Small Family Farms: Definition and Some Challenges
Posted: November 14, 2010 Filed under: Farming, Food, legislation | Tags: cafo, farms, food, legislation, monsanto 51 CommentsSometimes it seems like the world I think I know is just a falsehood, a play put on by the Powers That Be to keep me pacified, dumbed down, and walking the way they want me to walk.
Take, for example, farming in the United States. This has always been, in my estimation, an honorable profession. The nation was founded by farmers wealthy and dirt-scrabble poor. Farming helped drive the expansion and eventual rise of the nation. Farming has fed us all.
But when I speak of farming, I have in my mind a certain kind of farm. It’s not too big; not more than a family can manage. Maybe it’s several hundred acres or more if it’s a ranch out west running cattle. If it’s dairy, it’s only got 200 or less cows. If it’s vegetables it’s growing a main crop and then lots of little crops for the farmers’ family. Or maybe it’s like my farm, with lots of different vegetables in small amounts, and some goats for milk, cheese and manure. The animals on the family farm are healthy, happy and living under the warmth of the sunshine in deep green pastures, or roaming semi-free over hot western plains. You know, the farm looks like all the commercials we see.
A farm is not a CAFO (‘Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation’). It is not 10,000 chickens or 2,000 pigs, or 5,000 cattle all under the same roof. These animals never see the light of day. They are given only square feet to live in. They are dealt with as though they were pieces of plastic running down an assembly line belt. That is not farming. And yet, CAFOs have become the source of much of the meat we eat, much to our shame.
A small farm does not have a ‘manure lagoon‘ which is full of liquid that can be so deadly it will kill you if you fall into it.
The farmer (read manager) of a huge agri-business farm uses satellite positioning and GPS to determine when and where to fertilize and harvest. The manager ‘drives’ a tractor which can be self-steering (pdf). Computer monitors sense the condition of the soil, the air, the plants. These give feedback that tells the manager when to plant, fertilize, harvest. Anyone can do it, as long as they can read a computer screen.
A farmer walks her acres, strand of grass in mouth, feeling the condition of her plants and soil.
Small farms, traditional farms, don’t grow patented seed. They don’t grow seed which has been bio-engineered with e. coli (yes, e. coli!) to carry resistance to herbicides.
A true farmer plants traditionally hybridized or open pollinated seed. She tries to find organic seed if possible. She uses seed catalogs which source from places other than huge seed houses which are trying to lock up all the genetic potential in plants through patents on common seed genomes.
Small farming is under attack from every side in our world. It is almost impossible to make a decent living from a family sized farm. For several generations now often one part of the family has to work off the farm to make it viable. In my own family, the men worked off the farm and the women farmed. We are so used to subsidized food, subsidies started in part by FDR to help even out the ups and downs of farming but quickly taken over by big business, that we don’t know what it really costs to grow it. Believe me, it costs more than 79 cents a pound cabbage.
Dairy farms are under attack. Recently official prices for milk were lowered to below break even point for farmers. Thousands left the business, closing up family farms (note that in this article, even 1000 cow dairies, BIG dairies are closing) . What is left? Big Agribusiness, of course.
The government, in a scramble to prove to voters that it really does care that food be safe, is legislating and regulating small farming out of existence. Dairy farms, cheese making operations with actual ties to farms (not Kraft, thank you), CSAs and even backyard vegetable patches are coming under increased regulatory scrutiny. The amount of food borne illness attributable to these operations is infinitesimal, and yet, that is what is regulated. Only 1% of food shipments into the country will be inspected, only written warnings, blown off by the egg factories which then recall 1/2 a billion eggs, will be issued. But you’ll be safe from your neighbors’ eggplant!
Below is the trailer for a new documentary: Farmageddon
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Sima,
Thank you for this wonderful post. You have so much to teach us.
My ancestors were farmers–my grandfather was a cowboy! But we’ve moved so far from the land and the sources of our food.
Even back in the ’60s when I was in high school in Indiana, small farmers had to have second jobs in order to keep their land. My science teachers were all hog farmers and grew corn and soybeans. They had to work two jobs to make ends meet, yet they loved farming so much they kept at it.
Farming’s kind of addictive. To be out with the wind, the sun and rain. To see an eagle fly overhead, and the hawk land nearby as it searches for lunch… it’s just addictive. So people keep at it.
