Giving Young Farmers Training & Land

[Guest guest]

On Mon, 18 Jan 1999, COM: Madhava Gosh (das) ACBSP (New Vrindavan - USA) wrote:

 

> [Text 2026747 from COM]

>

 

> More of a crisis than Y2K in agriculture is the lack of young farmers.

My one

> brother is 47 and the other is 41, and the younger one and a few others

> between him and the 47 year old are the youngest farmers still working.

There

> are virtually none younger than that. This is in Walsh county North Dakota,

> which in the 70s when I was still there was the second largest tonnage potato

> producing county in the US, behind only Aroostook county , Maine.

>

> Incidentally, this info is quite up to date as I did call him to commiserate

> about the Vikings loss in the NFC conference championship :-(

>

 

 

The dying out of farmers is a stupendous problem. One reason why I really

dislike the focus on Vedic scriptures was it generally means not listening

to Prabhupada. The emphasis gets to be on ritual and social segregation.

 

Somehow, Srila Prabhupada was able to extract something different from the

Vedas and his emphasis is more on including people and training people.

 

Prabhupada wanted us to train farmers (see Varnasrama Walks March 1974)

and he wanted us to actually give land to farmers -- for self-sufficient

(not market-oriented) land.

 

I highly doubt that the Vedics will ever put together a program to train

farmers in cow protection and how to take care of the land, because they

are not going to see that in their scriptures -- you have to go to

Prabhupada for that.

 

-- Anyway, not to get to partisan. The question of the dying out of

farmers is a very important one. Where did I read that most farmers are

in their 60s right now. Set that against all the problems they might be

facing next year, and you have got a recipe for instant widespread farmer

retirement.

 

================

 

What I have been wanting to do for a year or more is to type up some

articles from the *Stockman Grass Farmer* which addressed this issue very

well:

 

"Allan's Observations" [Allan Nation, the editor] "The Energy

Lifecycle of Men" *Stockman Grass Farmer, Feb & March 1996 (Vol 53, n 2,3)

 

Here is an excerpt:

 

=================================================

 

According to the 1992 USDA Census of Agriculture, 86% of America's farms

and ranches are owned by families or individuals and family-held

corporations own another 3%. Only 1% are true corporations and 10% are

partnerships. How many of the family owned farms and ranches are

structured to be freestanding is not known but probably very few.

 

A largely uncommented phenomenon seen in virtually all "one-man shows" is

that they actually start to decline many years before the founder's death.

More often than not, the business dies before its founder. To understand

why this happens it might help to look at men and women's lifecycle of

energy, agressiveness and good ole "get up and go."

 

THE ENERGY LIFECYCLE OF MEN

 

If we force ment to wait until they ahve built up enough capital in

another trade to start farming, as we currently have been doing, we have

them out of sync with their energy lifecycle and have probably denied them

the chance to become wealthy. Men have a relatively short energy

lifecycle compared with women and it is important that they be able to get

on with their careers as early in life as possible. As we shall see, the

New Zealand goal of a farmer havin made his pile and being largely retired

from the active phase of farming by age 50 fits the maile lifecycle

extremely well...

 

==============================

 

Anyway, I am not trying to say that our objective is to create a bunch of

rich farmers -- but I do agree with Allan Nation's point that we need to

work out a plan to get men on the land and working, when they still have

the energy and enthusiasm to develop something -- instead of insisting

that they must somehow pay for their land themselves, which usually means

doing a lot of work off farm. And if they farm, the emphasis is usually

on growing vegetables with petroleum-powered equipment -- not growing

grain with oxen.

 

Somehow or other our farm communities must make the commitment to training

young men in ox-powered farming, and putting them on their own land.

 

your servant,

 

Hare Krsna dasi