Who will feed us when the big farms are gone?
Around here, you don’t have to drive far out of any community until you get to farms gone to suburbs. I’m talking about land that used to be part or all of a big farm, some of which had been in a family for generations, now sold and covered over with houses and streets. Sometimes there are nice houses, but too often what goes up is the cheapest the developer can get by with building.
We’ve lived on our little farm for less than a decade, and there are no less than 4 new subdivisions within a very short distance. One adjoins the back property line of our farm. Where once there were fields of soybeans or corn or cotton, there are now over 45 houses.
Just a couple of years ago we could look towards the back of our farm and see nothing but land with grass and trees and maybe a few animals.
Now just over our back fence line it’s houses, houses and more houses.
I know people need a place to live, but they also need to eat. I’m left wondering, “Who’s going to feed everyone when the big farms are all gone?”
Something to think about.
Well, if the big farms are all paved over, what about the little guys? There’s a lot to be said for eating locally grown food. The fresher food is, the more nutrients it retains.
There’s more and more of a movement towards Sustainable Agriculture. It integrates three main goals—“environmental health, economic profitability, and social and economic equity.” The scope of what exactly Sustainable Agriculture entails is beyond one little blog entry, but if you want to learn more, just search the web, and websites like the Feed the World, will pop up, along with many others.
You can also check out farm websites of people who farm using the Sustainable Agriculture method.
A lot of big farms are disappearing. We’d better come up with a substitute if we want to keep eating.