It’s cool about your grandfather! The southern part of my family were farmers. Well, the women did the farming, the men were mechanics and such and farmed when they could. The northern half were farmers and miners and electricians.
My ancestors came from Canada and New England to get free/cheap land in the upper midwest. Except for my maternal grandmother’s family who lived in southern Indiana. They came out in a covered wagon from somewhere.
Thank you for your post. Farms and farmers are to be protected at all costs. My daughter lives in northern Manhattan, and she was so excited to see two red-tailed hawks fly by her apartment window, dancing in the air.
Sima, this is such an important issue I’m so glad you’re writing about it and hope you continue to do so. The information is so covered up by big business that most people don’t know a thing about it. They’re trying to feed their family healthy food but either don’t have access to it or are misled by labeling (such as “organic” milk which most of the time is still produced in horrible conditions with grain-fed cattle). Or they feed their children soy, 90% of which is now GMO.
This is a huge issue. Milk is under attack just like small meat farmers were attacked with a bill which would force them to register each animal with a fee of $1000 each. If you’re a small family farm with 30 head of cattle, that’s a lot of money but small change for a huge feed lot. So small farms are going out of business.
The situation in our country is reaching a dangerous breaking point when our food supply is literally poisoning us–as in the Roundup Ready crops you mentioned which studies have shown literally create a toxin factory in the gut. Much of Europe and Japan won’t take our meat and produce because of use of drugs and GMO. In some countries in Europe, they’ve passed laws that all animals must be pastured and GMOs are illegal. That’s because of public outcry and the idea that the government must protect the public, not corporate profits. When our democratic president appointed a Monsato crony to the head of the FDA, the horrifying process continued. An educated public is the only way to stop it. And you are absolutely correct, farming is the backbone of this country and when the small farmer is wiped out and the means of feeding one’s self and family are wholly dependent on big business, we will surely be slaves (a bit melodramatic but you get my drift).
Thank you!
The Rep. who pushed the House version of S. 510 is De Lauro, a Dem from CT. She is married to a Monsanto guy. She was also pushing NAIS (the meat farming issue you speak of). I’ll be writing about NAIS later. It’s a minor, but important victory for small farms. It shows the way to other possible victories.
As a part-time CT resident I used to be a big supporter of Rosa DeLauro, who’s done some good work, is liberal and I think one of the founding members of the Democratic Progressive Caucus.
But now — ugh.
She was and remains an aggressive Obama loyalist, and her husband, Stan Greenberg, is CEO of a big political polling and campaign strategy firm — and two of his major clients are Monsanto and BP. There was a quickly hushed-up scandal earlier this year about he and DeLauro letting Rahm Emanuel stay rent-free in their DC house while Greenberg was paid big bucks by BP to rebrand them as a “green company.” This was at the same time the Gulf oil spill was unfolding.
BIG SUBJECT – When I was young (40’s and 50’s) on a Wisconsin dairy farm, our animals were in pastures and ran in a semi free range. I showed Holsteins at the county fairs. We used to eat raw beef with salt, pepper, raw egg and onion. Believe me, it was good. Would not be able to do that today because of the dangers of Listeria and e-coli and in other cases, salmanila. With plant genetic modification(GM), the corporations sell seed which then cross polinates with the non GM plants. It is not legal to use seed from plants this year in the next year. The corporations bring in legions of lawyers to tie up the farmers in the courts.
Today we cook the hell out of any meat and most foods to kill anything that is dangerous, especially ground up meats.
Interestingly our country will regulate small farmers, but give big financial companies a pass. I do not do the subject justice, but just shake my head in terms of how screwed up we are as a country.
doesn’t a lot of this have to do with the overuse of antibiotics and stuff on animals?
Yes, that’s part of it. To get animals to grow in the CAFO situation, and in the high intensity dairies (where a cow lasts perhaps 1 to 2 years before she is played out and ground into hamburger) they have to be fed tons of antibiotics, growth hormones and so on. They do the same to pigs and chickens.
The grain and vegetable side isn’t much better. Plants are bio-engineered to resist ‘Round-Up’, Monsanto’s profitable chemical weeder. The plants are weaker, more susceptible to other kinds of damage and so on, so they have to be protected from that. The pollen from these plants gets into neighboring fields where it creates franken-seeds with Monsanto’s genetic signature. Monsanto then sues the hapless farmer who’s fields were cross-pollinated unknowingly. It’s nuts.
