378 years of family farming!!!

[keegs]

Here's the trouble. Because of the government regulations, I could not take a steer to the slaughter house, have the meat packaged, and sell the beef to my neighbor and get the same prices for the meat that Kroger gets. No, I was forced to sell my cows at wholesale prices at the stock market for $0.40/pound which was 1/10 of the price that Kroger got. I can relate to Joe Salatin's article Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal.

Obed

The guy that hays my fields maintains eighty head of beef cattle and told me just a few weeks ago that he uses two local slaughter houses and sells his product through the slaughter house and also, when he can, locally. He also sells some of his young stock to a feed lot.

To the extent government regulation exists to keep our food supply safe, as a consumer, I welcome it. Blaming ones misfortunes in the meat industry on government regulation and bureaucrats is misdirected IMO. Beef is a global market and prices are what they are.

I heard the owner of this NH farm being interviewed on radio on Saturday. She told a story of how the farm almost went under in the seventies when back then her and her siblings decided to return to the farm and keep it going which they did together for almost forty years. None of the children of this generation wanted to do the same with their lives and so the land, which had been placed into a conservancy was being sold.

 

[nwbearcat]

For me industrial-scale and factory, as applied to farming, is when the required size of the operation to achieve profitability far exceeds what a farm family can do alone. Even extended farm families, brothers for instance, may not have the man-power to operate at that scale depending on what type of farming is being done. The long term capital investment, the financial deep pockets via leverage, bond issues or whatever, to weather a couple bad years; those are beyond the reach of a family farm.

Farming has some unique characteristics not shared by other industries. The primary one is we put the products into our mouths and depend on those products to remain alive. So, yes I resent it if an industrial-scale farm decides that to be profitable, they have to adopt practices that are not in my best interest. It's hard to find cheery news about industrial-scale agriculture. GMO seeds, pesticide residues, food contamination, reduced nutrition values, land and water degradation; not good stuff in general. But, when we go into the supermarket and buy chicken on sale for $.69/lb, or pork at $1.29/lb; we don't count the negative costs.

Many would argue against the sustainability of large-scale farming as it is currently practiced. There is a lot of focus on profitablity and less and less on quality. Any endeavor needs to be profitable, but it has to make long term sense. Buying milk solids from China to put in pet food - how can that make sense while dairies can't keep their barn doors open here? Who even knew until pets started getting sick? Our food commodity markets are controlled by global concerns which are profit driven. They are so far removed from the end consumers, it's a total disconnect. Compare buying pre-cut and packaged beef in a market to buying a quarter of a steer from a local farm. There is no comparison on any level. One is an industrial process and the other is a neighbor.

Trying not to rant
Dave.

I hope my comments h aven't come across as a rant also, but I don't share the same view of the issue as you, and am trying to share my point. I'm maybe closer to this than some, my income comes from Ag, and I've been a farm boy all my life. My Grandpa gave me a calf when I was 6 and by the time I graduated High School, I had used the progeny from that heifer to buy sell and trade to put together a 30 head herd that paid for college, a new to me pickup, eventually paid off my wife's college expenses and got she and I off to a good start in life. I owe alot of what I have to the land, and working with farmers. Often times I hold the keys to their farm profitability in my hands, this is a responsibility that I don't take lightly, nor do my peers in the industry. I also don't think that as farmers, we take lightly the roles that we have in growing food for the table. We eat it too, just remember that.

I'm not sure your definition of a industrial farm really fits. I grew up on a farm. Mom, Dad, me a bro and sis. We had a hired hand for quite some time, from when I can remember until I was about 12 or so and could do more. We farmed about 400A of rowcrop then and ran about 130 head of cow-calf pairs. By your definition...we were an industrial farm... Any successful farm regardless of size is to be ran as a business. You have to make the decisions to do the things that make you profitable, or you'll be gone. Sometimes that means hiring folks to do the basic tasks of building fence, or even driving a tractor while you as a primary operator can focus on those jobs or tasks that are more profitable. I've been talking with my FIL about this at length lately. He needs some new equipment, but I'm not sure it works out for him right now. It may be better for him to pay someone else to do those jobs for him while he does other, higher value jobs around the farm that often get put off b/c he's in a tractor seat.

I think you'll find farmers, consultants and others in the Ag industry as a whole don't take their jobs lightly. We're all tied to the land and all (or at least most all) understand that any thing we do to jeopardize the safety of the food supply will reflect negatively on all of us. We're all responsible for the quality of product that hits your table, unfortunately, there are often many steps between our farm and your table. Another real world example...my FIL sells some of his calves to a large meat processor, and also sells some direct to the consumer in 1/4-whole's. They all come from the same herd, and are all treated the same until they leave the farm.

