Keep Your Friends Close & Your Farmers Closer
- Dana DiPrima
- 6 hours ago
- 5 min read
We tend to wait for a crisis before we change. Before we start reading labels.Before we ask where our food comes from. Before we seek out our local farmers. We wait for the scare, the shortage, the loss—and only then do we realize how much we’ve taken real food, and the people who grow it, for granted.
The Wake-Up Calls
For some, it’s a health scare—a doctor visit that makes us suddenly care about what’s in our food and where it came from. We start asking questions we should’ve asked long ago.
For others, it’s an empty shelf at the supermarket, when eggs or lettuce or formula are nowhere to be found, and we realize just how fragile the global food system really is.
Sometimes it’s something more personal. A new baby you want to feed the very best. A family member’s diagnosis that makes you rethink what “healthy” means. Or the shock of discovering that a trusted brand was part of yet another recall for E. coli or listeria.
These moments jolt us awake. They reveal what most of us don’t want to see: that we’ve handed over control of our food supply to systems that prioritize efficiency, uniformity, and profit—not nourishment, not resilience, and certainly not people.
The Hidden Costs of “Cheap” Food
For decades, we’ve been told that cheap food is good food—that abundance and low prices are proof of progress. But the real costs are hidden in plain sight: polluted water, depleted soil, animal confinement, and rural communities hollowed out by consolidation and debt.
The “cheap” price at the register doesn’t account for what it costs to clean up chemical runoff, to rebuild topsoil, or to keep small family farms alive. It doesn’t account for the cost of losing the knowledge, stewardship, and diversity that local farmers bring to the land.
When we buy strawberries in January or chicken for $1.99 a pound, we’re not seeing the real price. We’re seeing the illusion of affordability made possible by exploitation of land, labor, and local economies.
The Disconnect
Most Americans today are several generations removed from the farm. We don’t know farmers personally. We don’t see the labor, risk, or love that goes into producing our food.
We go to the supermarket, not the source.
We scroll past headlines about droughts or subsidies without connecting them to dinner.
We forget that farming is not a relic of the past—it’s the foundation of our future.
And when we finally go looking for local farmers—when we want better food, more flavor, more security—we sometimes find that they’re gone. Pushed out by development, swallowed by debt, or simply burned out from trying to compete with a system that wasn’t built for them.
The Farmers Who Stayed
The farmers who remain are the ones rebuilding something better. They are growing food that nourishes, rather than depletes. They are restoring soil health, capturing carbon, and protecting biodiversity. They are proving that resilience isn’t built by technology alone; it’s built by people who know their land.
These are the farmers selling at your local market, running CSAs, and supplying small restaurants and schools. They are not just growing crops—they are growing solutions.
Yet they can’t do it alone.
Farming is expensive, unpredictable, and often isolating. A single storm, a broken tractor, or a policy shift can wipe out months of work. Many small farmers are one bad season away from closing their gates for good.
That’s where For Farmers grants come in.
Investing in the Solution
Through the For Farmers Movement, we fund small, practical projects that make a big impact: a new irrigation line, a repaired hoop house, fencing for rotational grazing, equipment to process compost or store crops.
Each grant is modest—usually $500 to $1,000—but it’s exactly what a farmer needs to fix a problem, advance to the next level, or recover from a loss. There are no strings attached, no checklists to follow. We trust farmers to know what they need most.
It’s people-powered giving at its best—neighbors supporting neighbors, eaters supporting growers.
And the ripple effect is powerful: one small grant can keep a farm in business, preserve local food access, and inspire an entire community to take notice.
Why Local Matters
When you buy directly from a local farmer, you’re doing more than supporting one family—you’re strengthening the entire ecosystem around you.
Health: Food grown nearby is fresher, more nutrient-dense, and less processed.
Flavor: Local food is picked at its peak, not harvested early to survive a cross-country truck ride.
Community: Every dollar stays local, circulating through other small businesses and families.
Economy: Local farms create jobs, stabilize land values, and keep money rooted where it belongs.
Environment: Regenerative farming builds soil that captures carbon, conserves water, and nurtures biodiversity.
When we keep farmers close, we’re not just buying food—we’re investing in a better way of living.
Stop Waiting
We shouldn’t need another recall, another shortage, another headline, or another health scare to make us pay attention.We shouldn’t wait for the countryside to fill with warehouses and data centers before we notice what we’ve lost.We shouldn’t wait until it’s too late to find our local farmers—because they’re the ones holding the real solutions to our biggest problems.
So, don’t wait.
Go to the farmers’ market.
Join a CSA.
Buy directly from the people growing your food.
Nominate them for a For Farmers grant.
Or donate $1 to help fund a farmer’s next step forward.
Every small action counts. Every local connection matters. Because when we keep our farmers close, we all thrive.
Keep your friends close—and your farmers closer.
And if you want to do more than shop, support the farmers building our food future at forfarmersmovement.com.
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Dana DiPrima is leading a national movement to support small American Farmers because our health, communities, environment, and regional economies depend on it. The For Farmers Movement supports farmers by sharing their stories, replacing myths with facts, and providing them with grants and other helpful resources.
Dana is also the host of One Bite is Everything, the podcast that connects the food on your plate to the bigger world by sharing conversations with thought leaders, helpful tips, and monthly recaps of key issues on the food and policy scene. One Bite is Everything is a proud member of Heritage Radio Network, home to some of the most influential voices in food.
Dana authors a weekly letter in addition to this blog. You can subscribe here. You can join the For Farmers Movement to support your local farmers here. You can also follow Dana on Instagram.
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