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CURRENT ISSUE VOLUME 19 NO. 3 MAY/JUNE 2008
 Where have all the farmers gone?
By Dawn Chafe
His life is an endless round of feeding and milking and mucking out the barn, of plowing and planting and baling the hay. Only to get up and do the same thing all over again tomorrow. A lifetime broken into seven-day cycles of ceaseless toil.
As his wife had reminded him that very morning, they hadn't had a vacation in 27 years. She was tired and angry and she deserved a break. "We don't have to live like this!" she'd said, begging him to accept the latest offer from a residential developer. Impatiently, he'd explained - again - that farming was in his blood. His father had been a farmer, his grandfather had been a farmer, and so had his father before him. He simply couldn't imagine doing anything else.
He wasn't one to talk a lot, but he'd tried to make her understand how important the job was to him, that he was proud of being able to put food on the table - not just for their family, but for thousands of families. He'd spoken of the things he'd learned at the Agricultural College, about his pride in organic growing and food safety, about antibiotic-free production and pasture management. But she wasn't convinced and he could understand why.
The above excerpt was taken from the most recent issue of Atlantic Business Magazine. Our complete editorial content is available in print form only. To receive a free subscription to Atlantic Business Magazine,
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