The Face of the New American Farmer - Edible Communities

The Face of the
New American Farmer
BY JOHN BROENING
10 EDIBLE FRONT RANGE | SPRING 2008

Photo by Brian Rabin and Junichi Arakawa
What can we say about the average American farmer circa
1930, the year Grant Wood painted his iconic portrait of
the gaunt figure with his pitchfork, his hard Puritan gaze
and his anxious wife?
He owned his own farm. He often worked the same occupation (and
the same land) his father had. He was secure in his place on the food
chain—though less secure than his father had been—and didn’t use
words like sustainable.
What about his present-day counterpart on the Front Range? Well,
unless he inherited his farm, he rents his land. His numbers are
shrinking every year; they’re about a tenth of what they were in
1930. His average age, statewide, is 54. His children, more likely
than not, won’t follow him into the family business. His farm has
more lucrative potential as real estate than as a working farm; as
CSU Agricultural Extension Agent Adrian Card says, “We lament
that the last crop farms grow are houses.”
If he (or, increasingly, she) is a new farmer, he often comes from a
background somewhat related to agriculture. Josh Palmer of Grant
Family Farms studied outdoor education. Josh Hadler from Verde
Farms got a culinary degree from Johnson & Wales. Sue Johnson
from Wolf Moon Farms was a landscape architect.
Or farming can be a refuge from the corporate world. Shanan Olson
from Abbondanza Farms was a self-described “corporate guru.”
Wyatt Barnes from Red Wagon was driven out of his job in
sportswear design by “an evil HR director straight out of Dilbert.”
Unless he owns a monocrop farm, the Front Range farmer practices
some form of direct marketing. She has a farm stand on her land or a
stall at the farmers’ market. Or sells directly to restaurants. Or has an
online store. Or uses some form of Community Supported Agriculture
(CSA), a subscription service in which members pay in advance
for a weekly basket of produce. Or, like, Grant Family Farms,
does all of these things in addition to selling to wholesalers and
frozen food companies.
CSAs have been a boon to small farms. “Everything we grow is presold,”
says Bailey Stenson of three-acre Happy Heart Farm, which is
100 percent CSA-driven.
Rich Olson, whose Abbondanza Farms is moving more towards the
CSA approach, spoke of the sheer difficulty of maintaining a farm
geared towards the farmers’ market. “Market-driven farms are the
most difficult and labor-intensive; the hours are grueling. Five years
ago, the market was our best advertisement and the best venue for
educating consumers. But now…”
Rich and Shanan Olson have launched one of the most ambitious
CSA programs in the country: the Dream Share initiative, in which
members provide a one-time, three-year financial commitment. The
money not only pays for seeds, fertilizer and equipment for the
growing season, but will allow the Olsons to achieve every farmer’s
dream: to own their farm. As of press time, over a quarter of the
shares have been sold.
Abbondanza has also been a beneficiary of Thomas Open Space, a
voter-led initiative by the citizens of Lafayette to turn public land
into a market farm, complete with farm stand. Abbondanza will have
an irrigation system, a greenhouse and a multi-use building complete
with a walk-in cooler. “It stands as a model for other municipalities
to make an effort to create working market farms,” says Card.
Most farmers speak of the importance of educating consumers and the
gratification in building a sense of community. They’ve also learned
the necessity of working sustainably on a smaller scale. “We’re losing
our large farms in Northern Colorado, but we’re gaining more small
operations,” said Karen McManus of Wolf Moon Farms. “We’re
working smaller farms but we’re doing more with them.”
Says John Long, a former biochemist and renegade pig farmer who
left large-scale pig farming as it became controlled by conglomerate
packers and retailers, “I made a decision to produce only what I can
sell directly. Basically I’m back where I started 50 years ago with one
bred gilt [a young female swine]. When I sold pigs to the packers
there was a constant tug-of-war. Now, when I sell to restaurants or
the people who order it, there’s no haggling over price. I’m thrilled to
death to deliver it, they’re happy to get it, and I’m making a number
of peoples’ lives pleasant and safe.”
Dale Lassiter, Fulbright scholar, author and a rancher who now raises
exclusively grass-fed cattle, also chose to opt out of the factory
farming system. A one-time member of the National Cattleman’s Association
(the lobbying arm of Big Cattle), he now opposes the
grain-intensive methods of American cattle farming.
“Thirty years ago it was not as obvious [as it is now] how detrimental
this whole subsidized grain-based petrochemical agriculture is to every
phase of American life, from the environment to human health.”
So where does this contradictory picture leave us? In Ian McEwan’s
novel Saturday, one of the characters tries to make sense of it all:
“The bigger you think, the crappier it looks…. So this is going to be
my motto—think small.”
Likewise, if we focus on the big picture—looming environmental catastrophe,
an imminent water crisis in the West, disappearing
farmland—it looks pretty grim. But if we focus on the small gains in
the Front Range—an influx of younger organic farmers (a nationwide
trend, according to a recent New York Times article), ambitious
local initiatives like the Thomas Open Space, a farmers’ market
in Boulder that some consider the city’s most vital institution, and
more chefs and home cooks searching out local products—there’s a
lot to be optimistic about.
John Broening is Executive Chef of Duo Restaurant in Denver. He
has written for the Denver Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Colorado
Springs Gazette, and Gastronomica.
SPRING 2008 / EDIBLE FRONT RANGE 13
EDIBLE FRONT RANGE | SPRING 2008 11