Jan 20, 2015

Younger, trendier face of farming still struggling

Becoming a farmer has never been so cool.

On TV, two dozen women are competing for the love of a farming “Bachelor”from Iowa. Elsewhere in the Midwest, entire states are courting dairy farmers from California. And in every hip urban restaurant across the country, chefs are coupling with local producers to create new restaurant menus in their image.

“There used to be a stigma of being from agriculture,”said Nancy Irlbeck, director of Colorado State University’s master’s program in agriculture. “However, in the last few years there seems to have been a shift.”

At CSU, Irlbeck sees a growing class of young men and women who don’t come from agricultural backgrounds but who nevertheless desire to study it and “get back to the land.”

A generation removed from the land, though, they face the uphill battle against cost and experience.

To read more, click here.

The Coloradoan