“Especially small farmers and especially beginning farmers are really having a very robust conversation about how their practices can not only contribute to the food supply, but also to bringing health and resilience to the land.”
Liz Brownlee is a farmer in Jennings County and past president of the Hoosier Young Farmers Coalition. She’s also one of the guests on the latest episode of the HAT Soil Health Podcast, supported by the Conservation Cropping Systems Initiative.
Brownlee says that a majority of beginning farmers are interested in conservation, according to a recent survey from the National Young Farmers Coalition.
“Across the country, including Indiana, 83 percent list conservation or regenerative agriculture as one of their primary purposes for farming. That’s really significant, and that means that people are eager for this sort of knowledge and guidance. They want to be caring for the land.”
But she says that finding that knowledge and guidance can be challenging for new producers.
“I was in 4-H and FFA all growing up. I know this world pretty well. I was raised in it. So it’s easy to know this world. But most people getting into farming do not have that connection because they’re not from farm families.”
Brownlee is joined by Elli Blaine, director of the Urban Soil Health Program, an initiative of the Indiana Association of Soil and Water Conservation Districts. She says that her team works with farmers throughout the state as they integrate conservation practices into their operations.
“We sometimes mistakenly have an urban rural divide, and there’s a lot of diverse small-scale operations in a more quote unquote rural environment that get overlooked. Our team of people are out there meeting with growers, trying to be on the land, understand their operations, what their goals are. It’s really about meeting people where they are.”
To learn more about the survey results, visit the NYFC website. The full conversation can be heard in the podcast player below.
