It's What Farmers Do

October 2014—Another example of “what farmers do.”  As this article says, “An Illinois community came together this week to harvest their neighbor's crop. Here, a look at the kind of sowing and reaping that doesn't involve a crop.”

October 2013:  An Illinois family gets help from neighbors in a time of

crisis.

June 2013: North Dakota farmers came out in force to help a fellow farmer in need. They brought tractors, drills, and a helping hand and planted all day.  (photo--modernfarmer.com)

These types of community actions are common place in rural communities, and the blog below (from several years ago) reflects that spirit--especially in times when tragedy strikes a farm family.

Neighbor is a Verb

Statistics place agriculture near the top when it comes to fatalities on the job.  Regulations and technological advances have helped, but tragedy can strike even when a farmer is simply trying to finish the harvest. Mark Brown of Anita, Iowa, worked his final harvest on October 14.

ushumans.net

Rescuers found him dead under his burning combine. He apparently was trying to unhitch part of the equipment to save some of the machinery from the fire. Brown had sailed around the world in U.S. navy submarines, but he settled on the land, and he became passionate about his family, his faith, and his farm. He also became a statistic in the ledgers of farm dangers.

Mark Brown’s untimely death points out more about agriculture than safety awareness.  As a Des Moines Register article put it, “One of rural Iowa’s greatest traditions was renewed.”  Neighbors arrived with combines, friends prepared food, and at one time, a line of 39 semitrailer trucks stood by to haul grain. The Brown family had 1,400 acres of corn still in the field, and the neighbors made sure the harvest carried on.

I left the Midwest and its rural communities for 25 years, but Dad sent letters with hometown news, and I was relieved to note that even as the farming landscape changed, some of the spirit remained. In the 90s, he wrote, “A few good old boys helped Albert and his two sons combine the rest of his corn while he slows down a bit for some chemo treatments.”  In another letter, he pointed out that “Arden spent much of the week in Des Moines where they’re treating his son for leukemia, so Scott and another neighbor did his chores.” 

Good neighbors bake pies for funerals, deliver sweet corn in the summer, and help roundup cattle that have gone walkabout. The community barn-raising days are mostly gone, but Dad’s letters contained anecdotes about the sharing that occurs in agricultural circles. “Larry and his family lost their house and belongings in a fire but some neighbors let them use the house and all its furnishings while they’re away in Arizona.” Dad pointed out that the ones giving usually got greater rewards from doing the deeds than the recipients did.

Being neighborly is not peculiar to Iowa. No doubt, rural folks around the world have ways of bonding together and helping each other out. Agriculture is a dangerous profession, but for many, it is more of a “family” than a profession.  A few days after her husband’s death, Nancy Brown looked out her kitchen window at four combines harvesting corn and said, “It’s what farmers always do.”  Dan Gogerty,

The Fog of Words: “Factory Farm” Moves from Oxymoron to Connotation

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The term “Factory Farm” was an oxymoron when I grew up decades ago in the Midwest. Factories were for manufacturing. Our farms were for corn, soybeans, hogs, and cattle. The two concepts were in parallel worlds. According to a survey reported in Feedstuffs (click HERE for link), the term still evokes parallel connotations. Although all sides seem to consider it a negative label, they do so for varying reasons. For some, the term represents large facilities where animals suffer, antibiotics are overused, and food safety is an issue. For others, the term is a slur used to generalize about all farm production systems that have moved beyond the old ways.

A non-factory farm is the one I grew up on. Cattle grazed in pastures by small creeks, hogs rooted around in the dust of feed lots, and chickens fluttered around, spreading feathers in small fenced areas. On still summer nights, I heard the hogs on the neighbor’s farm lifting the lids on outdoor grain feeders. Cattle in our pasture moved along in foraging groups and occasionally became truly “free range” when they broke through a weak spot in the fence. Chickens raised an alarm if a fox lingered too long outside the coop.

In reality, most of these farms are gone, replaced by larger family farms or by an agri-business set-up of some type. More grain and animal products are produced now, but which of these can be labeled as a “factory farm”?

A Google search of the term brings nearly half a million hits. Most definitions contain a reference to agribusiness and confinement practices, but opinions vary about size and specific practices. For some, any type of mass-production, when it comes to animals, is wrong. Others are certain that the old ways will not produce enough food to feed growing populations. The key question probably is: No matter what techniques are used, is the producer considering the welfare of the animal and the safety of the consumer? In the end, the farmer needs to answer this.

