Celebrating farms

Today is National Ag Day

By Culinate staff

March 15, 2011

In honor of America’s farmers, this week has been dubbed National Agriculture Week, and March 15 is National Agriculture Day. The festivities (mostly held in Washington, D.C.) aren’t necessarily focused on small-scale family farms or issues of sustainability, but the Agriculture Council of America's goal of raising awareness about farms is a worthy one.

And farms, of course, are in the news more and more these days. Urban farms are sprouting up everywhere. Congress is considering cutting farm subsidies as part of its efforts to reduce the budget deficit. In a recent assessment of the nation’s wacky food politics, Grist ag blogger Tom Philpott summed up the confusing mixed messages as “Obama’s dual policy on ag.” And Mark Bittman, from his New York Times op-ed pulpit, declared that, yes, it was indeed possible to feed the world from sustainable farms alone.

Farms, after all, feed — or don’t feed — the world.