@PID GIGO+ sn 175 at psybbs vsn 0.99 pl1 @SPLIT: 04 Dec 94 14:31:40 @3641/223 6952 04/11 ++++++++++ From: dnexner@iastate.edu (Rick Exner) @Subject: Practical Farmers of Iowa newsletter, fall 1994 Date: 2 Dec 1994 03:04:21 -0000 @Sender: daemon@bigblue.oit.unc.edu @Message-Id: <9412011822.AA03635@iastate.edu> products. There were cattle ranchers from Washington, trout producers from North Carolina and winegrape growers from California as well, all trying to do something about the state of agriculture in the breadbasket of the world. They were three dozen farmers, representing 18 agriculture groups which recently received W.K. Kellogg Foundation grants, joined by representatives of the Kellogg Foundation from Battle Creek Mich. Other farmers from the Chesapeake Bay area of Massachusetts, Ohio, Montana, Nebraska, and Georgia came, too. They were among those who traveled to Ames to attend the Kellogg Foundation s Building Community conference. As a side-trip, one third of the conference-goers came to Hardin County to share discussion, and also to hear more about a group of Hardin County farmers and ag professionals who won a Kellogg grant themselves. Farmers from around the country were struck by the numbers presented to them by Hardin County Extension Director Jim Johnson. Between 1987 and 1992 the number of Hardin County farms in the 260-499 acre range in size decreased from 265 to 206. While large farms increased in numbers, the overall number of farms here declined from 1,065 to 986. Just as alarming, the number of farmers who list farming as their primary source of income dropped by more than 10 percent in just five years. These farmers from the mountains and clay soils of other regions of the nation had thought that Iowa and the cornbelt represented the pinnacle of successful agriculture. They were surprised to learn that the family farm is indeed threatened here and beginning farmers find it nearly impossible to find the capital for the huge start-up costs associated with farming. While there are government programs that offer financial assistance to beginning farmers, a handful of Hardin County farmers are trying to do more. The goal of the group is to, first, develop a handbook for new farmers that covers everything a newcomer needs to know to be financially successful. Secondly, the group will try to match young farmers with established farmers who might be willing to share equipment in exchange for labor, or who might sell a farm on contract, for example. The group offered suggestions and took notes on the points they might take home to their own organizations. One final point farmers from around the country agreed upon local ownership and preservation of family-farm lifestyle is a community issue. It is a cause that all economic development interests, merchants and residents must join if they wish to preserve the small-town way of life, representatives said. And when they left, these varied farmers left gifts representative of their farms apples from the 1994 Washington crop, rice from Arkansas, cherries and blueberries from Michigan, Georgia pecans and mayhaw jelly, smoked brown trout from North Carolina and wheat from Montana. Perhaps they took home a better understanding of the common threads among U.S. farmers. Location of Integrated Farming Systems Projects: 1. Arkansas - Grantee: Arkansas Land & Farm Development Corporation 2. California (California Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture) - Grantee: University of California-Santa Cruz 3. Kansas (The Heartland Network) - Grantee: Kansas Rural Center 4. Montana/Idaho (Ag Options Network) - Grantee: Alternative Energy Resources Organization 5. Pennsylvania (Regional Infrastructure for Sustaining Agriculture) - Grantee: Rodale Institute Research Center 6. Iowa (Shared Visions: Farming for Better Communities) - Grantee: Practical Farmers of Iowa 7. Minnesota (Stewardship Farming Program) - Grantee: Land Stewardship Project 8. Ohio (The Darby Project) - Grantee: The Nature Conservancy 9. Wisconsin (Wisconsin Integrated Cropping Systems Trial) - Grantee: The University of Wisconsin 10. Nebraska - Grantee: Center for Rural Affairs 11. Maryland (Future Harvest: Farming for Profit and Sustainability) - Grantee: Cheasapeake Bay Foundation 12. Massachusetts (Conneticut River Valley Community Initiative for Sustainable Agriculture) - Grantee: Hampshire College 13. Kentucky (Kentucky Leadership for Agricultural and Environmental Sustainability) - Grantee: Community Farm Alliance 14. North Carolina - Grantee: North Carolina Association of Black Lawyers 15. Oregon (Marketing and Production Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture) - Grantee: Oregon State University 16. Michigan (Michigan Integrated Food and Farming Systems) - Grantee: Michigan Agricultural Stewardship Association 17. Georgia (The Southwest Georgia Alternative Agriculture Project) - Grantee: University of Georgia 18. Washington (A Holistic Decision-Making Model for the Development of Sustainable Crop/Livestock and Natural Resource Systems) - Grantee: Washinton State University SHARED VISIONS COMMUNITY WORKSHOP PRESENTATION GREENFIELD, IOWA AUGUST 4, 1994 Clark BreDahl (Editors' note: This is text from a presntation by Clark BreDahl