- THE FOOD MOVEMENT: Small farms are essential to the healthy food movement. They are better equipped to regenerate and sustain healthy crop and ranch lands, strengthen ecosystems, utilize the energy of green waste and reverse climate change than any other group of people in the world.
- EMPLOYMENT: Small farms employ many people. Farm labor works with the farmers on the land, not for the CEO at headquarters. Almost all small farms are family owned and operated. When a farm family’s future depends upon the productivity of the land, they take care of the people they depend on to sustain it.
- ECOLOGICAL STEWARDSHIP: You can’t replace the small-scale farmers and the farm lands they manage with large-scale farming operations or fallow land and retain the same standard of ecological stewardship. Local delivery emits less greenhouse gases than remote delivery, and local food systems are MUCH better for the environment than the global food system.
- EDUCATION: Interested youth, college students and graduates in agriculture majors and entrepreneurial farm workers need the work experience and mentorships that small-scale farmers provide.
- ECONOMY & SECURITY: Small farms contribute greatly to a region’s food security and economic development, as well as the well-being of the people. You literally can’t have food security without working small farms.
