What do you need to know in order to farm?

That's the question being asked by Southeast Tennessee Young Farmers and Crabtree Farms, who are planning to offer free, farmer-led workshops on sustainable-ag topics next year.

It's called CRAFT (Collaborative Regional Alliance for Farmer Training) and any interested farmer - beginning or seasoned - can fill out this survey to help shape the workshop curriculum, set to begin in 2025.

What do you need to know in order to farm?

A million possible questions and answers.

At some point, it boils down to two:

We need money.

We need land.

Both are increasingly hard to find.

Hamilton County is in the middle of an agrarian crisis.

Since 2001, Hamilton County has lost more than 5,000 acres of farmland.

This includes a 65% loss of its cropland.

In Hamilton County, only 1,274 acres of cropland remained in 2022.

Here are the figures, according to Luke Iverson, Director of Conversation Impact with Land Trust for Tennessee.

In Hamilton County (2001):

• Cropland – 3,668 acres
• Pasture & Hay – 42,934 acres

In Hamilton County (2022):

• Cropland – 1,274 acres (2,394 acres lost or 65% loss)
• Pasture & Hay – 40,242 acres (2,692 acres lost or 6% loss)

Total loss = 5,086 acres

Expressed as a total percentage loss = 11% 

Only 1,274 acres of cropland remained in 2022.

"While Hamilton County saw a 6% reduction in pasture and hayland, it saw a staggering 65% loss in its cropland," Iverson said.

Essentially, this means that we've lost more than half our food-growing land in this county over the last two decades. At any other point in past civilizations, this would have been cause for the highest of alarms.

The entire county is becoming food-insecure.

Iverson distinguished between the two types of land:

• Pasture/Hay- "areas of grasses, legumes, or grass-legume mixtures planted for livestock grazing or the production of seed or hay crops, typically on a perennial cycle."
• Cultivated Crops - "areas used for the production of annual crops, such as corn, soybeans, vegetables, tobacco, and cotton, and also perennial woody crops such as orchards and vineyards. Crop vegetation must account for greater than 20% of total vegetation. This class also includes all land being actively tilled."

Here's a map of 2001.

And here's 2022.

A loss of 65% of a county's cropland is devastating, yet, you won't see this in any headlines or political speeches.

Why the hell not?

Why aren't political leaders standing tall, fist-pounding speeches and forming urgent roundtables of farmers, leaders, developers and bankers?

"Speaking in broad strokes here," Iverson continued, "but if you take the number from the 2022 USDA Census of Agriculture, Hamilton County crops are worth a combined $3.33 million/year."

Dividing that by 1,274 acres of remaining cropland leaves roughly a $2,600-average-per-acre value, he said.

"And that’s just in product yield alone, not to mention all of the other values that agricultural lands provide by virtue of being open agricultural lands and not concrete. Imagine the lost economic value of those disappearing acres over the last 20 years (even without accounting for inflation)."

Twenty years of lost cropland at $3.3 million a year?

Twenty years of lost cropland-as-food-security?

Twenty years of lost cropland-as-cultural-richness?

Twenty years of lost cropland-as-bio-and-environmental security?

"From a conservation approach, a local food security approach or from a cultural, historical, way-of-life preservation approach – of course, it’s a no-brainer," Iverson said. "But even from an economic standpoint, we can’t permanently lose more of this resource."

Since July, Food as a Verb has emailed Hamilton County Mayor Weston Wamp's office, asking for a response, comment, plans, solutions, anything.

There has been no official comment given.

Since July.

What do you need in order to farm?

You need land.

And in Hamilton County, where we're down to our final 1,274 acres of cropland, you also need political support.

Both seem frighteningly low.

In order to farm, you also need money.

Tennessee's growth rate is exploding. Chattanooga's receiving far more come-here's than folks leaving.

Land values are King-Kong high.

So, how do you buy land when it costs $50,000 an acre? Or more?

"You’d never buy a piece of property here and make it work. No way," said one farmer. "It doesn’t pencil out."

We were walking his fields near Ooltewah, trying to do the math. Sure, you can make a living on a few acres as a vegetable + orchard farmer, but to really produce great yields and run cattle or other livestock?

You need 100 acres, at least.

Who can afford that?

So, let's say you inherit some land. Even 50 acres, he said, isn't enough.

