Back On Dry Land

Monday, March 24, 2008, 5:55 AM, Dark, 10°F
Despite the 10° temp reading this morning, spring is here!  Oh, yes, we had some snow yesterday on Resurrection Sunday, but the calendar says spring, so we are calling it spring…

Spring birthing has started here now in earnest.  We’ve had the piglets for a few weeks now, and last night, we had a goat give birth to 2 bucklings.  There are a couple of other goats which should be kidding soon, and the sheep will start in about 3-4 weeks.  We are timing our calving, kidding and lambing seasons a bit later here than many other farmers. Seems like most farmers I know; in this area, are birthing their livestock in Jan. and Feb.  I think the idea there is to get a bigger offspring by fall.  Certainly, we’d like the biggest lambs we can get by Oct. 1st. However, as grass farmers, we really like to have those babies born just as the grass is coming on after the spring thaw, and the mothers can use that fresh grass to make milk for the babies.  We find the growth rates of lambs are a bit faster when they are born in the warmer weather.  They seem to get off to a faster start than those hitting the snow first.  For our purposes, the later season results in just as big a lamb/calf/kid as we’d have otherwise, so we take it easy on ourselves and the animals by birthing later in the year.  This goat that came in last night was really a bit early, but the buck jumped out of his pen last fall, and that was that…

We have also started shearing the sheep.  Yes, I thought it was too early for that too, but after talking with other sheep producers, I think we are right on time.  A few considerations:
•    We have shelter for them if they get cold.
•    Even at 10° this morning, we are 40° warmer than the dead of winter.
•    Highs in the 40’s this week.
•    I’m still learning how to shear, which means they have plenty of wool left!!

Actually, the last point is one which has me thinking.  Shearing sheep is a real skill which I have yet to master.  We didn’t shear last fall, and I wish we had.  We need to get them cleaned up before lambing for a couple of reasons.  First off, we sheared a few after lambing last year, and afterwards, the lambs didn’t recognize their mommas. (sheep are not smart animals, remember).  Secondly, if you wait too long, till the weather gets warm, then all the wool on the backside of the sheep gets matted down with manure (which tends to be a little runny sometimes in the spring on fresh grass), and that attracts flies, which can really lead to problems if they lay eggs in the wool.

I get them cleaned up in the spring to the point where the wool will not interfere with lambing, and they will be clean when the flies come out.  But  let’s just say they are pretty ugly right now.  We have been looking into getting a market started for the wool, but have held off while I perfect my shearing technique, in hopes of getting better fleeces.  After getting started on shearing this spring, it is obvious that I need a class of some kind if I’m going to do this the right way.

I don’t know if it’s my technique, of if I don’t have the clippers set up right, or if it’s the heavy wool of the Icelandic sheep, but the results are nothing like what you see the professionals doing…

I think we’ve already decided to hire someone really good to do the fall shearing.  It’s the fall wool that is best for marketing to spinners and felters.  It is clean and relatively free from obstructions like hay particles, etc…

Saturday, March 22, 2008, Pre Dawn, Snow, 20°F

Do we really need another farming blogger to post about how winter is dragging on?  No, but it is certainly at the top of our minds here, so that’s what comes out.  We had about 6 inches of snow in the past 4 days.  Not rare actually for this part of the world, but it comes at the end of a long, relatively cold and hard winter.  We had snow before Thanksgiving here and we’ll have snow on Easter with no complete melting in between.

However, spring is springing in all sorts of little ways.  We have 22 baby piglets, about 10-12 of which we’ll feed out for the summer and have as meat hogs this fall.  Our dog has had puppies (more on that later).  The cattle and sheep have found bits of pasture with no snow and have been trying to eat any little green growth they can find.  Our goats will start to give birth in a few days, and the sheep in about 3 weeks.  We’ve had some daytime temps in the 40’s, which has felt just wonderful.