I think the root cause is a kind of thinking that only stresses the bottom line. It is the root cause of the decline of American manufacturing, and the thinking is spreading all over everything.
The rich and powerful in this country no longer have any sense of responsibility to the society as a whole or to moral values of any kind.
Indeed. There’s a handful of companies controlling each sector of the food industry, just like there are a handful of companies controlling other industries. There is no conscience, just profits, power, and domination.
The Justice Department has been out for lunch since Janet Reno was in office. The last time they actually went after a monopoly was the Microsoft suit. It’s really awful. We’ve got laws that could be used to stop this perpetuation of monopoly markets.
I first became aware of this when I was active in the animal rights movement. Heh, yea, a farmer, and animal rights… they do go together in an ethical system. Anyway, I realized that the animal food I was feeding to my pets and farm animals was making them sick. And the drugs, minerals and supplements to ‘fix’ the illness were made by the same companies that made the pet food. And these companies were sponsoring the vets which were prescribing both the food and the drugs… It’s an insane cycle. My pets eat organic food now. Gone are the intestinal problems they had. My goats get mostly pasture. I am trying to source organic hay and grain for them.
Antibiotics are part of it, but it is a far bigger problem. Another problem is what do you do with the manure from big farms. Horrible stench in the surrounding community down wind. They have big tanker wagons to spread it on the fields, however water runoff gets into the streams.
I think the biggest problem is the large congregation of animals provides a rich opportunity to spread disease. Hence the large recalls.
Actually the large meat recalls are due to post slaughter problems. The powers that be want to be able to blame it on the farmer, but it happens in the slaughterhouse mostly (except perhaps for antibiotic problems and so on).
Those large meat recalls really burn me. I think of all the lives of animals wasted, just wasted, for what? All due to sloppy procedures and stupidity in the meat packing plant, inadequately funded inspectors, and government regulations written to favor big business.
Remember the flooding in NC a few years back due to one of the hurricanes? It made all the pig operation manure lagoons overflow and really poisoned the surrounding countryside. People were getting ill as well.
I find those lagoons very scary for some reason. And the manure in them usually isn’t fit for fields. It’s full of antibiotics and other drugs. In pig operations it’s often pinkish. It has the residues of farrowing and dead piglets that were inadvertently washed down the drain… Well, I’m actually eating here, so I won’t go into it. Lets just say, it’s not going on any field that I’ll ever control!
I think all of the major seed companies have been bought up by the fertilizer and chemical comanies to allow them to tune the genetics such that only thier products can be used.
Eventually this will all collapse because the greedy are in control. It might be the Amish who will have the organic seeds to allow survival of things like the potato famine in Ireland which I believer was a organic failure.
People interested in this subject can subscribe to a very economic journal called “Acres”
http://www.acresusa.com/magazines/magazine.htm
I am sure others exist.
Is anyone else having trouble getting the trailer to play? I can’t seem to connect to vimeo. If so, here’s the direct link.
Let me give you and example of how the disease spreads in animal concentrations. In Michigan and Wisconsin the hunting clubs would put out piles of corn, carrots and sugar beets to feed the deer. The deer would congregate around the piles and spread diseases from the moisture in the breathing and the heads being close. The only solution was to kill off whole populations of the deer. I think in Wisconsin in a county near Madison they wiped out the whole deer herd to try to eradicate the disease.
Makes ya wonder why they don’t just vaccinate them? Heh. Insane.
I can agree with you on some points…. such as the regulation of farming and subsidies….both need to be minimized and changed to allow more diversity.
But, as a farmer who has animals in confinement and uses things like GMO and GPS, I must say that you have got a lot of things wrong here. My family farms thousands of acres and owns thousands of animals…and we work endless hours to take care of it all. We do not employ any hired help (unless you can count a few hours per month from the neighbor who fills in on our chores when we have to be out of town). We use GPS and other technology in our equipment, yet we still have to be able to get out and get greasy fixing it when it breaks down. Our crops and livestock are subject to all the same threats that a smaller farmer’s crops are….drought, disease, pests, and market prices. We still must walk through our fields and our livestock to diagnose illness. I can look at a pen of 100+ cattle and immediately tell you which ones need extra care. I can tell you from one week to the next how the crops are maturing….there aren’t computers for that.
