Category Archives: FOOD POLITICS & AG-VOCACY

Thoughts on advocacy and politics regarding food-security, food-safety and industrial agriculture.

A word on compassion in farming

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chicken tractor

Omnivorous Complications & Oversimplified Thinking

Along with the rising interest in where our food comes from and how it’s grown, many people are educating themselves about how farm animals are treated. For the most part, I’d say it’s a good thing. Many of our food animals are raised in absolutely unacceptable conditions.

However one consequence of this raised-consciousness is a lot of all-or-nothing, non-sensical thinking. Unfortunately, it’s easy to have black and white opinions when your experience is strictly philosophical.

Now, I’ve had my own misgivings about our omnivorous nature. One of my first jobs was in the kitchen at McDonald’s, and it wasn’t long before I was off meat, doing rock-paper-sizzors with the other vegetarians to be able to work the bun station instead of the grill. Something about regularly coming home smelling like a Big Mac makes one question their meat-eating habits. I figured I’d had a hand in killing enough cows during my tenure at the grill station and didn’t eat any pork or beef for six years.

Since then I’ve returned to eating meat, and we have raised our own fowl for sometime. The first time I came home to find one of my chickens in the crockpot, I cried. I married a man who grew up hunting, and that combined with my experience raising my own protein (although I admit I’m still too squeamish to do the deed – I’ll get there) has changed my attitude towards meat in general, and I can now truly understand how complicated the issue is.

When Good Intentions Go Wrong : Why abolitionists and farm animal sanctuaries miss the point

Lots of folks look at the horror of industrial animal production and believe the answer is to not eat meat altogether. This is completely understandable and natural. I have a deep respect for people who choose to abstain from meat and animal products. However, the abolitionist vegan point of view is underpinned by a major misunderstanding of sustainable farming, and the nature of farm animals in general.

If we want to get rid of all the harmful trappings of industrial agriculture, farm animals, FOOD animals, are an essential component of a small-scale, sustainable, deep-organic, ecologically sane food system. A small, essentially closed-loop farm like we aspire to be, requires an on farm source of soil-nutrition. Animals serve this purpose with simplicity, elegance and grace. This is how nature functions, and how our farms should, too.

Our animals not only provide us with essential manure and nutrients for the soil, they turn the soil, break pest cycles, harvest sun energy via the pastures, store that energy in their bodies, provide supplemental protein like eggs, renovate our pastures, manage potentially invasive weeds, turn our waste products into food and beautiful manure.

Our animals are here BECAUSE WE EAT THEM. The heritage breeds of chickens we raise have been bred for over 100 years to elegantly meet the needs of farmers just like us. If we didn’t eat them, they wouldn’t exist. Putting them away on a farm animal sanctuary robs them of their purpose and turns what could be a productive, purposeful life into one of consumption only.

My chickens live a good life. They are loved and well-fed. They are allowed to express their chicken-ness, breathe fresh air, eat green grass, preen, scratch for bugs, take dust baths, enjoy the companionship of other chickens, sleep in the sun. When it comes time for them to grace our table, we will enjoy them having a full-understanding and deep respect for the life that was given in order to sustain ours.

Death is an Essential Part of Life

We are all meant to live and die. Even I will be lunch one day. My body will feed the worms and the soil I will have lovingly tended all my life. We can see death as cruel and grotesque or as perfectly elegant and unwasteful. I prefer the later.

This simple truth of life – that everyone dies so that someone else may live, is a difficult one for us to face in modern society, and by our not facing it, we have convinced ourself that it is not true. This basic misconception about the nature of life can only have a negative impact on both our own lives and the quality of life of those around us. We must come to terms with it before we will learn to truly respect and honour life as a whole.

A word from Joel Salatin on Compassion in Farming

Joel Salatin is one of our guiding-inspirations here at the farm. We have been fortunate enough to meet Joel on a couple of occasions and even lucked out and got to eat dinner with him at one conference.

If you have watched Joel on YouTube, I can tell you he is exactly like that in person. Some who aren’t so ah – evangelical? about their farming practices might find him over the top (and he kind of is) but if you are passionate about food and farming, you will find him one of the most uplifting, inspiring people you will ever meet. He has a can-do attitude and doesn’t mince his words. You know where you stand when you’re talking to Joel.

Here’s the note from Joel:

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reflection and renewal

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It has been a long winter here on Coghlan Cottage Farm.

We have had not one, but two, Pineapple Expresses in the last few weeks. Seems to me they’d be a lot more fun if they involved more pineapple, less rain. All told the two storms, one week apart, brought us nearly 12 inches of rain, on top of “regular” storms that have been regularly leaving us with 2-5 inches each.

Even for a native “Wet” Coaster like me, that’s a lot to take.

We’ve also had something like 60% less sunshine than normal this winter. Gah.

Add to that a lovely bout of morning sickness and a boy heading solidly into the terrible twos . . . Oh yes. It has been a long winter.

However.

