To Save Farming We have to Save Farmers | Eric Sannerud | TEDxMinneapolisSalon
Transcriber: Carmela Vieira Reviewer: Maricene Crus Take a moment and imagine that you're next to me early one morning, driving out to the farm, and we're passing the familiar final corner, we're going over the gravel drive. And then we notice that something is off. And the proud sunflowers and palm-like kale, the new tomatoes and baby greens are gone. And just in their place is nothing but tiny, little, slowly melting pellets of ice. And as the weight of reality settled in, I stood motionless. Just 63 days into farming, I was beat and I was ready to quit. I'll never forget that day: it was June 20th, 2012. Today is April 1st, 2016, and I'm proud to say that I'm still farming. I didn't give up that day. And I didn't give up because I know the value of what my farm means to my community. Economically, farms like mine, according to a recent University of Minnesota Extension report, contribute 60% more of our economic output into the local economy than larger farms. Or socially, produce healthy fresh food. Or environmentally - and farmers like me know that this Aldo Leopold quote is true: "That land is a community is the basic concept of ecology, but that land is to be loved and respected is an extension of ethics." So when I look at our food system today, I do not see a bright future. I see a landscape that is devastated, but not in lost crops - in lost farmers. Between 2007 and 2012, according to the USDA's agricultural census, we lost 95,000 farmers in America and we only gained 1,300 - that little bit at the top of the screen - under the age of 35. So what this represents is a fundamental hemorrhaging of the lifeblood of our food system. Without farmers, there is no food system. And unfortunately, it doesn't just end there. Farmers we have left are old, like my grandpa. (Laughter) The average age of a farmer in America is 58.3. And 33% of farmers in America are older than 65, like my grandpa. And partially because we have fewer farmers and partially because we're older, a significant amount of farmland, 10%, is going to be changing hands between 2012 and 2017 - again, USDA's agricultural census. And what that means - 10% of farmland may not seem like a lot to you, but let me put it to you this way: 10% of American farmland is equal to Denali National Park, Death Valley National Park, and Yosemite National Park combined, times ten. It's 91.5 million acres of farmland is changing hands. And so what these trends all kind of add up to is a further - not only is the individual loss of each farmer tragic for that farm and their family, but it's difficult on our communities as well. In our rural communities, for example, when it only takes one farmer to farm an entire county, what do the rest of the farmers who used to farm in that county do? And the businesses that supported them? Many of them must leave. That means schools closing, grocery stores, like the one behind me, close and post offices close. And we end up in rural America with a poverty rate of 19%. Again, USDA statistics. That's one in five rural Americans live in poverty. But it's not just tough on our rural neighbors; it's difficult in our urban communities as well. Well, with this concentrated food system we have, it creates a select handful of commodities. And what that means is in grocery stores, foods made with those commodities are cheaper. So chips and soda are cheaper than things that we know are healthier - fresh vegetables, for example. And that leads to public health outcomes like in 2012, according to the CDC: in 2012, diabetes cost America 245 billion dollars in just one year. So what we understand now is that what we do and how we farm also affects not just our personal health but public health. And so moving from there, it also affects the planet's health. Many of us might be familiar with the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico caused by runoff not just from agricultural fields but also from us here in the city. But also, when we continue to concentrate, we're looking and continuing to risk the very healthy soil, clean air and clean water that is necessary to not just produce the food that we're growing but to maintain biological life on our planet. And so then finally, economically. Now this is where proponents will say, "This is the most economically efficient way to produce food." But the thing is, we're already highly concentrated. In 2012, in America, 6% of farmers produce 66% of our agricultural output. And so what that means is that one pathogen or one pest, one or two degree change in temperatures or one act of bio-terrorism and our agricultural economy has a huge challenge on its hands. And that will affect our overall economy, and it will affect the question of "What's for dinner?" It'll be much more difficult to answer. And so these trends are scary, and I hope I didn't scare you too much, but I still have hope. It's about waking up that morning and going to the farm and seeing such devastation. But then the next morning, going on and planting a new seed and a new plant and a whole new start gives me some great perspective on this issue. And I think we can gain some nice perspective if we think about a similar movement - so if we're part of the food movement - the sustainability movement. Sixty years ago, sustainability was about planting a tree in your backyard, and today we have renewable energy, it's part of the State of the Union, and it's part of the largest international agreements. So the question is when was the last time you heard a food issue discussed in a presidential debate? So where we're at now as a food system are co-ops and CSAs and farmers markets and certified organic. And that's been taking a lot of people a lot of