We farmers, large and small, are all in this business of producing food together. I simply do not understand the desire to attack each other. There is plenty of room in this world for all of us. The fact of the matter is, farms fail….just like any business….they fail because there are others out there willing to work harder and work smarter. And yes, sometimes they fail by choice. I’ve seen farmers who just simply grow tired of the back-breaking work it takes to farm (big or small) and get out of the business while they are ahead. I’ve seen farmers who are just too lazy and unwilling to bring in the next generation because they think the grass is greener with a “town job.” So they push their kids off the farm and rent their farm to someone who was willing to put in the sweat equity it takes to farm. Farming has never been an easy job and never will be. Sometimes this creates bitter farmers who want to blame a “system” instead of themselves for their failure. And, yes, there are a few situations where a farmer was forced to quit due to circumstances out of their control…death, bad market timing, or illness. What I’m trying to say is, that the size of the farm has very little to do with whether or not it will succeed. I’ve seen big farms fall as much as I’ve seen small farms. Farming (or any self-employed business) has to be a business AND a lifestyle….it can not be either/or.
Farms must be given the chance to stand on their own big and small…we need them all!
Well, I’m not talking here so much about the failure of farms, big or small. I’m talking about defining small farms, and about the challenges such farms face. Big operations, and from the sound of it yours is, have other challenges and no, I don’t know them. I’m not a big farmer. I don’t use GPS, and my tractor is only air-conditioned by the wind that might blow.
As to why we have to disagree, because Big Ag uses my type of farm as a selling image and then doesn’t fight for the rights of my type of farm. Be truthful, show the consumers pictures of the barns and animals at a CAFO and the manure lagoons behind. Put it right on the label.
The special interest and lobbyists that champion Big Ag often do it in the backs of little farms. A CAFO would need ONE NAIS number per ‘lot’ of animals and I would need one for each individual animal, thus I would be charged 100 times what a CAFO would. And I make, what, 100,000 times less, if that much? The government makes one set of laws and regulations fully in cahoots with the lobbyists of Big Ag, geared towards the big producers, and expects the little guy to be able to comply. And I really can’t believe, do not believe, that those lobbyists don’t think to themselves, ‘well, if we make this law, it’ll help drive out those pesky small farmers and farmers’ markets which are taking 5 to 10% of our market!’.
I agree that there should be plenty of room in this world for all of us. But right now, it’s not working out that way. So, help us little guys fight for our farms and we’ll do our best to support the bigger farms. But suits by Big Ag against a farmer ‘guilty’ of natural cross-pollination, raids by the Feds against small milk producers and cheese makers, manure lagoons breaking and poisoning acres and acres, and so on, is probably not the way to go about it.
I want to make it clear that I’m not saying the commenter I responded to above is Big Ag or runs a Big Ag type farm. I have no idea either way.
One of the reasons I mentioned bigger farms (and ranches) out west as family farms is because I’m very aware that it takes acres and acres to raise true grass fed beef. My neighbor raises beef. It’s all grass fed, and he mows and puts up his own hay. Once a year they slaughter and the meat is sold to private local buyers who reserve months in advance. That’s what I will do when I finally get my beef cattle.
That’s how I buy our beef. Also now our local beef farmer has expanded to pigs so I buy our pork there as well.
It’s costly, though, and that’s one of the issues involved in all this, which I’m glad you mentioned, and iafarmwife sort of raised it in her post. Old fashioned farming, like grass fed beef and free range chickens (I buy those as well, but I’ll raise our own next spring for eggs and meat) and heirloom organic vegetables can cost more to produce so they cost more to buy. That’s where the rubber meets the road for a lot of people, who want to eat healthier and better tasting food but don’t want to, or can’t, pay for it.
For older people who want to live off the land, not farm commercially but have chickens, goats, a vegetable garden big enough to supply your own needs (year-round if you’re into canning and freezing, and/or in-season surplus for friends), I want to point out that once the primary building and establishing is done, if you’re healthy you can continue on well into your 70s. And some go much longer. I learned about gardening from my grandfather and great-aunt, who were in their 70s when I was born and both continued to their 90s. They were slower as the years passed but enjoyed it none the less. My father, who’s in his 80s, continues on with his chickens and vegetable garden. I’ve been gardening flowers for years and, at 55 next spring, will begin my first full-fledged vegetable garden. I can hardly wait.
