The Save a Farm series reflects my concern over the loss of independent farms and the decreasing number of men and women who can make farms work. The problems that farmers face are varied:

• Rising costs of land, labor, fuel, and supplies
• Decreasing profits from shrinking local markets and increasing competition from industrial agriculture and from off-shore suppliers
• Withering infrastructure: fewer small scale processors, feed mills, implement dealers for sales and service, and large animal veterinarians.
• An aging farm population

It’s a tough situation for independent farms... but not only for farms. Increasingly it will affect all of us. Consider, for example, two issues frequently in the news. (1) Fuel prices and availability: the typical item on a grocery shelf is said to have traveled an average of 1200 miles. Can we continue to afford that transportation as fuel prices increase and in the face of anticipated petroleum shortfalls? (2) Food safety: We see sporadic incidents of accidental food contamination during processing or in transport. Lurking also is the specter of sabotage to the nation's food supply chain. What better safeguard than the knowledge of where, and by whom, one's food is grown?

Fred Maier

We appreciate the generous support of the Farmland Center and Western Reserve Conservation and Development that helped to make this web site possible.