Farming Ideas, More Fodder for Call-In
As stewards of the land, farmers often debate the best methods and practices for healthy production. As business people, farmers also debate our national food system. That includes how their products are distributed as well as the role of government regulations and subsidies. With a keen ear to the farm bill deliberations and to contribute to tomorrow’s Farmer’s Under 40 call-in at 11 a.m., here are three farmers talking about the national issues they are concerned about.
Travis McKnight on King Corn
“There are a lot of other methods to get ethanol that have been tested and are successful. It’s just going to take a few years probably to get that going. I think ethanol is here to stay but they might have to cut the production back a little bit,” McKnight said.
“Ethanol drives up all grains. Farmers don’t want to grow soybeans or cotton anymore, even tobacco, because now they can get more money growing corn.
“About a third of the United States corn production is exported. 30 to 40 percent of what’s left here in the United States is going to ethanol.
“So I think you are going to see that possibly come to a head here maybe in the next five to ten years.”
Travis McKnight is the next generation of McKnight’s to run his family’s River Breeze Dairy, a CAFO of 1,100 dairy cows. He was interviewed for a story on farming economics.
Todd Asselin on Government Regulation
“We need to loosen the belt of regulation. I don’t want to sound negative, but there are so many laws out there that are driven by corporate industry and it takes away from the small farmer because you can’t afford to meet those requirements,” Asselin said.
“On-farm processing is a prime example. The amount of money that we would have to put in to have a state-inspected on-farm processing facility here is pretty high. Not only that, let’s say I would want to do a value added product. Everything has to be USDA inspected. Now once I take that next step to USDA it’s out of my league, I can never afford that. I can never produce enough to justify the government sending a USDA inspector to my farm. It won’t happen.
“I realize that those rules and those laws are out there for safety purpose and that but how many articles are in the newspapers or on the nightly news about a local farmer that tainted his community with salmonella or e. coli? You don’t hear it. It’s always these large massive producers.”
Todd and Michelle Asselin, self-proclaimed workaholics, run Harmony Hills Farmstead between their day jobs. They raise free range hogs, chickens, rabbits, and beef cattle with “natural” methods and don’t use pesticides or growth hormones. They were interviewed for a farming economics story which compared their operation to the McKnight’s.
David Rice on Regional Distribution
“I think what we haven’t done in this country is strong regional production, marketing and support systems. We could be a breadbasket here for New York City and other metropolitan areas. Really we should be subsidizing local production and regional production to get the food into schools, hospitals, and institutions. Building that regional network,” Rice said.
“The regional system would be fairly large. North Country Grown Cooperative sells to St. Lawrence University and several other institutions and I think that’s still fairly small compared to what I’m talking. Some of that [liability insurance] cost would fall on the farmers but there’s a layer of management and distribution that I think would that really fall on them.”
David Rice runs Sweet Core Farm, growing vegetables without pesticides. Rice said he is no longer certified organic because he maintains a trusting and personal relationship with his customers. Rice was interviewed at the Canton Farmers’ Market.
Good stuff…..I’ve been saying for years now that there has to be a business opportunity for a regional distribution system for locally grown food and value added goods. So much so that I’ve run the idea by a close friend of mine who owns a trucking company here in Lewis County. Her company ships manufactured goods all across the country and she simply is too busy, too close to retirement, and isn’t interested in pursuing more risk to her company at this stage in her life. Still, I’m curious if companies such as Renzi’s in Watertown haven’t considered such an endeavor. Maybe I’m wrong and there simply isn’t a large enough market at present. Hopefully that will change as the movement to locally grown food grows larger and larger.
I dunno Clap. The age old problem in NNY is that we’re a month or 6 weeks behind PA, NJ, Md, etc. That makes a big difference to food processors and suppliers. They want it ASAP because the consumer wants it ASAP. I’d love to believe that people would start “going local” but my gut tells me it’s going to take a fair upheaval to cause that. And when you add in that people are used to strawberries in December, corn on the cob in January, watermellon and apples year round… it’s going to take some major league salesmanship to get folks to eat seasonal. Or you could scare them into it too I suppose.
On the meat end the problem appears to be both processing and marketing. Truthfully, I can send my lambs to New Holland Pa and get a much better price than anywhere in NY, even with the trucking. And locally in St Law Co it’s becoming crazy to try and sell through the local auction barns when you can send them to Lowville and get half again as much or more!
So pessimism aside, I think that some sort of regional co-operative would be a good start. (IIRC past efforts have failed due to internal politics and personalities). There’s the possibility that might help. We should be looking at local cheese production too. Heritage made some really good cheeses, as did Plum Brook before them. The knowledge and raw material is there, it’s marketing it and maintaining a decent profit that that’s the issue. The “real farmer” interest in this area would be in dairy. God knows where your milk actually comes from- Illinois, California, Texas, Florida? The day of Farmer Jones down the road selling his milk to the Hometown Dairy and getting this mornings milk for supper are long gone. No flavor, no color, no difference except in which one has more of a “plastic” taste. When is the last time anyone actually saw golden Guernsey milk? It actually has a gold tint to it. Real Jersey milk does too. We don;t even know what cream tastes like or real butter. That garbage they sell as “butter” in the store tastes worse than margarine!
Ah, don’t get me going. Maybe a co-operative would help. I know lower taxes and modified regulations would at the farm end.