Sue Lani Madsen: Hobby farmers play an important role in ag landscape
Cynics spit it out with snide references to farm subsidies paid to rich guys, like Bruce Springsteen or Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, whose primary income is clearly not from farming. Commercial farmers and ranchers are impatient with the dabbler who doesn’t have it all on the line. Leave out the snark, and the definition is simply “a small farm operated for pleasure or supplemental income.”
Hobby Farms is also an eponymous magazine devoted to the needs of the small-scale farmer. The editor, Roger Sipe, explained the target audience of the magazine as people who love to farm, not to feed the world but to feed their families and community.
It’s a relatively recent term, and size doesn’t matter. People call themselves hobby farmers with a half-dozen chickens and a vegetable garden on a few city lots, or with more than 40 acres and an assortment of critters and crops. They may sell a few eggs or fresh produce at the local farmers market, but at least part of the return is the pleasure of creating a healthy and sustainable landscape. “There’s too much emphasis on hobby and not enough on farm,” said Sipe. “It’s only called a hobby because farming is something our readers love to do.”
Sometimes called urban homesteaders, hobby farmers include nontraditional farm families who want to make sure their children understand where food comes from. A couple who worked with their children this year to raise, kill, skin, rinse and tuck into the freezer 12 ducks explained it’s not just about duck for dinner this winter. It’s about teaching their children respect for the animals, land and labor it takes to put food on the table.
The USDA tallied over 2.1 million farms in its 2012 Census of Agriculture, home to about 2 percent of the total U.S. population. In terms of gross sales, over 56 percent are small farms with sales of less than $10,000. Another 20 percent had gross sales of $10,000 to $50,000. Less than a quarter of farms produce gross sales of $50,000 or more, which may or may not produce a net income sufficient to support a household.
Only 48 percent of principal farm operators claim farming as their primary occupation. Pleasure in the work supplements any financial payback of their second job.
Many families, from small farms and large, rely on off-farm jobs to support their farming habit. No other vocation is dismissed as a hobby just because it’s not the household’s primary income. Can you imagine calling a dedicated preschool teacher who loves his work a “hobby teacher” just because his wife brings in more income working for wages?
Ninety-nine percent of the U.S. population relies on the 1 percent who are full-time farmers and ranchers to feed them as well as the world. Large-scale farming of the type practiced on the Palouse differs in scale, but not in seriousness of purpose, from the so-called hobby farmers living on and caring for their land. While Spokane’s giant Ag Trade Show in February is an annual reunion attracting families from large commercial farms, the upcoming Farm & Food Expo in November feeds the desire of hobby farmers to learn how to be better stewards of their land and make a little profit.
Still, high-profile millionaire hobby farmers collecting agricultural subsidies are an embarrassment every time the Farm Bill comes up for renewal. There’s another name for them – suitcase farmers if they live in the city and are focused on a financial return on their investment, or gentlemen farmers if they live on the farm for the ambiance but aren’t actively working it.
Full-time commercial farmers at one end of the income spectrum and the part-time farmer selling a few thousand dollars of extra produce at the other have one thing in common: They share an interest in sustainable and healthy land. Ninety-seven percent of all American farms are operated by families who understand the need for sustainable operation in order to have something worth passing on to the next generation.
Columnist Sue Lani Madsen can be reached at rulingpen@gmail.com or on Twitter, @SueLaniMadsen.