Farm Visits and the Farm Bill

It has been really fun exploring Albany and finding places to eat, play, and hang out like Washington Park, Bombers, The Daily Grind and Nia/Yoga Studio. A friend from Cornell is here for the summer too, so its really nice to have someone to hang out with (the pic is from dinner at El Loco). Friday was an excellent day! Lee and I traveled to three different farms in Schoharie County with a few other people from Soil and Water and Cornell Cooperative Extension. They are putting on a sort of seminar/class/training to educate new employees about agriculture and conservation. As part of the training, people will travel to these three farms and learn from the farmers and educators. 


The first farm we visited was a small dairy, conventional, and they grow all of their own hay and had Holstein cows. They had a really interesting manure management system with a lagoon and a pump and it is something they will talk about a lot during the training. The farm had three very adorable dogs running around. Also! We had to wear plastic boots on each farm for bio-security reasons to make sure we did not transport anything from farm to farm. They are pretty funny looking, they make a lot of noise when you walk around, and they are like a mini sauna on a hot day, but they are necessary. 

The second farm was a very very small dairy (they were milking about 35 cows) and they were only a few years into production. They are totally organic and mostly grass fed cows, and what was interesting is variety in the types of breeds they had like Dutch Belted mixed with Holsteins and Jerseys. They sold their milk to a co-op and also a yogurt company in the area. It was a gorgeous farm, and the family was definitely working really hard to make it happen, but they seemed happy. It was interesting to hear the story of one owner who had worked as an occupational therapist and was intrigued by the links between the kids problems and their diets. Many of them were on gluten fee or dairy free or sugar free diets, and she wanted to get back closer to the source of food and become a producer for her own kids. 

The third farm was called Sap Bush Hollow Farm  and I found their operation to be the most interesting. They do completely grass-fed meat, including lamb, beef, pork, and poultry. They are in a super hilly area and they graze the animals on gorgeous pastures that are super steep. They have a license to do all of their own processing and meat cutting for the chicken, and it was really cool to hear the steps in the process. They have a great business model, with a premium product, at a high (but totally appropriate) price and they do mostly direct marketing. Some of their customers come from other states even, and there was one story of a woman from CT coming three times a year and filling her car with meat for her family and friends. So awesome. They have a gorgeous farm and happy animals and a really great set-up for selling at home. They also sell wool and organic honey, candles, soaps and other products they make with the animal products. They also had a llama and an alpaca to guard the sheep. Sweet. 

Being on all of these farms reminded me of why I am so interested in agricultural science and the policy behind it. These people work so hard every day and most are doing it because they love it. Of course there are ups and down, like when one of the dogs on the first farm swam across the poo lagoon, or on the second farm when they realized they had a lot of pasture that needed to be rejuvenated (seed and soil wise) or on the last farm when one of the beef cows got out and was lost for three days. I love the simplicity in the way of life, and getting to be outside all the time. So I have also been trying to keep up with the Farm Bill (S. 3240) news because its up for reauthorization and it sounds like its moving pretty slowly through the process. Currently there are 247 proposed amendments that need to be sorted out and the big issue is making sure the bill moves forward. For 2012 it is called the Agriculture Reform, Food and Jobs Act. I found a really great visual after reading an NPR article about the Farm Bill, and it outlines some of the issues with the legislation pretty well - here it is.  The farm bill is an omnibus bill that started after the great depression with FDR during the New Deal Programs. It has evolved over the years into a multi-faceted piece of legislation that has over 1000 pages and 15 different titles that cover everything from food stamps to crop subsidies to conservation programs and international food aid. In my opinion many of the issues we are dealing with in this country - obesity, lack of jobs, over spending, are all interconnected. Our current food system does not support the crops that nutritionists recommend for us to be healthy - mainly fruits and vegetables - and like the woman on the second farm noted, we are also dealing with insurmountable health impacts of our diets. We have huge environmental issues cased by farming practices that ignore the earth, we have monocultures and associated issues with resilience on farms. When the Farm Bill first came around, people grew many crops, and used some fertilizer, and now people grow one crop and use much more fertilizer. Additionally we have fewer and fewer farms and farmers with more focus on yield. As our food becomes less and less local, and we lose our connections with farming, there is less knowledge and awareness of farming and where our food comes from. When have a system where the biggest most money making farms get the most subsidies and those that make the least and need it get the least subsidies, it is definitely broken. The last farm we visited really gave me hope because they are thriving and doing well by the animals and the earth, and giving customers a product that they can't get other places. One thing that I know I hope to do in life is help people become excited about food, to know where it comes from, how to cook it, that it can bring so much joy to our lives. If you want to learn more about the Farm Bill, there are some amazing resources out there - Food Fight: A Citizens Guide to the Food and Farm Bill is GREAT, their website has some good basic info. The American Farmland Trust also does a lot of great work, and they have a website dedicated to farm bill information. Grist also has some great articles.