No farmers? No food
Much depends on finding a new generation to put dinner on the table
Posted by Zoe Bradbury

Every time I come in from my farm fields and tune into the news these days, the headline is about food: food prices, food scares, food shortages, food riots. Food has America's attention these days, but folks are overlooking a critical piece of the brewing crisis: a national shortage of farmers.

We farmers make up a mere 1.6 percent of the U.S. population right now. Picture an inverted pyramid balanced precariously on its nose: that's our national food supply, with about 3 million of us feeding three hundred million of you. In food terms, our nation resembles an elephant perched on a pair of stiletto heels.

With the average age of farmers approaching 60, young farmers like me in short supply (a scant 5.8 percent of us are under the age of 35), and three quarters of the country living the city life, you'd be wise to wonder who's going to milk the cows and grow the grain for your morning bowl of cornflakes down the road. More and more, our collective knowledge about growing food is housed in nursing homes, and in another twenty years, today's average-aged farmer will be dead.

Proponents of modern industrial agriculture will argue that there's nothing to worry about -- that we don't need more farmers to feed ourselves; we just need bigger tractors, bigger farms, and biotechnology. Except for one big problem: oil.

LINK TO CON.