"You're not going to make a living on 50 acres. Maybe with fruits and vegetables, but you can't run enough cattle on 50 acres. You can't grow enough hay," he said.

"I don't know what somebody starting out will do. The price of land? It would be tough to get started. It would be really tough," he said.

Just down the road, 30 acres were selling for nearly $1 million.

Other local farmers said the same.

How much would it take? Half a million to start?

"Oh no," he said. "You'd need $2 million, maybe $3 million, just to get started."

Land. Equipment. Feed. Seed. Livestock. Labor. Irrigation. Fencing.

Then, with all the fluctuations - from markets to seed/feed prices to drought - nothing is guaranteed.

"I'm not sure I can make my mortgage this month," another farmer whispered.

We ask too much of farmers. Their job is to produce food, but we ask them to be accountants, social media generators and marketing experts.

Really, it should be more a chain of people.

What does it mean for our state - Tennessee's motto is Agriculture + Commerce - when our farmers can't afford to farm? Or, in order to farm, you must possess one of two narrow prerequisites:

• Prior wealth
• Inherit 100s of acres

"Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens," Jefferson wrote in a 1785 letter to John Jay.

This has become tragically untrue today.

Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal published a profile on a 27-year-old worth $3 billion.

He and thousands of employees perform the "grunt-work" that feed info into AI computers.

That's his worth. That's his value.

It is a strange-getting-stranger world we live in, where 27-year-olds shoveling info-speak into AI technology - which is often seen as a threat to future generations - are worth more than our "cultivators of earth."

Here are some steps we can take, large and small:

• Support our true farmers' markets.

We, as consumers and direct buyers, carry so much weight here. Our consistent market-presence is influential; I'd argue it's as important as voting.

"It’s one of the most impactful things you can do. It affects real people. Real families. Real economies. And the environment," one farmer told us.

• Recognize the need for more farmers' markets.

Not long ago, Easy Bistro & Bar chef Joe Milenkovic Jr. called for a new green market in Chattanooga in his Times Free Press essay.  

If Chattanooga government offers tax-increment financing (TIFs) to developers, why not offer some similar form for farmers?

Why not pay farmers to attend local markets?

Aren't markets a form of community service, like trash-service, water-and-sewer and our police force?

These ideas are probably laughable in certain circles; we simply don't see agriculture - cultivators of earth as our most valuable citizens - in this way anymore.

• Businesses, schools, governments - if your employer has on-site dining, then the potential exists to source that food from local farmers.

"Farmers need steady income," one farmer said. "Steady and reliable income. The burden of farming would be reduced so much if we knew how much income we could reliably count on."

Instead, farmers are tasked with run-around jobs, trying to make nine ends meet in ten different ways.

"We wear too many hats," said one farmer. "You can't really get anything off the ground because, if there's a project, you can't really put enough time into it because we're too busy putting out fires all the time."

• Recognize the untapped potential within political circles. And begin to recognize how frequently farmers and agricultural issues are ignored within political circles.

How about the county offer a reduced form of health insurance?

Or reduced property taxes?

Chattanooga foundations offered incentives to artists moving to here.

Why not do the same for farmers to Hamilton County?

"Most of farmers I know aren’t supporting themselves by their farms solely," another farmer said. "We’re economically strapped. The farming community never really accumulates capital that needs to be there."

Finally, it must be clearly said: we are not victimizing hard-working farmers.

Instead, we are trying to see clearly, in a foggy media landscape, the situation before us.

Plus, today's story only focused on the difficulties.

For every difficulty, there are equal, if not more, moments of awe. Stunning, nowhere-else-I-want-to-be moments of awe.

Farming is not a job. It is a way of life. And every farmer we've spoken with says the same thing:

"I love to farm."

So, how can we as a county and community support and strengthen our most valuable cultivators of earth, especially in a time when so many other forces are land-grabbing for that same earth?

"We ask too much of farmers," another farmer said. "Their job is to produce food, but we ask them to be accountants, social media generators and marketing experts."

"Really, it should be more a chain of people."

What do you need to know in order to farm?

It's a question for all of us.

All photography by Sarah Unger (sarah@foodasaverb.com)

All design by Alex DeHart

All words by David Cook (david@foodasaverb.com)

Story ideas, questions, feedback? Interested in partnering with us? Email: david@foodasaverb.com

This story is 100% human generated; no AI chatbot was used in the creation of this content.