210 comments on From Cubicle Nerd to Cucumber Vendor: Learning Small Scale Farming in Mid-life
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210 comments on From Cubicle Nerd to Cucumber Vendor: Learning Small Scale Farming in Mid-life
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Here is where a fundamental tenet of modern economics will still hold value going forward - comparative advantage. I don't think any one farm or even group of farms can grow EVERYTHING needed - we will still have specialization and benefit from local trade/barter. If I specialize in garlic and chickens, I can trade for squash and potatoes and be 'better' off, because I became more expert at the garlic. Of course there is then the issue of risk-adjusted return and shortfall risk - e.g. what if I have a virus specific to garlic - I am wiped out. So I expect those that go down this path will create a 'portfolio' of staples, and trade/barter for the rest.
Specialization, in the globalization has gone too far for 2 reasons:
1)the import substitution policies of Washington Consensus have caused many (most?) countries to be dependent on trade with others for what have become essential goods and
2)the plethora of 'choices' has not added (I could argue has detracted from) happiness/utility. How many flavors of chicken sausage or toothpaste are really necessary?
Thanks again for efforting this essay Wyoming...
Nate,
You touch on a very important topic for the future. If a small farmers does NOT grow an excess that he can trade and barter for goods he does not grow or manufacture himself then the system will not work. None of us are self sufficient unless we are living like the natives did on the Great Plains or in the Amazon. All of our farmer ancestors had a civilization behind them making things that the excess farm products were traded for. Everything from plows to hand tools to rifles.
How do we recreate that infrastructure. We not only need new farmers but blacksmiths. And host of other skills. In my location we are so far from having the critical mass of such skills that it is most difficult to imagine how to even get there.
I have talked with a few of the small local farmers a little about creating a CSA that was supported by a number of us small farmers. then we could each get a little of that economy of scale you speak of and thereby be a little more profitable. There just does not seem to be of us in the area yet to try that either.
Finding farm labor is a really big issue also. One almost has to have a bunkhouse or some such lodging on the farm to be able to find workers. It is far too expensive locally for farm workers to obtain outside lodging. There are some immigrants in the area who will work on farms when they cannot find construction jobs. They normally have some kind of communal living arrangements that allow them to live very cheaply. Farming is not their first choice due to the very low wages, but they are good workers. Almost all farmers I know have a low opinion of the work ethic of the summer high school and college students. But that tends to be all that is available.
The above labor issue is one that will be essential to work out for the future. As farm "families" will probably not consist of large numbers of children like they did for our ancestors (some of my ancestors have 10-13 children) we will have a labor issue to solve. Lots of "hired" men/women will be required.
Wyo
0
Nate,
Every fundamental tenet of modern economics will hold value on the way down, except for the exponential growth crap. These tenets (division of labour, comparable advantage, invisible hands, visible fists, public choice etc. etc.) are universally valid for all humans at all times.
Unfortunately most of the 'return to the soil' community don't understand these tenets. However, in an age of growing scarcity these basic principles will be even more important than they are today. The irony is that our societies can afford luxuries such as Jack-of-all-trades organic farming models precisely because so much wealth has been generated in the conventional economy.
There is a toytown dimension to many of these projects that always sets my bullshit detector running.
With exception of invisible hand, I don't disagree with your list, but you forgot:
rational actor, pareto-optimality, utility maximizing, perfect substitutes, environment is WITHIN the human system not vice versa....the majority of economic tenets will not hold, except those, like many you list, that will be 're-defined' once energy limits and biological constraints are fused into the lexicon. I agree that 'supply and demand' at its core will of course always be germaine - just like it is in a population of elk and wolves, but the ASSUMPTIONS that follow these micro-economic traits rooted in biology are what will morph into something else.
Carolus what is thust of walrasian welfare economics without the 'exponential growth crap'? other than a ginormous toytown dimension? What if all financial markers went away - would Wyomings 'projects' continue to set your bullshit detector off?
Nate,
Actually I'm a dyed-in-the-wool Georgescu-Roegenist with a Hayekian trying to get out. So replace 'every' by a weaselly 'most' or 'many'.
It's just this obsession with fruit and vegetables that gets my gander up, I reckon.
I dislike fruit myself - mostly sugar and some vitamins. But vegetables are key. I am trying to get a nutrition professor to write a guest post for this series on how American diets increase our consumptive behavior via 'cravings' that we attempt to satiate using non-food means.
Selma Hayek?
;-)
Nate I think your browser needs adjustment look above Selma Hayek for the guy I think Carolus Obscurus means. (*see here below*)
I could be wrong though as that Selma does look a bit less like a vegetable than that Fred guy. And of course that hair of his does give him a rather fruity pineapple aspect as well:)
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This might be relevant: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/healthreport/stories/2007/1969924.htm.
This is quite relevant and fascinating thank you for posting it. Corn subsidies dramatically influence the markets for farmers. There is a documentary called "King Corn" that elaborates on this (I haven't seen it but read a review).