RE: sustainability. I'm of the opinion that we have tools at our disposal today that put us in a better position to maintain the ground water quality and conserve soil than what we had even 20 years ago. Yes, some of those tools are GMO's and pesticides, but those come to us via a very heavily reviewed process. Today we're aware of soil erosion, in the past, we spent alot of time dragging a plow. Now there are many places that are using no-till to keep residue on the ground and limit erosion. No-till is also used out in the dry areas to retain soil moisture, they're not using as much irrigation water to grow the same crop. Not possible without modern equipment, herbicides, and modern seeds and traits.

Thanks for bringing up the imported food issue. This scares me. I have alot of confidence in the American Farmer, and their ability to produce a safe and abundent food supply. BUT if things change to the point where they cannot compete due to regulation or price, guess what...they will no longer be the source of what you and I eat. Your food will come from the cheapest supplier from the world market place, and not always do those suppliers have our best interests in mind or even care. There's currently regulations proposed that will require egg production to occur in open barns rather than cages. It's been proven that open barn production lowers the quantity of eggs produced/hen. This requires more barns, more hens, and more feed to maintain the same level of production. Guess what...there aren't many people in a position due to zoning, etc to build more buildings here. If this goes through, we'll go from being an exporter of eggs to a net importer of eggs on a rather large scale. Not sure how I feel about that, but I'm pretty sure buying a few hens will not solve the issue. If you've forgotten, many of our vaccines use eggs to produce them. So where will the rest of them come from, and do they have the food safety rules in place that we have? Will their eggs come from open barns or cages? I doubt it. We're going to make rules that make it not OK for our growers to use a particular practice, but will end up buying the same product produced in the manner that we outlawed...hmmm. Are we supporting the farmers that support us? Doesn't sound like it does it.

One last comment I'll add. Just saw this article and related research paper in one of my trade magazines, that might be an interesting read for you guys. Are Organic Foods Over-hyped?

 

[om21braz]

Seems like a quote from a past U.S. President sums it up pretty well.

"The farmer is the only man in our economy who buys everything at retail, sells everything at wholesale, and pays the freight both ways."

John F. Kennedy
1917-1963, Thirty-fifth President of the USA

 

[dave1949]

I hope my comments h aven't come across as a rant also, but I don't share the same view of the issue as you, and am trying to share my point. I'm maybe closer to this than some, my income comes from Ag, and I've been a farm boy all my life. My Grandpa gave me a calf when I was 6 and by the time I graduated High School, I had used the progeny from that heifer to buy sell and trade to put together a 30 head herd that paid for college, a new to me pickup, eventually paid off my wife's college expenses and got she and I off to a good start in life. I owe alot of what I have to the land, and working with farmers. Often times I hold the keys to their farm profitability in my hands, this is a responsibility that I don't take lightly, nor do my peers in the industry. I also don't think that as farmers, we take lightly the roles that we have in growing food for the table. We eat it too, just remember that.

I'm not sure your definition of a industrial farm really fits. I grew up on a farm. Mom, Dad, me a bro and sis. We had a hired hand for quite some time, from when I can remember until I was about 12 or so and could do more. We farmed about 400A of rowcrop then and ran about 130 head of cow-calf pairs. By your definition...we were an industrial farm... Any successful farm regardless of size is to be ran as a business. You have to make the decisions to do the things that make you profitable, or you'll be gone. Sometimes that means hiring folks to do the basic tasks of building fence, or even driving a tractor while you as a primary operator can focus on those jobs or tasks that are more profitable. I've been talking with my FIL about this at length lately. He needs some new equipment, but I'm not sure it works out for him right now. It may be better for him to pay someone else to do those jobs for him while he does other, higher value jobs around the farm that often get put off b/c he's in a tractor seat.

I think you'll find farmers, consultants and others in the Ag industry as a whole don't take their jobs lightly. We're all tied to the land and all (or at least most all) understand that any thing we do to jeopardize the safety of the food supply will reflect negatively on all of us. We're all responsible for the quality of product that hits your table, unfortunately, there are often many steps between our farm and your table. Another real world example...my FIL sells some of his calves to a large meat processor, and also sells some direct to the consumer in 1/4-whole's. They all come from the same herd, and are all treated the same until they leave the farm.

