Curtis Stone Is Joining the Fight to Help Young, Broke Farmers

"Less than 6 percent of farmers in the US are below the age of 35 years old, and the few young farmers that are around have an average debt of $35,000."

This startling fact, stated by Chelsey Simpson of the YNational Young Farmers Coalition (NYFC) just before dinner in the dining room of Maude's, hit everybody like a ton of bricks—including its owner and chef, Curtis Stone.

Stone decided to take a stance on this crisis head-on: By tanking a full Saturday night's worth of money and closing his extremely popular restaurant in the middle of Beverly Hills to host a fundraiser dinner—along with guest chef Mike Lata of FIG in Charleston, South Carolina—for the NYFC.

"It's so important to us in our profession, because if we don't have farmers, we don't have restaurants—that's clearly how it goes," Stone told me at the chef's table at Maude's at the dinner last week. This sentiment couldn't ring truer with Stone's risky, avant-garde restaurant concept of highlighting just one ingredient in every single dish of a tasting dinner. Because Stone changes this ingredient every month, he's has gotten to know a lot of his farmers very well. "Most of today's potatoes came from Alex Weiser of Weiser Family Farms. He's in the high desert, so you have all that frost that gives a good flavor to all of his roots," Stone says.

The fundraising dinner was the first of six that Stone will host in efforts to combat the shortage of young farmers across the US and the biggest challenges that face them nowadays: Student loan debt, land access, and water access and conservation issues. The inaugural dinner dealt with dealing with the first issue of the bunch that is dealing with debt. Stone is so passionate about the topic that he is prepared to even meet with politicians in attempt to raise more awareness.

One debt-ridden farmer, 33-year-old Sarah Nolan of The Abundant Table and South Central Farmers Cooperative, was present during the dinner. Before the plates started to make their way into the dining room, she stood up in front of the room and gave a short speech about what she's endured as a young farmer: "It means so much to us to know that people care. The way you support Curtis and the work that he does really makes a difference for us."

Nolan shared that she never expected to be a farmer. ("Growing up. I thought I was going to be a chemist or a mathematician," she said.) Still, she decided to pursue farming in college because she considers farming a public service and a gift to the community. She's been farming for two years and says that it has been "the most amazing—and also one of the most challenging—things" that she has ever experienced. "One of the biggest challenges comes down to trying to find out how I can make a livelihood with something that I really care about and something that I know matters to other people."

The goal is to incorporate farmers into a federal loan forgiveness program. Nolan said that she currently owes $30,000 in student debt. Nolan shared that she views the shortage of young farmers as a national crisis, and she encouraged everyone at the dinner to think about that as they enjoyed their vegetable-focused dishes.

The way the fine print on loan forgiveness programs reads right now, the US government does not view farming as a public service—unlike being a teacher or being in the military, for example—therefore farmers are not given the option to participate in said program.

The Abundant Table, however, may qualify Nolan for loan forgiveness because it is a registered 501c3 nonprofit. Nolan is in the process of finding out if working for the faith-based operation in Ventura County does, in fact, qualify. "Farming is a necessary part of the social fabric—in the same way as education and other civil services are—because growing the food we eat and creating strong economies are essential for a strong community," she says. Despite working for a nonprofit, Nolan says that her student debt is still an issue that gets in the way of growing.

During the dinner, Curtis Stone started a Twitter chat titled #morefarmers that was moderated by Modern Farmer. The thread sparked an international dialogue from farmers as far away as Kuwait, a retweet from Andrew Zimmern, and many statements made by other young farmers who are feeling the pinch of student debt (the Twitter conversation is still active, by the way.)

"What we are asking is that Congress add farming to the list of professions that qualify for student loan forgiveness programs; this would help tremendously," Simpson told me. As the daughter of an Oklahoma farmer, she witnessed her father having to sell his prized Holstein cows in order to get by, so her connection to the issue is also a personal one.

Simpson and her organization have spearheaded a bill called The Young Farmers Success Act that aims to achieve just that. The bill would amend title IV (Student Assistance) of the Higher Education Act of 1965 to include a full-time job as an employee or manager of a qualified farm or ranch within the definition of "public service job" for purposes of the public service employee loan forgiveness program.

Nonetheless, the bill has some potential drawbacks, since it establishes a minimum gross revenue of $35,000 (adjusted annually for inflation in subsequent years) but no cap. This means that while it is geared towards young farmers who want to do good in the world, it can potentially qualify employees from big corporate farms selling commodity grains to China as well.

"It's targeted to be the most beneficial to young farmers," Simpson tells me over the phone when I ask her about the possibility of the bill getting taken advantage of by less-than-altruistic farmers. She also says that since the bill was just introduced to the House, there is plenty of time to create revisions for it.

There is no denying that Simpson's and Nolan's heartfelt speech affected the mood of the dinner and the beautiful dishes presented by Stone and Lata. Nonetheless, there was some comfort in knowing that there may soon some light at the end of tunnel for the broke few but proud young farmers of America.