Many urbanites are looking for ways to get back to nature. The challenge of farming has been replaced by the excitement of pea-patches and the lack of land for raising cattle has led many to house chickens instead.
The idea of micro-farming, or farming on a small scale, allows more of our local city-dwellers to bond with their food in ways that have become foreign to many over the past thirty years. Growing peas and tomatoes on the rooftop deck of your condominium, growing herbs on your window sill or balcony and raising chickens in your small backyard are just three ways in which Seattle residents are reuniting with their food.
Perhaps it was the economy, perhaps the knowledge of our unjust and unhumane raising of the the meat we consume, perhaps the predominance of diseases such as e. coli? Whatever it was, the need for a more sustainable food culture has entered the minds and classrooms of the nation.
Micro-farms have come to address the growing needs of learning sustainable practices to feed our families, our neighborhoods and our communities locally!
In June 2008, Sevastion Winters, wrote an article titled, Micro Farming: America's Next Big Growth Industry, in which he shares, "We are running out of food because we are running out of farmers. A nation that once boasted tens of thousands of hobby farms is now being fed by huge farm conglomerates, whose incentives for growing cash crops such as ethanol producing corn has taken from our basic food supply. With rising fuel costs, that's unlikely to change. The only viable solution is more farmers. Full time farming is a tough sell. Micro farming is the answer."
He further attests, "The increase in seed technology The growth in seed technology over the last thirty years has resulted in a higher yield for seed, making the size of land used for farming less important than it once was. Now, a savvy young farmer can earn as much on a half of an acre as his ancestors did on 5 acres. That's good news, because land is less available, and more costly than ever before. Furthermore, because it takes less time to cultivate and harvest half of an acre than it does ten or twenty acres, the new class of emerging micro farmers is able to maintain their 9-5 jobs without naming farming as their profession. It's high yield for limited output."
Local Farmer's Markets continue to grow as more and more families are finding additional income through selling or trading their excess crops with their local community members.
Every twenty years the population of the world doubles, yet there is less land on which to build and farm. Micro-farming has become the wave of the future, the wave of the now.
Interested in consuming fresh, local, season ingredients? Consider growing your own micro-farm. Start small, work on the weekends, and share the bounty with your friends, family and neighbors! If you are just starting out, consider easy crops such as potatoes, garlic, onions, carrots, zucchini, tomatoes, berries, or peanuts. Grow from there.
"Choose a crop, learn your crop, grow your crop and sell your crop. Never before has it been so easy. Happy micro farming!"
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