Three years ago Jack McConnell began photographing Connecticut farmers to remind residents of the need to protect CT farmland and support local farmers. It took 4.5 billion years to get the soil we need to grow the food we eat and we can’t be casual about the need to protect farmland for the 90 million people living within a day’s drive of CT farms, who in part rely on local farms for the food they eat. This is an exciting time for farming, especially with the new interest in eating local and farm-to-table. Today farming in CT is a $4 billion industry, supporting 22,000 jobs at 5997 family farms. McConnell’s beautiful B&W portraits celebrate the enormous efforts of these present-day farmers, who care for their animals, maintain equipment, plant fields, harvest crops, and market their products to the public via farm stands, farmer’s markets, CSAs, and wholesale efforts to restaurants and school lunch programs.
Click on www.JackMcConnellPhotography.com/new-projects/ to see an eight-minute slide show called KnowYourCTFarmer, and go to Purchase to order prints or posters. The heart-warming music was written for the video by songwriter Jack Collins, This Land Calls to Me.
See six video shorts at CPTV.org/SharingCT for interviews with farmers at Beltane Farm, Lyman Orchards, Farmers Cow – Graywall Farm, Eddy Farm, Cato Corner, and Beaver Brook Farm.
