It has come to my attention that most have no idea what farming in small America really looks like.

It looks something like this:

I grew up as a small farmer, and the idea of living any other way never occurred to me. Yes, I had hopes and aspirations to go off and study to do amazing things, but never with the idea that I would do them without farming. Attorney farmer, Interior Designer farmer, Paralegal farmer, FBI farmer…

Once a Farmer Always a Farmer?

Even when I went off to school to the big city, I claimed I was a farmer. And then when I got my first job, I still claimed I was a farmer. It was never intentional, just my sole identity. Like when people say I am Mexican or, I am white….I would say, “I am a Farmer.” Of course my idea of farming comes from how I grew up. A family of six in a small town just scraping by in a difunctional family. We worked hard and gained little. Yet the rewards of outdoor life were endless. That was my narrow vision of farming. It is only recently that I have a better understanding of what being a “small” farmer actually looks like. And I am hoping to share it with you all the best I can.

What’s the Difference?

There are BIG farmers like farmers that have 500+ acres (some of them call themselves small farmers, not in my book.) and there are corporate farms. These types of farms have a different story than I want to focus on in this blog. I will explain why.

Big farmers operate on a different level by different rules completely. Taxes are different, some are corporations that own 1000’s of acres, and it is all about the numbers not the actual product. Not for small farmers. Of course there are some small farmers that operate this way but not very many. I will be talking about 500 and below farms.

Run Down

Lately I have been getting discouraged. I am very over worked and very underpaid. I drive down the road and look over at other peoples orchards with 5 sometimes 10 or more men working in an orchard pruning or harvesting. And then I find myself the very next day doing the same thing these 10 men are doing but by my little ole self. It hit me harder this year for multiple reasons. The main being there is just more work than usual because of the rains we got. More growth, more breakage, more walnuts. And I am trying to bring an abandon orchard back to life. That also takes an incredible amount of man power or in my case….ME power. My body is worn out, my mind is holding steady but on the verge of collapse and I feel it everywhere. My point is I do it all alone, not because I want to , but because I have to. With three consecutive years of no pay and going completely through my savings, there is just nothing left. This is where most people hit a wall and have to make a decision; Do I give up and throw in the towel, just walk away on everything that I know and am? Or do I put on my boots, walk out the door and keep on moving but on my own? This is not an easy decision for anyone, and I will spare you of all the factors that go into making this decision. Clearly I decided to keep on keeping on. If you read to the end I will also explain why I don’t just stop.

Basically I am taking care of 50 acres on my own. This means I do the lawn care, gardening (including fruit trees and 3 house gardens), pruning, weed control, irrigation, and literally so much more on my own. We don’t hire a yard service or a pruning service or labor of any sort. When a tractor breaks down I do pay to get it fixed, and things have to work or the system completely breaks. Some things I fix on my own like the mowers or small engine stuff. But things break and that is also a part of farming. Think for a moment as an urbanite or rural homestead how much work it is to take care of your little parcel? Just take a moment to take it all in….Go ahead, I will wait. All the while I see other farmers hire out lawn care services and pretty much everything else. Man, it is so frustration to see this when I am dragging myself just to survive. Yet, I am not the only one. There are many small farmers just like me, mostly men of course.

The reality/issue is two fold. There are farmers that started with a large amount of capitol and are able to keep that momentum going. We are not those people. Second, I come from generations of old school farmers that just farmed to eat. If you operate under 100 acres in any one commodity, then most likely you are doing it on your own.

Then there are the farmers who do specialty crops, diversified crops, or have over 100 acres. These farmers are able to earn enough capitol to hire out most of the work that needs to be done on the regular basis. For example. I visited a small farm (35 acres) in Colusa County, that has 5 regular full time employees. On this 35 acres they grow a large variety of fruit and veggies to sell to the general public, local schools and produce buyers. They have to work hard at securing these contracts for everything they grow, but it has allowed them to have employees for just these 35 acres. They also get income from their “day” jobs. This means they don’t even have to step into their orchards to keep this production going. Yet I am sure they are in their orchard plenty. Not they are able to survive off pensions and their children also benefit from the farm income. This all happened because in the beginning they made good choices to diversify, plan, and secure these contracts all while holding down their day jobs. Pretty cool. And way less stress on their bodies.

