Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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Redefining 'family farm'
2003-11-14 13:16:47.0
by Katie Dallam-Pratt
http://www.agriculture.com/default.sph/agNotebook.class?FNC=ArticleList__Aar
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"Because 'family farm' means something different than it did 20 years ago."

It's fitting that I read that statement in the city. I'm a farmer's wife
and career woman playing the waiting game at Chicago's O'Hare
International Airport. I spent 25 years as a farmer's daughter and now one
month as a farmer's wife. We are as much family now as were our
great-great
grandparents who scratched a living from this industry 100 years ago. We
farm as much now, if not more than our ancestors. 'Family farm' means
something different? While common sense understands the statement's
implication, I still wish the experts and advertisers would leave one
definition alone, one truth -- or fallacy -- on which we can hang our
hearts.

Through the years, albeit not many, I have watched change plow through our
business, at times with no warning, bringing with it wealth or wrath.
Change has dictated the loss of independence but built a stronger sense of
community and cooperative partnership. Change has removed one farm but
invested in several young entrepreneurs. In spite of change, we are still
family, and we still farm -- with an overwhelming awareness of the issues.

The truth about change

The information age gives us facts and statistics, experts' opinions, and
survey results. We find ourselves drowning in the reality of 21st century
agriculture, treading away from the reasons our ancestors chose to farm
and the reasons we chose to follow in their paths. In our awareness, we
can dwell too much on the 'good ole days,' throwing ourselves into
melancholy reflection when the market drops, Smithfield purchases another
100,000 hogs, and Brazil adds another million bushels to their soybean
empire. That 'good ole days' mentality allows us to believe that some of
the simple truths of agriculture have disappeared. If we could just swim
to the top we would discover that one truth remains -- 'family farm' means
the same as it did 20, 30, even 100 years ago.

After twenty years of independent hog production, my father changed,
contracting with a farrowing operation from down the road. He still begins
the day with chores, though, caring for the hogs, caring for our cattle.
He still plants, tills, fertilizes, and harvests, no longer dealing
primarily with No. 2 corn and acres of soybeans. This year he
double-cropped an edible pea crop, and he has dabbled in food-grade corn
and beans, baling straw, 'itty bitty' decorative bales, and alfalfa for
sale to area horse owners. My mother, brother, sister and I -- and now two
son-in-laws -- pitch in where needed; the necessity for family on the farm
will never change.

My father-in-law farms so that his sons can work with him and that one day
their children can enjoy agricultural life and learn to raise livestock
and nurture crops. He started with little, but a grand business plan and
willingness to adapt has brought him success with his family at his side.

The way we farm is different. The how and why, the where and when has
varied, yet we are still family and still committed to producing food and
fiber for world consumption. Although that idealistic goal flies in the
face of the business experts in the crowd, although it reads too
simplistic for our level of industry awareness, we need a certainty, a
stable floor on which to drop anchor. Let's not tinker with the very
ideology that is the foundation of our industry and our link to consumers'
social conscious.

Whether 20 years past or 20 years tomorrow, a farm family is joined by
blood and by love. They savor the sunrise and thrive on unpredictable
schedules, markets, and weather. They are satisfied with a job well done
because often that satisfaction is their only pay, and they ask nothing of
those fed and clothed by their hardwork. They live the business of farming
as their way of life.

Call it rhetoric. Call it myth. Just let me have one constant for the next
twenty years.