Nice seeing this front page post, Sima. More, please!
The reason you have no idea if I am “Big Ag” is because it’s not that simple to define. 95% of farms in America are still family owned, and each one is unique in it’s size and style. I hear your issues as a smaller farmer, and I agree, there are some things Monsanto has done that I don’t agree with, and believe me, their farmer customers are letting them know about it. That doesn’t mean they are evil, they have done a lot of good things too. Genetic modification simply takes what *could possibly* occur in nature and makes it occur a lot faster.
I also have trouble believing that regulations are imposed to favor “big ag.” There are a lot of regulations out there that are very hard on my farm too. Proposed cap & trade legislation would devastate our farm, Iowa recently imposed new electrical inspection rules that will cost us a lot, and the uncertainty of the estate tax could make it impossible to keep my family’s farm together for the next generation. And these come (in part) from activists who think the only way to farm is the way it was done in the 1930s.
Take a look at my blog to learn more about how our farm is run, or if you ever get over towards Iowa, stop on in for a visit. And finally, thank you for keeping a thoughtful, positive tone…it’s dialogue like this that will get us somewhere in this country.
NAIS as we know it is completely dead in the water, due to the exact concerns you put forth here. http://bit.ly/cWlA2a
Yes, in that form, it’s now dead. But there are parts of it littered through S. 510 and other food bills. So no, it still needs fighting. And I’m sure the idea of it is still twinkling in some experts’ eyes.
How can you manage to farm consisting of thousands of acres and .. thousands of animals without any hired help?
How can one neighbor fill in when you have to be out of town? Surely you mean in town?
Laurie… because we use technology to operate efficiently, and there are three families who make a living off our farm. So, only one family can be gone at a time and the hired help will fill in for the one family that is gone. We also must work harder before we leave and when we get back to make up for what didn’t get done while we are gone. And by “out of town” I mean, “away from the farm.” It’s just semantics. I live on the farm….mere feet from 150 head of cattle, and less than a mile from another 400 head of cattle and 2400 head of hogs. I blog about my life weekly….check it out if you want to know more about how we manage without hired help.
Excellent post, Sima!
There’s an excellent article about eradicating entrepreneurship by criminalizing farming over at Food Freedom.
In the movie Food, Inc., the segment on the chicken “growers” disturbed me the most. While the growers think they’re farming, they’re really indentured servants and are actually themselves the crop of Perdue and Tyson.
I don’t buy corporate phood anymore. I locally source about 90% of what I consume. I know and love the people who feed me and none of them are serving me GMOs.
It’s a mixed bag here in CT. It’s one of the few states where it’s legal to buy raw milk in a retail store.
It’s possible to buy raw milk in the store in WA but difficult to find. An acquaintance of mine was instrumental in getting the state to allow raw milk sales (milked by hand or by machine) of any kind.
She worked very hard for the law and when it was passed was one of the first to get her license. She had contracts with a few local stores to sell the milk in the store. She sold for one season then lost the contract when a big dairy from Canada underbid her. She went bankrupt (in part due to the mortgage crisis, in part due to being unable to sell her milk at the price she needed) and lost her farm and animals.
This is why I am so thankful to read about consumers like you. Nowadays, after heightened consumer awareness, I don’t think that big Canadian concern could do what it did without consumer resistance.
And I am thankful for small farms. I don’t know what I’d do without my farmers. Every time there’s a food scare, I thank you all for doing what you do, ethically and conscientiously, so that I don’t have to be afraid of the food in my home.
I’m thankful that we have a lot of farmer’s markets in my part of town.
My 7-year old neighbor was traumatized when he found out about how chickens are “harvested for consumption” at the chicken nugget emporiums we frequent. He made me promise not to order chicken nuggets ever. And he also told me he prayed at least 5 different times before going to school so that the chickens could escape.
Good for the little guy! I had a similarly traumatic episode when I was in my early 20’s with a cattle carrier truck. That’s when I swore I’d do what I could, spend what I had to, to not eat beef treated like that.