time and a lot of work to get us to where we are. But what I'm asking us to think about tonight is "What's next?" What are the big ideas that are going to confront the grand challenges that we're facing? And for me, something that we must address is this loss of farmers. We need a big idea to reverse that loss. And for me, that means a national farmer incubator. A national farmer incubator that is scalable so that we can address demographic-level change. And in order for that incubator to be successful, I think it must do a couple of things very well. One of those is to streamline investment in new farmers. It's very difficult to start a farm, and it costs money. We need to make sure that people who want to get into farming can access the finances and the financials necessary to buy land, buy equipment, get the seed. And second, we must create a new career path for those who want to get into farming. Accountants are not just born, okay? And neither are farmers. So we must recreate this path so that people who are curious can then become committed to farming, whether that's K-12, secondary, post-secondary, vocational school, community college, technical school. We must do all we can in our power to make it easier for people to return to the fields. So I've been trying to do that now, for the last two years, on my own farm. I've leased extra land to other beginning farmers. And so I want to tell you the story of one of those guys - his name is Rob. This is Rob, right here. (Laughter) Rob came to me two years ago, and he wanted to start farming. So I leased him a quarter-acre of land so he could start growing small grains. And because he was leasing the land and renting the equipment, he could afford to do it even on a college student's budget. I worked with him on his business plan to hone the numbers and individually to clarify his own vision for what he wanted out of farming. And finally, he was doing this in kind of a supportive community of other new farmers so that as we hit those inevitable bumps in the road, we were there to help each other out. So while Rob's story is inspiring - because this year he's farming on 60 acres of his own in Western Minnesota, which is incredible - but Rob is still only one new farmer, and we need a lot more than one. So the question becomes how do we go from one Rob to thousands of Robs? And for me, I think we can look for a perhaps surprising source for some ideas: fast food. The fast food franchise model allowed them to take what worked in one spot nationwide, quickly. So if we think about this national farmer incubator and we think about having a chapter-based system that could both have a core central playbook that each chapter owner or operator could pull from and it could be contextualized to local situations because we all know farming in Minnesota is different than farming in Texas is different than New York, different than California. So if we can do this, what's the math? How do we get to those big numbers I was talking about before? You remember those? 95,000 farmers lost and 91.5 million acres changing hands? What if we capture 10% of that available land? This is where we were before: 95,000 farmers lost, only 1,300 farmers gained. But with 10% of that available land, we could get 90,000 or more new farmers back on the landscape. And we would fill in this hole we've dug ourselves in for the last couple of years. But that's not enough. We have to do more if we truly want to create a new food system; we need many more people out in the landscape in order to do it. So let's get 25% of that available land, and let's put 220,000 new farmers back at our landscape. And imagine the impact that they would have. Imagine the impact of 220,000 new farmers producing healthy fresh vegetables. Or imagine the impact of 220,000 new farmers in our rural communities, repopulating rural America. Or environmentally, 220,000 new stewards of our shared natural wealth. And finally, economically, 220,000 new small business owners driving right-sized prosperity for our communities and protecting us against an uncertain future by being diverse. So I'm excited about trying to get here, and I think we all have a role we can play. Number one: we can all buy local. We can support the farmers we have today, and we should support them more. But we must go more than vote with our fork, do more than vote with our fork. We must begin to vote with our vote. And voting with our vote means supporting policies at the federal, state and local levels that move us towards a better food system, that move us towards more farmers. Policies like the National Young Farmers Coalition's "Farming is a public service," which seeks to add farming to the list of careers that people leaving college can go into to get their student loans forgiven. Careers such as firefighter, doctor and farmer all have public benefit. And locally, there's a whole slew of bills in front of our legislature right now to support farmers like me. And finally, one thing we all must do - whether we're an eater or a producer or whether we're a gardener or a farmer or however you identify - we all have a shared responsibility to our shared food system. We owe it to ourselves and to each other and everyone in this room to be educated and engaged and active in our food system. And so for me, the trends are all pretty bad, right? These trends say that farmers in America are few and getting fewer, that they are old and getting older. But we do not have to accept that fate. Together, we can go out tomorrow morning and plant new seeds. New seeds that will grow and to 90,000 or 220,000 or more new farmers. And I believe if we do that, if we sow that next generation of American farmers, our collective future will reap the benefits. Thank you. (Applause) (Cheers)