Editor’s note: This commentary is by Beth Kennett, who with her family owns Liberty Hill Farm, a 240-acre Cabot Creamery Cooperative dairy farm and bed-and-breakfast in Rochester.
[I]n a world where we have so many differences, there are also basic human needs we all have in common: air, water, shelter and food to name a few. This week is National Agriculture Week and it’s a good reminder to appreciate the food security that local farmers provide our region and our country.
We New Englanders enjoy a wholesome, affordable and readily available food supply, and only about 2 percent of our country’s population are farmers who provide that food. Farmers have been able to do this because they’ve adopted innovative new practices and have made huge strides to be able to grow more food using less resources like water and land.
Yet, access to healthy food is not a given in our region. Recent data from Feeding America shows that in New England, nearly 2 million people are food insecure, or don’t have reliable access to healthy food, and of that number, 518,220 are children. The percentage of kids in need ranges from 23 percent in Maine to 15 percent in Massachusetts.
That’s why it’s so important that we support and prioritize our local farms of all types and sizes – through our purchases as well as public policy – like Paul Mazza’s Fruit & Vegetables and Monument Farms Dairy for their contributions to our food system. A report by Food Solutions New England calls for our region to build the capacity to produce at least 50 percent of our food by 2060. If we lose our farmers, it becomes more challenging to ensure our region is food secure, especially with concerns over climate change, and if more of our food must be imported from other regions or countries, and we become dependent on external factors like price and availability.
In addition, a challenge of the next generation will be providing nutritious, affordable food to a global population expected to grow to nearly 10 billion by 2050 – while using fewer resources. As the demand for sustainable, responsibly produced food increases, researchers are exploring the impact of different types of diets on the available land base in the U.S. A 2016 study from the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University found that a vegetarian diet that includes dairy products could feed the most people from the area of land available in the U.S. when compared to other diets, although diets with low to moderate amounts of meat also fared well in the study.
As a dairy farmer, I want to remind people that the foods you love to eat like cheese, yogurt and milk start with simple ingredients that offer essential nutrients, and are sourced locally. Think of a farmer when you’re at the grocery store this week and the hard work that went into getting your veggies, fruit or gallon of milk to the store. American farmers – including our hard-working New England farmers – feed billions of people in our country with a wide array of food choices, including many people who would otherwise be left hungry.