For anyone who is curious about why we are fat the answer appears to be fructose so corn syrup and sucrose is apparently 50% fructose so sugar makes us fat and helps us to get diabetes and liver damage which affects moods etc.
Quality food production translates to high brix high nutritionally dense whole foods. These foods don't rot in 2 days in the fridge. The great joy of growing your own food is the dramatic improvement in quality. My garlic is well so much better than any of the stuff at the supermarket that many people are surprised. But then we've been trained to think that junk is normal.
I may do a post on farming for a complete diet sometime. Veggies and fruits are only about 5-10% of the calories people received.
The reasons fruits and vegetables are favored by small scale farmers is that they maximize the $ returned on land.
For example, wheat might sell for $1 per pound but only yield 0.1 lbs per sq ft. Tomatoes might sell for $2 per lb and yield at 2 lbs per sq ft.
If you don't have a lot of land but are willing to invest a lot of time which would your grow?
As I wrote in the shape of food to come, my thoughts are,
Oil is not going to just run dry one day, but simply become scarce, it'll go where it's needed, and thus likely still be used on farms.
As for biofuels, they can't be made in enough volume to keep us tooling around in SUVs (we could manage at best a single barrel of fuel each annually), but can be enough for (say) 5-10% of the population to be farmers with tractors (rather than the 2% or so today).
So we won't be able to fuel as much machinery as we do today. But where is the machinery most useful? That's in grains and tubers cropping, not so much in fruit and vegetable cropping.
Thus in a fossil fuel scarce future, we'll still see 1,000-hectare farms growing grain and combine harvesters, but we'll see more small-scale farming of fruit and vegetables. And this was the Cuban experience. That daft documentary made a big deal of the urban gardens, but didn't mention that out in the countryside the big machines are still burning diesel like mad, and providing the bulk of the people's calories.
So I think small-scale farmers will continue to favour fruit and vegies, and leave the grains/beans and perhaps the tubers to big farms with machinery.
I wouldn't bet on it being that simple. Oil extraction and refining now depends on hugely complex globalised hi-tech. And this is only going to get worse. In the event of a collapse of the global/industrial/capitalist financial/economic system, the physical systems for supplying oil could grind to an absolute halt. And never be restartable again. Indeed they could just rust away, beyond our funds to replace.
We were small-scale, certified organic growers in the early 1980's. Our main crops were tomatoes, as you mention, and strawberries. A couple of points:
1. Although we were making "day" wages, they were insufficient to really cover our financial needs without an outside job (which we didn't have). After a few years we had to make the choice to either "grow" the business or shut down.
Because of our climate and local market, we grew out the tomato plants in five gallon grow bags in our little 14'x18' greenhouse and actually set out plants that were in bloom when home gardeners were just starting their seeds. Our choice was to either greatly expand our greenhouse space or shut down.
It made more sense to shut down when we looked that the economics.
2. It is important to understand your local market as well as the competition in other locals. Early tomatoes were great sellers...until home gardens started to produce (This is a rural area and lots of people put in a few tomatoes.). At that point, sales died. We did participate in a farmer's market 60 miles from us for a year. However, the climate in that area is much milder than ours in the mountains. When we could only bring snap peas, the local growers in that area had a full range of vegetables for sale.
3. Strawberry picking is, obviously, labor intensive. We produced enough so that it was hard for us to keep up. Therefore, we tried hiring a couple of local kids. They did pick but not selectively enough so we ended throwing away a lot of almost ripe fruit. After a while we went back to picking ourselves.
I certainly do not regret that period and we learned a lot about moderate-scale organic production. However, given what we know now about growing and selling, it is clear that we were naive about our income prospects given very limited finances for the operation.
Todd
Reply to Todd regarding strawberries on small farm.
Fella down the road I knew well had gotten a small farm for his family to make some money. He was an 'operating engineer' but nonunion however he worked for a very large 'land development' guy who was also a farmer on the side.
Well he put a bunch of that farm into strawberries. Remember that this part of Ky used to raise a lot of strawberries ,in fact as a teenager visiting my kin here they used to make a bit picking those many fields of strawberries.
So he did and next spring had a very nice crop. Got a decent price too and asked me to install a PC so they could manage the large number of sales.
All was ok but at the end he had to sell at cheaper prices since the market was not that big. Big but not enough.
Next year his kids didn't want to spend the time. His wife was running out of patience. He was pissed so he plowed it all up.
It just didn't work out with the local market. Did for 2 years and then died.
He then of course , left his wife and moved off. Haven't seen him in a while. The farm is still there but idle.His kids went off to get bigger jobs elsewhere. They just didn't have what it took to stick to it and with the 'glammar' of Ipods,yada,yada...it called to them to strongly I hear.
So it goes. What once worked didn't cut it. He tried some Mexicans. That didn't work for they 'cherry picked' he said.
I was saddened to see my friend leave. I loved his strawberries so I resurrected my patch.
If you want it ..you almost gotta do it yourself.
Moral? Modern life. Modern culture.