during the visit to Greenfield. Clark farms and is on the Neely-Kinyon Farm Project Committee.) To share a vision, each of us must first have a vision of our own; a vision of where we would like our business to be a few years hence; a vision of what we would like our community to look like, and a perspective as to where our community will fit into the grand scheme of things years down the road. Finally, after we have planted those visions clearly in our minds, we need a plan as to how we will achieve our goals....Without a plan, our visions will never become realities. >From an agricultural perspective, life has perhaps changed more in the past twenty years than it did in the previous two hundred of our nation s existence. And though technology has been frequently mentioned as the culprit, I think it has to be viewed as a two-edged sword that can either help or hinder us. One thing is certain. Technology will not go away. If we do not use it, others will. The key is getting technology and research to solve problems for us, rather than create new ones. It follows then that to come up with the right answers, we must first ask the right questions. That is where a Shared Visions approach can help. When I survey the changes that have occurred in farming since I came back to the area in 1974, I don t notice the technological or mechanical differences nearly as much as I do the structural changes. When we talk about ninety percent of all fresh vegetables consumed in the United States now being grown in the San Juaquin Valley of California, rather than on scattered farms throughout each state in the Union, that is a fundamental, structural change of overwhelming proportions. When we talk about chicken surpassing pork and beef to become the most popular meat in the U.S., and six huge conglomerates producing seventy-five percent of all consumption and controlling all facets of production and processing from hatch to retail meat counter that is fundamental. When we talk about California taking over as the leading dairy producing state, and over 50 percent of all dairy production in this country now coming from herds of five hundred head or more that s fundamental. How many farmers in Adair County still raise chickens? How many farmers in Adair County still milk cows? And how many of you came from farm homes like mine where forty years ago the egg check and cream check used to provide the lion s share of our family s spending money? That s fundamental change. How many times in recent years have you heard someone say, Somebody s going to farm the land and raise the livestock...What difference does it make who it is? To me it makes all the difference in the world regarding the quality of life we in rural Iowa will have. For us, people and prosperity may be inseparable. I think we will not have one without the other. If I am still a farmer 20 years from now perhaps by some stroke of luck even a wealthy farmer but my wife has to drive thirty miles for groceries, sixty miles to buy parts for my tractor, twenty miles to the nearest church or school, seventy-five miles to the nearest doctor, hospital or movie theater, or five miles down the road to the nearest neighbor s house, then our own personal financial success will have been a mighty hollow victory. If at that time the local retirement home is the largest employer in town, as it is already in some, we will know we have probably passed the point of no return as a viable economic community. Our federal government has struggled for fifty years to implement policies to aid in the conservation of our soil and water resources. And regardless of how effective you think those programs have been, it seems to me they hve continually overlooked the most obvious solution the pride involved in maintaining families on the land. I continually marvel that where there is a plan to hand the land down from generation to the next, there is also a plan, usually well implemented, to hand the land down in as good or better shape than it was received. I heard it once said that, the difference between family farms and corporate agriculture is that corporations don t have grandkids! It s a simplistic definition, but it s a profound impact statement. No question about it, our most valuable crop or resource is not our corn, beans, hogs or cattle, or even our rich fertile soil. It is our young people. And unfortunately they are also our biggest export. We raise bright kids around here. We have good schools, dedicated teachers; parents, friends and churches who teach real values, and communities where a strong work ethic is ingrained early as --- * Origin: [via Psychotronic BBS = Durham, NC = 919-286-4542]sustag- (1:3641/1) @PATH: 3641/1 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- (74) Fri 2 Dec 94 3:04 By: Rick Exner To: All Re: 05:Practical Farmers of Iowa newsletter, fall 1994 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- @MSGID: 1:3641/223 0006aadc @PID GIGO+ sn 175 at psybbs vsn 0.99 pl1 @SPLIT: 04 Dec 94 14:31:40 @3641/223 6952 05/11 ++++++++++ From: dnexner@iastate.edu (Rick Exner) @Subject: Practical Farmers of Iowa newsletter, fall 1994 Date: 2 Dec 1994 03:04:21 -0000 @Sender: daemon@bigblue.oit.unc.edu @Message-Id: <9412011822.AA03635@iastate.edu>