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Articles by Zoe Bradbury

Zoe Bradbury is an Oregon farmer and a Food & Society Policy Fellow.

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This piece is co-authored by Severine von Tscharner Fleming, 27, director of The Greenhorns and farmer/activist in the Hudson Valley of New York.

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Coast to coast, though there are thousands inspired to dig in and grow food, but it is currently only a dauntless few who manage to gain access to the land, capital, market-savvy, and technical skills that are essential to “make it” as a farmer. Those few are brave, strong, and delightful advocates of the purposeful life, but it will take more than a few to reclaim a food system of industrial monocultures, labor abuse, and factories

Indeed, it will take the muscle and heart of a large-scale, young-farmers movement: thousands upon thousands of hands on the land — the hands of women and immigrants, the hands of fourth-generation farm kids, the hands of college graduates and former farmworkers-turned-farmers. It will take thousands of new growers of fruits, nuts, vegetables, grains, dairy, and livestock to transform the landscape of sprawling development and corporate control into a dignified, livable, and culturally rich mosaic of ecological farming.

The young farmers now emerg... Read more

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  • Much depends on finding a new generation to put dinner on the table

    Every time I come in from my farm fields and tune into the news these days, the headline is about food: food prices, food scares, food shortages, food riots. Food has America's attention these days, but folks are overlooking a critical piece of the brewing crisis: a national shortage of farmers.

    We farmers make up a mere 1.6 percent of the U.S. population right now. Picture an inverted pyramid balanced precariously on its nose: that's our national food supply, with about 3 million of us feeding three hundred million of you. In food terms, our nation resembles an elephant perched on a pair of stiletto heels.