Just curious - how many DUers are connected to agriculture?

Anybody still on the family farm? I am the fourth generation on my family's western ranch and the ONLY Democrat I know around here. How many DUers are connected to food/fiber production for a living? If you are one generation away what happended to the homeplace or does another relative have it? Feel free to elaborate, I'm curious.

Grew up in the 'burbs but learned about sustainable ag in college. I spent almost 2 years working/living at an organic farm in my mid-20's. I am not a manual laborer. I tried so hard to really be a farmer though. Wrecked my back in the process. I really miss many aspects of the lifestyle I had there. I still love gardening - veggies and flowers.
I have so much respect for lifelong farmers - I wish I had that kind of strength (and I don't just mean physical).
I found a pretty good way to still work with food though - I work at a hunger relief agency which focuses on 'rescuing' food that would otherwise be wasted, and we get a fair amount of it from area farmers (and even backyard gardeners) during the growing season.

didn't really think about new folks coming in - tend to associate agriculture as a dying occupation, but of course there are innovators out there - lots of folks trying thier hand at it - many find the labor a bit much, so you are not alone there!

I can't blame them. Running a ranch is hard work and I was the last of the "ranch hands" to leave. :) The family who bought the place keeps a few horses, but that's about it now.

own is in another location. We rent our land to others, and derive part of our income from farming.

My husband's family has always farmed. His father's extensive properties were split between three siblings after he died. His will specified that we had to stay in agriculture for ten years after the property was left to us. We would never sell, anyway.

Most of the farmers here are repukes. I know a few other Democrats who farm, though. The guys who rent our two pieces of land are Democrats, too.

Try the rural issues forum. You might like it!

haven't really checked out the new stuff - kinda spend too much time on the main forums page as it is!

from Safeway by magic truck.

Irrigation or ? (I don't know much about growing hay or other crops, we are strictly range cow-calf - don't have the water to do much else)

We kept a huge garden for many years, freezing and canning the bounty that came it to supliment the grocery bills.

My dad's parents did work this farm for a very meagre living.

I live here now, but I only garden for pleasure, not because I have to.

hold the land? In AZ for a tax break you need to be actively engaged in ag or you pay hugely. Is it similar there?

but they aren't based on whether I work it or not. We sell timber every 20 years when the pine gets high.

I keep a little garden for my own amusement and the fact that serious gardening all those years made me a fresh produce snob. :D

It wasn't ours - we rented a house on it and my dad helped out around the place in addition to his regular job. I've worked on a couple of farms over the years (Vermont) and know a number of farm families. Most of the family farms in the area when I was growing up are no longer operating. Some are still owned by the families but many have been sold. The ones that are operating no longer have big dairy or beef production but grow hay, do some maple sugaring, raise a few replacement heifers or have diversified to raise goats or llamas or something in an effort to stay solvent.

How nice that your family has managed to hang on.

Parents still live there but can do very little of the crop farming anymore. It's a small farm by today's standards, less than 200 acres.
Corn, soybeans,alfalfa and oats is what's grown there. We did have some livestock at one time, a small herd of beef cattle, pigs and about 100 laying hens. But the animals are all gone now. Was a great way to have fresh steaks or pork when you wanted it. Frying chickens too.

I owned a 160 acre apple orchard in WA state for 30 years but sold it when NAFTA caused the bottom to drop out.
Now work in Ag research for Montana St. University. Now I get to farm and not worry about making money. Raising data instead of food.
There's some very cool and ecological methods being implemented in ag right now that people out of the loop never hear of.

I started an urban farm here in NYC about a year ago to grow food for local food banks. It's about an acre of land.. we harvested 1000+ lbs this year. Hope to double it next year. Not exactly the family farm.. more of a farm to feed families.

If I somehow was forced to live in an urban area I thin I would want to get REALLY urban - in a downtown area - old and slightly seedy maybe, and would work on projects like that - bringing some self reliance to folks and good healthy, fresh food.

