Editorial: Farming for the future

If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant; if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.

— Ann Bradstreet

Poet Ann Bradstreet's words are loaded with meaning on this first day of spring 2009. After a glum winter of cold weather and brutal economic news, we're ready for spring and prosperity, not necessarily in that order.

The first day of spring is also National Agriculture Day, a good time to praise the people who really put food on the table — farmers. We'd be in bad shape without them.

No one appears to be immune to the recession, but agriculture is faring better than some industries, like banking, housing, the stock market and autos — even though credit is vital to farming. "Most farmers have to go out and borrow money during the planting season," economist Mike Walden says on the N.C. Cooperative Extension Web site. "They pay it back after the harvest, but we haven't really seen any problems with farms being foreclosed on, etc., like we've seen in the housing markets, so that's been a plus."

Walden says farming benefits during a recession in that people have to eat. "They may eat different kinds of foods, but they still have to eat because food is what we call a basic commodity."

Still, farmers have more than their share of problems — falling prices for farm commodities, persistent drought, tight credit markets and shrinking land values.

It's no wonder the number of farmers and farms is going down. From 2002 to 2007, the number of farms in North Carolina fell from 53,900 to 52,900. Over that same span, land in farms fell 7 percent, to about 8.5 million acres. Agriculture experts say that's equivalent to losing all of Sampson County, the state's second-biggest county. Other interesting facts about N.C. farmers:

- The average age of principal farm operators is 57, compared with 56 in 2002.

- Women now account for 13 percent of all farm operators, up 3 percent from 2002.

- Family farms account for 97 percent of all farms. About 85 percent are classified as small family farms.

That would include the hundreds of acres off Stoner Morgan Road farmed by Jason and Robin Starnes, young farmers featured recently in the Post. Jason works from sunup to 30 minutes after dark, wife Robin has said; 12- and 14-hour days are not unusual. As a way of life, farming is 24/7 — living in the country, tending animals and crops, often operating at the mercy of the weather. The rest of us should be grateful for people like the Starnes family who feel called to such work.

"Overall, it's definitely a good life," Jason said. "You're not going to get rich, but what you don't make monetarily, you make up for in quality of life."

Would that more people could say that about their work.