by Greg Plotkin - Change.ORG
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Despite a surge of interest in farming in the United States, the country
continues to lose two acres of farmland every second of every day. This is
happening in every state in the country, and is especially significant in
urbanized areas that are responsible for 86 percent of the fruits and veggies
and 63 percent of the dairy produced in the United States. What we need in the
United States are strong agricultural zoning laws that address the need to
protect the country's agricultural resources and adequately funded farmland
protection programs that help farmers preserve their land for future
generations.
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OBS: This is a report about farming conditions in the United States. We (our
NGO/ONG works with the same conditions in Brazil.
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More than being a cute tag line for the organization that employs me, the phrase
"No Farms, No Food" represents an often overlooked and forgotten component of
maintaining a sustainable food supply.
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With all the talk about Genetically Modified seeds, organic vs. conventional
agriculture, and the physical and environmental horror of industrialized meat
production, the one conversation that is consistently left off the table is
protecting the land base that all kinds of agriculture (no matter what your
definition of "sustainable" is) depends on.
.
Despite a surge of interest in farming in the United States, the country
continues to lose two acres of farmland every second of every day. This is
happening in every state in the country, and is especially significant in
urbanized areas that are responsible for 86 percent of the fruits and veggies,
and 63 percent of the dairy, produced in the United States.
.
Even in some discussions of land use, the importance of actually protecting and
securing a future for that very land is very rarely mentioned. It doesn't
matter if a farmer chooses to grow GM corn or organic cucumbers if the land is
turned into sprawling strip malls.
.
What we need in the United States are strong state and municipal agricultural
zoning laws that address the need to protect the country's agricultural
resources, as well as adequately funded farmland protection programs at the
state and federal level that help farmers preserve their land for future
generations.
.
Supporting local agriculture is not just about stopping at the farmers market
every weekend. It is about encouraging your local, state and national
legislators to make farmland protection a significant priority. We can either
all pay (monetarily) to protect farmland now, or we can all pay later when
there's no land left to grow food.
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The choice is ours, but it has to be made now.
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Throughout the developing world, agriculture was the also-ran of the global
economy. Governments equated economic progress with steel mills and shoe
factories. While urban centers thrived and city dwellers got rich, hundreds of
millions of farmers remained mired in poverty. Agriculture in many developing
nations stagnated.

Now the farm is back. Fears of food shortages, a rethinking of antipoverty
priorities and the crushing recession are causing a dramatic shift in world
economic policy in favor of greater support for agriculture.

Read more:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1930363,00.html#ixzz0WMl8fdWn

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