BUILDING A FUTURE WITH FARMERS

Lindsey Lusher Shute at TEDxManhattan 2013

My husband and I are farmers. I’m 34. We along with thousands of young people, across this ___________₁, are bucking the trend by starting a farm operation of our own. These ________₂ farmers and ranchers represent an incredible opportunity for the future of _________₃ and _________₄ in the United States. They’re cultivating their crops by _____________₅ and with tractors, this is an Allis Chalmers G. Tractors that haven’t seen the outside of a barn for ________₆ years. They’re putting their chickens, pigs, cows, goats back on __________₇ , where they belong. And they are providing jobs and opportunity in parts of the United States that have not seen new industry in decades. They’re also ________₈ some amazing food. These young farmers are demonstrating, as had many generations before them, that the more a farmer can ____________₉ for the land, the more that land ___________10 back. And not just to a farmer and her family but to an entire ___________11.

This is our farm, Party Roots Community Farm, it’s about _________12 miles north of this spot. We grow _______13 acres of vegetables, and ___________14 eggs, for a Community Supported Agricultural Program. This CSA program feeds ___________15 households in Hudson Valley and here in New York City. Each year our farm grosses about $____________16 most of which goes to local job creation. We ___________17 about 9 employees, some seasonally, some year-round, and they in turn take their paychecks and ___________18 them on local goods and services. We source most of the inputs of our farm locally or regionally and we use a very small percentage of our budget to pay for ___________________19.

Now compare that with commodity __________20 , which actually makes sense as a comparison because it’s what our farm was ____________21 before we transitioned it to vegetables. 25 acres of corn is gonna gross about $______________22. Half of that is gonna be spent on fossil fuels, GMO ________23, inputs and only about $_______ 24 is going to be spent on labour. So, if Ben and I wanted to create the same benefits growing corn than we do growing vegetables, just in terms of jobs we’ll say, we would need to grow ________25 acres of corn, which happens to be half of the size of our town of Clairmont New York. And that would be a terrible ___________26 for Clairmont New York because the more farmers you have maximising the _______27 of the land, the more benefits a community and a region can experience.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_b2qXygFm8U 

BUILDING A FUTURE WITH FARMERS

1. Vocabulary:

a farm operation, health, a seed, the land, input, to spend (money), labour,

a crop, a farmer, to feed,to care, food, corn, to grow, a vegetable, a barn, by hand,

 fossil fuel

2. From the title and the words below imagine what the talk is about.

food, local job creation, by hand, community, corn, fossil fuel, GMO, input, a million more farmers

3. Listen and take notes. Then complete the transcript.

4. Comparing two farming models

5. What are the 5000 acres of corn she speaks about at the end of the third paragraph?

6. Speaking and writing:

1. “The more farmers you have maximizing the value of the land, the more benefits a community can experience.”

• What kind of benefits is she talking about?

2. “The more a farmer can care for the land, the more that land gives back.”

• How does a farmer care for the land?

• How does the land give back?

3. “We need farmers, we need a million more farmers.”

• Why would having a million more farmers be a good thing for rural areas? 

• What is wrong with the commodity corn system according to her?

7. You interview Lindsay and her husband.

Write the questions and answers using her talk.