There’s no count of how many growers have invested in solar, but Bernadette Del Chiaro, a clean energy advocate with the group Environment California, said she has seen an increase in agricultural companies installing solar panels over the last five years.

“I didn’t look at prices two years ago,” Julie Hennessey concedes, though with her husband an engineering manager in the beleaguered auto industry and the country in a recession, the family’s not feeling as financially secure.

“We had to stop at every rest area to check on the livestock,” she said, “and every time we pulled in, the goats would baaah, the roosters would crow, the dog would bark and everybody would turn around and look at this motley crew of creatures.”

When the U.S. bailed out the agriculture sector in the early 1930s, it forever changed the business of farming. While today’s banking industry interventions are different in many ways, economists say it is worth noting that “emergency” Depression-era measures meant to protect farming families from short-term market swings have become near-permanent support at taxpayer expense

High prices at the pump and the produce aisle have sent home gardeners into their yards with a mission: Grow-it-yourself dining. Sales of vegetable seeds, tomato transplants and fruit trees are soaring as enterprising planters grow their own food.

Why shop at a farmers’ market?