It is somewhat amusing to see the Wall Street Journal cover this topic.  After all, they are the paper of Wall Street, which I imagine has a “look down the nose” attitude about the people who grow food for a living, especially small-scale farmers who don’t use giant machines or buy inputs from Fortune 500 companies.   Perhaps I need to get over a prejudice?

Check out what this reporter did…and on page A1 to boot:

Green Acres II:
When Neighbors
Become Farmers

Suburban Arugula Is
Organic and Fresh, but
About That Manure...

By KELLY K. SPORS
April 22, 2008; Page A1

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120882472974233235.html?mod=todays_us_page_one

Not bad!  The people doing this work are good looking, young, suburbanites.  Probably makes it more palatable to the readers because they can relate to them. 

The music on the video included at the web site, however, is kinda hill-billyish.  I enjoy banjos and blue grass myself, but don’t know any farmers of the generation depicted who listen to it regularly.  If more young farmers are needed, it might be better to associate them with rock stars instead. 

I appreciated the coverage of the SPIN farming method:  http://www.spinfarming.com/

It is great that there is now a marketed entry path to farming in urban/suburban areas.  I would like to point out where SPIN differs from what we are advocating in the Energy Farm Program.  The article explains:

Start-up costs for a one-eighth-acre farm run about $5,500, says Ms. Christensen of Spin-Farming. That includes a walk-in cooler to wash and store fresh produce, a rotary tiller and a farm-stand display. Annual operating expenses, including seeds and farmers-market stall fees, can add about $2,000. Such a farm can generate $10,000 to $20,000 in annual sales, she says. That's "an entry point into farming to see if they have a talent for it," Ms. Christensen says. "Those that do will eventually be able to expand and increase that income level quite substantially."

Where we differ is in the use of hand tools instead of rototillers, and passive cooling techniques instead of walk-in coolers requiring electricity.  Also, we would probably be more circumspect about the inputs of manure and other fertilizers and ask farmers to work on green manure cover cropping and compost making on site instead.  This is all about the need to “get off the sauce” of oil, and fossil fuels in general.  Good hand tools are incredibly efficient at the scale needed for home-scale veggies (http://www.energyfarms.net/node/1509 ).

The Wall Street Journal does have some great reporters.  Good going Kelly!  Too bad the editorial pages of the WSJ are full of garbage about energy and climate issues.