Nourishing Bites | Defining Our Future
Room to Spread Your Wings | The April Joy Farm flock.
Farm Fresh. If you close your eyes and say these words, what comes to mind? Sunny, vibrant green pasture? Freely roaming, bright, healthy animals? Clean air and water and soil?
Does chain link fencing or denuded, hard packed dusty earth, or cacophony of animals or the acrid ammonia smell of too-much-in-one-place manure come to mind?
Of course not.
Early this summer two signs up the road appeared advertising, “Farm Fresh Eggs” for sale. The chickens are penned in a very small, dirt/gravel area. There is not a blade of grass, let alone pasture access. Whenever I drive by, I think to myself, “Where’s the farm?”
In my mind, the definition of a farm begins and ends with stewardship, not how to make a quick buck with as little work as possible.
Farmers intuitively know their own well-being, and the well-being of their community depends on the well-being of the land and animals they care for. Any kid who has made it through 4-H understands this principle. If your animals are sick, poorly treated, badly fed, densely packed on the land, then the meat, eggs, milk or fiber they produce will be unhealthy for your family, your community, and the land under your care. In my view, true agricultural stewards understand they do not own land, but rather borrow it from future generations.
Because US farmers comprise less than 2% of the population, there is a vast gap in agricultural literacy. Fewer and fewer of us actually know where a farm is, let alone have any sort of a relationship with a family farmer. Without a baseline for which we can judge and measure many food claims, it’s easy to see “Farm Fresh” and take at face value that what you think that means is the same thing as what the provider thinks it means.
There is no sign on the road advertising our farm. Does that mean we are not a farm? Does that make our work less authentic?
I think quite the opposite. It’s the intention that matters most, that defines the work-- the meaning of that work. It’s what is underfoot, in the heart, and infused in the spirit that counts.
Put another way, it is so very easy to only see what we want to see, what is convenient to see, and not what is blatantly false.
***
I just learned that, “Danone, a multinational food company and the owner of Horizon Organic, announced it will terminate contracts next year with all of its organic dairy farmers in Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, and parts of New York. They are replacing these farms with huge Western CAFOs [Confined Animal Feed Operations] capable of producing milk more cheaply. This will leave the New England farmers without buyers for their milk.”
The email note, written by Linley Dixon and Dave Chapman of the Real Organic Project, went on to say discouragingly, “Danone, the company that owns Horizon, is a B Corp. That means they are publicly dedicated to the triple bottom line. They have claimed that they will be motivated by more than profit. They are publicly committed to taking a deeper look at the ways in which their decisions benefit or harm….us, the animals, the water and air, our planet. In their own words: “As a Certified B Corporation®, Danone North America is committed to the creation of both economic and social value, while nurturing natural ecosystems through sustainable agriculture.”
Really? Are they?
And yet turning their backs on 79 family farms, to support industrialized Confined Animal Feed Operations that pollute our water and soil and create unconscionable animal welfare issues does not give the corporate leadership at Danone any pause.
Hmm.
Reminds me of the deep irony of the signs at the entrances to subdivisions. Kennedy, Greely, Erickson. All named after what has been removed.
Whenever I drive by these tombstones, I think to myself, “Does anyone ever ask, where is the farm?” Now that may be a rhetorical question, but have you ever stopped to think why developers intentionally use the word farm? What comes to mind? Sunny, vibrant green pasture? Freely roaming, bright, healthy animals? Clean air and water and soil? A community foundation of stewardship?
As we all know, just because big signs or fancy words proclaim something, does not make it true. It’s time to apply this logic to our food system. As with so many important things, it is crucial we look past the hyperbole and towards intention. What is the motivation behind the facade?
The closer you are to those who produce your food, the easier it is to discern. But this is not always possible or realistic. So many of us organic farmers have come together to make sure our voice and your choices are not overrun by agribusiness greed. We are very proud to be certified by the Real Organic Project even as we are frustrated that this is a necessary step to protect the integrity of our work.
An interviewer asked my brother-in-law, “When did you become a farmer?” He responded, “A farmer is not something I became. I was born a farmer. It is who I am.”
We’re not trying to be something we aren’t to make a sale. Our work is transparent. Our love for our land and our community is a labor of service. Agriculture is the basis of our culture. This is just who we are.
***
Danone’s betrayal is deeply troubling, but communties deciding that food and agricultural literacy are crucial for all young learners gives me hope.
What else gives me hope?
Thinking about all the kids in our CSA program who have been coming to the farm literally since before they were even born. Children who are growing up knowing a working farm, knowing farmers, knowing the definition of good food, grown with love.
For three years now, one of our CSA members has been planting and tending a garden and caring for a flock of chickens. Each year, he keeps learning and growing and loving his little plot of land. At pickup, he asks great questions and is always excited to be at the farm. Just this summer, with the help of his family, he put up a new white sign on a little red shed.
“CJs FARMSTAND” it says.
I don’t know about you, but that looks pretty fresh to me. ~AJ
CJ’s Farmstand