The nice thing about getting snow this late in the season is that you know it won’t last long.  It can’t!! It’s like Old Man Winter is still throwing his angry darts, but none of them are sticking.  The end is near, and we can put up with just about anything at this point.  We are too close to spring to get depressed about winter.

We are going to be getting a dairy cow.  Sometime this week, we are going to pick up a Jersey cow from a farm in southern Minnesota.  There hasn’t been a milk cow on this farm in nearly 40 years, and we are all very excited about this.  We are looking forward to fresh milk for us, and along with that of course, we have butter, cream, ice cream, etc…  In addition to the milk for us, however, we are looking to use some of our excess milk, buttermilk and whey to feed to pigs and chickens.  We feel that we can offset some of our pork production costs using milk and milk byproducts.  Hopefully, this will allow us to continue to offer pork to our customers with little or no increase in price.

The cow is due to calve in June.  If we have a heifer, I guess we’ll be in the dairy business!  If it’s a bull calf (which seems to be the case often for us!), then we’ll have some extra beef around here.  Either way, we’ll take it!

Monday, Jan. 17, 2008, 10:00 AM Cloudy, 30F

We just spent the weekend at the North Dakota Homeschool Convention.  We were invited to speak about incorporating farm-based material into a homeschool curriculum.  We also had a booth where we offered our videos and other resources to the other folks there.

The presentation went well, and was followed by an question and answer session.  Just as we were about to finish, a man in the group expressed his opinion (rather strongly) that I was using fear of the industrial food system to encourage people to purchase organic food.

We were literally out of time, and were unable to address his concerns.  He did however visit our booth and continue the discussion in a relatively calm manner.  As it turned out, he is a conventional grain farmer from ND.  His perspective is one I have encountered many times actually.  To be truthful, I have had the exact same view at one point in my life.  My wife graciously encouraged me to see the other side long ago.

I had been working for a large Agri-Chemical firm and made my living telling one side of the story with regard to bio-technology and industrial agriculture.  It is amazing how easy it is to get yourself locked into a single perspective on this issue.

Sadly, many conventional farmers and others in the industrial food sector look upon “authentic” food production and distribution as a threat. As those of us who make healthy, life-giving food our choice daily, this seems to be a matter of choice.  We all make choices, and farmers make choices as to how to produce their product.  Consumers choose what products they will buy and how they will obtain them.

I’m grateful for those folks who exercise their choice daily and I’m thankful that we all still have this choice.  Authentic food is local food, and may we all keep this segment of the food economy viable!

JM

Tuesday, March 11, 2008, Pre Dawn, Dark, 25°

There is only so much daylight.  Changing the portion of the 24 hour clock in which it shines doesn’t change the amount of sunshine.  For a morning person like me, Daylight Saving Time (DST) is of no real benefit.  I’m not complaining, but personally, I’d rather have the sun up earlier rather than later.  I enjoy the progression of daylight length as we come out of the long winter here.  At the low point, late December and on into January, the sun really doesn’t light the day up until 8AM or later.  These long, cold nights of winter are a real reminder of the cycles and seasons we experience here on earth.  With afternoon darkness prevailing from 4:30 PM on, I’m sometimes doing chores by flashlight both morning AND night.

It’s funny how our routine changes around here as the amount of sunlight changes.  In winter, we are trying to make the most use of every ray of sunshine we get.  Evening chores get moved up to make use of the warmer temps and light.  Breakfast is eaten before sunrise, supper, after.  As the winter wanes like this time of year, supper is moving later and later.  Last night, with our friend DST, we finished eating at 8:00!  We discussed at the table that at some point, we’ll have to move supper up to 4 or 5, so we can have our evening work time outside…  Seems like the garden gets its attention most from 6-9 PM in the summer.  Its cooler and the big jobs are done for the day. Hopefully…

I met with a new meat processor last night.  It’s going to be a bit more expensive than previously to get our animals processed, but in the long run, I think its going to work out fine.  I’m taking a few pigs over tonight, (if we get them loaded), and we’ll give them a try.

