Millennial Migration

I was at a conference this past week in Orlando, Florida.  It had nothing to do with agriculture, actually the discussion was about trends in home buying, but since farming is one of my passions, I view many things through the lens of agriculture. I share with you one of the slides that caught my attention:

Image Credit

Although the above photo that I took with my phone by be unclear, the trend is crystal clear that young people (24-34 year olds) are increasingly attracted to urban living according to census data from 2010. Here's a quote from the source data:

The Takeaway: More Young Adult Urban Growth is Coming
The number of 25- to 34-year-olds—the key group driving urban living—will not decline, but will grow between now and 2024. The urban wave we’ve experienced starting in the 1990s, and accelerating in the past decade, wasn’t propelled by generational growth so much as by a growing preference for urban living by young adults. The shift of young adults to cities, drawn by urban amenities, is increasingly confirmed by academic researchers, and is borne out by the latest Census data.

I really like country living.  I like the slower pace, the simplicity, the elbow room, the wide open spaces.  We live close enough to the city to enjoy shopping, dining, and cultural events, if we wish, but rural living is attractive to us.  To each his own, I guess.

The takeaway that I get from the millennial migration is concerning to me in more ways than one.  I think as more and more young people flock to urban centers, our rural areas are increasingly left vacated by the young as they move off to seek opportunity and adventure.  As this occurs, fewer jobs and opportunity are left in small towns and on family farms.  "Water tower" towns with boarded up Main Street buildings and aging populations and few entertainment venues aren't attractive to the younger generations.  This is not a new occurrence, but Census data shows the frequency of the migration is increasing.  Will the last one leaving town please turn out the lights?

THIS LINK lists some leading factors that pull people to cities and similarly push them out of rural locales:

Pull factors

• more and better jobs
• better hospitals and health care
• better living standards
• cities are social and financial centres
• better education—schools and universities

Push factors

• too many people in the countryside
• low income
• not enough raw materials (water, wood etc..)
• the quality of farming land is getting worse

We are losing our connection to the land.  More and more people are becoming dependent upon fewer and fewer people to grow their food.  Something as simple as a natural disaster that would disrupt our supply chain, could turn urban centers to chaos or societal collapse as grocery store shelves empty.  Food and water shortages in high population density centers with people unable to feed themselves seem to be the theme of many apocalyptic books and movies, but it is not too far-fetched, if you think about it, especially considering the trend discussed above.

What can we do to stem the tide?  How can we maintain the fertile fabric of rural America?  By addressing the issues highlighted in the bullet points.

Support local business in your communities.  That is a starter.  Spend less at the big box store and more at the Mom & Pop shop.

Encourage young people.  Support your local 4-H club and FFA chapter.

Grow your own food OR support your local farmer's market.  Share your garden produce with your neighbor and build close relationships in your very own "Mayberry."

None of these is a magic bullet or miracle cure.  Perhaps nostalgia, or other reasons of necessity will reverse the migration.  Until then, I will remain in my garden as the sun goes down each day, eating crisp banana peppers right off the plant without washing them (gasp!) and breathing in fresh country air and enjoying the simplicity of pastoral living.  I might even drink water straight from the garden hose (Oh, the humanity!).

“An economy genuinely local and neighborly

offers to localities a measure of security

that they cannot derive from a national or a

global economy controlled by people who, by

principle, have no local commitment.”

—WENDELL BERRY

Rural Ruminations

"Let us not forget that the cultivation of the earth is the most important labor of man.  When tillage begins, other arts will follow.  The farmers, therefore are the founders of civilization."

- Daniel Webster, American Statesman

This afternoon I listened to a radio program extolling the wisdom of the electoral college in that it gives smaller states a voice in the Presidential and Vice Presidential election.  The broadcaster was extolling the brilliance of it, saying that if elections were based on popular vote, candidates would focus all their campaign on winning California, New York, Texas and Florida.  The electoral college gives small states a place at the table.  He then went on to speak of the widening gulf between wants of voters in highly concentrated urban centers and the wants of voters in 'fly-over' country.  There is a cauldron brewing.

As I drove down I-10, on my right and my left was farmland, but I began to think about how fertile farmland is being engulfed by urban sprawl.  Subdivisions are cropping up (pardon the pun) on land that used to grow rice, soybeans, and sugar cane.  Even though we live in a rural area, I was surprised to see concrete being poured to erect a Dollar General Store way out in the country.

I received a telephone call from a farmer friend who is going out of business after 16 years.  The rains in August decimated his family's vegetable crop.  He grows for farmer's markets and gets no disaster payments from the government for crop loss. His kids are growing up and taking 'off-farm' jobs.  He has formulated an exit strategy to be completely out of farming in five years.

Farming is hard work.  Cows must be milked every day.  Too much rain - or too little can result in crop failure.  Or everything can go perfectly fine until the crop pest or disease robs your harvest.  On the other hand, farming is incredibly fun and rewarding.  It is an honorable profession and is truly a labor of love.  The satisfaction of growing the majority of food on your supper table is fulfilling. There are character-building lessons taught in farming each and every day.  Lessons in patience, faith, work-ethic, perseverance, gratitude, and humility are all taught in the sweat and dirt filled classroom of the field.  I always find it interesting in Genesis 2 that God created Man, planted a garden and placed Man in it.

Yes, I think Daniel Webster was right - farmers are the foundation of civilization.