Root Solutions to Crisis for Family-Scale Farms

“Agricultural choices must be made by these inescapable standards: the ecological health of the farm and the economic health of the farmer.’ Wendell Berry, Right Kind of Farming

For almost 5 decades (50th anniversary coming up in 2021!), the Northeast Organic Farming Association  (NOFA) has been dedicated to supporting and expanding the community of farmers, homesteaders and conscious eaters who build their lives and livelihoods through agroecology – growing and consuming food, forage and other crops in as much harmony with natural processes and rhythms as we can muster.  We have been leaders in promoting buy local organic and alternatives to globalized industrialized chemical agriculture. To enable shoppers to identify organically grown food, NOFA has put a lot of resources – time and energy -into developing and maintaining organic certification and the integrity of the organic label. Increasing public recognition of that label has helped save many generational farms and enabled the creation of new farms. But that label is not enough to keep family-scale farms viable.