It is getting harder and harder to find meat processors.  Smaller processors are finding it harder and harder to keep up with the increased costs associated with the business.  Regulations are a big part of that.  When the USDA has major meat recalls like what we’ve seen recently, a new regulation generally follows.  Problem is, the small processors are rarely the problem, it’s the big guys who generally cause these major meat recalls, and yet the new regs will affect everyone.  So, smaller processors just go out of business.

A revitalized local rural economy would have a butcher in every town, just like there was in the 60s and 70s.  That would require more people to buy from local farms, CSAs and the like, and that is starting to happen.  It’s both a difficult and exciting time to be farming.

Friday, March 8, 2008 6:40 AM, Sunrise, Clear, -20F

Having completed the morning chores in record time due to what we hope is the final bite of winter, I’m settling down to a few minutes of quiet before the day. The farm dog, a 2 year old purebred golden retriever named Heidi, has made a rare appearance in the kitchen this morning. Normally she is outside, in all weather. I had sympathy today however, as she is great with puppy; the product of a brief, illicit affair with a love-em-and-leave-em neighbor dog. Six or 7 weeks ago, we brought her a nice, respectable, attractive fellow golden, one of her own kind, so to speak. She wanted nothing to do with him, and a day later, fell for a common, simple vagabond, whose identity will likely be revealed in a couple of weeks.

Despite the cold, the sheep slept outside last night. They know to watch for me in the morning, and as soon as I step out the door, they declare their hunger. Their wool is extremely thick, and I had planned on shearing them before they started lambing in April. I’ve not shorn a pregnant ewe before, and am loathe to attempt it. However, last spring we waited until the lambs were born, and then some of them had trouble finding their mommas after they were shorn, so this year, we decided to do it early. It would be best, I’m told, if we could shear a month before lambing. That means we really need to shear in about 10 days. We will need a major turn in the weather if that is to happen.

Speaking of weather, we are all ready here for spring to begin. Well, actually yes and no. On the one hand, we’d welcome the warmer weather, but on the other, that means mud, rain and lots of spring field work. I guess what I’m really saying is that I’m ready for summer. If we could skip the rain and mud…

I have made numerous attempts at blogging. Each time, I start with a flourish, and then struggle to keep going. No guarantees that this will be any different. However, we will pursue it, I do enjoy it, and there are very rare instances of successful full-time farmers maintaining a well-written blog. At the outset, I’ll make a deal with the readers. I will try to write frequently, and post when I can. Our internet connection so slow that it would be easiest for me to write several entries, and post them all at once, maybe once or twice a week. Folks are more than welcome to comment on the blog. Debate is welcome, and encouraged. Negative, hacking commentary or bitter attacks will not pass my approval, life is too short to engage in argument. I will simply not have time to respond to all comments. I may try to reply in summary occasionally.

Here we go!

Yes, folks, Authentic Agriculture is still online! Wind chills of 45-50 degrees below zero have made life here on the farm a bit more “Authentic” than we had planned… Much of the time these days are spent making sure the ancient farm set up we have here doesn’t freeze and we have to move to town until April! We are fine, however, and encouraged by the continued interest in Authentic Agriculture.

Yesterday, I received my monthly copy of “Acres USA” magazine, which included a letter to the editor I wrote several months ago. I had given up on them publishing it, but was pleasantly surprised to see it included in the Feb. edition. I will reprint it here:

The terms “organic,” “sustainable” and even “natural” and “local” have been co-opted by the system of so-called experts to the point where the have lost their authenticity. Land-grant extension programs and government conservation staff are touting the benefits of farming in the original to growing audiences as though they knew it would work all along. Big Ag and Big Food have already made Big Organic.

“Organic farming” is simply farming as everyone in the world did since creation until the mid 20th century. Many (including me) who are farming organically or even “beyond organic” don’t want to pay a government-endorsed inspector simply to verify they are farming the way everyone farmed for thousands of years.