NYC has some great innovative urban gardening stuff going on from what I hear - rooftop gardens and stuff. Pretty rad.
I work at a food rescue/food bank program (see my post #1 above) and we work with a group called Growing Hope - a nonprofit that gets gardens started in low income neighborhoods - at parks, schools, low-income housing developments for seniors & disabled folks. They provide seeds/starters, volunteers to help with the heavy work. It's an awesome program. Not only does it get food to people who need it, it helps people become self-sufficient. Treating the root causes of hunger and not just the symptoms.

That's kind of our deal here too. Helping folks to become self sufficient while providing good food. We also work with a youth group and hope to expand to some marketing activities (herbs and flowers) next season. Growing Hope sounds familiar. I may have run across the organization in my grant searches. Where are you located?

They have a good website. It was started by a young woman (26 or 27?) who is like Road Runner - working on her masters, starting and running a nonprofit almost singlehandedly. She's pretty bad-ass. My organization (Food Gatherers) is in Ann Arbor and we cover the whole county (including Ypsi). We are one of few programs in the country that do both Food Bank and Food Rescue. I think NYC has City Harvest which is more food rescue oriented, and Food Bank of NY which is food bank. Obviously serving a much bigger population than Washtenaw County, MI ;)

Heh, she sounds like me. Yeah, City Harvest is rescue.. NYC food bank is more dry goods. I am trying to make this a model program here in NYC,, to GROW food on un used land. Sounds like we might have some info/contacts to share with this food business. (Michigan is kind of our "second" state, btw..My husband went to high school in Plymouth.. We spend summers in Ludington)

I grew up in Plymouth and went to HS there too! Class of 1992. Feel free to PM me if you want more info about anything!!!

:hi:

lots of gardening happening in NYC.. anyone interested check out www.greenguerillas.org or www.justfood.org.

ummmm I'm sorry, I'll just put this hat on and sit in the corner for a while.

since the rural areas tended to go red, I was wondering if I was completely alone out here - Already know I'm in a minorty since the figure is something like 2 to 4% left in agriculture at all in this country and most of that is huge megafarms that I don't even consider agriCULTURE - they are agribusiness. So please keep eating those vegetables! and I bet your grandparents farmed, right?

grew stuff in Bangor, ME.

I do quality assurance in a dairy plant. We are inspected by the state department of agriculture and the USDA.

My grandfather and uncles incorporated their farm years ago, but they have a massive amount of land in Nebraska much of which has been in our family for over 100 years. They mainly grow seed corn for a major supplier. They're still hanging in there (it's hasn't always been easy), but their farm is so large, they do fairly well.

semi-retired, and they've turned over day-to-day operation to my brother-in-law, who may very well be the last of the family to farm their land.

Developers are encroaching fast-- they're only a few miles down the road, now. And their township just passed a law changing the smallest lot size from 10 acres to 3 acres.

My in-laws have been on the land for about 100 years. They still have a copy of the original land-grant deed, signed by Abraham Lincoln. They are the second family to farm the plot, as my wife's great-grandfather bought it from the original family.

My in-laws were very active Democrats in the 70s and 80s, and had personal connections to all the major office-holders in the area. As a matter of fact, my father-in-law was a big organizer for the National Farmers' Organization (NFO) back in the day. However, they're also devout Catholics, and have had issues with supporting some of the 'big-city liberals' who are are socially liberal, but economically conservative.

In fact, my father-in-law was one of a handful of local farmers who were telling the others to save up during the feast days of the 70s, because the prices and $$ would not last forever. Unfortunately he was extremely farsighted, considering what happened during the 'farm crisis' of the 80s. Needless to say, he's one of the few in the neighborhood who still has his farm-- the others went out of business or had their farms foreclosed on.

The family farmer is truly a dying breed in this nation. :cry:

It's not really my thing, but I still go over and take care of the animals when my parents are out of town.