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{"id":310,"date":"2014-08-24T20:40:00","date_gmt":"2014-08-24T20:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2014\/08\/econ-101-anyone.html"},"modified":"2014-08-24T20:40:00","modified_gmt":"2014-08-24T20:40:00","slug":"econ-101-anyone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2014\/08\/econ-101-anyone.html","title":{"rendered":"Econ 101, anyone?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

In any event, here\u2019s the news from today\u2019s business section:\u00a0 \u201cIllinois\u2019 would-be farmers learn from the ground up<\/a>\u201d (this seems to be under a paywall that\u2019s strict enough that even when following a link from a google search, it still requires me to log in, so I\u2019ll pull the key info below).<\/p>\n

The article starts by profiling a new farmer, Shea Belahi, who runs a 1-acre farm near Champaign.\u00a0 She rents her farmland through the incubator program sponsored by The Land Connection, a nonprofit, and focuses on vegetables such as peppers and tomatoes.\u00a0 She sells her produce through a CSA, and to restaurants, and at a farmers\u2019 market, but isn\u2019t actually turning a profit, relying on her husband\u2019s income, and her part-time grocery-cashiering job.<\/p>\n

Another new farmer, Katie Kenney, raises cows, chickens, goats, and sheep and grows fruit on 4 acres outside of Champaign, and is considering converting her home into an \u201cagritourism\u201d bed and breakfast, where guests would help with the farm chores.\u00a0 She earned a $710 annual profit, and, again, depends on her husband\u2019s salary.<\/p>\n

Both of these women are graduates of the Central Illinois Farm Beginnings program, run by The Land Connection, with the aim of training individuals who didn\u2019t grow up farming to become farmers, specifically, fruit and vegetable farming.\u00a0 The objective is to increase the variety of products that are locally grown, because, as the article and a farming instructor note, \u201cIllinois imports more than 90% of its food,\u201d and exports its own\u00a0crops.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Does this make any sense?<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know how suited, or not, Illinois is for fruit and vegetable farming.\u00a0 Michigan is known for cherries, and has a fair number of apple orchards, and there are plenty of U-pick blueberry farms near our favorite summer spot, Grand Haven.\u00a0\u00a0 Is the same true of Illinois?\u00a0 Or is its specialization in corn and soybeans a practical response to\u00a0Illinois\u2019 climate and soil conditions, and due to the mechanization that\u2019s possible with these crops?\u00a0 The principle of comparative advantage dictate that it\u2019s entirely reasonable to import produce and export grain, simultaneously \u2014 after all, no one laments the fact that Illinois imports X% of its computers, or automobiles, or the like.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Even if it is possible to profitably run a fruit-and-vegetable farm in Illinois, does it make any sense for these individuals to attempt this as sole proprietors of micro-sized farms?\u00a0 Wouldn\u2019t a trainee farmer be better off working as a \u201chired hand\u201d to gain experience first?\u00a0 And is there no wholesaler, no cooperative,\u00a0who can buy the produce rather than requiring these women to establish their own client base from scratch, an especially shaky way of doing business when each individual farm risks their crops failing, and a restaurant, or market that\u2019s committed to buying from them won\u2019t have a steady supply.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

The future of our food supply cannot possibly be in the form of these eager 1 or 4-acre farmers, working with no economies of scale, no mechanization, nothing other than their own two hands planting, pulling weeds, and harvesting.\u00a0 And yes, these are just two women, but the article touts the program they attended as gaining ground, and it sure seems to be\u00a0setting them up for failure.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

(By the way:\u00a0 my dad grew up on a hobby farm of about this size, maybe larger \u2014 his father worked full-time in Denver, but they saved and bought land outside the city, since both his parents had grown up on farms but left during the depression.\u00a0 They had livestock of various kinds, and a scrapbook of 4-H ribbons, though I\u2019m not sure how much they had in the way of crops, or whether it was mostly egg and milk money.\u00a0 The whole family had chores, and even then it was never more than an income supplement.)<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"