The answer to this reflects the promise of a truly honest, rewarding, healthy agriculture and one that will not be taken over by Extension Agents, NRCS and the ever-expanding political correctness of the business sector. We must begin to acknowledge the Source of sustainability, the Origin of organics and the Naissance of natural. Do so, and the powers that be will run away for fear of somehow endorsing a religion; and we’ll be left to run our own movement, serve our own customers, and in the process renew and restore agriculture.

Authentic Agriculture™ is food and food production that honors the system put in place by the Creator and First Farmer. Connecting producers and consumers in interdependence, and acknowledging the source of our bounty enhances community, faith and trust.

An agriculture that produces unhealthy food, damages the environment and drives individual farmers to the poorhouse is not what was intended… It is not authentic.

For more information about Authentic Agriculture, and to join our growing movement, go to: www.authenticagriculture.com . You will find resources, encouragement and a community of like-hearted agriculturalists.

Needless to say, interest in our approach is growing. AuthenticAgriculture.com is growing as well, and we hope to announce the availabilitly of a logo sticker that members can use to identify their own products soon. Stay tuned!!

Wisdom in Creation

There is detailed wisdom and order within creation.  It is really obvious to any astute observer of our world.  Every aspect of our universe is bound by rules and laws which were put in place at the moment of creation, and are maintained to this day by the omniscient, wise and caring Creator.

The book of Proverbs says, “The Lord by wisdom founded the earth; by understanding He established the heavens.” (3:19)

For example, items in our universe such as: atoms, dust, marbles, books, people, rocks, cars, buildings, oceans, and planets all are required to follow the laws of physics.  Gravity, friction, time, mass, energy, heat, light all follow very predictable, consistent rules of behavior which help to define our existence here.  Cars do not fly in to the air at random.  Gravity doesn’t choose where to apply itself and in what degree, it is in place all over the universe; and its impact on the universe is predictable and can be calculated.  The light shone from a flashlight doesn’t decide to change directions or stop at 5 feet away.  The light itself must obey the boundaries that have been established for it.

There are consequences to any creature or society that does not take into consideration these fundamental laws of creation.  If you decide you want to defy gravity by jumping off a tall building, or if you determine that you can change your mass in an instant and step in front of a speeding train to stop it, you’ll feel the effect of your misinformation quickly.  [And, from personal experience, if you leave water in a water line in the winter in Minnesota, it will freeze, and you’ll spend most of a day thawing it out…]  If a society (or a planet) disproportionately builds its entire economy and culture on the consumption of fossil fuels to make life easy and efficient, there will be negative effects.

The same is true for agriculture and food production.  If animals are crowded into confinement buildings, they WILL get sick.  If animals are forced to eat a diet they were not created to eat, they WILL get sick. We can keep the animals alive for a while in these situations by feeding them or injecting them with a synthetic antibiotic.  However, that action initiates a reaction from creation.  Antibiotic-laden animals will produce meat and milk that will make US sick!

In the production of crops, the same holds true.  There is only so much productivity a given piece of land can generate.  Productivity is more than just yield, it is quality as well.  If we apply a synthetic chemical to the plants in a field in hopes of killing weeds, we WILL have an effect on the crop.  Quality will go down, even as total yield may go up.  More fertilizer is added, weeds grow better, more chemical is added, some weeds become resistant, new chemical is added, etc…  In the end we have initiated a series of actions and reactions which have their end result in the decline of our health.  This leads to the same action/reaction cycle in terms of human health, but that’s for another day.

Aligning our personal lives, habits, and food production and consumption with the laws of order established at Creation, will result in healing and refreshment to a world and a people that are growing tired of action and reaction.

Yes, it’s been too long since my last post.  Sounds like confession?  Truth be told, winter has us in its grip early this year. We should be more ready, but, well, we aren’t!  Frozen water lines, snow and wind have been occupying much of our time lately.  We are getting there, however.  One thing about Authentic Agriculture is that it keeps going, regardless of weather, or any other mitigating issues.

