Do you personally know any farmers or fishermen?

One way to describe what I mean by “know” would be to say that you frequently see them in some context other than commercial exchange – at the bank, at school events, a political gathering or maybe church.

I once lived for a while in NJ and it truly was the “garden state”. In fact, the house where I lived had at one time been strawberry fields, producing very high quality strawberries. I’m always hoping people in NJ will give up those unfenced chemlawns and return to cultivating it for food, and likewise clean up the coastal areas to restore shellfish and other seafood eating.

NJ used to give good tax abatements to people willing to farm. Maybe even more incentives – like making it easier for people to run agriturismi and special event farm restaurants?

“[L]ikewise clean up the coastal areas to restore shellfish and other seafood eating.”

We’ve been working to do this for almost twenty years now (although both Hurricane Sandy and Hurricane Christie have helped slow the process in the past few years). The oyster fishery, in particular, has rebounded pretty well. See, e.g., http://njmonthly.com/articles/eat-drink/oysters-rebound/

As to the OP, I have a very good friend who is a Charter Boat captain in NJ, and another who is an oyster farmer on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. Growing up close to a commercial lobster fleet means that I know several guys who still make their living pulling bugs out of traps.

Almost everyone on my father’s side of the family. He and two of his sisters left the (North Dakota) farm when they grew up but the rest of his (large) family is still farming. Since my mom grew up in Brooklyn I always had some idea of the relationship between production and consumption. On the other hand my mother was the one who really was enthusiastic about having a garden with fruit trees, etc. in California’s long growing season. My dad remained permanently burned out on farming.

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I’m getting to know them more and more. In the Reno area the whole local sourcing thing is raging so I can get just about anything I want (seasonally of course). We currently have a half lamb, local, grass fed and finished. And the rancher and I have started sharing recipes. You probably left the US before this became so popular.

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Yes. My brother was a commercial fisherman for many years, ending as a lobsterman. After a stint repairing computers, he retired and became a wackadoodle farmer (he eats no colored vegetables) to maximize use of his Gravely collection. His wife sells the colored stuff at a farmers ’ market.

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Interesting replies from everybody!

Yes, although I think the last place I lived is still into chem-laws and has fierce town battles about some people wanting to put in vegetable gardens, chicken coops or even hang out their laundry.

only “urban farmers” who I would generally consider more “Gardeners” but they like to use the term

we had family friends who owned a working farm in upstate NY when I was growing up although it was sort of a hobby farm as it was not their income source they did raise pigs, cows and chickens etc for meat

I have some distant in-law relatives in Ohio that were corn farmers in the real old fashioned small family farm sense I wonder if what has become of the farm these days

In that case, I am too. I garden & fish.

Gio, I didn’t know that!

I know quite a few of both, especially farmers. I was a food business consultant for a few years, specializing with farmers, creating value added products for them to sell. Like cheese, yogurt, preserves, etc. I also worked on a dairy farm making cheese, baking bread, and taking care of the livestock. Mostly cows and chickens. I also lived in Mid-Coast Maine for a few years and got to be friends with several fishermen and lobstermen. Nothing better than $1 lobsters fresh off the boat. I’m friends with the owners of several smokehouses in Maine, one makes me custom items upon occasion like cold smoked uni. (A friend even wrote about the first time he made me the smoked uni. See link below.) I’m also friends with several wineries with vineyards. I used to be a winemaker, brewer, and distiller, and we grew the grains for the distillery, 400+ acre farm, plus herbs and other botanicals for the spirits and cocktail bitters.

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Thanks for the double header of fascinating reading.:+1:+1:

Of anyone I “know,” you’ve led the most interesting food/beverage life.

Not currently, though my maternal grandfather was a dairy farmer in St. Lawrence County, NY. He supplied milk to his cousin, who founded a cheese company (McCadam Cheese) which still exists and still wins prizes.

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My maternal great-grandfather became an apple farmer when he moved to upstate NY from Germany, where he had been a blacksmith. Part of the family lore is that he wasn’t any good at farming, and the family suffered, but two of his daughters continued to make a go of the apple farm into my lifetime (my maternal grandmother ran off to the big city and worked in hospitals until she married). The apple farm was finally sold to housing developers (and made somebody rich – not me!)

Two of my young cousins, both have entered farming, one also learning cheese making and food production with a passion for sustainable methods. Both, right after graduating from college. There is real momentum in my area of metro NY for regional food production and distribution, we may finally be getting a local slaughtering facility so meat production will be more feasible locally, and a lot of artisan food companies, as well as aquaculture and food production of all types.

I think the old agribusiness model is not only a very hard life, but younger people choosing to enter agriculture don’t want to employ the same methods and materials.

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For recreation and good eating up and down the eastern seaboard, Bluefish in Massachusetts waters to Pompano in Florida. Scaled, gut, and filleted by moi, I might add.

Seems to me younger people need to deal with a whole new set of total unknowns due to climate change. Here in Italy, there is an incredible amount of stored/shared knowledge within families who have been farming the same micro-climates over centuries. There are only some parts of Italy that are naturally favorable to sustaining a complete diet, but Italians in each region have learned over long study to maximize the potential. Climate change is creating some profound difficulties, as are many European Union mandates and the euro scheme. Young farmers in North America don’t need to deal with the last two, but climate change is a serious challenge.

Personally, I doubt people will continue to eat meat in the same quantities as was done in the 20th c. or tolerate meat production close their homes. I read a lot of stories, too, about fishing areas being decimated or the fish simply moving to remaining colder waters. That very famous NY sushi chef – who was recently the subject of a documentary and whose name escapes me at the moment – has said he tells his young sushi chefs that at least 50 percent of the fish they are working with now will be unavailable, perhaps as soon as in 20 years.

I hope that’s not true, and I think if we eat less, but from closer to home and without the deleterious environmental and health effects of feedlot production overall expenses will be lower. The notion that plant crops are healthful substitute for the environment or us personally is faulty.

I do think it will be hard to sustain purely wild fisheries adequate to meet our needs, too. Aquaculture is not as healthy, but it can be done in less disgusting ways than the current methods typical of, say, tilapia production.

I believe you are referring to chef Nobu Matsuhisa.

Sorry, I’m an animal lover and also someone who thinks the science and history is overwhelmingly in favor of less meat, so I don’t think we would ever reach agreement. I know I am not changing my mind, and hope for the opposite of what you do, and tend to think the generations following will be eating less meat for planetary, personal and even foodie-fun reasons.

I am an animal lover too, but one born atop the food chain (I see myself as part of it, not above it) who suffered very deleterious effects from eating vegetarian and vegan for a long time, years back, for philosophical reasons.

There is no contradiction between being an animal lover and a meat eater. Not everyone can survive healthfully without animal proteins. Nor is the planet made healthier by plant food production than animal (see The Vegetarian Myth by LIerre Keith).

One of the reasons I stick to buying pastured, non feedlot animal foods, in addition to better environmental and personal health, is that I don’t want food animals to be in miserable conditions before they end up on my plate.

I know this is an emotion laden argument for those whose focus is more on animal welfare than metabolic and nutritional issues, and I don’t disrespect that, nor do I accept the implication that I don’t care for animals. I’m involved personally and financially in animal rescue and care.