Thank you for posting this article. The bubble plot of energy/population/%ag is really innovative. There are a lot of dashed lines connecting energy to food production and indirectly to the percent of people working as farmers. Including fertilizer production from natural gas and the decrease of this activity in the face of higher natural gas prices, in my opinion, can result in the conclusion that less energy means much more starvation. There is also a connection here with the recent Energy Bill and price supports which were, and were not, supported.

High school students do not seem interested in Agriculture.

The Hispanic students see agriculture as lowly peasant labor - something they want to get away from.

Where are these new Farmers going to come from ??

Your high school student is neither the first nor the most famous person to react that way. Bertrand Russell once jibed with astonishment (link, small pdf) that the University of Wisconsin would pay heed to worldly concerns, saying: "When any farmer’s turnips go wrong, they send a professor to investigate the failure scientifically."

Incidentally, the University's Stock Pavilion used to be used as a classical concert venue as well as for livestock shows. A story retold by old-timers among the local musicians has it that years ago, one of the Russian orchestras (don't recall which one) objected strenuously when they arrived on tour and saw where they were to play. The response was that since the local symphony sometimes played there, and since the Russians were Marxists big on equality, the locals really could not quite see their objection.

So I guess that while agriculture brings out a lot of mile-wide, inch-deep cheap sentiment - hence "ethanol" as a form of farm support - many folks nonetheless see any closer connection than that as, well, icky. And yes, I also guess you seemed to have an anomalous number of heads that day...

Wow! I am honored. And coming from the ELP-master himself. Should the TOD Overlords set up some kind of poll?

Regarding the sorry social stigma of agriculture. This is really sad. It is not universal among young folks though. There is a subculture interested. They often gravitate toward permaculture workshops, they may go to the degree program at UC Santa Cruz, or join the WOOFERS, intern on CSA veggie farms...but they are generally landless and have many countervailing pressures drawing them away from these pursuits.

Burlington Vermont (Intervale) and organization in Monterey County CA are doing fine work in professional development for young farmers--giving them access to land and capital, and helping them develop markets. Farmlink connects young to old farmers with the idea of future equity transfer.

I think young people today have a harder time swallowing the idea of being sharecroppers, so they get bummed out not owning the land they work. You think "farmer" is stigmatized, imagine telling your proposed future inlaws that you are a "sharecropping farmer."

If baby boomers want food security in their old age they may want to think about transferring equity to those eager to live a life connected to the land.

I'll second the nomination. Jason's PO messages and showing of End of Suburbia at the Willits Enviro Ctr. a few years ago was my wake-up call.

Rat