A Place to Live

~ This article first appeared in The Leader-Vindicator newspaper. ~

There is something of a war going on between the folks who believe a farm is a business and those who believe a farm is not.

The former, which I will hereby refer to as the business group, is a group made up not only of farmers themselves, but also those involved in food manufacturing, distribution, and marketing.  Also included in the farm business paradigm are politicians and lobbyists and a surprisingly large number of suits who have likely never spent much time on a farm at all.  These folks perceive food strictly in the economic sense and portray a swagger of confidence.

The latter, from now on referred to as the non-business group, encompasses a more diverse population, from hippies and conservationists to concerned consumers and avid outdoorsmen.  These people see a farm as a place to live, associating themselves with an image of quiet kindness and harmony.  It is my observation that, though this category is a larger portion of the populace, it has a much smaller impact on the agricultural world.  For this reason I will take gentle aim at them today.

A model of non-business has a smaller impact because the message has no clear objective; nobody can get a firm grip to move forward because “saving the world” is too broad a target.  It’s comparatively easy to define a farm as an industry and create a model that pursues the objectives of production and profit.  But, on the other hand, what exactly does it mean to have a farm that is not a business?

If a farm is strictly a place to live then it is a place of novelty funded by disposable income.  In other words, it’s not real and cannot be counted on when the going gets tough.  Nobody will endure the hardships of agriculture if they can simply step back, write the whole thing off as a loss, and start again some other time when things look easy.  Many people with good intent have started a farm with societal and environmental regeneration in mind and then promptly lost the whole thing because they tried so hard to prove they’re not trying to make money.  Such failure is so common that these farmers are the laughing stock of the business group.  What’s worse, they’re failing at their objective. 

Yet, if a farm is strictly a generator of revenue then it is true that the property won’t be much good for living on anyway.  The straightforward process between input and yield has obliterated natural processes on millions of acres.  It’s safe to say that a farm kid growing up will learn more about chemicals than he will about plants and animals.  The rigid idea of churning out a singular objective year after year will eventually take its toll on an environment that coordinates billions of unique adjustments on a daily basis.  What’s worse, the industrial model has removed peoples’ dependence on the land surrounding them, creating a cultural indifference to things like soil type.  Nobody lives from the land and that’s a horrifying thought indeed.

I know people on both sides of the spectrum and it has frequently occurred to me after spending time at each extreme that if we could combine the farmer’s ability with the dreamer’s ideas and the economist’s accounting we’d really have something.  The recipe is all there, as a farm provides enough opportunity in every category that no child should ever have to leave in order to pursue his or her interests.  The first thing we need to do is eliminate this aversion to profit.  I’ll paraphrase Karl Hammer of the Vermont Compost Company: The best way to preserve what you want is to make it profitable.  It’s about making goods and selling them, then using the proceeds to accomplish societal and environmental goals.  From this system we find a good place to live.

A centerpiece activity is necessary that can fund other projects.  In the case of Karl, he made money on the compost first, and then added other enterprises.  At home we created a centerpiece beef business from our Holstein feeding operation before expanding into grassfed beef, compost, entertainment, and other intrigues.  If instead we’d pursued our interests before establishing a centerpiece there would be nothing left to show for the effort.

A farm is a place to live, and living includes generating income to sustain operations. There should not be so much of a war taking place, as both sides will benefit from the other. So it is not really a war, but a standoff of people too stubborn to accept help and deviate from whatever trajectory they might be on. I find it interesting that most of our biggest hurdles are not physical limitations, but mental blockades that exist nowhere in the world. Put the bearded forager and the slick economist at the same table, let them eat and become friends, then turn them loose with a mission to create an economy for their neighbors. That combination will change the world. All I want is to be at the table when it happens.