Here we are, the end of March, and I’m sitting on the lawn in a tank top with my pant legs rolled up, dog asleep under my chair, listening to Bob Dylan and nursing the last of my latte, watching my son getting more and more filthy by the minute.

Suddenly overflowing rain-gauges and weeks without sun seem a distant memory.

Instead of writing this winter, I’ve taken a break to read. Wendell Berry, Wes Jackson and Masanobu Fukuoka have been filling me with inspiration and encouragement and reassurance that I am not mad and I am on the right path.

Since moving to the country, holding the seed of what will become our farm in the palm of my hand, has required me to face the reality that faces so many others in our position. Although we hold the dream of what farming can be in our mind’s eye, the reality is, we are facing HUGE challenges. Agriculture as it is would rather not make room for us.

From ridiculously expensive quota systems, unwieldy rules and regulations and a food system that is not designed to accomodate small cottage-industries like the one we dream of, the stakes are stacked against us.

Our neighbours see themselves as hobby farmers, and so does most of the agricultural system. I don’t know why but that moniker rubs me the wrong way. That’s not what I want to do here, but in the eyes of the agri-industry, that’s all that’s possible on five acres like ours.

It pisses me off.

The lack of vision, the lack of imagination that permeates our food system drives me crazy, but I have to remember that in the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.

My lack of formal “agricultural” training, is what allows me to look at this lovely bit of land, love it, and know that by loving it and using it well, I can and will make a farm here. And a living, god dammit!

Anyway . . . I’ve been feeling admittedly down about the state of affairs and the challenges facing us, but its funny how just a little sun can change your perspective.

We have lots of friends and family, friends of friends and neighbours who support what we’re trying to do. Although it seems like a humungous task now, we will get this farm back on track. We’ll win the war against the blackberries, one day the stream will end in a flourishing pond full of fish, we’ll nurse the soil back to health, mend the fences, and tackle the seemingly endless list of things to do, one by one.

As the silly saying goes – you eat an elephant one bite at a time.

I guess we have to look at the state of our food systems the same way we look at the farm. It’s a mess, but we’ll get there. One step at a time.

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the agricultural fair and why I’m not a capital F farmer

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So we hit the biggest ag fair in Western Canada last weekend. What a jaw dropper.

You know, it’s something to intellectually understand that there’s a reason farmers don’t consider me to be one of them, and it’s another thing to stand next to a farming machine as big as my house that probably costs about the same.

Puts things in perspective.

The agricultural fair was full of boys and their dads, with equally wide grins, clambering all over all type of farm machinery imaginable. It was lovely, and my boy and his dad were no exception . . . but . .

In truth, I found the entire thing sort of sad.

In between tractors and harvesters and gigantic machines of mysterious purpose were chemical companies and all sorts of things that, for me, have no place in food production. Machines with weight and wheels that I can’t imagine allowing on soil . . . I went into a little panic thinking about the compaction they must cause. Who would let that on their precious soil?

And then I got thinking about the size of fields that demand machines that size . . . I duno. It was all very strange.

I also realized that there is very little space for people like me in this industry, as it stands. I found my favourite seed company and a tiny booth containing the organic certification folks, other than that  . . . holy smokes.

Eye opening.

Talking to one government agency just trying to figure out where our tiny farm will fit in terms of regulation and all that, and as soon as I mentioned pastured poultry – Ooooh you have to talk to Dr. So-and-so. You’ll have WAY more health and illness problems if they’re outside. (As opposed to a gazillion birds crammed together in their own poop? What?)

Reading some of the literature we picked up, there are conversations about “elitist organic farmers” being “selfish” in trying to block GMO’s.

Sigh.

Made me realize that I will never be a Farmer-farmer. It’s not in me.

I’m not sure what we will call what we do here, or if the Farmers will ever recognize it as farming. I don’t want to call myself a “hobby” farmer like most of my neighbours do . . . Surely there’s a space between stamp-collecting and producing nourishing food.

Maybe we’ll have to come up with an entirely different term to define ourselves.

Maybe it’s good that there’s no place for us in the capital-F farming world. Maybe it’s better to start fresh.

 

 

scoop and nuke : a lesson from wee ones in the kitchen

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This morning as usual, I asked my son what he wanted for breakfast – eggs, oatmeal or homemade granola and yogurt.

He answered “eggies”, then grabbed a big ladle and ran around the kitchen hollering

Scoop and Nuke! Scoop and Nuke! SCOOP! AND! NUKE!

Ah. Yikes.

Of course I burst out laughing. He’s never said “Scoop” or “Nuke” before . . . but clearly he’s been paying attention to his parents in the kitchen.

I do a ton of batch cooking and leftover nights in our house are universally known as Scoop and Nuke.

This morning’s hilarious outburst got me thinking about how things would be different if we had a different food culture in our house.

He just as easily could have been hollering for a Happy Meal.

Before I became a mum I intellectually understood that kids were little sponges, but it wasn’t until I had E that I really started to understand what that means for day-to-day life.

