Farming Isn't That Easy...

Here is an article I found on the New Farm Website titled, "Too Tough a Row to Hoe". It was written by an intern working at the Rodale Institute and I think is rather eye opening. I don't really have time to tackle it all today (farming and working really is time consuming), but I wanted to throw out the article for you to read if you are interested and then compose some of my thoughts for tomorrow. I really do think though that this article and what it has made me think about is really the core of "The Beginning Farmer" blog. So, here are a few quotes from the article that really stuck out for me. Check them out, check out the article, and let me know what you think...

• "So I can’t really fathom the struggle I would go through if you ordered me to start an organic farm with five acres, $10,000, internet access and a fellow English major for a partner. I can see that farming is a huge undertaking, and I simply don’t possess the skills or knowledge to pull it off."
• "I would have to make a transition from student life in the academic world to that of a farmer facing complex decisions that determined income."
• "I would need to learn everything from scratch, from when to plant crops to figuring out a crop rotation to what equipment I would need to buy."
• "Studying is all very well but it can only take you so far. The rest you have to figure out for yourself, on your land, asking new questions when new thing come up. My guess is that even if I worked hard and most things went as well as could be expected, it would be several years of failures before my small organic farm saw any success."

Conventional vs. Organic ... An Article and a Debate

Recently on the Homesteading Today message board there was a THREAD debating (or possibly arguing about) an article titled, "Africa: Organic Agriculture Can Contribute to Fighting Hunger, But Chemical Fertilizers Needed to Feed the World." It appears the article comes from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and discusses exactly what the title implies (pretty creative title huh?). I'm not sure how many of the posters over on the forum took time to read the article or if they just jumped into to the debate/arguing because it is such a hot button issue.

One quote that was mentioned in the original post is this one from Dr. Diouf, "We should use organic agriculture and promote it. It produces wholesome, nutritious food and represents a growing source of income for developed and developing countries. But you cannot feed six billion people today and nine billion in 2050 without judicious use of chemical fertilizers." It is an interesting paradox that he throws out there. Basically it seems that organic is good for those that can afford to do it because you can possibly make more money, but for feeding the world chemicals are the key. I'm sure scholars, farmers, and wanna-be scholar/farmers (like myself) will be going round and round on this issue for quite a while. But, after reading the article and the comments on the message board there are a few thoughts that I had that didn't really come up. I will readily admit that I don't have much of a dog in this fight right now ... I don't have much knowledge ... and to be perfectly honest I don't really care from a moral standpoint whether people choose to use chemicals or not.

#1. One thing that Joel Salatin has mentioned in his books is that part of the research used to justify comments such as those from Dr. Diouf is flawed. Mr. Salatin asserts that their organic research means planting one field conventionally and then one field near it organically and comparing the results. There are two main problems with this type of experiment. First of all, most organic farmers will admit that it takes time to condition the soil and bring it back from all the chemical inputs it has become dependent upon so my just taking a conventional field and planting it "organically" you won't have taken the time to rebuild the needed organic matter in the soil. And secondly, sometimes organic farming is seen as leave alone farming and that just won't work. You still need to work the crops and do creative farming in order to produce your crop. So, there is one thought I had.

#2. In the debate/argument nobody seems to be citing real world examples. If you are a regular reader of my blog you may remember a post titled, "A Quick Saturday Morning Post..." from December, 1st. In that post I linked to an article about and gave a quick summary of Goldmine Farm which is a 2,000 acre organic farm in Illinois. Maybe that is the guy that we should be talking to?

#3. Now, I don't want to get in over my head here because I eat grain fed beef almost every week, eat lots of corn products, and fill up my vehicles with ethanol (because the word contains my name) every time they need gas ... But, could the problem be that we are trying to use grains like corn and soybeans for to many things that they aren't needed for? Would we need to farm with chemicals in order to get higher yields if we weren't feeding our ruminants corn and we weren't feeding our cars corn? I don't really want to go too deep in this subject because I could easily be shouted down by my own family ... but what if the only grain we grew was for human use? Not cattle use, not car use... Maybe the guy from King Corn who commented earlier on my blog will find this post and chime in on the subject.

Let me point out again ... I'm not saying I'm right, I'm not saying I have answers, I'm not saying I have experience, I'm not saying much at all ... What I am doing is throwing out a few thoughts for myself and other readers...

What if?