What a Conversation with Farmer Alice Taylor Tells about the Future of Small-Scale Farming

It’s a quiet but profound change in the country that’s happening, and farmer Alice Taylor is on the front row. In this interview, Taylor painted a picture of a world of small-scale food production characterized by both optimism and fragility: a world of a lot of new players arriving, but also one with a lot of structural barriers that no one is closing fast enough.

The one takeaway from the discussion is that young people are not losing interest in local food and farm activity, they are gaining interest. There is a target demographic, however, that Taylor has in mind: people in their late 20s and early 30s who are actively seeking a way to eat local food, as well as get their hands dirty working on a farm, or even becoming a producer themselves.

This isn’t nostalgia. It is a sign of the general desire to get back to the source of food and a desire to sacrifice convenience in exchange for something real: knowing the grower, understanding the season, tasting the difference. This is important in a food system that has been centrally consolidating and industrializing for decades.

This demographic interest is coupled with a philosophical interest. Contrary to the scale of monoculture farming which has been the key paradigm in agricultural policies and investments for decades, Taylor outlines a rising interest in small-scale, multi-crop and holistic farming. People are not only looking for “local” as a label but they want farms to produce a mix of products, manage their growing areas as a whole, and be small enough for one grower or small group to manage the entire farm.

This resonates with a broader European debate on short food supply chains (SFSCs), which are seen as a tool to help restore trust between producers and consumers, better empower farmers’ bargaining positions and bolster more environment-friendly supply chains, all of which are aspects of the Farm to Fork Strategy and the European Green Deal.

However, enthusiasm from new entrants is tempered by a sobering fact: many of the existing farmers running large farms are tired. Taylor is honest about this, the issue of “burnout” is a very real one and its impact is being felt beyond the individual level in established, large scale farmers. As a result of the pressures of the work, the next generation, when it comes of age, may be reluctant to assume the responsibility of the family farm even if it is their own.

This is a personal/family problem that goes beyond. It’s an interruption in a pattern of farming that has been in place for centuries, and a lonely question one must ask if young people want to farm, where does the transition really occur?, when the people who are farming are too exhausted to mentor or even pass along what they have created.

On top of all the succession issues there is a simple labour shortage. Lack of labour is a problem on farms, and especially on the Irish farms, where they are particularly hard pressed in the summer months when most crops require labour at this time.

What is almost ironic about this is that many young people, students, and career changers have a bit of time off during the summer, but the farm labour market is not meeting their demand for jobs. In all ways, the seasonal labour needs of farms and the labourers who want to work this season are almost totally at odds.On the surface of it, the need for farm labour in the summer and the need of the labourers to work in the summer are in almost perfect alignment.

The key message from Taylor’s comments is this: It isn’t always about increasing food production, more farmers, or even burnout itself. It’s in connection. People are available to work, and there are farms that need people to work. People are craving locally grown produce, and there are people who need to eat it. People who wish to learn how to farm, and older farmers who have decades of knowledge to impart; there are indeed people who fall into both of those categories.

The biggest promise for innovation in agriculture may not lie in new technologies, but in new matchmaking apps, in developing networks of seasonal labourers, in mentorship programs, and in local food markets. Good intentions on both sides of a food system are often simply a bridge too far.