A Thousand Cuts

Many of us like to glorify the efforts of small-scale, diversified producers of quality food.  We like to point to their willingness to work with, rather than against, nature.  Some of us, myself included, actually harbor a belief that this sort of farming (or some version of it) would be a key move towards building a healthier world.  

But, let me tell you a secret - it is a whole lot easier to try to sell that vision when I am not stuck in a position where I have to rely on living that "dream" at the same time I am promoting it.

 

A recent conversation with a respected colleague (and they will probably know who they are if they read this) brought it all home to me once again. 

People who try to raise food on a small-scale, diversified operation are a rare breed that work incredibly hard to put their ideals into action.  They also do it so they can earn, through extremely hard work, a reasonable living.  They stick with their operations because they love what they do - or at least they love most of what they have to do, much of the time.

The work is very diverse with tasks ranging from marketing and story-telling in the effort to sell product to horticulture, entomology, and small-engine repair.  There are many points each season where the job is all-encompassing.  The moments in time where you can feel as if you are "caught up" are rare and don't last more than a couple of minutes.  One blink and the farm once again can feel like it is on the brink of disaster.

And that's how the best of us feel most of the time on our farms.  And you wouldn't know it by looking at us - unless you are also one of us.

There is probably no worse time to be a diversified produce and poultry farm than mid-May to mid-June, in my opinion.  I realize most people are fully enamored with the beauty of Spring and the promise of a Summer of fun.  For me, after seventeen (or so) years of doing this sort of farming, I see this as the time where I die a death inflicted by a thousand cuts.

I guess the saying implies that they are "tiny" cuts - but I can tell you they come in all shapes and sizes.  

I thought about this very carefully, because I want to maintain my integrity with those of you who read this.  I even looked back on my daily farm notes from a few years back.

In a single one-week period, each of the following things happened at the Genuine Faux Farm:

• a windstorm flattened half the plants in a couple of crop successions
• a woodchuck ate 15 trays of broccoli and cauliflower plants that were due to be planted that week
• another storm dropped four inches of rain on already saturated soil, making it impossible to do any field work
• the Buffalo gnats were so bad that anyone who did not cover themselves completely, even in temperatures in the high 80s to low 90s, were going to be covered in welts from the bites.
• we discovered that the raccoon parents were teaching their young to pick off members of our hen flock a couple at a time in the middle of the day by creeping through a hole in the fence
  
• the early cold season crops were bolting because of some unseasonably warm temperatures
• the warm season crops were either not in the ground or stunted by wet weather
• deer ate the hearts (centers) out of a number of our maturing romaine lettuce crop
• someone missed watering four trays of squash transplants and those trays did not recover
• the windstorm required some clean-up during days when our task lists were quite full
• we did not notice a leak in the irrigation inside a high tunnel until a small pond had developed on one end
• a key tractor implement broke while we were trying to complete work before the rains came
• we had to work around a contractor who was doing work in the farm house
• we had to say "no" on several egg orders because we had fewer eggs (see raccoon issue)
• we cancelled a CSA farm share delivery because we did not feel we had enough to justify counting it as a week in our CSA, opting to add a week at the end and removing a week from our potential Winter shares.
  

I think that's enough for you to get the point. 

My colleague and friend recently shared their current frustrations with the wildlife making off with the produce they are working so hard to nurture, weather making the process of growing good food difficult, and the issue of limited helping hands adding to the challenge.  

"I must be stupid or a complete failure.  I've been doing this long enough, you would think I could find a way to deal with these problems."

For a second, my heart broke - even if it didn't look like it.  I heard what this person was saying, and I recognized words I had spoken to myself.  And I can tell you that I have often taken these failures (big and small) to heart because it was so very important to me to fulfill my obligations to our customers, to the land, to those who work at the farm, and to all of the other folks who try to grow as we do.  All of that responsibility just makes each little cut bleed a little bit more.

A thousand cuts.  A thousand tiny cuts will make the most dedicated, intelligent, skilled, and capable people wonder - "Why am I still trying to do this?"

This is why I keep pushing the idea that we need to do better at supporting farms and growers like these.

If we like the idea of working with, rather than against nature.  If we prefer to have more people on the land, working on a smaller-scale that is responsive to the needs of the community.  If we see value in local foods.  If we want food that is raised with fewer chemicals and we want growers who hold on to the highest ethics when it comes to treating workers well, being stewards for the land, and being caretakers for a healthier future.

Then we've got to stop adding our own small slices to the ten thousand cuts these people suffer so frequently as they try to do that job that they love.  On the land that they care for.  For the good people they so willingly serve.

I'm going to share another secret.

Our farm survived that "week of horrors" that illustrated all of the natural things that can go wrong on a farm like ours.  I suspect my friend will also move forward and be able to look back on a reasonably successful season at the end of the year (even if it doesn't feel like it now).

In fact, we had a solid year - because we actually were pretty good at what we do.  We just needed a full season to get the perspective we needed to see it.  After all, we DID sign up for those kinds of problems when we took on the job of running our respective farms. Yes, it does get annoying when we lose a crop to rabbits (or some other critter) AGAIN.  And, yes, we wonder how we could let it happen once more.  Surely we must be too dumb to figure it out.  

This is normal frustration speaking.  We're human and it feels this way.  

We also know that the whole equation of our farms are much more complex than "guard against rabbits" and sometimes the most successful strategies for that particular task are not practical for the moment in time that we are in.  

Until the rabbits make us pay too much and we adjust.

The real issue, as I see it, are those other cuts and injuries that could be prevented if we, as a society, were willing to provide remedy.

We need to stop supporting corporate farming and chemical-based agriculture.  If there were more of us out there doing this small-scale/diverse farming thing, we'd have that much more support to get through the rough times.  We need to remove the possibility of chemical trespass from the list of things that can go wrong on our farms.  

We need to be sure those who work on these small farms have appropriate health care.  We need to adopt size-appropriate regulations that don't define "small business" as anyone under $20 million in sales.

And we need to put these small, local producers back in front of the line when it comes to supplying the foods that we eat.