We involve E a lot in the kitchen. As soon as he sees me get the mixing bowl out he’s dragging the kitchen chair across the room pleading in his irresistible little voice “Helping?”

He knows how to grind the morning coffee, season food by sprinkling things from “high in the sky”, stirs, dumps and counts every baking project, and has even stirred on the stove. He is the family friday night pizza man, lazagna-layerer, grocery store helper, Mama’s perennial sous chef.

He absolutely loves it, cries when we’re done and takes a ridiculous amount of pride in telling his Dad “Me made it!”

More and more I’m realizing this isn’t necessarily the norm.

I’ve been a mum long enough now to start getting to know other mums and to be developing what I sense will be a deep-seated, life-long sense of self-doubt about my parent skills and style. Lots of my friends don’t allow their kids in the kitchen, feed them a different menu than the rest of the family at a different time and place than the adults. They aren’t allowed to use real cutlery, plates or glasses.

Their children eat dinner quietly at the table by themselves.

They must look at our messy, sometimes chaotic dinner time and think I’m crazy.

E eats what we eat, and has done from day one. This has met with lots of gasps and tisks but it’s worked for me. The same people who gasp and tisk are equally surprised when E sits down and devours a plate of fish, asks for second helpings of broccoli or happily gnaws away on a turkey leg.

It’s not perfect.

He claws at his tongue and cries TOO SPICY when I make spicy curry, and his appetite ebbs and flows with growth spurts and new teeth. Learning motor skills means the floor beneath his chair has to be swept and scrubbed after every meal.

But E is learning to how to be part of a conversation, how to take his turn telling “stories” about his day, how to share, how to enjoy new experiences, the names of various fruits and veggies, how to use a knife and fork, how to use his manners, how to take pride in doing something for others.

He also has three opportunities a day to be with his parents and be a sponge, for better or for worse. This morning reminded me that what we say isn’t as important as what we do everyday.

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.” – Aristotle

GMO food dialogues : AKA sh*t that makes me crazy

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Ok – fair warning. I feel a rant post coming on.

So, a while back I find myself supposed to be working, but I check in to twitter for the first time in ages and see a #FoodD hashtag with some interesting tweets.

Now, I’m totally out of the loop regarding the goings-on in agriculture in the great wide world at the moment. Usually I work hard to stay informed; right now I’m too busy trying to actually farm to keep up on arguments about farming. Apparently there’s a big panel discussion going on and they’re getting my goat.

You can watch the dialogue at Food Dialogues website here.

Gah.

What the heck is the matter with people???? Seriously.

Next thing I know I’m madly tweeting my frustration to the world. Yep. I was one of those people.

Double GAH.

Here’s the thing. Prop 37 was defeated. I haven’t had the heart to read about the details why. It’s too depressing.

And here these folks are, saying GMO’s are safe, it’s just a personal choice, it’s too expensive to label and separate GMO’s from seed to table blah-blabbty-blah.

Here’s the problem with the dialogue about GMO’s.

I’m not going to get into all the gobbly-gook science and B.S. comparison measures they use. Let’s get to the core of it.

This whole “Food Dialogue” carried an overwhelming patronizing tone towards consumers who choose non-GMO foods. Like knowing parents tolerating a petulant child at the dinner table. It infuriates me.

The assumption (which I don’t think is actually their assumption, I think they know the truth, but this is a convenient position for them to take) is that we are only against GMO’s because we have this (mistaken) view that GMO’s are bad for our health if we eat them.

Not a single soul addressed the two real issues at the core of the GMO debate:

1) Should any private corporation, or ANYONE have the right to OWN genetic material?

2) These genes CANNOT be contained.

One tweep, clearly from the mainstream ag world, said us Non-GMO folks shouldn’t push our personal preferences on farmers or other consumers.

To which I replied – What about GMO crops contaminating farmer’s fields??? How is that not “pushing personal choice” on others??? And then turn around and sue him for patent infringement? I mean WTF????

The fact that neither of these issues even came up, despite the twitterverse hollering at the moderator at the top of our lungs, says a lot about the conversation and who controls it.

The whole paradigm held by the pro-GMO troop underlines for me the problems with GMO and modern ag in general – the main pro-GMO guy said: Agriculture is not nature.

Except that it is.

Although we fancy everything related to human existence as apart from nature, we know that is hubris. (I hope we know that is hubris, maybe we don’t.) We don’t live and farm in a bubble. These choices have implications which we cannot even begin to fathom.

We might be able to increase the production of certain crops for the short-term. We might also inadvertently reduce our long-term capacity to produce food by permanently depleting and contaminating the genetic code of our food crops.

I don’t know what the answer is. I don’t know how we shift the conversation to the real issues. I think in the long-run, the best thing we can do is demonstrate that small-scale organic farming can be productive, build soil, sequester carbon and maintain genetic biodiversity all while feeding the world.

The only way to get rid of these guys is to prove them unnecessary.

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