(Betty and Carob getting a morning treat, via adriannegoesfarming)
About 25 states have FarmLink programs that match new farmers with landowners, and the programs vary in how involved they are in matches.
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| — | Programs in US match fledgling farmers, landowner: a fun AP story in the Wall Street Journal #somethingyoudontsayeveryday |
[W]hile men dominate cattle, grain, commodity crops and overall farm size, women-operated farms dominate in vegetable, fruit, nut, poultry, egg, sheep, goat and general horticulture production.
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(from Putting Down Roots in Edible Omaha) Danelle is awesome. Women gaining the respect they deserve in agriculture is awesome. |
The very structure of the agricultural system, as it stands now, is designed to return the greatest profit possible, not to the farmers but to the producers of the chemicals they use and the seeds they plant. And because those chemicals depend on fossil energy, the entire system is inherently unsustainable. What farmers used to return to the soil in the form of labor and animal manure — not the toxic kind you find in livestock confinement systems — they now must purchase, just the way they buy diesel for their tractors.
