"Get big or get out!" The cry of the 1960s through the end of the last century, pretty much told the story about farming in America.

Commodity farmers got big -- with the help of handsome subsidies from the U.S. government -- and swallowed up smaller farms. Other small farms were sold off for development or left idle.

"Get small and get in!" The new cry emanates from the federal government, which is looking at ways to bring back small farms by helping beginning farmers buy land, become energy efficient and have access to expertise that can help them succeed.

Thanks to a small, unsolicited grant that paid for our travel and hotel expenses, Michele and I traveled to Springfield, Ill., in mid-September to take part in the fifth National Small Farm Conference, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Eschewing air travel, we bought bus and Amtrak tickets to take us to Chicago and then south to Springfield. We wanted to see America, especially the state of the nation's farms and gardens.

From the train, we mostly saw corn and soybeans, with a third ration (wheat, perhaps) thrown in occasionally. We saw lots and lots of bare ground headed for wind and water erosion over winter. Gardens? Maybe a glimpse of one small garden the entire trip.

Knowing in advance there was virtually no edible food on the train or at its stops along the way, we packed many pounds of cheese, peanut butter, grapes, crackers and water.

While I remain a big fan of long-distance rail, I was sorely tested by the trip.

Amtrack passenger rail operates a lot like the third-class overnight train I took from Barcelona to Madrid in spring of 1964: Slow speeds and long waits on sidings while "more important" trains whizzed by.

The conference itself was tightly scheduled for a packed day and a half, with concurrent sessions morning and afternoon that had both of us literally on the run the whole time.

Many of the workshops were geared to those, like us, who sell directly to customers through farmers markets or Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) shares.

But to me, the most exciting parts of the conference had to do with new programs that can help small farmers buy land or expand their existing land holdings through low-cost loans, and programs that help small farmers convert to renewable energy -- wind or solar-thermal.

According to James Radintz, the agriculture department's Farm Service Agency representative, "beginning farmers" -- those who have been farming for 10 years or less -- are eligible for loans up to $225,000 at rates from 1.5 percent to 4 percent to cover half the costs of acquiring a farm or expanding an existing one.

That program goes a long way toward helping new farmers solve their biggest dilemma: How can they afford to get into farming without starting with a mountain of debt?

While the other half of the cost must be covered by cash or conventional financing, the FSA loan program opens the door for many beginning farmers.

The value of new energy efficiency programs was brought home to Maine last Friday (Kennebec Journal, Oct. 6) when the USDA Rural Energy for America (REAP) program announced 11 grants totaling $291,534.

While only two of the grants were to farms, the rest went to fund energy-saving projects at places like Longfellow's Greenhouses in Manchester and equipment improvements for maple syrup operations in Madison and Washington.

One of the largest grants, nearly $50,000, went to Meadowmere Motel in Ogunquit "to install a state-of-the-art commercial solar thermal hot water system to preheat a significant portion of the hot water at the motel." Think of all those showers!

The largest grant, $100,000, went to the state Public Utilities Commission (PUC) to support both individual and community wind projects in Maine. Extremely timely, given all the buzz after the recent return of Gov. John Baldacci's trade mission to Europe focusing on wind power.

The grant announcement was made at Weston Acres dairy farm in Litchfield, where a separate grant program by state agencies and the USDA unveiled a successful pilot project that replaced an aging electric hot water tank and pump with a large solar thermal unit and on-demand propane heat to meet the farm's prodigious hot water costs for cleaning milking equipment.

The new equipment is saving farm owners Ann Weston and Lance Gatcomb more than 13,000 Btus of energy per year or about $2,100.

While our energy use here at Long Meadow Farm is not nearly as great, an energy audit by Efficiency Maine, a program of the PUC, last February showed that we used almost 10,000 kilowatts hours of electricity last year, or more than $1,700. About 14 percent of that cost went to lights for seedlings. This year, we plan to replace the old fluorescent shop lights we have been using with more efficient ones suggested in the audit.

That's a start.

Denis Thoet, with his partner Michele Roy, own and manage Long Meadow Farm in West Gardiner, longmeadowfarm@roadrunner. com