Hard Numbers & Farming Siblings

Alix Blair, Co-Director of Farmer Veteran, wanted to know just how many farms had gone under in the South in recent years. Working with the USDA Farmland Census, which listed farms by state, she extrapolated the numbers by hand and came out with a pretty sobering number for the broader region ; close to 50,000 Southern farms have disappeared in just a five year window (from 2007 to 2012). 

Listen to Blair's recent podcast exploring this issue through the story of two brothers who started farming for two very different reasons following their time in the military.  The piece was produced for an episode of GRAVY, a remarkable compendium of original stories commissioned by the Southern Foodways Alliance. Their gorgeous printed quarterly by the same name is reason enough to join the member-supported non-profit, which has also helped underwrite and promote several Vittles projects.