Getting started farming is extremely difficult. Before anything else, you need a place to farm and, if you don’t have land in the family, that means a down payment and mortgage. Acreage is expensive close to cities so often farms end up several miles out of town. Next an investment in infrastructure is required, including irrigation and fencing. In Durango, with an average of only 90 frost-free days, hoop-houses and greenhouses are also needed to extend the growing season. In

Continue reading The Landless Farmer

As a government employee for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, I often find myself having to justify my job. Since the mid‐1940′s and the start of the green revolution, many believe that there has been no need for agricultural research or education. Advances in breeding, mechanization, fertilization, and pest control have brought food surpluses and kept prices low in the grocery stores for the last sixty years.

Lately, however, additional costs associated with the way we farm have come to

Continue reading Gardening the Old Fashioned Way