Airdale
Airdale,
I'm are always doing some kind of experiment, must be my tech background, even as a grower. Anyway, I saw a picture in a hydroponic book at that time showing strawberries being grown in vertical grow bags suspended from overhead "joists." I said, "Ah, ha. No more bending down!"
So, I contacted a company that made grow bags and asked whether I could just buy rolls of uncut bag material (6" diameter). They said Ok. I also happened to have a number of treated 4x4's and a lot 2x6" so I set up a grow area where I could "plant" about 2,500 plants in 6' long grow bags. The plants were fed hydroponically using fish emulsion to keep it organic. The growing medium was peat moss and vermiculite with a few ammendments. I even wrote an article for a back to the land paper here entitled, "It's In the Bag."
Did it work? Not from our perspective. I had trouble getting good moisture and nutrient distribution in the bags. The bags were white and tended to "cook" the berries. Now, I could have experimented with different growing media and put up shade cloth. It obviously was a viable concept that a few more years of work would have made it a real money maker for us. But, there is a time when you have to move on.
Sorry abut your friend.
Todd
Hey, I resemble that remark! It's an important observation. The gallons gas/pounds veggies is telling.
But the experiment here is can a 50 something engineer make the transition to farmer work. Certainly not in a year. I had exactly this discussion with a good friend, also a Master Gardener and landscaper. She had tried to imagine which of the people she knows could make such a transition and couldn't think of more than a very small handful. I too have a fairly good set up - no debt, a 10' clear three car garage and shop, chicken coops, sheds, multiple wells. Home and shop superinsulated passive solar. Still, there is no way I could pay my way with vegetables and fruits - even when I get my entire 2+ acres into production. [And that is as much as I could possibly work myself.] The information load - planning, scheduling, preservation - is astounding.
I can only play at this experiment myself because of external wealth provided by society. Sobering.
cfm in Gray, ME
Chris,
Reality is a harsh mistress: just try putting this recommendation into practice.
Heinlein's aphorism is as witty as it is false.
Without specialization, no civilization.
Poppycock! I can do all but about four of the things on that list, and I see no reason why I shouldn't be able to master those in time. I have a good handful of friends who can say the same (but I probably have a higher-than-average number of friends who are likewise autodidactic polymaths). A good self-sufficient farmer is also a doctor, a veterinarian, an accountant, a mechanic, a cook, a poet, a carpenter, a blacksmith, and a musician, among other things. In any case, there is no harm and plenty of good in aspiring to have as many useful skills as possible. Argue for your limitations, and they will be yours.
Hey Carolus we gots the specialization up the ass and nigh unto Afghanistan, so when do we get that thing, 'civilization'? As well, about Heinlein, he was a specialist who plagiarized a generation to butter his bread, you GROK?
:)
I don't know Chris... I think there is some underlying truth in this. I'm currently snowed in and my husband just yelled at our twin 4-year old boys "don't rough-house! We can't get you to the emergency room." I was thinking "wish I knew how to set a broken bone."
Of those things about I can do most-- I cannot program a computer. But I have comforted the dying and I've got 3 new books on stone masonry because I want to start building stone walls.
Specialization is for some of us- but has never been for me (despite the fact that I have a number of advanced degrees in science). Perhaps there is some genetic drive to be generalists or specialists. I suspect there is a gene for those 5% who are always early adaptors.
You had me until the last -- dying is not my idea of fun.
I tell you three times; the future is more complex than you can imagine.
Dinna frash thyself Billy I think he crossed that last bit off the list at the last moment, though considering what that complex future might hold maybe we will change our attitude about what's fun. Sorry to be so dour but we have been snowbound for four days and haven't completed shopping for the last of the old fashioned Christmases we will likely have as mindless consumers.
Maybe I grew up reading too much Heinlein, but that is probably what leaves me receptive to what is offered here. As for the list, I can do all but the sonnet to some decent degree, and for that I substitute a mean Haiku. Technically, I can only guess and hope at the dying point.
I agree on both counts, some specialization is needed, but that specialization has gone berserk. (doctor, it's my left toe. oh, I'm a right toe specialist -- you'll have to see somebody else.)
Not only local barter and markets, but also joint enterprises. My daughter lives on a communal farm in W Va. There's enough people to have some specialization even there. But they also do a lot of bartering with neighbors. Another advantage of the commune is that they share of lot of facilities, and therefore consume a teeny fraction of the resources that the same number would living in suburb or even a city. It's a good way of life, though maybe not to everyone's liking. But then again, the future we have to adjust to is not going to be to everyone's liking.
Jason's article (and others like it) are highly germane.
I would not agree with the argument that being able to grow 30 different kinds of vegetables is overly generalized.
On the other hand, I would argue that only knowing how to grow one kind of vegetable is over specialized.
Maybe I missed something, but I don't disagree. I would argue that knowing how to grow umpteen different vegetables, raise turkeys, build and run greenhouses, build ponds, stock them with fish, plus build houses and cabinets, etc, is not too generalized. Like my kid brother, who's no kid, does. (I can kill a plant by simply looking at it.)
Yeah, I was just backing up what you said.