RE: sustainability. I'm of the opinion that we have tools at our disposal today that put us in a better position to maintain the ground water quality and conserve soil than what we had even 20 years ago. Yes, some of those tools are GMO's and pesticides, but those come to us via a very heavily reviewed process. Today we're aware of soil erosion, in the past, we spent alot of time dragging a plow. Now there are many places that are using no-till to keep residue on the ground and limit erosion. No-till is also used out in the dry areas to retain soil moisture, they're not using as much irrigation water to grow the same crop. Not possible without modern equipment, herbicides, and modern seeds and traits.

Thanks for bringing up the imported food issue. This scares me. I have alot of confidence in the American Farmer, and their ability to produce a safe and abundent food supply. BUT if things change to the point where they cannot compete due to regulation or price, guess what...they will no longer be the source of what you and I eat. Your food will come from the cheapest supplier from the world market place, and not always do those suppliers have our best interests in mind or even care. There's currently regulations proposed that will require egg production to occur in open barns rather than cages. It's been proven that open barn production lowers the quantity of eggs produced/hen. This requires more barns, more hens, and more feed to maintain the same level of production. Guess what...there aren't many people in a position due to zoning, etc to build more buildings here. If this goes through, we'll go from being an exporter of eggs to a net importer of eggs on a rather large scale. Not sure how I feel about that, but I'm pretty sure buying a few hens will not solve the issue. If you've forgotten, many of our vaccines use eggs to produce them. So where will the rest of them come from, and do they have the food safety rules in place that we have? Will their eggs come from open barns or cages? I doubt it. We're going to make rules that make it not OK for our growers to use a particular practice, but will end up buying the same product produced in the manner that we outlawed...hmmm. Are we supporting the farmers that support us? Doesn't sound like it does it.

One last comment I'll add. Just saw this article and related research paper in one of my trade magazines, that might be an interesting read for you guys. Are Organic Foods Over-hyped?

Thanks for sharing your views. It is a contentious and sometimes emotional subject that will be around for a long time. But it is good and necessary to have the conversation.

The linked article survey for how organic foods are perceived and portrayed is accurate I'm sure. The author did not try to defend the negative results of non-organic production - which are many. He did adroitly refocus the issue to one of food safety vs a production method. How safe is any food when cooked in water containing atrazine residue or growth hormones? It's easy to make a valid sounding statement when the negative impacts are ignored. These are issues which cause concern among consumers of the 'green' variety.

It's also concerning when GMO seed producers spend a lot of time and money protecting their copyright/patent/intellectual property by bringing suit against anyone who get's in their way - including innocent farmers. The same is true for growth hormone suppliers. A few years ago, Monsanto sued Oakhurst Dairy (in Maine) for putting a label on their milk cartons stating the milk is from cows raised without artificial growth hormones. That's a behavior driven by profit rather than one that is primarily concerned with food safety. Their science is questionable but they want to use their financial power (we can afford more lawyers than you) to have things their way. As long as consumers read about these types of things happening, naturally the agri-businesses will be critisized. I hope you can sense that from within the industry.

From the organic grower's view point, the contention is that since organic foods began to command good prices and a consumer following, the agri-businesses have successfully lobbied to adapt the definition of 'organic' and 'sustainable' to something their business/production model can participate in. 'Organic' is a very slippery definition. So are 'free range' and 'natural'.

Egg and fryer production is a good issue. To raise chickens in confined cages, my understanding is you need to medicate them to have an acceptable mortality rate. They are stressed and living in what I would consider unhealthy conditions. So, we buy poultry products at prices that are only possible through the application of vetrinary science and chemicals. I am not sure that is the correct choice. Shame on us if we import poultry products raised even worse, I agree.

I certainly don't see the majority of farmers as the bad guys, they are trying to make a living doing what they love to do. I also don't mean to ignore all the good things achieved by the Ag industry.
Dave.

 

[MossRoad]

Growing up on a farm, I was taught that the small farmer cannot make a living by farming. My grandfather and father both worked fulltime jobs and farmed in the evenings and weekends, basically working many long long hours. I left the farm for college and the city and never returned. All my siblings are also city dwellers. My dad still farms his 115 acres but is slowing down due to age and health. The farm will be sold when he dies; I would like to keep some of the land but would have to buy out the other heirs to do so, something I won't be able to do. I live 75 miles away from the family farm in "the city."

Joe Salatin wrote a great book called You Can Farm that provides a view of farming that I never considered. Joe has proved that it is possible to make a living as a small farmer. However, our government beaurocracies have made an already difficult endeavor even harder.

As a teenager, I owned my own cattle. I spent $33 and bought 1/3 of a white heifer when I was 11. My brother bought the other 2/3 of the heifer. I later bought my brother's 2/3 and built up a few head of cattle little by little. By the time I was in college, I would sell one cow per year to help out on my living expenses.

