Chances are that at some point in your lives you had an opportunity to visit a farmer market or roadside stand.  In the last eight years, the number of farmers’ markets has increased almost 80% percent, and there are now over 3,000 markets nationwide.  Approximately 20,000 farmers sell their products only at farmer markets.

Farmer markets are making a comeback from New York City to Los Angles.  Virtually every city and town, large and small has access to a farm market that sells locally grown and raised products.  Locally grown is generally defined as having been produced within a certain distance from the market.  These markets are a great way to support the small family farm.

Community supported agriculture is an idea that is taking hold in farming.  CSA denotes a community of people who pledge to support a farm so that the farmland becomes the community’s farm.  This may or may not entail having a legal agreement.  The growers and consumers provide mutual support and share both the risks and benefits of food production. 

Usually members or share-holders of the farm commit that they will cover the cost of operating the farm including salaries.  They in turn receive shares in the farms output through the growing season.  The risks are shared by the investors.  Most often these risks involve poor harvests due to bad weather or infestations by pests.

Family farms are at the heart of rural communities across the country.  These farmers produce high quality food and work to protect soil, air and water as well as biodiversity of crops and animals. 

Family farms are not able to achieve the efficiencies that come with large-scale operations. However, family farms are generally more efficient in protecting plant and animal diversity and in limiting waste products.  If they are able to market their products directly to consumers at farmers markets or through the Internet eliminating the middlemen.

The family farm can survive and even thrive if they look at the fishing communities in New England and Maritime Canada and learn from their experiences.

Fishing was a way of life for hundred’s of years for many families living on the east coast of the US and Canada.  These families are not very different from families that have kept the tradition of the family farm as an important part of the American heritage alive. 

Everyone would like to see the family farm survive.  There is a desire to support a way of life that has existed in America for hundred’s of years.  Consumers should support the family farm not just because of their way of life but because there are real benefits to buying products produced on a family farm.  

Family farms are more likely to produce safe and fresh food without the excessive use of additives. This is true whether it is fruit, vegetables, beef, poultry or pork. They see what they produce as going on their own family tables.

Every week it seems there is an item in the news addressing the difficulties facing the family farm.   But what is a family farm and how are they different from industrial farms?

Very simply, a family farm is a community where most of the work is done by a family member.  This includes everything from planting vegetables and feeding animals to marketing the products grown and produced at the farm.  Not only is this work done by a member of the family but it is done by individuals who usually live on the farm where they work and in many, many cases have done so for numerous generations.