This has brought to mind another component of the type of farming we are calling back to.  Industrial farming is all about efficiency.  Obviously, there’s no room on an industrial farm for keeping animals outside, in natural environments.  It’s not efficient for man or beast.  Today’s weather here in Minnesota confirms this, (Sunny and 1 degree).  However, if we want to maintain a supply of healthy food and maintain a supply of healthy, authentic farmers, then we must maintain livestock in conditions that are at times, woefully inefficient.

This morning for example, with a fresh 8 inches of snow on the ground the cattle and sheep were reluctant to graze on the pasture.  For one thing, it was very cold, and windy.  Secondly their water was frozen, and third, the grass is completely covered with snow!

What’s a farmer to do?  I can’t change the weather, but I did plug in the water tank heater.  When the ice melts, they will have enough water until I can get the water line thawed out to fill the tank.  I put a few bales of hay out for them.  All of a sudden, I was their best friend.  Let’s just say they didn’t mind me being in their personal space!  Normally, these critters are not much interested in cozying up with the farmer.  They seem to like the farmer’s wife and daughters, but there’s no love for the man who occasionally loads them into trailers or cuts off all their wool, etc…

Feeding hay is inefficient.  The cattle, big and clumsy, trample, trample and trample the precious food into the snow, rendering it inedible.  The sheep dodge the big, clumsy cattle trying to grab a bite here and there.  As soon as the good stuff is gone from one bale, the cattle trample over to another, boot the sheep out of the way and trample that one…

Oh, I can and will do some things to facilitate this arrangement.  An extra feeder just for sheep will probably take care of much of the waste, but do you get a sense of the inefficiencies here?  I haven’t even begun to discuss the inefficient use of my time in handling animals in this way.

All this to say that this is still the best way to raise healthy food for authentic customers.  We will continue to do so, making improvements where we can, but always remaining authentic, always the best in quality.

Everyone is getting into the act these days.  We cannot blame them, really.  There is money to be made in the “naturally-raised, organic, free-range” food market.  However, if that money doesn’t return to the farm, it’s not authentic.

To be sure, many farmers are not interested in marketing their products directly to the public.  A concern for privacy, liability or inconvenience is often at the core of a farmer’s decision not to invite John Q. Public in for a tour, visit, or farm-store purchase.  Those farmers are generally content to market their final product to some type of middleman; someone who will consolidate the product with that from other farms, and hand it off for further processing or for direct sales.  Free enterprise at its best.  It works for many, many farmers.

However, with the increased demand of consumers to better understand where their food comes from, there is a thickening layer of consolidation in this market.  These middlemen will often promise farmers a small premium if they can produce food in accordance with a particular protocol.  These consolidated products will sometimes garner a label quantifying the protocol.  These secondary labels may include the USDA Certified Organic label, or they may include something different, such as:  Grass-Fed, Certified Black Angus, etc…  Consolidation provides a much-needed service to farmers and those individuals and organizations that perform this function most likely think they are doing good for farmers.

But there’s more to the story.  Historically, any time food products get consolidated and production based on a particular protocol increases, the net result is a product becoming a commodity.  Commodities are the bane of farmer profitability.  The only way to increase profit in commodity production is to become more efficient and mass produce via economies of scale.  Under this scenario, which undoubtedly would take several growing cycles, even 10-20 years, the farmer’s slice of the profit from a given product gets smaller and smaller.  Over time he’s no longer getting rewarded for innovation or quality.  He’s rewarded for making lots of product and complying with a protocol developed by someone else.  Meanwhile, the consolidator’s portion of the profit pie gets bigger and bigger.  As the amount of product he moves increases, the per-unit marketing costs drop and profits balloon.

In the end, when farmers shun direct marketing, and consumers trust a consolidator’s label more than the producer, farmers suffer.  This has happened time and time again in farming history.  One solution to this debacle is to create a label with which the farmer can benefit, yet he can capitalize on the increased profit from direct sales.

