Hey...We're Youth in Food!

As delegates at this year's Terra Madre, Slow Food's international gathering of food communities, we found ourselves in a very unique position. We were young enough to be considered part of the Youth Food Movement, which encompassed anyone in the 18-30 range involved in food; but we were attending as raw milk cheese producers - the only ones from California, to be exact.

A handful in the Youth Food Movement genre were farmers or producers; most were interested in apprenticing or interning on farms, while others had dreams of their own place but weren't sure where to start. Several came to Italy as members of their Slow Food on Campus convivium, and others were chefs who understood - or were looking to understand - their connection with those who work the soil.

There was an impromptu YFM breakout session during lunch one day, where a few visionaries our age attempted to foster discussion among the youth delegates by breaking into two groups - John joined the "I already have land/a farm/a jumpstart but am looking where to go from here" group, while Mandy joined the "internships/apprenticeships/farmwork" group.

We didn't go in with any expectations or assumptions; we just wanted to hear what everyone else was talking about. We were just as interested in new and different ideas as we were in sharing our own. Though we managed Pedrozo Dairy & Cheese, we also sort of worked as apprentices there; and learning from others our own age with very similar dreams and ideals was incredible.

The melding of eternal optimism and business-mindedness in that room was a great experience. For the scale of farming we want to do, it would be futile to have one without the other. While at PD&C, we'd become so focused on the business side of things - profit and loss reports, sales goals, grant proposals, spreadsheets - that we'd become business people who happened to make cheese. But looking back, what a great experience for the journey on which we're about to embark.

While we work on our own cash flow projections for our farm, we've started to put our dreams for Betterfit Ranch in a notebook to ensure we never forget those intricate details that we know will make our farm sparkle. Because the dreams of sitting at our big wooden table with a fresh slab of cheese and home-raised prosciutto with friends new and old will continue to be a dream without those realistic weight belts to keep us grounded and moving forward.

In the meantime, we hope to keep in touch with the friends we made thousands of miles away. We're keeping track of the greenhorns project and feel like we may actually have found our place among those freshfaced farmers. Our experience in farm management and business plan and grant writing places us on that cusp between the idealistic and profoundly active "Youth in Food" and the tired but just as active "Experienced Producers," but maybe that's ok. If we happen to help others at any age who find themselves intrigued to the point of action in this whole sustainable food movement, well then we're still living by our mantra: Eat. Work. Laugh. Grow.