What's New (June 2006)

The Bureau of Labor Statistics has predicted that by the year 2012 the jobs of farmer and rancher will be number one on the top ten list of lost professions. Mega industrial complexes will provide our food.

My turn on the predication wheel:
By the year 2012, not only will the number of farmers and ranchers begin to increase, the number of small farms will increase.

Yes, the farm will change. It must. It will be more a cooperative like days of old rather than the rugged individual farming of recent decades. People will need to share equipment, fields, animals, seeds, etc. The decrease in farming has begun and will continue with the farms and farmers who relied heavily on oil, machinery, chemicals and drugs. Farms cannot sustain these mega practices. The erosion of the land, the sickness of animals was and remains too high a toll.

The trend toward good, nutritious food will continue. The abuse of drugs on animals and chemicals on crops will not be welcomed or tolerated.

High fuel costs will demand food be grown closer to home...

The Bureau of Labor Statistics is basing their claim on probability.

Probability: relatively likely but not certain (American Heritage Dictionary)

Possibility: capable of being done without offense to character, nature or custom.(American Heritage Dictionary)

I choose possibility. I choose to farm, to feed people. I choose to steward the land.

I choose to remember my nature. I choose the miracle of the earth, the seeds, the sun.

I am proud to be a small part of a growing number of farmers and consumers who recognize these simple realities.

It is spring, and the land is full of possibility.
That is its nature; and that is mine.