What was hard to swallow, was selling a steer for 40 cents/pound and seeing hamburger a the supermarket selling for $2.50/pound and seeing other beef parts selling for $4.00+/pound. Here's the trouble. Because of the government regulations, I could not take a steer to the slaughter house, have the meat packaged, and sell the beef to my neighbor and get the same prices for the meat that Kroger gets. No, I was forced to sell my cows at wholesale prices at the stock market for $0.40/pound which was 1/10 of the price that Kroger got. I can relate to Joe Salatin's article Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal.

Obed

We buy a cow from our cousin each year. We pay about $2.65 a pound + (I think) about 60 cents a pound for processing. She takes the cow to the butcher, they kill and process it in a legal and inspected slaughter house/butcher shop. She makes money, the butcher makes money, and we get good beef. The thing the rest of my family does not understand is that they kill and dress the cow, then weigh it with the bones in. We are charged processing fee on that weight. What we bring home is considerably less due to the bones being removed, so it works out to over $4.00 per pound for hamburger! But then we are also paying $4.00 per pound for steaks, roasts, fillets etc... which is a really good price, too! :thumbsup:

We also know of a number of small U-pick places that have different crops all season, so there is always something going on. They also have farm markets which are quite lucrative. The problem is, you can only have so many farm markets and U-picks in one area. You have to find a niche and fill it.

 

[brin]

I just don't see how it pays to have a garden or how farmers that sell at the local Farmers Markets make any money...Here is why...The Mrs. and I go to the local farmers market every Sat. and buy 4 lbs. of tomatoes from a local farmer for $3.00 ..now how can he make money on that ? I could not grow them in the garden any cheaper and prices for other vegetables are just as cheap...What am I missing here ?

 

[dave1949]

I just don't see how it pays to have a garden or how farmers that sell at the local Farmers Markets make any money...Here is why...The Mrs. and I go to the local farmers market every Sat. and buy 4 lbs. of tomatoes from a local farmer for $3.00 ..now how can he make money on that ? I could not grow them in the garden any cheaper and prices for other vegetables are just as cheap...What am I missing here ?

I pay ~$2.49/lb for greenhouse grown tomatoes here. The greenhouse is about 20 miles away. But, I am sure they are put on a truck and sent 200 miles away to the stores dist. warehouse, then put on store delivery truck and brought back to within 20 miles of where they were grown.

The greenhouse has huge electric costs, it's a hydroponic operation, plus heat in the winter time. Plus paying workers to tend and pick the tomatoes. They have a world-class Dutch greenhouse manager who doesn't work cheap. Plus amortizing the cost of the greenhouses and related equipment.

Somewhere in there are many production costs your local farmer's market producer isn't paying - nor are you .
Dave.

 

[brin]

Good point Dave...but what I mean is when I put in a garden I have to buy ferilizer, lime, seeds, gas for the tiller, buy the plants or germinate the seeds and raise them etc. Think of all that time and money...I could not plant and grow tomatoes for less than the $1.00 a pound I paid for them ...so the local folks selling them at the local farmers market must be doing it as a hobby and to socialize on a Saturday morning at the town square..That's all I can figure.

 

[sweettractors]

Good point Dave...but what I mean is when I put in a garden I have to buy ferilizer, lime, seeds, gas for the tiller, buy the plants or germinate the seeds and raise them etc. Think of all that time and money...I could not plant and grow tomatoes for less than the $1.00 a pound I paid for them ...so the local folks selling them at the local farmers market must be doing it as a hobby and to socialize on a Saturday morning at the town square..That's all I can figure.

What it boils down to is this, If you raise your own, You are eating food from a Known source.
On the other hand, you don't have a clue as to what type ferterlizer, chemicals or sanitary harvesting conditions your food supply came from. To a lot of people, growing and harvesting their own food supply could cost double and it would still, be worth the effort. Ken Sweet

 

[dave1949]

Good point Dave...but what I mean is when I put in a garden I have to buy ferilizer, lime, seeds, gas for the tiller, buy the plants or germinate the seeds and raise them etc. Think of all that time and money...I could not plant and grow tomatoes for less than the $1.00 a pound I paid for them ...so the local folks selling them at the local farmers market must be doing it as a hobby and to socialize on a Saturday morning at the town square..That's all I can figure.

I see where you are coming from. At $0.75/lb it doesn't sound like enough to be more than a hobby. If he had to replace his equipment from that, pay the property taxes, get paid something for his time and buy the supplies, etc.; he may be losing money and not realize it or care.
Dave.