Farming in the 21st Century: More Than Riding a Tractor

by Karin Ursula Edmondson, April 29, 2011

Farmers—the new black—appear everywhere today. They are in the field, on the tractor, on rooftops, at the market, hosting educational programs, staffing CSA locations in town and country, hosting pizza and movie nights, and partnering with social services agencies “to ensure equitable distribution to impoverished families,” as farmer Cheryl Rogowski does at Rogowski Farm in Pine Island. In the Hudson Valley and Catskill regions, fields formerly worked by taciturn wizened men in Deere caps, figures solitary and remote atop tractors, are now being cultivated by women, former city people, young hipsters, old hipsters, and assorted motley characters not to the land born.

Challey Comer, farm-to-market manager for Pure Catskills, estimates that in her four years at Pure Catskills, 25 new farms have developed. “Every year in the Pure Catskills Guide we feature new farmers,” she says, “second-career farmers, dairy farmers diversifying or changing production methods, or farm apprentices who start their own businesses.”

Factors agricultural, social, civic, and educational have converged to transform what it means to farm and to be a farmer today. Agricultural: copious use of pesticides, chemicals, and herbicides and massive proliferation—sanctioned by the US government—of GMO seed and subsequent patent lawsuits by biochemical companies that target small and organic farms. Educational: general loss of public knowledge of farming and of food preservation such as canning, jarring and pickling. Civic: loss of community sustainability via centralization of food production. Social: deceptive pricing that belies the real cost of industrial food—obesity, diabetes, cancer, rising health care costs, environmental degradation. Farming in the 21st century encompasses agricultural duties but also addresses community social, civic and education needs. “It’s not enough to just ride a tractor today,” states Rogowski.

Progressive Farming Methods
Organic, Biodynamic, Natural Agriculture, Permaculture, Veganic, Ecological, Certified Natural, Nutrient Dense Farming, No-Till Farming, and the Eco Apple Program are some of the farming methods practiced in the region. Philosophies common among these methods: balance, respect for the soil, ecological replication, partnering with Nature, natural rhythms, companion planting, closed systems, growing food in harmony with Nature, sustainability, and holistic, interrelational balance with plants, soil, and animals. Technically, these farm practices are similar to pre-industrial farming—inputs of seeds, water, sun, soil, compost, and sweat, sunburn, and aching joints. Several modern implements—tractors, computers, websites, and social media—have improved the process. Sharp increases in fuel prices have prompted some farmers like Ken Greene and Doug Muller at the Hudson Valley Seed Library to return to broad forks and human brawn. Computers, social media, and a website allow HVSL to offer paper-free electronic catalog, altogether eliminating paper resource use and waste. Josh Morgenthau, general manager at Fishkill Farms, does “not idealize the farming of long ago. Lead arsenate, a double whammy of human poisons, was the number one weapon in the commercial fruit grower’s arsenal from the 1890s to midcentury.” At Fishkill, natural methods are implemented—and sometimes discovered: “Recently, we have begun grazing laying hens and our sheep under the trees in our orchard,” says Morgenthau. “Our hens find some of the insects that attack our apples, and we have already seen a reduction in insect damage where they have been. There is also evidence that their manure below the tree helps break the cycle of some of the worst apple diseases by hastening the decomposition of the leaves in which they overwinter.”

Crop diversification replaces monocultures for two reasons. From an ecological standpoint, crop diversification assists in soil health by preventing crop-specific pests from thriv-ing. Adjunct to crop rotation is planting cover crops like clover, alfalfa, barley, and buckwheat to enrich soils that have been depleted from heavy feeders like cabbage, greens, beets, corn, tomatoes, and squash. Companion plantings of beneficial flowers—some to attract pollinators, others that repel pests—is another component of crop diversification. Economics support crop diversification. A farmer who offers heirlooms, unusual varieties, ethnic vegetables, and herbs in response to consumers’ evolving palate expands market opportunities and income. Rogowski Farms grows everything from “raspberries, Native American squash, freckled lettuce, dinosaur kale, black beans, 50 different types of chili, and 20 types of garlic, to Mexican herbs like pepicha, pallo, epazote, and cilantro.” Farmers Bob and Sandy Kiley of RSK Farm in Prattsville “try new seeds whenever they are available.” At Fishkill Farms, in addition to 15 familiar apple varieties, Josh Morgenthau now plants varieties like Cox’s Orange Pippen and Esopus Spitzenberg, heirlooms that his grandfather once raised. Morgenthau relates that the same reasons that rendered certain apple varieties commercially unviable for a period—“funky flavors, low yields, strange shapes and colors”—accounts for their popularity today.