The Modern Miracle of Feeding the Hungry

 

If you have five loaves, two fishes, and seven baskets, you are not going to feed 5,000, 4,000, and any number in that range. You will quickly run out of food. And the other 4,990 people in line are going to starve to death if no other provision is made to feed them. Ancient myth writers could feed multitudes with nothing more than the stroke of a pen. Modern ministers of mercy need a lot more.

Farming New Talent

In the U.S. when the words, “talent” and “farming” are used in the same sentence, baseball immediately springs to mind. According to Zoë Bradbury, a young farmer and a Food & Society Policy Fellow, the aging taking place in the farming industry is reaching levels of concern. In an article he produced for OSU, Bradbury wrote:

…U.S. farmers are getting old. The national average has climbed to 55.3 years as of the last agricultural census in 2002(the 2007 census results have not been released yet), and the trend is ever upward.

The situation might be worse than that number implies. Over a quarter of U.S. farmers of 65 and up. In Oregon, half the farmers will retire in the next decade with sufficient replacements nowhere in sight. Less than 6% of farmers are 35. For this dangerously high rate of attrition, we have only ourselves to blame.

Cute school girl_Planing and wishing small farm

Home-grown Problem

Bradbury rightfully points out that this is a problem of our own creation. We have marginalized and maligned the “real” oldest profession in such a way, and for such a sustained period of time, no one aspires to take up the plow. Often, in our misguided zeal for progress, we burn our bridges to the past before we are done making the crossing.

Farming is still a necessary thing. As Discovery put it, “The United States not only takes care of its own food needs, but fills the plates of many other nations as well…” At this point, even print journalism is seen as a better career choice than farming. Kids are not getting the message that farming is still a good job. We’re talking $70,000 a year.

Naturally, like any other business, there are startup costs to consider. You need farm land. Also, you will find farm equipment at Fastline.com to be representative of the type of equipment necessary to do the job well. Finally, you are going to need a solid education in agricultural management. Like any other career, startup capital and knowledge of the business is key. But it is a great job that is well worth pursuing.

Artificial Food is not the answer

We thought we could mix miracle food into existence with technology. That hubris comes with a terrible price, sometimes at the cost of human lives. Marketplace.org tells us that processed foods make up 70 percent of the U.S. diet.

It is conceivable that we are nearing a generation of kids that will have never eaten real food. We need to be reminded that this is not Gene Roddenberry’s Federation. We do not have food replicators. We still need real people doing the real work of producing real food. At the end of the day, that is the only way miracles get done.

Article Submitted By Community Writer

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