On March 5^th, the New York Times featured a piece written by Isolde Raftery about the upswing of young farmers in this country. While older farmers are still a majority—“farmers over 55 own more than half of the country’s farmland”—there is a keen interest among young people to start farms of their own. “Garry Stephenson, coordinator of the Small Farms Program at Oregon State University, said he had not seen so much interest among young people in decades. ‘It’s kind of exciting,’ Mr. Stephenson said. ‘They’re young, they’re energetic and idealist, and they’re willing to make the sacrifices.’”

Exciting, yes, but—and there is no other way to put it—the obstacles are daunting, ranging from the high price of land and equipment to not being able to afford health insurance to not even being able to find mentors. Incredible as it may sound, for young farmers, “people their parents’ age may farm but do not know how to grow food. The grandparent generation is no longer around to teach them.”

Isolde Raftery’s piece raises so many important issues that it’s hard to know where to begin to address them. In brief: Universal health care, as I’ve noted in past posts, would solve one piece of the puzzle, and a big one at that. I’ve written that without health care, you can’t be free, and there is no better illustration of this than with young farmers, who simply cannot afford insurance, the ticket to good, consistent health care in this country. It still astonishes me that a significant part of the country regards universal health care as some kind of socialist plot. What about no health care at all? What is that called? I have a few descriptions, with disgraceful and disgusting leading the pack.

Then there is the cost of land and equipment. Apparently, there is money for education. In 2010, for this very purpose, the Department of Agriculture gave out $18 million to young farmers around the country. This is good, but it doesn’t buy or lease land. It doesn’t provide necessary equipment. One solution might be a redistribution of farm subsidies so that grants and low-interest loans could be available to new farmers. (Recently in the Times, Mark Bittman wrote about redirecting farm subsidies.) However, I am sure the mega-farms would mount a ferocious resistance to any redistribution of money.

Finally, the lack of mentors. Readers unfamiliar with food and farming issues might reasonably wonder what in the world Raftery means when she writes that “people their parents age may farm but do not know how to grow food.”  Many of the mega-farms in this country specialize in corn and soybeans, much of which is then used as sweeteners and fillers for the processed junk food found in our supermarkets. Mark Bittman asserts that indeed there is not enough fresh food grown in the United States to provide everyone with the recommended amount of fruit and vegetables for a healthy diet.

I’m not ashamed to admit I have a soft spot for young adults in general and for young farmers in specific. (I’ve written about Kevin Leavitt, a young Mainer with a passion for farming.) Unfortunately, right now much of the older generation in this country appears to have taken a rather hard attitude toward the younger generation. There is much talk about the deficit, but what about the cost of higher education, the lack of affordable health care? And the really, really big one looming over them all: climate change.

Around the country, it’s mostly just huffing and puffing. All the while, the older generation selfishly holds onto as much as it can. Hell no, we won’t share.

It’s time for a change. A real change. After all, isn’t it the job of the older generation to nuture the younger generation?

And need I add that we really, really need young farmers?

Addendum and correction: In the New York Times, Mark Bittman’s recent column in the Op-Ed section provides hard numbers as to how corn in the United States is used—40 percent for ethanol and 50 percent for animal food. I had thought a higher percentage was used for high fructose corn syrup, but I was wrong. Still, the larger point—that corn isn’t grown directly for human consumption—is correct.