This begs the question, why on earth don’t I do that, and all these other farmers that struggle? Wonderful question and one I ask myself all the time, like every day. Why can’t I do that? Here is my reality and many others. I am trapped in a mad web that keeps getting bigger and bigger leading me to a useless end. That was dramatic, but true. I spend so much time trying to keep my orchard going and alive all while not getting paid because the market has been so bad these last 5 years. And before that I was saving as most farmers do because the prices don’t stay high for long. When prices do go up I tend to get things fixed, purchase things I really need or that will make my farm run smoother, and putting the rest away for a crappy day. I have never really been given the opportunity to grow as I would like. And I come from the “just survive” mindset that I was raised with. I have a feeling this is a common mindset in small America. I don’t want to get into numbers, I do however want others (consumers) to understand the world in which their food comes from. Bottom line, it takes a huge investment to grow, to take risks, or to diversify.

THE BREAKDOWN

1. Corporate farms-who still need many people to sweat and work hard to bring you food. Who really is the farmer here?
2. Large farms- who hire out much of their work while making many important decisions that keep the farm running.
3. Small farmers- who have diversified specialty crops and for the most part do their own marketing and a lot of other things (storage, harvest, etc.) in house to keep the price down. (Must have a lot of capitol at the beginning to accomplish this)
4. Small Farmers (All others)- Grow food and produce all the labor on their own, sell to larger middle men and depend on the pricing of others. Sometimes small farmers can Hire part time workers if the market is good

Looking Forward

I hope to one day move past just being a small farmer. I am currently on the road to diversification. Yet I still lack the capitol and this will be my reality unless the price actually reflects what we should be earning as small farmers. I like to think of it like the caste system in India and even the United States. Once you are born into a certain caste, it takes generations to break that, or to more up into a higher caste. Its the reality we as human beings live in and no one is going to come to my rescue despite me dreaming of such an occasion, just like one dreams of winning the lottery.

I am grateful for all that I have and the life I have, but how I am living it is not sustainable on my own body. I ,as a 47 year old cannot keep living like I am 20. Despite the good old social media saying it is possible. No! it is not possible. I have taken steps to move up the ladder and educate myself and children, but moving out of this difficult to handle space has proven one of my greatest challenges.

I have accomplished so much in my years here on earth and I am so very grateful for that, yet it will never be enough to feed my family in the end because when you buy something in the store, there is a complete disconnect from the place your food comes from. And we farmers cannot move forward without public support: Whether it be from Mexico, or Peru, or India or California. People go to the market to buy the essentials and are happy to fill the fridge. The farmer behind it is lost in the mire of the system.

In Conclusion-My Why

Why do I still do what I do despite the challenges that continue to arise and will always be there? This is a question I get pretty regularly, and one that is difficult to explain and understand if you have not lived in my shoes. Easy Answer: I love farming. Long Answer: If you can remember way back in my introduction, farming is my identity. As a third generation farmer, I was bread into this world as a farmer. It was something I grew up doing every day of my growing up years, and when I was away, I still found ways to grow things because for me it was intuitive. I have a lot of pride working the same land that my Polish ancestors worked. I would like to prove that as a female I can do it. (I was told many times I could not.) I would like to prove to myself that I am worthy of such a huge task, and I would like to set an example for my children of what it takes to grow and provide for the family. So although I do not make money (can’t pay the farm taxes in tomatoes sadly) My children benefit from the best food around that not even the nicest restaurants can provide. They see me put the plant in the ground and they eat it 2 months later. They run around in the orchard that they will one day look back on with fondness and with more understanding of what they had, just like I did. Pruning and stacking brush is hard work, work that I love doing under normal circumstances. Farming is my meditation. Farming makes me feel free and empowered. Farming feeds my belly and my soul, so NO, I do not just want to sell the property and move on.

I hope this better explains the what and why of small farmers, and I am sure each small farmer has a uniquely similar story about why they do what they love as well.

For more about small farms in America click here from Time Magazine and if you still want more try this Link for an interesting read about why small family farms don’t work, from the Counter.org

And thanks for making it this far.:)