First, I hope this finds all our readers and their livestock in good health. As I’m sure you noticed, we are still behind on the magazineÑbut only on the dates, not on the content. We are continuing to present you with the cutting edge of small farm agriculture, how-to, and resources.

Agriculture and agriculture media has changed.

“Canadian daily newspapers listing an ’agricultural editor’ or ’farm writer’ among their full-time personnel dropped by 65% between 1975 and 1995. In the United States, even in a so-called ’farm state’ like Iowa, the number of dailies with full-time farm writers declined by 62% during the same period.

“...in the United States the number of on-air radio stations (AM and FM) listing themselves under the ’agriculture and farm’ format declined from an already low of 3.4% in 1976 to... 0.8% in 1994. In Canada in 1994, only three out of... 663 [0.45%] on-air AM and FM stations described their format as ’agriculture and farm.’

“The quality of agricultural news that does make it into print in North American newspapers and magazines is often low, as suggested in a 1994 study by the Office of Agricultural Communications and Education of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.”

These quotes were taken from The Invisible Farm: The Worldwide Decline of Farm News and Agricultural Journalism Training by Thomas F. Pawlick (Burnham Inc., Publishers, 2001, ISBN 0-8304-1582-3).

A recent article, “Rural Lifestyle Media Updates”, in AgriMarketing (September 2007; 636-728-1428) is an example of inaccurate reporting. The Editor’s Note said, “Media covering the rural lifestyle were invited to provide updates on their audiences and services. Following are comments from those who chose to participate.” Small Farm Today—a champion of the small farmer and rural lifesyles for 24 years—was not asked to participate. Also not listed were Rural Heritage, Mother Earth News, Back Home, or Small Farmer’s Journal—all small farming and rural lifestyle magazines. Completely ignored were the traditional farm press like High Plains Journal, Farm Talk, and Poultry Press, which often have “rural lifestyle” articles. These are just a few of the publications not listed—I don’t know, but I doubt any of them were asked to participate. Almost everyone who participated began in the last decade.

Your individual paradigm of life (the pattern of thought processes of your life) is determined by what you read and eat, where you live, how you live, how you are educated, and what you do for a living. The media sees a decrease in the “farming paradigm” and an increase in the “rural lifestyle paradigm”.

Why the sudden increase in rural lifestyle media? “Rural lifestyle” is not new, but Hobby Farms, Living the Country Life, Rural Life, and RFD TV (all quoted in the article) have all been around less than 10 years—10 years during which we lost many farmers (and even more before that—from 5 million farm households to less than 2 million). With all the farmers disappearing, a new market was needed—so rural lifestyle is it, a different, more beautiful name. It is not new; it has always been there but ignored for the last 50 years.

Small farmers have been ignored by most universities and most of the agricultural industry, and Òrural lifestylesÓ was previously even lower in status than small farmers (if thatÕs possible).

The fact is, “rural lifestyle” people will drop out of the picture even faster than the farmers, because they donÕt have large acreages of land to hold them up, and high-priced gas and high land prices will make many affluent clientele not affluent. In a few years, the new “rural lifestyle” people will all be ready to move back to the city where they donÕt have to commute to their jobs.

I’ve learned three things in my 42 years of small farming: 1) ItÕs okay to listen to the experts, but then you have to make your own decisions. An old Chinese proverb says, “The best fertilizer is the footsteps of the farmer,Ó meaning a farmer that knows his or her land is best for the land. Following the university’s and government’s, ÒGet big or get out” advice led to a lot of getting out; 2) You can predict the future as well (or better) than the ÒexpertsÓ; and 3) You donÕt have to have a large land base or huge herd of livestock to refinance your way out of trouble. Make money and pay cash.

Speaking of high-priced gas, the ethanol hype is the biggest “not accurately reported” agricultural reporting going. If we turned every acre of corn we have planted into ethanol, it would not be enough to replace the current U.S. oil consumption. Are the Òethanol farmers” going to get rich? I doubt it. Fertilizer estimates for 2008 are predicted to be up $27/acre, seed corn up $11/bag, and crop insurance up $5/acre. Making ethanol may be a step in the right direction (at least trying to solve our fuel problem), but how will ethanol hybrids feed livestockÑnot even considering the high price of corn?

One magic bullet will not fix our problem any more than insulin will cure my diabetes. A successful future is going to take small, local, sustainable food sources, where people travel less and know their neighbors more.