05/18/06 Role of Community in Farming

The Role of Community in Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. Farming has long been tied to small towns. Over time, those small towns have grown smaller and even disappeared. Without that support network, farms struggle. Dr. John Allen, Director of the Western Rural Development Center at Utah State university believes it's time for communities to step up to the plate. ALLEN: Agriculture has somehow slipped away from being connected to community and so I think there's some things communities could do. One is, I think that as communities start marketing themselves both on their websites and in their newsletters, they need to highlight those farmers and ranchers in the area they are focusing on. I think one of the things we find in our research is many of these new Ag enterprises because they are filling niches, much of the inputs they need aren't available locally. Dr. Allen says communities should access themselves and their needs. He also suggests looking into looking outside the normal. ALLEN: Spend some time thinking about agri-tourism. Many urbanites have lost connection with the land and these small farms that have diverse and some fairly creative niche markets they are dealing with provide real opportunities I believe for agri-tourism. There's some real creative people out there that are capturing some markets, they're making good income and their linking back to local communities. So what happens if we fail in connecting community and agriculture? Dr. Allen says that is a good question. ALLEN: I really believe that if we continue to separate our community from our food and fiber production that it will have impacts on policy at the federal level where people see it's just as easy to get your food from overseas as it is to have it locally. And that I believe has some impacts on food security. I think the other is that as a lot of rural communities are struggling some with their economies, this is one mechanism to enhance the economy. If they don't do that they're losing that opportunity and we have potential to see a continued decline. Finally, Dr. Allen feels that rural areas are necessary for our well-being. ALLEN: And I think another piece is that open spaces and agriculture provide aesthetic value to people and if we lose that I think there's a downside to the quality of life in rural places. Dr. Allen presents his views this evening at the WSU campus in Richland, Washington. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.