Food First. At Last.

This time, it's different.

by Bruce Schimmel

Twenty-four years ago, Ronald Reagan showed his contempt for sustainability by removing Jimmy Carter's solar panels from the White House roof.

That'd be unthinkable today.

Times have changed, but as I arrived at State College, for the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture (PASA) annual convention, it seemed like a scene from the past. Maybe it was a whiff of patchouli, or so many people in denim and gingham. But to me, the lobby of Penn State's convention center looked like the late '70s, when people flocked to the country to farm.

Some 2,000 farmers and friends scurried around, carrying bags and boxes of homegrown stuff: seeds, herbs, fruit, meats, tools, books, cheeses, honey, cider and stronger. In the middle, I saw my old friend Sally McCabe, one of Philly urban agriculture's founding moms, and a former City Paper urban ag columnist.

"I remember this," I said to Sally. "But will it stick this time? Will sustainable ag succeed?"

"Yeah," she said. "This time, it's different."

The biggest difference stood next to Sally: her daughter, a Penn State student, who grinned at me from under wisps of flaming red hair, just like her mom's.

In the '70s, we had a generation gap, but not here. In the '70s, young people led the organic movement. Now, here, many are joined by their children.

"This time it is different," echoed PASA's executive director, Brian Snyder. "Especially in Pennsylvania, where we have so many farming families. ... And, when Michael Pollan [author of The Omnivore's Dilemma] appears on Oprah, the game is changing." People are connecting factory food with bad health, and an ailing nation with a failing economy.

"Enough farmers have failed under the commodity system," said Snyder. And in its place are farm markets and community supported agriculture (CSA) that connect farmers directly to consumers. "CSAs," said Snyder, "have more power to save the world than almost anything else we're doing."

At last, sustainable farmers are being counted. For this conference, the USDA released data showing that Pennsylvania ranks sixth in the U.S. in the number of organic farms and third in the value of organic sales (trailing California and Washington state). And according to the USDA, organic farms outperform conventional farms, with average annual sales of $217,675 versus $134,807.

"What recession?" Snyder had said earlier to a couple of thousand cheering farmers. In 2001, PASA had about 1,000 members. Today, they're closing in on 6,000, and they're hiring.

Today, my friend Sally helps community gardeners for the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, and business is booming. Late last year, the USDA started funneling grant money through PHS to increase professional urban farming.

"There are five generations of farmers at this conference," said Snyder from the stage to gray-bearded Mennonites, to husband-and-wife cheesemakers, to young urban couples with babes in arms. The generation gap is healed, and out of a collapsed economy has come a new alliance, based on a single, decent and surprisingly profitable belief: to feed people first.

(bruce@schimmel.com)