ON TH E
FARM

BY THE NUMBERS

$226MILLION
Expected market value of organically
grown cotton in 2009 (up from $19
million in 2004)
$2, 200 Average
price of 1 acre of U.S. farmland
432 Average acreage of a
U.S. farm

 

KEEPIN’ IT COUNTRY

U.S. farmers will benefit from 1apparel companies’ demand for organic cotton, as production moves closer to home due to rising transportation costs and demand for locally made products. “Consumers want to know who grew their cotton,” says Lynda Grose, a sustainable fashion design professor at California College of the Arts. One caveat: Farmers will have to talk trends and thread counts with clothing designers and translate pounds of cotton into numbers of chinos or T-shirts.

2Enthusiasm for
ethanol is increas-
ing many farmers’
incomes and raising the
price of farmland.
Get ready for vertical farms to
3crop up in major cities. The 30-
story-high skyscrapers could pro-
vide food and water for 50,000 people a
year. Dickson Despommier, an environ-
mental sciences professor at Columbia
University, says, “When the first couple
[are built] and people get a look at them,
everybody will want them.”

TALKING ABOUT . . .

PEOPLE ARE

■ “dual purpose” foods: “They get you fed but they also give you a health benefit, a unique taste, or a cultural experience,” says Stan Ernst, an agriculture professor at Ohio State University.

■ “pitchfork fondues,” at which cattle ranchers cook meats with boiling oil in cast-iron cauldrons

■ “harvest your own [freshwater] shrimp” events, where agri-tourists earn a meal by helping farmers to drain ponds