A first job is a rite of passage. I wanted mine to be different. After some searching, I began working on a small farm in the summer of 2013.

My boss, Will, was a short, elderly man whose skin had been baked into tan leather by decades of working in the sun. Arthritis had slowed his movements, but he was still two or three times as strong as anyone else I knew his age. Will had more than earned retirement, but he would not stop. His children had moved away, and there was no one willing or able to take over the farm.

At the time, I thought Will's story was simple: one old farmer who refused to quit. I now realize it was part of something larger. Across America, small farms are disappearing as rising costs, development pressures, and the demands of modern agriculture make it increasingly difficult for farmers to stay on the land. Ulster County has not escaped these national trends. When a farm disappears, we lose more than productive land and local economic activity. We lose a connection to the land, the traditions, and the people who have poured sweat into sustaining us for generations.

If we want farming to remain part of Ulster County's future, we need to understand what is driving its decline and what we can do to preserve it.

At first glance, the decline in the number of farms in our backyard looks close to the national trend. Across the United States, the number of farms declined by about 6.9 percent over the past two decades. In Ulster County, the number declined by about 9 percent, from 530 farms in 2002 to 486 in 2022.

But the number of farms does not tell the whole story. Ulster County diverges significantly from national trends when it comes to acreage. The farms around us have shrunk over the past two decades. According to a 2024 Ulster County Land Use and Agriculture report, total farmland decreased by approximately 12,000 acres, or about 30 percent, between 2002 and 2022. Nationally, farmland acreage declined by only 2.2 percent during the same period. Vegetable and corn acreage saw some of the steepest declines, falling by 62 percent and 44 percent, respectively.

Because this has happened over decades, it is easy to miss. A field becomes a development, a farm closes, and another sells a portion of its land. Slowly, the landscape changes. When farms disappear, we lose a source of food, a place where families put down generational roots, and a connection to the land we all live on. When farms shrink, it can be a warning that the remaining operation may eventually disappear altogether.

To understand how we got here, it is important to understand where farmers have come from. Farmers have always been at the mercy of Mother Nature, but over the past century they have faced an increasingly delicate balancing act. They have to grow enough to feed their families, pay workers, maintain equipment, and service debts. The banks still demand their due whether a blight ruins a harvest, tariffs cancel export orders, or demand for a crop suddenly collapses because of a health trend. Every season brings new uncertainties.

This is not new. In the early 1930s, American agriculture collapsed as the country spiraled into the Great Depression. At its worst, more than 1,000 farms a day were being foreclosed on. Crop prices fell below what farmers needed to cover loans that had once seemed reasonable. Banks and sheriffs used the law to auction off land, livestock, and equipment from families who had often worked the soil for generations.

In those days, rural communities sometimes responded by organizing. Most famously, farmers across the Midwest who watched their friends and neighbors lose everything joined together to disrupt farm auctions. When a farm went up for auction, dozens of farmers would show up. Rather than bid the market price, they would offer a nickel for a cow or a penny for a plow. Afterward, the family would receive their property while the bank was left with pennies.

Farmers in Upstate New York organized too. They coordinated farm holidays and ran milk strikes to withhold food from markets in an effort to force prices higher. New York's dairy farmers dumped milk rather than sell it at ruinous prices.

In the aftermath of the Great Depression, the federal government enacted numerous reforms to support American agriculture. Yet farming remains a difficult profession. According to the USDA, men make up about 60 percent of the agricultural workforce nationally, and the CDC reported in 2024 that men working in agriculture, forestry, fishing, and hunting had a suicide rate 65 percent higher than the national average.

The capital intensity of modern farming has raised the stakes to new heights. Over the past two decades, the cost of staying in business has skyrocketed. Farmers increasingly take on larger loans simply to maintain the equipment and infrastructure necessary to operate. To stay afloat, many farms diversify their businesses or sell land.

Diversification can help, but it takes time, money, and expertise. Barthel's runs a farmstand and an ice cream bar. Kelder's also sells hot food and drinks, runs farm games, and has a petting zoo.

The pressure to sell land is always there. Selling a few acres can provide a short-term cash infusion and help balance the books, but it also means less land available for farming tomorrow. Over time, that can become a slippery slope with no easy way back.

The rising cost of farming can be traced to three factors: land, machinery, and seed.

I can speak from experience about the cost of farm equipment. Modern, top-of-the-line tractors can cost more than $300,000. They contain software and electronic components that can be difficult to repair independently. For generations, many farmers doubled as mechanics out of practical necessity. Today, restrictions on repairs can leave farmers dependent on manufacturers and expensive technicians. Repairing these tractors can cost as much as a small sedan.

Even when farmers know how to make a repair themselves, doing so can void a machine's warranty. Farmers should not have to choose between fixing their own equipment and preserving a manufacturer's warranty. When the machinery needed to run a farm becomes prohibitively expensive to maintain, the farmer ultimately bears the brunt of the cost.

Faced with this adversity, our communities need to rally behind the farmers we still have. There are several ways we can do that, and the most immediate is to buy from them.

Many people in our community shop almost exclusively at Tops or Walmart. They are cheap, convenient, and accessible. You can place orders online, and both stores accept EBT/SNAP. For those who have the means, supporting local farmers requires a change in behavior, but it can be rewarding.

Eating seasonally can add something extra to weekday dinners and weekend barbecues. Learning to appreciate the difference between produce picked at peak and produce picked too early or too late can also remind us that not everything is meant to be eaten year-round.

Second, we should demand that our elected officials support New York's agricultural industry financially, particularly small farms. Local officials can work to ensure that farmers’ markets throughout the valley accept EBT as payment. The process requires paperwork and technical know-how, but some markets in our area, including the Ellenville Farmers' Market, already do it. Officials should advertise these options so people receiving assistance know where and when they can use their benefits.

They should also work to secure programs that increase the purchasing power of SNAP benefits at farmers markets. Programs such as Double Up Food Bucks receive federal, state, and private funding to match money spent on fresh produce at farmers markets. If expanded and well utilized, these programs could increase farmers' income while giving families more access to fresh, healthy food.

Finally, elected officials need to support laws that protect farms and farmers. That includes right-to-farm laws and conservation easements that prevent the overdevelopment of historically important farmland. They should also support right-to-repair laws so that farmers are not penalized for working on their own equipment.

Will's story is not unique. Across the Rondout Valley, farmers are facing pressures that make it increasingly difficult to keep working the land that their families and communities have depended on for generations. We cannot stop every farm from closing, and we cannot make farming easy. But we can make it a little easier to stay. We can buy from local farmers. We can make fresh food more accessible. We can protect farmland from unnecessary development and give farmers more control over the equipment they depend on. Will kept farming because the only exit he could see was shuttering his life's work. His story does not have to be The Story. Farmers always do their part. The rest is up to us.