Kody Hanner
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Lets get farmers to teach people how to grow their own food
The agriculture industry should stop trying to increase yields and, instead, teach more people how to grow their own food. It may sound crazy from a business standpoint to suggest teaching someone else to do your job, thus losing profits. However, this wouldn’t exactly be the case. It would take the pressure off the farmers, the industry and the supply chain to not have to fill every consumable need of almost every person in the world.
"The agriculture industry is not broken. It is doing exactly what is was designed to do."
What will reduced pressure from society growing their own food do for the industry?
I could have this conversation across several industries associated with the supply of food to the masses. But when looking particularly at farmers there are a few key players. These various aspects could make massive changes accross many parts of the food and agriculture industry.
Is their enough land to grow their own food?
There is simply not enough new land to sustain agricultural growth, while simultaneously, we are depleting the soil to the point of sterility. According to American Farmland Trust, the US loses about 2,000 acres of farmland every day to residential and industrial development. The USDA states that at the start of 2025, there were 911 million acres of land that is farmed (I am not sure if this includes backyard farms or just registered commercial farms). Even given the fact that it would take over 1,000 years to use up all that land, it currently takes about one acre of land to feed one person a year. With about 350 million people in the United States, and with that number increasing by 1.6 million each year, we are increasing our population by twice the number of acres we are losing each year! I could do a fancy graph or something, but those numbers speak for themselves.
What is soil?
Soil is a combination of inorganic materials, like sand, silt, and clay, as well as organic material, like decaying animals and plants. This, along with necessary minerals, vitamins, air, water, and living organisms, creates an ideal ecosystem for healthy plant growth. Once everything is stripped out of the soil from over-cultivation, it becomes nothing more than an inorganic holding place for man-made “replacement” nutrients. These nutrients will never be as robust (or as alive) as what healthy soil should be. Unfortunately, we are running out of natural resources to continue synthesizing fertilizers to add to the sterile growth media that used to be the host for an organic ecosystem. Land must have time to rejuvenate by laying fallow and reintroducing organic matter. What is worse is that 65% of the 115 million tons of synthetic nitrogen applied every year runs off into rivers and the ocean. Regenerative farming is actively trying to address this issue, but the SARE program (Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program) receives less than half of a percent of the Farm Bill funding each year.
Soil is where we grow our food; dirt is what we wash out of our clothes
The financial strain of growing their food
In order for farmers to push the yields of their land, they must extend their credit from equipment companies, fertilizers, and pesticide companies. Alternatively, in any years that they may get ahead, they have to consider averages over time, usually taking payments from crop insurance and government subsidies. According to the National Rural Health Association, farmers are 3.5 times more likely to die by suicide than the general population, primarily linked to financial strains associated with farming.
People wouldn’t have to grow their own food if we quit throwing it away.
A shocking amount of commodities and food are wasted long before they even reach their next step in the supply chain, some tossed simply because it’s not uniform in size or shape. The exact amount of waste is unknown, but it is somewhere between 92 billion and 133 billion pounds each year. That equals 30-40% of the food supply! Is it possible that those who we are trying to feed through increased agricultural yields could be fed through just a percentage of what is wasted? Some of this waste comes from the food and agriculture industry, and some comes from a lack of consumer education.
What will happen when people start growing their own food?
Local food takes less energy
People growing and/or locally sourcing their food would reduce food miles, not just in concern over fossil fuels but also cutting down on waste. It takes 10 times more energy to transport food than the food provides. Even though the food industry is complex and it is hard to quantify exact numbers, it is believed that up to 49% of fossil fuel usage for food transportation could be reduced.
Growing their own food should be the norm.
It is more acceptable for local foods to not be uniform, encouraging less waste as well. There is an expectation that farm fresh foods will not be perfect, at least from those who are associated with food in some way, even if that is just eating tomatoes out of grandma’s garden. Over the last few generations, homegrown food has changed from the norm to the novelty. If homegrown or locally grown becomes more socially acceptable through education and integration, the pressure of food security could be lifted from the farmer and the consumer alike.
There is security in growing food
If more people knew how to grow their own food, supply chains would be there to supplement rather than supply. Additionally, people will have more respect for the food they are closely associated with or have to grow themselves rather than take advantage of the convenience of grocery shopping. Society easily forgets the struggles of obtaining food when it is abundant. In just a few years since pandemic lockdowns, far too many have forgotten how close we were to supply chain and food chain collapse. Local food communities were coming together everywhere, and just as quickly as they started, they were gone again. Some of us didn’t forget. The bottom line is, though, you can not have a local food network without local food. So keep growing!
Quality matters more than you realize
If nutrient-dense foods were more popular, there would be less food waste in the form of empty calories. Less food would also be needed due to satiation from proper nourishment. It takes the same amount of grain to make a single box of nutrient-empty cereal as it does to make a single loaf of nutrient-dense sourdough bread. Plus! The bread has no sugar and minimal inputs to create. You take that same pound of grain and use it to grow out a hog, and you are getting close to 10 times the amount of protein as you would from the cereal.
Create a combined effort to teach people to grow their own food
A combined effort of everything listed would allow farmers to reduce the pressure they are putting on the land and themselves. They would have a much-needed buffer to allow land to lie fallow and grow higher-quality products without as much need for yield-enhancing products. These products have large upfront investments for supplies and application, as well as concerns from the public over their safety. And the reliance on subsidies could be decreased. Essentially, the agriculture industry would be able to take a deep breath and reflect on what they want it to be designed to accomplish over the next hundred years.
