Mother Nature can be brutal to farmers. We have had one of the most difficult winters in memory. Fluctuating temperatures and weather extremes have been hard on livestock and farmers alike.
I read a piece by a fellow shepherd a few weeks ago, and while the context was not stock related, the idea left a worm in my brain. Sustainability and food security are big topics and problems for humans around the world. There is not only a disconnect, but disillusionment with our current food systems.
We simultaneously feel the environmental effects of large scale farming and the economic effect of small scale sustainable production. We want it all, but we don’t want to pay for it.
That was the “brain worm.” We created the industries that exist today. Our demand shaped the way they grew and evolved. The responsibility is on us, and it’s a pattern we don’t learn from.
On a whim
Picture it: 1840s Boston, Massachusetts. Beaver felt-top hats were the fashion statement of the day. The dapper gentleman you saw on the street didn’t make that hat. He didn’t trap the beaver either.
There was an entire industry behind this product, fueled by human desire, whim and fancy. Beavers were trapped almost to the point of extinction, for fashion. They were saved — not by conservation or sustainable harvesting — but by silk. It’s a part of the human condition, that next whim.
I regularly discuss the realities of farming with individuals who have never seen the majority of their food items in real life. They have been educated by Hollywood and media drama. I don’t know if it’s possible, but somewhere along the way, that education needs to come from the experts, the farmers.
Hollywood farming
We encourage visitors to the farm. During the bright spring days when the lambs are bouncing and the crisp fall harvests in the garden, they come to walk around and experience “farming.”
No one comes in February when the snow is 4 feet deep, and the gates are all frozen shut.
When we put out hay with the sturdy work ponies breaking trail, hauling their own breakfast, their breath coming out in frozen plumes and the sharp smell of sweat permeating the crisp morning air. No one comes when it rains in April — when the ground is still frozen and the water has nowhere to go, collecting in large pools across our grazing areas. When ducks and geese utilize the pasture more than the stock does. No one comes in May when the black flies are so thick you jokingly count them as a protein source by the time chores are done.
They want drowsy summer days, warm sun and gentle breezes. They want Hollywood farming.
Mulling
I did my second lamb check at 6 a.m. It is absolutely, perfectly still outside. One of those picture perfect mornings that feed the soul. I sat on a bucket in that absolute stillness, a dog on either side, surrounded by woolly sheep, contemplating nothing except the perfection of the morning.
My enjoyment was disrupted by that “brain worm.” It’s a curse, I swear, as I mentally reviewed a conversation with a prospective customer, for the eleventeenth millionth time. “You must rake in the dough and make a hefty profit,” I thought to myself.
I sigh and pet a dog, telling myself it doesn’t matter. But, the truth is, it does matter. Instituting change is hard. It’s even more difficult when that change is ourselves. We created this and the change required to improve it must start with the demand — the source — with us.
