SPIN-Farming is apolitical. We understand that farmers don’t work in a vacuum, but we also know how all-consuming starting and running a business is. Politics is a distraction. 2025 proved just how big a one it can be.
Politics determines who gets what, when, and how. Last year long-standing answers to those questions abruptly changed, and the farming world has been riled up ever since. What was stark was how much of it is intertwined with the day-to-day workings of government.
Historically, to stay afloat large-scale producers have relied on government assistance. Over the years, small and urban farms used their new-found political muscle to channel some of it their way. Last year commodity producers had to contend with a trade war. Small and urban farms had grants delayed or cancelled. The lesson of 2025 is that the government can really mess up a farm business. That’s why from the beginning SPIN-Farming was based on starting and operating a farm without counting on its support.
What also became apparent last year is just how bound up farming is in a complicated and contentious “food system.” According to AI, “the explicit academic and policy concept of the “food system” (as a complex socio-ecological system) solidified in the late 20th century and exploded into public discourse in the 21st.”
Over the past 25 years that public discourse has grown deafening. It’s shaped by mainstream media and online platforms and discussion groups that leave the general public with mostly negative or romantic perceptions. Farming is either an occupation constantly threatened by hardship and always in crisis, or a charmed rural way of life that is simple, wholesome, natural. The fact is there are many more people talking about farming than there are doing it. If that balance was reversed the hot-button issues that have politicized it – food security, community health, environmental sustainability – might take care of themselves.
The uproar around what farming means and how it should be done isn’t going away. There will be more political interference, bad news to report on, controversies to keep stirred up and escapist fantasies to stoke.
Whenever the angst gets overwhelming, remember this:
> you have control over what you pay attention to
> you determine which issues are important to you
> you can decide what it is you want to do about them
Whenever it all gets too confusing, focus on practical matters you can control, like this one:
GOAL: $1k/market
SALES PLAN
price: $5/unit or 5/$20; $4/unit average price
# of units: 250 units
50 bags spinach (2 beds)
50 bags lettuce (2 beds)
50 bunches scallion (1/2 bed)
50 bunches radish (1 bed)
25 bunches green garlic (1/2 bed)
25 containers pea shoots (1/2 bed)
PRODUCTION PLAN
500 sq. ft., 6.5 beds
And remember this. No matter which way the political winds blow, or what gets amplified in the public squares, three things you can count on are: 1) your own brainpower, 2) people will always need to be fed, 3) you can email us for help on SPIN-Farming here.
LEARN HOW TO START UP A FARM BUSINESS REGARDLESS OF HOW THE POLITICAL WINDS BLOW HERE.