Factory farm is no longer an oxymoron, but I’m not sure it is yet a dictionary definition either. Many have their own connotations of the word, so the more we communicate about agriculture and solid farming techniques, the better. Research can help. CAST has published several related papers including a recent Issue Paper, Ethical Implications of Animal Biotechnology: Considerations for Animal Welfare Decision Making. Click HERE to access. CAST offers many other science-based publications, most of them free. To check the list, click HERE. Dan Gogerty Oct., 2010

The Green Revolution Evolution: Passing on the Gift

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The Green Revolution comes in many shapes, sizes, and colors. With the World Food Prize conference this week in Iowa, Norman Borlaug’s legacy continues through the efforts of the people and programs honored there, and it turns out that Borlaug’s call to help the hungry has turned into a variety of voices and a chain of helping hands.

One of the co-winners of the World Food Prize, David Beckman, finished his speech to a gathering at Iowa State University Monday night by saying we all need to “give a damn” if we want to end poverty and hunger. The Lutheran minister and President of Bread for the World pointed out that it takes individual activism to enact the big political efforts that help those in need. For example, schools in the hills of Mozambique get built because a member of Congress in the United States worked tirelessly ten years ago to enact debt reduction for impoverished nations. He urged a green revolution that comes in the form of organizing, persuading, and legislating to give people the means to help themselves.

The other co-laureate, Jo Luck, took an organization that sounds more like a 4-H group from a Midwestern town, Heifer International, and led it to prominence as a globally effective resource for the poor and hungry. The organization has helped over 12 million families lift themselves out of poverty, and even though her movement is massive, her green revolution sustains itself with grassroots activities. Donors in one country provide a water buffalo for a women’s group in Nepal; they eventually make enough to send starter money to a needy group in China. The “heifer revolution” comes in the form of bees, trees, rice, and even silkworms.  As one African participant said, when the system flows smoothly, it is like “living waters in the heart.”

The Borlaug CAST Communication Award winner, Dr. Akin Adesina, travels the world and organizes United Nations committees, but like Beckman and Luck, he knows that the real global revolution occurs at the grassroots level—the smallholder farmers. He is passionate about the African Green Revolution, and a prestigious prize only spurs him on in his “mission to ensure that all Africans have access to better food and nutrition.” He went on to say, “When we improve the lives of African farmers, all Africans will benefit.

Borlaug’s Green Revolution succeeded due to scientific discoveries and practical applications. As demonstrated at this year’s World Food Prize forum, huge organizations, political groups, and big companies certainly make an impact, but smallholder farmers may hold the key to the ultimate success of the movement to end hunger. The green revolution may take many forms as it evolves, but in the end, it comes down to hands—hands that are discovering, working, helping, and passing on the gifts of food production.   Dan Gogerty, October 12, 2010

The Essential Harvest

Somewhere in the Southern Hemisphere, a farmer is digging out a cassava plant to use the roots for food and cutting up the stems for planting the next crop. In the Northern Hemisphere, a farmer is performing a similar task with potatoes. From scraping dirt off vegetables to driving massive machines across expansive fields, the harvest is crucial, and with the world’s growing population, food production remains the most important human task.

In this traditional time of harvest, many are still hungry, and the words that acclaimed scientist Dr. Akin Adesina says about his home continent ring true for us all: “It is a mission to ensure all Africans have access to better food and nutrition… We must accelerate a green revolution in Africa.” Dr. Adesina will be in Des Moines, Iowa, on October 13 to receive the prestigious Borlaug CAST Communication Award. But more importantly, he will continue his role as a leader and proponent for agriculture around the world. He knows we need common sense practices that feed people no matter where they are harvesting, whether that might be in his home country of Nigeria or in the fields of central Iowa.

In America’s Midwest, the harvest is occurring now in the cool of shortened days. Farmers in huge machines leave trails of dust across fields of corn and soybeans, and loaded wagons form silhouettes against glowing sunsets. When modern farmers finish the day and leave the relative comfort of the tractor cabs, they smell warm diesel exhaust and hear the drone of grain-bin dryers.

The meaning of “harvest” varies according to place and time.  With modern seed corn and science-fiction like machines, a farmer outside Des Moines can combine hundreds of bushels in a day. But as one old timer recently pointed out, “We’ve hauled nearly as much corn in the past few days as my Uncle Fred harvested during the entire fall of 1939. He hired out to pick corn by hand for a neighbor.  By Thanksgiving, he’d picked 4,400 bushels, and by my reckoning, that’s 260,000 ears, and he did it one ear at a time.  He got paid $175, enough to pay off his car loan.”

Whether farmers are eating their produce or using it to pay off loans, they need to use techniques that make sense for them, the consumers, and the environment. Whether they are bending over in a rice field or handling a $200,000 combine, they ultimately are doing the traditional and essential work of harvesting the crop. As Dr. Adesina says, “Agriculture is the key to poverty reduction and broad-based economic growth.”     by Dan Gogerty