Where there is demand, an entrepreneur will follow, but who is sustaining whom?...

So it is in agriculture, as in any other business. If there is growing demand for locally produced food products, then there are opportunities for entrepreneurs to grow crops and livestock to sell to those consumers. Hence Vermont, which, according to Art Edelstein writing for vermontbiz.com, "boasts the highest percentage of people who buy locally grown food," is seeing an increasing number of small farms and new, young and entrepreneurial growers capitalizing on the locavore movement.

It's nice that the locavore movement is creating such opportunity. Small farms are getting much attention in the media, in the slow food movement and at USDA. Sustainable agriculture advocates often point to the small farm as the savior of ag, especially here in the Northeast. But are small farms really sustainable? In the vermontbiz article, the Green Mountain State's Agricultural Commissioner Roger Allbee indicates "the majority of food producing farms in the state other than dairy have less than 50 acres and the majority gross less than $50,000."

Indeed, the 2007 AgCensus figures just released in February show that across the country, there were 74,000 more farms with sales of less than $2,500 than in that category in the previous census five years earlier.

It's interesting that the AgCensus refers to “residential/lifestyle farms, with sales of less than $250,000.” $2,500, $50,000, $250,000... those are gross income figures. Any small business operator knows that when the expenses are paid at the end of the year, that's what the owner gets paid. Non-farmers earning wages in the $50-75K range think farmers grossing $250K are getting rich. Not so!

The article does point out, rightly so:

• One can make money because “farming is so entrepreneurial and there are so many micro niches.” It takes business savvy, sales and creativity, but about 90 percent fail, a number he says is consistent with other start-ups, according to John Cohen, Westminster, chairman of the Vermont Farmers Market Assoc.

• Despite claiming "add[ing] in the environment and an agricultural landscape and community and social benefit" makes small farms "absolutely successful businesses"..."in the final analysis," Mimi Arnstein, owner-operator of Wellspring CSA Farm, Marshfield says, “If a business is not financially sustainable it won’t be a business.” And "she admits and agrees that, “the biggest challenge is making enough money to pay myself and staff well. You have to sell a lot of zucchini to make the budget balance.”

It's tough to pull a living wage, let alone a salary, out of a $250,000 gross income. How then is agriculture sustainable if a farm business relies on supplemental off-farm income to maintain the farm family? Rather the hobby/part-time/lifestyle farm income supplements the family income to sustain the family, not vice versa.