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As of this Monday, applications are available for the Northern Piedmont Beginning Farmer Program.

The seven-month course is open to those in Fauquier, Rappahannock and Madison counties who are considering a career in farming, or those already farming in some other capacity who would like to learn more about vegetable and animal production.

Applications will come under review starting Feb. 15 with the goal of selecting 15 students. Instruction begins in March.

The course is made possible by a $35,000 USDA grant to the state’s land-grant universities, which, in turn, awarded money to this and five similar programs across the commonwealth. The county’s Office of Agricultural Development was instrumental in securing the grant.

Locally, the course will be administered and taught by Virginia Cooperative Extension and the Fauquier Education Farm.

The curriculum’s first objective, Extension agent Tim Mize said, “is to provide instruction to help participants decide whether to act on, postpone, or set aside their farming ideas.”

In other words, this isn’t going to be easy.

A good deal of the instruction will be online, but students will also work at the education farm, including all the digging in the dirt under the hot sun that that involves.

If that leads an aspiring farmer to determine that his or her dream is, in fact, a nightmare, that realization is also a success, education farm director Jim Hilleary said.

A second goal is to help develop mentorship and assistance programs to help these young farmers get their feet on the ground, so to speak.

The program is designed to go from, “gee, I have an idea,” Hilleary said, “to a business plan for those who make it through to the end.”

Applications are available online at http://www.FauquierEducationFarm.org and in hard copy at the Extension office, 24 Pelham St., Warrenton.

The course costs $150, which, Hilleary said, “is enough to have a little skin in the game, but not so much that it’s unaffordable.”

For more information, call Hilleary or Mize at 341-7950, ext. 227 or 212, respectively.

Programs like these are important to Fauquier County and its agricultural heritage because they address one of the two major problems facing the farming community.

One problem presents itself when all or most of a farmer’s children want to farm. What was sufficient to support one family is likely not up to the task of supporting two or three or more.

Buying other farms or buying raw land to convert to farmland is a daunting challenge for anyone, but especially for someone just starting out.

The other problem arises when none of the children find the farm life appealing.

Across the nation, farmers are getting older, with an average age of just over 57 years, according to USDA’s 2007 Census of Agriculture. The average age is a number that keeps rising every time the department takes another count.

“Many career farmers in Virginia are planning to retire within 15 years,” Hilleary said. “However, few of them know who will take over their farms.”

That’s worrisome, especially here.

An increasing number of non-farm folks stand ready in the wings. This program is designed to help them understand what’s involved, and to give them the knowledge and the networks to succeed if they decide to go forward.

In a letter to the editor last week, Fauquier Livestock Exchange director Roger Beavers made passing reference to “what’s left of the rural way of life we have always enjoyed.”

What’s left seems to get whittled away a little bit more every time we look. In that this program helps stop the erosion, it has our unequivocal support.