The following is a post I made on Facebook about a month ago. I really want to address it.
“As our fuel prices rise, and people just think this will pass, we will just have a staycation this year, and then complain about the price of food. Remember this, farmers don’t need to farm for you. However, they do. For some it’s what generations before them did. It’s in their blood.
Farmers buy at retail and sell at wholesale. Think about that for a minute.
Farmers deal with the idiots on the road and risk their own lives as they move equipment from farm to farm. To grow and harvest a crop for you. Even if it’s for livestock, the end result is you! Farmers deal with the backwards mandates put on them by the urban pencil pushing people that have no idea about agriculture. Farmers are the scapegoats when the mandates don’t work as planned. Farmers are up before dawn, out late at night, and if the weather conditions are right or bad weather is moving in, out all night. To save a crop for you. Oh yeah, we can just buy food from another country. Yeah, how is that working out for ya. Container ships back logged at ports, high transportation costs, and supply that is not reaching demand. Not to mention a lack of transparency in food quality. Read the origin on the label. Or maybe just read the label! Take an economics class if you don’t get it. Read the laws in labeling if you don’t get it.
I just finished mowing the lawn before dark last night, and I had just gotten in the house, when my husband calls me. He just moved the planter to another farm and needed a ride back to a farm he had just finished planting to get his truck. As he walked across the field, and disappeared into the dark, I was kinda sad. Why? Because this image is how I believe the direction our society is moving. Farmers will only disappear before people realize what they have lost. Our society is about to get real hungry, not just miss a meal hungry, but a homeless hungry. A hunger that can bring out the worst in people.
When we both got back home, and as we made a snack, he mentioned that he remembers all the stories his pop-pop and dad talked about from the depression. We have two different stories, him being rural and me being urban, but we both have one similar thread. The path to the depression. The signals that were there leading up to it. The writing is on the wall. All I can say is if you don’t get it, take a history class, take an AG class, and prepare. It doesn’t matter if you eat meat or your vegan, vegetarian, or just green conscience. Cause if things don’t change, our society has a long unfriendly and sad road ahead.”
There is so much anger and frustration in this that It may make some people defensive. That was not the point. We here have chosen to live the life we live. We truly love what we do and love our animals. We put heart into what we grow, create and sell. We are always tired and stressed. We fall asleep worrying about every bill we need to pay, and put our faith in the good lord, that our crops will grow. It mentions in (KJV) 2 Corinthians 5:7 “(for we walk by faith, not by sight)”. I don’t try to push religion on anyone, but this is the path we walk. Not just in the Lord, but in all we do. We plan, plant, care for, and have the faith that there will be a harvest in the fall. A harvest that will move forward into and help take care of some of society’s needs. Personally, it has been easier to have faith in the unknown, than in our society. A farm does nothing on its own, without a caretaker. Personally, for years we have harvested and canned, froze and hunted our own foods. Every year is different. Some years some crops do great, some years not. Some years we get a couple deer geese, a beef, or pig to feed our family, some years not. I have the faith that we will be ok over the next few years. However, as a family we have seen the urban areas struggling to keep product on the store shelves, and when there is product, it has become poor quality. Packaging is getting smaller, and the labeling is trying to suck in people that don’t really understand. Arguments are stirring and there is so much hate.
To get buyer attention, Ideally, we could put on our unsalted butter label, Gluten free, nut free, and all natural, and probably some others. However, there are no nuts, or wheat in milk, and yeah, it’s all-natural cause it is own ingredient just shaken up, so it changes from a liquid to a solid. The silage we are putting up this year is non-GMO, does that make our cows non-GMO, therefore our cheese and butter is non-GMO? It’s really out of hand. Parts of labeling have become a game to win the buyer, and not help them make the best choice for them.
Stay local, buy local, and follow the journey from farm to table.
It’s how we will all make it. Weather in this country or not, Farmers are not the bad people, but they are holding the weight of societies survival on their shoulders. Weather a person is vegan, vegetarian, they eat meat, or just green conscience, so many things like our clothes, food, and a whole lot more start with the hand of a farmer. Ask Questions. Visit different farmers’ market, and yes not all are honest, but the more we ask, the more we learn, the better we can understand how to find the best products. Unless we are completely self-sustained with in our own home, we need others to fill those gaps.