Authentic Agriculture™ is connecting farmers and consumers in a very genuine interdependence.  Consumers are getting a much better understanding of the importance of quality food, and farmers are finally able to earn a wage commensurate with the amount of risk, investment and effort they put into their product.  To this end, we are developing a label that Authentic Farmers can use to enhance the marketability of their products, and to identify their operations as ones who are making a lasting impression on the earth and the people they serve.  Stay tuned for more information on how you can gain access to these labels.

You may ask, “Is Authentic Agriculture becoming a consolidator?”  The answer is a resounding “NO.”  We have no plans to be in the food business.  The goal of AuthenticAgriculture.com is to provide an opportunity for farmers and consumers to connect around a God-honoring food system, that both can be confident is sustainable.

From The New York Times Blog “Well“

Organic standards primarily relate to avoiding synthetic inputs to production–soil amendments, feeds, antibiotics and hormones, etc. Therefore ‘big business’ can and does produce certified organic products with big agriculture-scale investments of resources, land and energy (and associated social and environmental concerns) for long-distance distribution.

What’s interesting (I think) is that organic standards vary, and are evolving: animal welfare concerns are showing up. While small scale, ‘local’ agricultural production and associated facilities aren’t by default more ethical or environmentally-friendly, I think they could be subject to more scrutiny by the local populations it serves, and therefore may have incentives to go above and beyond the organic standards. As a consumer, I can go to my farmer’s market (or even the farm itself) and expect to benefit from some marketing and consumer awareness efforts to convince me to pay top dollar for local organic goods. I can’t as easily track down the CA-based manufacturer of my grocery’s organic milk option, and get a sense for its environmental and social benefits to me and my (NE US) community.

The above quote comes from a response from a reader to a post from a NY Times blogger. This is a very interesting blog, by the way. The original post from blogger Tara Parker-Pope spoke about how one can “go organic” in the easiest way, making subtle changes in diet to reflect a more organic approach to eating. She states that the reason she eats organic is to take control of a tiny bit of the volume of exposure to toxins we all are exposed to every day.

I commend Ms. Parker-Pope for her approach, and her efforts at educating consumers. Throughout the food world today, organic farming and eating has become chic, and I certainly welcome it. To be sure, we must start there. Authentic Agriculture in no way supports the use of synthetic chemicals or fertilizers on farms. However, if everyone just started eating organic today, I doubt we’d move the food world toward authenticity any sooner.

The fact is that organics have become a very big business. Big business is best conducted by big companies. Therefore the organic food market has gone to the dogs, the big dogs. With that we see untold abuses of the spirit of Authentic Agriculture. For example, it takes just as much fuel (and possibly more) to produce organic food than synthetic food. Also, California is recognized as the garden spot of many vegetables and fruit which the nation as a whole enjoys in all seasons. As such, the organic food distribution system is exactly the same as the synthetic food system: same trucks, highways and fuel consumption.

As we all can see, the cost to the consumer of everything is going to continue to rise; food especially, since there is precious little “buffer” in the system. By buffer, I mean that most grocers rely on daily or every other day deliveries of staple product to their stores. If the transportation system were to be shut down regionally or locally for a week, the whole grocery business would come to its knees.

Where does that leave the consumer? For someone trying to eat organically, they are unfortunately in no better position than anyone else. In fact, in smaller towns it can still be difficult to find a decent selection of organic food.

Obviously the answer is local, local, local. If the local food market in every area were fully developed, the question of organics would be moot. As the comment from the NY Times reader above says,

While small scale, ‘local’ agricultural production and associated facilities aren’t by default more ethical or environmentally-friendly, I think they could be subject to more scrutiny by the local populations it serves, and therefore may have incentives to go above and beyond the organic standards

Organic is great, but with standards that can change on a whim of congress, and the takeover of organics by Big Ag, we are seeing that to make a real difference with our food dollars, we must go local. Locally produced and distributed food, raised in the way our food was intended to be raised goes way beyond organic, and makes a true difference in the world we live and work in.