NPR's Tragic Farmer

Yesterday's NPR feature on Illinois farmer Dave Burt was quite interesting. The link takes you to NPR's text summary, but you can click on the "listen" icon to hear the longer version.

Now, I'm normally excited when farmers get favorable mentions in the media. I'm also sympathetic to farmers who are attached to the well-being of their animals. Dave Burt seems to fit that bill.

And yet...

I'm not sympathetic to Dave Burt.

Burt bemoans the fact that it is too expensive to farm and is upset that the numbers are forcing him to sell his herd. In the auditory portion of the story, he explains that it cost him $500,000 to plant and grow his crops on the 1000 acre farm he inherited from his uncle. He worried about whether he can support his family.

Dude, if you can't make a living on 1000 mortgage free acres in the fertile midwest, you are doing something wrong. Perhaps Burt shouldn't have bought the expensive combines and chased the 200 bushel corn crops with petroleum-based fertilizers. His cows would probably do very well - without the $500,000 annual investment and the expensive fertilizer and combines if he just put his whole farm to rotational grazing.

These corn-based farm subsidies don't really help the "small" farmer - he has been pushed out by mega-farms who go deeply into debt for large-scale machinery and still cling to solvency by their fingernails.

A quick trip to the farm subsidy database reveals that Burt has also received $102,000 in welfare - er, subsidy - payments. Great google-moogly.

In case the imp of the perverse is inspiring you to check out whether your humble smallholder host is a hypocrite, I'll save you the trouble.

Small Farmers and Owner Operators: Sorry, Dave

I have started adding links to other local farms on the sidebar.

When I was pulling CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture) out of a guide to eating local, one of the farms mentioned was Dave Matthews' "Best of What's Around" farm.

I struggled with whether to add a link to their site. Matthews' farm does follow sustainable practices and serves the local community. His decision to set up the farm on an old dairy farm kept a fair amount of land in agricultural use, safe from developers' bulldozers.

And yet... Some part of me wants to support agriculture that is owner operated. One of the problems of the farming community is the prevalence of contract labor and relationships that can come to resemble lord/serf dominance.

I want to support family farming. I don't have anything against Matthews - he makes some darn fine music. I also love that he and his bandmates are active in the local philanthropy scene (they're our version of Staunton's Statler Brothers). But I'd rather direct people to small family farms who are actually trying to make (or supplement) a living for their families. I suspect that Dave Matthews won't be deeply harmed financially if you buy your vegetables from Michael and Kathryn Bertoni at Appalachia Star Farm, or Rob and Megan Weary at Roundabout Farm or support meaningful work for the developmentally disabled at Innisfree Village.

Random Cartoon

Consider this a supplement to my earlier feedlot post.

Michael Pollan for AgSec!

Not that it will happen.

But if you want to send a message to the new administration that it ought to stop counterproductive and environmentally destructive corn subsidies, go and sign the petition.

My signature comment:

How has Butz-style "Get big or get out!" been working for America's farming communities? Let's get government out of subsidizing big agribusiness so that small sustainable farms have a level playing field. We small farmers will smoke the big guys if we stop them from sucking on the teat of government.

Don't know who Earl Butz is?


An excerpt from Wikipedia:

In 1971, President Richard Nixon appointed Butz as Secretary of Agriculture, a position in which he continued to serve after Nixon resigned as the result of the Watergate scandal in 1974. In his time heading the USDA, Butz revolutionized federal agricultural policy and reengineered many New Deal era farm support programs. His mantra to farmers was "get big or get out," and he urged farmers to plant commodity crops like corn "from fencerow to fencerow." These policy shifts coincided with the rise of major agribusiness corporations, and the declining financial stability of the small family farm.

He's probably more famous outside of the agricultural community for his obscene racist comments to John Dean and the ensuing Nixon-era scandal. To balance the rosy charts of increasing grain exports, here is a contemporaneous graph showing the impact of "get big or get out" on dairy farms:

Thanks, Earl*.

Heck, If i had been around at the turn of the last century, I'd have supported Mary Elizabeth Lease for AgSec (if such a thing had existed).

* I know that Butz isn't the sole cause of this; increased mechanization, the increased affordability of college offering different opportunities to farm kids, and, most importantly, the continuation of New Deal farm subsidies all contributed. But Earl Butz certainly didn't help.