Check out this fantastic piece, "The Futures of Farming" on Le Monde Diplomatique by Liz Rush, about how people are shifting from corporate careers into farming, and how financial markets are affecting prices of food.

The article features Jon McConaughy, a former Wall Street trader-turned-farmer who will be participating in the New York premiere of American Meat in April!

"Just off of Country Road 518 in Hopewell, New Jersey, sits Double Brook Farm. It’s run by a self-exiled New Yorker but it’s not one of those now-standard upstart farms, with roving bands of earnest college kids tending rocket and a hearty couple of ex-Brooklynites overseeing the whole grass-fed operation. Double Brook’s turn-of-the-century-barn, its grazing cattle, and its hundreds of Rhode Island Reds clucking and strutting about all belong to Jon McConaughy, a 46-year-old with an all-American face, a football player’s build, money to blow, and a beautiful wife. Last year, McConaughy exchanged a two-decade long career as a commodities trader on Wall Street for these two hundred acres.

Double Brook, a small farm specializing in grass-fed meat, free range poultry, and various vegetables symbolizes one of the most unexpected turns the American economy has taken in recent years. For decades, banks have shied away from granting loans to farmers because, like restaurants, farms are considered risky investments. But the tides might be turning as the price of nearly every commodity on the face of the earth is on the rise.

'Farming is the new "good investment," says McConaughy, who grew up in the dairy country of rural New Jersey, only five miles from Double Brook. 'I always knew I was going to return to the farm. But I am not the only banker-turned-farmer—it’s a trend.'"