{"id":4452,"date":"2011-07-11T08:33:37","date_gmt":"2011-07-11T12:33:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/?p=4452"},"modified":"2011-07-11T11:17:54","modified_gmt":"2011-07-11T15:17:54","slug":"farmers-under-40","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2011\/07\/11\/farmers-under-40\/","title":{"rendered":"Farmers under 40"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Ian Ater and volunteers use a tractor and transplanter to set new rows of seedlings at Fledging Crow Vegetables, near Keeseville.<\/p><\/div>\n

This morning we\u2019re starting \u00a0a special week-long series on farmers under 40. You\u2019ve seen them.\u00a0 Selling vegetables, or meat, or cheese at the farmer\u2019s market. Driving giant tractors across vast fields of corn.<\/p>\n

The demographics of farming have been grim for decades. In the North Country the story has long focused on dairy. Cows and corn, and milk.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s dairy country here, and the number of families making a living from traditional dairy farming has plunged.<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s a bit of a counter trend, driven by people with a familiar passion for farming, but whose vision takes in a startling variety of crops, methods and marketing strategies.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to put numbers to the young farmer trend.\u00a0 The last agriculture census was almost five years ago.\u00a0 But here\u2019s what we know from that data:<\/p>\n

In 20 years, the North Country lost 50 percent – – half \u2013 of all of its dairy farms. But \u00a0the total number of farms has dropped by just 10 percent.\u00a0 It\u2019s relatively new vegetable, fruit, and livestock farms that are picking up the slack.<\/p>\n

Many are owned by young people.\u00a0 Forty percent of all farms\u00a0 \u00a0in Franklin and Essex counties, dairy included, are owned by beginning farmers.Beginning farmers own 30percent of the farms in St. Lawrence and Clinton counties, 25percent in Jefferson and Lewis counties.<\/p>\n

This week we\u2019ll hear from farmers off all kinds \u2013 but all young.From traditional dairy, to alternative small farms. We\u2019ll hear about the tough economics of farming, and we\u2019ll look at liberal arts colleges who are stretching their curricula to meet a new curiousity about farming, and sustainable living.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This morning we\u2019re starting \u00a0a special week-long series on farmers under 40. You\u2019ve seen them.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[5697],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4452"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4452"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4452\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4453,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4452\/revisions\/4453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}