Low Cost Conundrum
~ This article first appeared in the Leader Vindicator newspaper. ~
This story will be brutally honest. You’ll soon know all my shortcomings.
I admonish all who are interested to be wary of a thread woven through the grass farming society: Convincing reports of low cost, low labor farming that’s wonderful for mind and body will lure newcomers to alternative agriculture. Not only is it a minimalist-esque way of growing, it’s also a great lifestyle for nurturing a family.
Consider a few sentences gleaned from various articles:
“I just walk out to move the cows, roll up the wire, and ten minutes later I’m back home with my family!”
“I lease a farm, build a good fence, set up the water, stock the land, and then manage the grazing.”
“Selling to consumers brings dividends!”
The positive tone conveyed in these examples is the song of grass farming. I adopted the lyrics, and then germinated expectations. Today I’ll admit, in raw hindsight, that I fully anticipated, after a few years running cattle on grass, to be flush with cash with a happy wife at home who admired the gritty work her husband accomplished each day and, as a result, couldn’t keep her hands off of him.
Fast forward a couple years into the month of August, when my wife is crying (again) because I’m never home, and I’m exhausted for the same reason, while at the same time mentally burdened by the reality that my grazing expenses far outweigh income, and customers don’t seem to be resonating with the grassfed beef idea, and I’ll tell you that I was pretty well confused. Uh, helloooooo? What happened to ten minutes of work, banished banking troubles, and happy family time??
It’s an illusion.
Don’t think for a moment that I’m abandoning the cause; certainly I’m not. I do believe someone needs to be the Grim Reaper, though: Grass farming is not an easy lifestyle.
Folks who write the articles with a positive tone for us amateurs to devour have been at it a long time in the grazing game. They’re writing in the present tense following years of refinement behind the scenes. Furthermore, nobody in my generation presents an accurate picture of their hardships because we are all too busy lying to each other about how wonderful everything is going. So the false impression carries on untarnished.
Let’s do a little tarnishing today, shall we? Here is my real experience with each of the above statements.
1) Ten minutes to move the cows. OK. I’ll allow the statement, but with a caveat: That ten minutes is going to come after three hours of preparation. It just isn’t easy to keep a herd cruising around while fulfilling the need for water and shelter and minerals, etc. I’ve headed out the door on many occasions to ‘move the cows real quick’ and not gotten back until after dark.
2) Just build the fence. Really? That’s all? Just put ‘er up and bring the cows in! Well, I build a lot of fence, and – I’ll say this in the absolute simplest language I can possibly imagine - the project seems a little more complex than that. Free time sufficient to complete more than about eleven inches of a new barrier is elusive. Then we need to rig up the water system. My goodness, I wish it were as easy as ‘put up fence’.
3) Sustainable income. Choose your poison: Lots of work or lots of expense. Grass farming emphasizes low cost. So you’ll be working a lot (e.g. Building fence. By yourself. In the rain. While answering the phone to take orders for beef.). I do believe a reasonable income can be initiated by leveraging what is freely available in nature to reduce expenses. I also believe that the effort to develop such a symbiotic system will have even the most tight-fisted penny-pincher begging to buy something to make life easier. That’s why low-cost grazing conferences always feature such a large vendor area.
How does all this resonate with family time? I’m glad you asked.
Do you know what my wife doesn’t want to do on a day when the ambient temperature is 7,000 degrees Fahrenheit? Anything involving cows. So she’s out.
Our son is three. I spend every day around large animals in rough terrain. Do I even need to say it? He’s out. For a while, anyway.
Therefore, I’m in, and virtually all of the household maintenance falls on the shoulders of my wife. Such a lopsided arrangement creates what might be described, anticlimactically, as friction.
My wife is pretty. She looks great in a bikini. It is not lost on me for a second that I could sell the entire herd and we could move to a thatched hut on a tropical island and live comfortably with the proceeds for about six days. I’m making jokes, but trust me: That’s a tempting offer when she’s disappointed because I’ve missed dinner at home for the tenth day in a row.
The positive mantra of grass farming is not a lie. It really is a good life. It is a wholesome mission. And it is ecologically brilliant, which creates a cascade of benefits for the beloved members of your tribe. But, doggonit, I wish someone had told me how hard it is to get there.
Then again, if someone did, I probably wouldn’t have started in the first place.
Sigh.
Better go move the cows real quick.