses and steals land, benefitting the few at the expense of the money? 

Do we want a future in which food can only be accessed through one singular, industrialized, chemical-laden and dangerous system? 

These are the questions I think about everyday, whether I’m on the farm or talking directly to employees of a gas company who are just doing their job. 

I grew up in a city that had little natural space, concrete everywhere, traffic everywhere, people everywhere, expenses that can’t be kept up with. I know what it’s like to live in a world where connection to the land and farming don’t matter. 

And I choose a different future. One where working the land is valuable, raising food is valuable, spending time with animals is valuable, human communication is valuable. 

I choose a future where I have to write multiple versions of this post before I can publish it - a time-consuming practice! -  because it’s important to share what I think directly with you, without the interference of a large language model. 

I choose a future that’s at odds with the “progress” and “innovation” our greater society is striving toward. 

Maybe people will come along and try to take this future away. But I’ll choose it, and fight for it, every day that I can. And I hope that you’re alongside us, fighting for a future where small farms can survive and make a difference, every day as well.