Even farmers who provide little production are doing well. Based on the latest comparable data (2011), small farm households with yearly gross sales from their farms of less than $10,000 (59 percent of all farms) had an average income greater than the average American household. For more than a decade, the median farm household has earned more than the nonfarm household.

Parents should let their children grow up to be farmers, but as with any industry, there’s no guarantee that every business model is going to be profitable.

DAREN BAKST

Washington, Aug. 13, 2014

The writer is a research fellow in agricultural policy at the Heritage Foundation.

To the Editor:

Bren Smith issues a clarion call for farmers to start their own organizations and set the agenda of the food movement. But making the economics of small-scale farming work will take more than that.

In my experience in starting farmers’ markets in New Haven, farmers want to focus on farming — and as Mr. Smith points out, theirs is challenging work.

The onus is better placed on all of us as eaters to support healthy, local food and the viability of the local farm economy through policy change aimed at the root causes of our unsustainable food system. We can vote with our forks and also at the ballot box, and elect policy makers who promote family farming.

As the food movement grows up, there will continue to be more of us who understand the issues on the ground and who can use the tools of law and policy to address them. Law schools across the country, including Yale, have been devoting resources to the study of food law in the service of doing just that. The future is bright.