Wants to farm

An article in WSJ last week says that, "A growing number of young Americans are leaving desk jobs to farm."  

"Liz Whitehurst dabbled in several careers before she ended up . . crating fistfuls of fresh-cut arugula in the early-November chill.

"She joined a growing movement of highly educated, ex-urban, first-time farmers who are capitalizing on booming consumer demand for local and sustainable foods and who, experts say, could have a broad impact on the food system."

"This new generation can’t hope to replace the numbers that farming is losing to age. But it is already contributing to the growth of the local-food movement and could help preserve the place of midsize farms in the rural landscape."

This isn't a huge increase of young farmers - only about 2% more - not nearly enough to offset the huge numbers of older American farmers who are going to turn over their farms to somebody else pretty soon. 

(cont'd tomorrow - what Joel Salatin says about the trend)