As the age of those tending the land continues to climb, a great transition is unfolding across rural America: land, infrastructure, soil, and sore backs are all being passed onto the next generation. But where will the retired farmers go? What will they do? Is there any wisdom for the next generation that can be passed on? These are all questions the Cornell Small Farms Program director, Anu Rangarajan, has been asking farmers across the northeast, some of whom she has known and worked with for more than 20 years.
In the early 2000s, when Anu had been recently hired as an extension associate for vegetable production by Cornell, she organized the Northeast Organic Network (NEON). This project asked organic farmers across the northeast to elect leaders in the field. “Eleven exemplary, well-established organic farms throughout the Northeast have been chosen as NEON partners for the on-farm study component of the project,” the description read. Anu and a small team traveled to each farm and recorded conversations on cassette tapes, used for the social side of the study. The idea was to highlight what these farmers were doing that made them successful. A goal and a body of work that we are reviving with our new podcast mini-series Wisdom of the Elders.
The mission is simple: to reconnect with these exemplary farmers (and some who were not part of the NEON project) and ask them to reflect on their careers and tell us what is next for them. Through those conversations, we hope to find nuggets of wisdom for those still farming.
Our first episode features a conversation with Dave and Christine Colson, who ran New Leaf Farm, a 3-acre intensive vegetable farm in Durham, Maine. The Colsons were some of the first farmers to grow and market salad greens on the East Coast. Anu traveled up to Maine in 2024 to sit down with Dave and Chris, reflect on their careers in farming, and talk about their transition to retirement.
“You don’t plan if you don’t have time to think, or reflect, or converse, you just work all the time,” Chris shared.
This captures an eternal struggle in farming: how to use your time. You can always do more on the farm, push yourself harder, but are you pushing in the right areas? With all the pressures and demands of farming, stopping to think feels hard, but it is so essential. It allows you to see the bigger picture and make sure you are putting your efforts into the right spaces.
The Colsons were very good at making time to reflect, think, and plan. A skill that served them time and again over the course of their careers. Whether you are farming or not, having clear goals and making space for reflection and planning allows you to check in on how you are doing and course-correct when needed. There were so many other rich topics discussed, listen and learn from our first installment of Wisdom of the Elders from Small Farms Radio on any podcast platform.
The next generation of farmers deserves to hear from the previous generation, and we are preserving these conversations forever. Subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast platform, give it a listen, and reach out to us to let us know what you think, or share an idea for a story. You can reach us at 607-255-4455, or at smallfarmsprogram@cornell.edu.
We hope you enjoy the show!
