Bramblings: Support agriculture

Photo by Becky Nelson
If you ask a thousand or so teenagers looking toward graduating from high school or graduating from college what their plans are for entering the workforce, maybe one might be looking to be a farmer, rancher, fisherman, or some career in a food production related line. We are in trouble as eaters of food, and that’s just starting to hit the consciousness of the consumer as shortages and limited supplies of favorite foods are becoming more common.

There are “supply chain” problems in the food industry as in all others, much caused by staffing shortages all across the nation, but nowhere as important as in food production if you ask me. The average age of the American farmer is 58 years old, and the average retirement age in the U.S. is 62. That doesn’t bode well for the future of steaks on your plate. Politicians need to take heed and make farming a more attractive career path for those thinking the work of growing is appealing.

As it stands, according to the last U.S. Census, there are 2 million farms in America. The average net income of a farm operation is $43,000. Of those 2 million farms, three quarters of them make under $50,000 and 90 percent of all farm households rely on off-farm income for most of their household income. That’s not much monetary return for the grueling, sometimes disappointing, never-ending work of farming, and certainly not an attractive career option if looking to support a family. Speaking from experience, it is extremely hard to keep sanity when working a full time job off the farm, raise a healthy, happy family, and meet the demands of a round-the-clock farming operation as well.

With the average age of farmers at 58 and average age of retirement 62, we might be in a big food pinch in about four years. As we have seen in the pandemic, a lot of folks at retirement age are throwing in the work towel and taking their retirement. This has squeezed every business in America, farmers included, with everyone competing for employees to get their jobs done. Farming doesn’t pay much, so certainly farm workers don’t make much. And the hard work isn’t for everyone. With fewer employees on our farmlands, in our packinghouses and in our transportation, the supply chain for the cabbage in your coleslaw is taking a hit.

We have already seen these troubles here in the region. The number of packinghouses available to process USDA inspected meats is too small to meet demand with small farmers with one or two animals like us having a hard time competing with “preferred customers” with bigger operations at the packinghouse. We are currently holding some beef, unable to get it into a facility to be processed because of unanticipated glitches at “our” processor. Other small producers are in the same boat. Too few facilities, too few employees to meet demand and the pinch starts to hurt. For those producing vegetables, the cost of supplies and labor to get the jobs done has risen dramatically. Some folks are turning to more technology and equipment, some are retiring and dismissing the headaches, some are struggling to get as much done as the principal owners as possible. The suffocating pressures of money, regulations, weather, disasters, competition, lawsuits, public misconception, consumer demand, long hours, no vacations and tenuous markets can be a very heavy burden. There is a straw that may someday break the camel’s back in most operations, and a lot of small and medium farms may be giving up.

The romanticized version of farming of lazy summer days in the sun and fishing in a local brook or snoozing in the shade of a tree after chores are long gone is a fallacy. Farming is a highly sophisticated endeavor with a lot of risk, and more needs to be done to help ease the demands on the farmer, including but certainly not limited to:

— Greater grace on taxes for farming landowners whose land is worth far more developed than it is for production of food.

— Public assistance for retirement as many farmers have barely enough to meet the household bills and nothing to put into a retirement account.

— Tax grace when farmers try to give their land to interested family members to keep the farm going.

— Universal healthcare to help make sure those who are on the edge have comprehensive help to stay healthy and not worry about whether to pay for health insurance or pay the feed bill for their cattle.

There are lots of ways farmers can be helped with string-free incentives, but piling on more food safety regulations and disincentives for working the fields is not part of the package for success. Folks need to think about how the loss of their neighbor farmer or rancher might affect them personally and if concerned, make some changes at the ballot box and in their cities and towns that might help farmers.

If you are interested in working toward a more sustainable agricultural infrastructure, I urge you to reach out to your congress and senate representative or the New Hampshire Farm Bureau to learn how you can help lobby for agriculture.

The sometimes overwhelming demands of farm life are leading to mental health issues and personal traumas all across the nation. The suicide rate among farmers is three and a half times the suicide rate in the general population.

We need to make things easier for farmers. We need localities to make land conservation and the ability to farm a priority.

We need others to take an interest in the plight of the food producer and step up to give farmers and ranchers a boost or small guys will give up and all we will have left are mega-farms. And if mega-farms meet disaster and the little guys are gone, where will the food come from?

We need investors and politicians to take a look at food production and build processing plants for farmers and ranchers to process their meats and package their produce without putting the onus on the producer.

We need to make borrowing for the tremendous cost of land to farm easier and cheaper. It is almost impossible for a young farmer to buy or lease land at a reasonable and business-friendly cost.

We need investors to look at food production and make the field attractive for young folks to enter.

We need investors and politicians to take note of the shortages that may occur if small and medium farms bow out of the arena and shortages become a reality when transportation of food goods remains tight, regulations suffocate production, old folks retire and the ability to process, pack and distribute products becomes too much of a hassle for farmers to endure.

We need to stop focusing on the dollar and instead on farms, the backbone of our national infrastructure.

If you are interested in working toward a more sustainable agricultural infrastructure, I urge you to reach out to your congress and senate representative or the New Hampshire Farm Bureau to learn how you can help lobby for agriculture.

We as a nation are worried about the inability to get chips for computers and our online orders delivered. We should be worried about the potential inability to get lettuce for our salads and ham for our sandwiches.

Becky Nelson is co-owner of Beaver Pond Farm in Newport. You may reach her at [email protected].