Small Family Farms: Definition and Some Challenges

Posted: November 14, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: Farming, Food, legislation | Tags: , , , , | 51 Comments

Sometimes 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

How do We Proceed from Here?

Posted: November 10, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: Human Rights, Women's Rights | Tags: , , | 19 Comments

This has been bugging me all week, so I decided to post it here for discussion.

Last week this story appeared in the news.

It’s about a 21 year old woman who was due to testify at the trial of her accused molester/rapist. The man was her mother’s boyfriend, and abused the woman when she was young. The man is accused of abusing other young women. His trial is currently taking place in Seattle. This is unfortunately pretty standard fare for our society.

But, the kicker is the man is acting as his own defense. Now, our Constitution guarantees the right of the accused to face their accusers. And it allows the accused to act as their own defense.

But what kind of torture is it for our legal system force a young woman to answer the questions of her rapist about her rape? Is this not revictimizing her, but this time on society’s behalf?

So what’s the answer? The accused has rights. But so does the victim/accuser. I myself tend towards a supervised interview with the victim in one room, the accused in the other and the judge and a lawyer for the victim (or the prosecutor if applicable) acting as intermediaries. But even so, even so, I can not imagine having to be led back through the abuse by the abuser. How sick and sadistic is that?

By the way, the article mentions a victim who did face her abuser in court while he acted as his own defense. I admire her ovaries, they must be the size of softballs.

Sima Dives In

Posted: November 4, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: Anti-War, Elections | Tags: , , , | 36 Comments

I received the opportunity to take part in a small survey from Bold Progressives late on Tuesday night.  It was only three questions, and I thought I’d post my answers here to start my Introduction:

In general, what are you thinking tonight?
I am a liberal, not a progressive, although at one time those seemed the same.  I think too much trust was placed in a leader who had no experience, no proven record and nothing to show for his life but a couple ghost written books and the ability to make people believe in him.  I think that means we’ve had a comeuppance that was as deserved as it was cruel.  I think we have to go back to work… next question.

What do you think the progressive movement should do next? As in, immediately…
Go back to the basics.  Start elucidating and spouting progressive and liberal ideals in easy to understand bits.  Don’t go all professorial on the people, talk to them like they are friends and compatriots, because they are.  We have to tease out the liberal streak that runs deep in most Americans and get it to shine.

Do you think Pres. Obama and congressional Dems should fight harder for progressive policies or seek middle ground with Republicans? (Please elaborate.)
NO middle ground.  Fight, Fight, FIGHT.  I think the middle ground has made this defeat.  I mean, Feingold lost?  Why? Because he went back on his promises and was two-faced about that stupid health care bill.  My Senator, Murray, is struggling.  Not because she is a bad person, but because when the country wanted change to the left, real health care, a public option or medicare for all, we got big insurance’s wet dream.  Murray couldn’t stop it, nor could Feingold.  Obama could have, but didn’t because he is bought and sold.  We need a leader that is willing to betray his or her class (always the upper class) like FDR or Johnson.  Until we get that leader, it’s time to protest, even if it’s Obama’s White House we are protesting.  It’s time to meet and march and get people stirred up.  It’s time for anti-war pickets on every street corner.  It’s time to be heard, not taken for granted.  If we stand up, others will stand up with us.   This will not be easy, but mark my words, it will be done, or America is going to devolve into greedy mediocrity.

In these answers I paid too much attention to health care (which worries me personally right now) and not enough to the economy, un- and under-employment, anti-war protests, women’s rights, farming problems and more.  But my basic goal remains the same regardless.  It’s time for me to go beyond reading blogs, beyond nodding in agreement, beyond speaking up timidly, if at all, when friends say something ludicrous.  It’s time to stand up.

I’m starting with the first cause that got me truly politically active.  Like everyone else in this country, I went into shock after 9/11.  The event generated a huge amount of fear for me, fear not of terrorists, but fear of the horrible backlash I knew would come from our government.  I watched Bush read his stupid book and thought, “He can do anything he wants now, we are doomed.”

The stupid ineffective actions taken after 9/11, the build-up to the Afghan and then Iraq wars told me I was right, we were doomed.  The thought galvanized me, and I found protest groups on the Internet and made myself, shy geeky me, go to the meetings.  We organized and protested twice a week right on the corner in my home-town, right by where the ferry from Seattle empties.  We got honks and waves of support, we got spat on and cursed, we got nearly run over.  We stood in the rain, we stood in the hot sun.  Some of us travelled and got beat up by police as we marched.  My very small town doesn’t beat up demonstrators, thankfully;  not enough of us, and not nearly enough of them.  We made signs.  We went to meetings with our Congress people, and got them to change their minds about a few things concerning the potential war(s), the Patriot Act, supporting Bush blindly, and more.  My Congressman acted on what we’d discussed.  We shouted, we yelled.  Did we make a difference?  Don’t know.  But it made me feel as though what I had to say was at least heard.

We continued protesting after the Iraq war started and more people joined us.  Then the 2008 election rolled around.  Suddenly it seemed as though all the protests died.  Not in Our Name folded up and went home, I suppose they assumed the new President would do the right thing.  Other peace groups just withered, but didn’t die.  No-one protested on the corner any more.  I admit I turned my mind and work to other things.  And on the back burner these last two years the wars have simmered; killing more people, maiming innocents, sending home crippled and devastated young men and women, fuelling anti-American hatred all over, creating a servant soldier class out of our jobless youth, and more, so much more.

So it’s time to pick up the protest banners, the signs and slogans and start fighting again.  Here’s a bit of what I’ve gleaned while updating my moribund peace/anti-war links and searching the Internet.

Peace Action is still at work. Indeed I still get regular emails from them.

United for Peace and Justice is still very active. They started out in 2002 as a coalition of local anti-war and civil rights groups. They recently organized days of action in October. They were in Seattle, but only a few of them. Next time, I’ll be there.

Military Families Speak Out is still going strong. They need a new director.

Courage to Resist. This is an organization that supports members of the military who refuse to go to Iraq or Afghanistan.

Voters for Peace still sends me regular emails. They have regularly scheduled events.

CodePink is still doing stuff. Their webpage’s first link is about making Hillary Clinton doing business Blackwater. I’m not impressed because they’ve always seemed really anti-Clinton to me, but there’s the link for what it’s worth.

There are many anti-war resources linked from at the Holt Labor Library.

Generally, I will be writing about farming, gardening, dirt type concerns here at Sky Dancing. There’s a lot happening with the Federal Government on the food front, and most of it is bad for family farms, but we can change that! I will also sometimes do more Anti-War posts, if people are interested. I’m going to put a bit of bio type information in the comment thread to this post, in order to not make a long post longer.

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