If it goes into us, if we digest it and our bodies use it to create us, it should be honored and treated well, just as we’d like to treat our bodies. The animals make unwilling sacrifices for us, so we will survive and thrive. They deserve to thrive and live well before they die.
Here in Michigan we have large farms with large irregation systems. In the summer they lower the water table such that the local people had to drill additional wells to live on thier land. Again with their lawyers they some how have a favored status and the neighbors be damned
They’re also probably all growing corn because of the subsidies that doesn’t really bring any value added to anything. More high fructose corn syrup and ethanol. Both of which need to go.
Yep. It’s amazing how much our diet has changed because of corn syrup. I started reading up on it a while back and was very surprised. For some reason I thought it was only in things I put it in, like when I’m baking and use the Karo syrup. But no… it’s in everything. So now I do more and more home cooking to try to avoid it.
The ethanol doesn’t make sense. It’s just another way to use up corn. It would be great if it doesn’t cost so much, in energy units, to turn it into energy.
You’re right–the corn (and other commodity) subsidies are reprehensible. Big reason why our food supply is compromised. Cows aren’t supposed to eat corn, yet when it’s so cheap…and then they need antibiotics to deal with the havoc corn wreaks on their systems. Oh, and grass feeding changes the ph enough to significantly reduce acid resistant ecoli. (We’re still at risk with ecoli O157:H7 in the slaughterhouse though.)
Ironic that Iowa is about 85% farmland yet imports something like 80% of it’s food.
According to Wikipedia, “Major Iowa agricultural product processors include Archer Daniels Midland, Ajinomoto, Cargill, Inc., Diamond V Mills, Garst Seed Company, Heartland Pork Enterprises, Hy-Vee, Monsanto Company, Pioneer Hi-Bred International, and Quaker Oats.”
Coincidence that they’re the first primary state?
Sima, thank you and all who think like you. We need more of you. I wish I were a lot younger and had followed my dream of living off the land. Please keep posting.
Very well said, HT. I look forward to future posts from Sima on farming and food issues.
Yup to both !!!!
BB and Dakini, I rarely delurk (other than Friday recipe night and at Uppity’s) but I noticed the comment by Iafarm whatever, and it angered me – hit all the wrong buttons.
Sima, you are providing a service by giving younger folks a guideline. I do hope you continue. I wish I had someone like you to read when I was a kidlet. I’m retired, it’s too late for me.
Thanks HT. It’s never too late.. but I’m finding the physical exertion of farming taking a toll as I get close to 50. I don’t think I’d have been able to do this after retirement age.
I plan to sell the vegetable part of the farm eventually and move to my parents ranch. There I’ll raise goats and cattle and concentrate on milk. That’s my retirement! 🙂
ITA. Please write more posts on this. And thank you for taking care of your land.
I’m lucky to have several farmers’ markets in the area, depending on the day, and many organic options.
Growing up we had a big garden and put up lots of fruit, made jam and juice for the rest of the year. Oh, I’d pick raspberries and blackberries until the stain was nearly permanent! I kept honeybees for quite a few years until I moved to a spot without enough space. Now I think I’ll try again. Pollinators are getting more endangered; likely from too many pesticides. Honeybees were never meant to be trucked around to monocultured crops, anyway. A good mix of wildflowers for the honey — now that’s tasty.
My son was looking out his fifth floor living room window last Sunday and saw a bee looking dizzy and weak. You see them in the late autumn looking all confused, moving around in circles. He placed several dots of agave on a piece of paper, opened the window, and the bee came in to the window sill and proceeded to lap the agave up from dot to dot to dot. When it was satisfied it sat, cleaned up its front legs, as bees do, (my son says he was thanking him) and flew out the window. His sister told him that bees do a little dance when they go back to the hive to show the rest of the bees how far the food is and how to get there, and not to be surprised if he found an entire beehive outside the window.
Two weeks ago they had decided to take a bee-keeping class offered by the Parks Department, I think. Perhaps that bee visit augurs well.
Excellent post, thank you !!!
Danes have become the first government in the world to introduce a tax on junk food in an effort to fight obesity.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/panorama/hi/front_page/newsid_9176000/9176897.stm
Wonderful article, Sima – thank you and I hope you’ll post more about food/farming.