When I tell people I want to be a farmer, most of them give me the same slightly confused, somewhat sympathetic look I assume you’d get if you told someone you were planning on swimming across Greenland. Most people seem to think that being a farmer is a bad idea, for a whole variety of reasons.

I’ve always been drawn to food production though, and despite the fact that I am currently dabbling in ideas of food policy, food security issues, and hunger solutions, I do want to run a farm at some point in my life. I want a small scale farm, and I want to run it the way I think food should be produced.

Lately however, I’ve been hearing some pretty discouraging stories involving some barriers small scale farmers face. I really want to address some of what I view as systemic problems facing small-scale and/or innovative farmers, who are choosing to grow food outside of the factory farm production model. So I have decided to write a few blog posts about some of the problems that I see facing these fine folks, and exploring some ways we can address them, at the policy level or elsewhere. I am studying because I want to be able to change our food system for the better, and I think that in order to do that, we should probably take a look at some of the problems facing people who are out there doing things a little differently. So, the next post will be about a farmer very close to home.