With urban farmer’s markets flourishing, the trend of farm-to-table restaurants, which treat farmers like celebrities, putting their names on menus, and the hipster fetish with anything “artisanal,” you’d think that family farms would also thriving. But, sadly, that does not seem to be the case. The Guardian takes a deep dive into the sad fact that farmers are committing suicide at a rate that is double that of veterans. It’s a hard life, and barely profitable.As Debbie Weingarten, the author of the story and a former farmer explains it “we were growing food, but couldn’t afford to buy it.”
So if Farmers kill themselves at a faster rate than veterans, why is there a group trying to place Iraqi War Vets on farms? You read our previous story; the message to vets from this program is…you’re not killing yourselves fast enough? Michael O’Gorman, founder of the Farmer Veteran Coalition, tells KCET-TV it’s just the opposite. “Farms have been a place of refuge for centuries for soldiers coming home from war. It’s an old tradition that goes back to Biblical times.” The sweat equity that comes with a farm is therapeutic, he says. Veterans are “looking for something that was both challenging but more importantly meaningful. Farming just checked all the boxes, there was not a lot of downside to it.”
It also helps to lower the median age of farmers in America, which is currently a frighteningly high 60 years old. What doesn’t help are young people who decide to become hobby farmers. They might be part of a 21st century “back to the land” movement, or were exposed to Green Acres at an impressionable age, it doesn’t matter. The problem is, no matter how good their intentions, they’re amateurs in a business where swiftly moving sharp edges abound, and farm accidents are nothing like cutting yourself your first time cutting onions,they’re deadly, as the Denver Post warns.
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