Shire Draft Horse Gronant Aristocrat (Izzy) at 18 hands, stood tall, typical of the breed.

Lerner's Home Farm Store in Middleburg offers organic meats, eggs, and other natural products.

Is it very different farming in Virginia, say, than California?

I was farming in California in the 1960’s and 1970’s when there were still enough family farms to keep FFA (Future Farmers of America) in the schools and 4-H Clubs going in the rural counties. In that sense, it is like Virginia in that 95% of farms here are still family-owned. My family farmed in the Sierras on essentially a vertical rock with very little rain. Here the land is gently hilly, and on average we get enough rainfall to farm, although I hope my neighbors don’t think that I brought the chronic California drought with me. On the other hand, today California is probably the most progressive state in terms of its turn toward sustainable methods and the support these farmers get from the state and the land grant universities there. However, South Dakota, Wisconsin, New York, and Massachusetts are also very strong.

Virginia has been somewhat “reluctant” to change its focus away from chemical, commodity agriculture, even though we are losing farms at the rate of 1% a year—that’s almost 10 farms or 2,000 acres lost each week. And Governor Kaine has just appointed a marketeer from the tobacco industry to be the Agricultural Commissioner, so I wouldn’t look for leadership or change anytime soon.

What do you mean by “restore the local food chain?”

America is probably now a net food importer—it’s a little hard to tell because of how the government keeps statistics (for example, meat is not counted as a “food import”). This situation—importing food— I find disgraceful, given the vast extent of this nation’s farmable land. I don’t know about you, but I’m a whole lot more worried about being dependent on foreign food than foreign oil—you don’t have to drive, but you do have to eat. The local food system broke down in this country after World War II in the form of industrialized, monopoly agriculture that is now completely vertically integrated.

This agricultural cartel (and there is really only one) wants “free trade.” “Free trade” in here really means that the cartel is free to buy cheap foreign food that has been produced with little, if any, regulation as to its safety—as we see now with the recalls of food from China. This drives our own farmers out of business since we have to comply with all of the workforce, environmental, and food safety regulations. With food, too, one gets what one pays for.

On the other hand, our grandparents bought local food as there was not a means to transport it long distance, and they were healthier than we are and the economy was healthier as well. It’s not just Wal-Mart that is driving up the national trade deficit, although it’s certainly leading the way. The only solution to saving farms, farmland, and farmers is if people will, again, look to local, seasonal food. Keep food money local, and you’ll keep local farms.

You’ve put your whole 800-acre farm in one easement. Why? Given your animal rights stance, it’s obviously not to keep open space for foxhunting.

I really don’t believe that there is either a conceptual or observed linkage between one and the other. Open space is open space. The ex-hunt master who lived near my farm sold his farm to a developer. Yet other foxhunters have been leaders in not only putting their land into conservation but also encouraging their neighbors to do so. The two farms right next to mine are not in easement; one used to rent the farm to the hunt, and the other still actively hunts, so it seems to swing both ways, a lot. In my view, preservation seems to depend more on kids inheriting land who have an emotional attachment to the land. One thing about farmers: They are attached to the land, literally and figuratively. If I had children, I’d farm just to give my kids a love for the land.

How do we turn farming around and help it become “the next new thing,” or at least profitable enough to keep families on the land?

There are success stories out there—New Zealand and England for starters, and the Champlain Valley and upstate New York here at home. The organic dairy industry in Wisconsin is thriving, while Loudoun has gone from over 400 dairy farms in 1980 to just one in 2008. South Dakota has a very successful beef-marketing program that Virginia would do well to emulate. California, North Carolina, and even Missouri have well-developed state programs for helping farms to diversify and turn away from chemical commodity agriculture. There’s also quite a bit of money out there, if one looks, including Department of Defense (DoD) money, which seems to indicate that food security is surely a big part of national security. I’m reminded about the early Internet, another instance of DoD foresight.

The information is out there to save farms. It would be nice if Virginia Tech or the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (VDACS) would be more in touch with these issues, but as I’ve said, that’s not likely. Out of 551.5 people employed at VDACS, the .5 is the one half-time person employed to support ALL of “specialty” agriculture, meaning anything other than chemical commodity crops or factory farmed poultry. The other 551 are mostly oriented toward exporting our produce internationally, but that’s pretty pointless since Europe and Asia are actively banning genetically modified and cloned food, which is what the majority of farmers in Virginia grow. That’s one reason I started the Virginia Organic Producers and Consumers’ Association (VOPCA): to try and do what I think VDACS and Tech should be doing to save farms and farmers in Virginia. Frankly, I’d rather they did it as there’s a whole lot more of them than of me.

With Ayrshire Farm, Hunter’s Head restaurant, and the Home Farm grocery, you’ve in effect created your own local food chain. Are there any missing links?

Gee, I’d like to think I’ve done what you just said, but what I’ve really done is create my own vertical monopoly. To restore the local food chain, we would need capital and social investment to resurrect processing and packing plants, grain mills, regional distribution systems, as well as local educational, informational, and labor infrastructure, all of which support the rural economy. It’s kind of like putting the trolley system back into the center of the city—a lot easier if you never took out the tracks.

We have no rural economic infrastructure left to support local agriculture in this part of Virginia: no extension agents who are able to assist farmers with issues ranging from organic methods of worming livestock to viable, diversified economic models, no local feed stores who have people who are knowledgeable about a broad range of animal and soil nutritional issues, natural weed management, local planting seasons, etc. Those people have all moved out of agriculture or died. I’m only trying to get my neighbors to see what food used to be and what it can be again, if people care enough about the land, farmers, open space, and food security to spend a little extra energy and money to seek out better food and to build a habit of good food back into their daily lives.

As to the big issue, the regeneration of those rural enterprises such as baking, milling, dairying—including cheese and ice cream—slaughter houses, packing plants, warehouses, small equipment parts and repair, welders, commercial refrigeration and storage facilities, even vets who know how to treat farm animals without the drugs proscribed by the U.S. organic standard—in short, rebuilding the local rural economy by rebuilding the local food chain—that’s going to take a lot more than a one-horse team. Other places have done it and we can too, if the future we want for Virginia includes open, productive land. The alternative is sprawling everywhere around us.