Market Farming

["Del Williams" <delannw AT dlogue.net>]

Ah, I feel for Janet McNally.  I'd hate to see a Great Pyrenees killed by
any wild animal... including the boneheaded idiots who drive past my farm
going 70 down a country road.

But here's a thought for you about considering the value of the "wild"
population of critters.

We have coyotes here.  They regularly nab cats and little dogs.  My friends'
Jack Terrier was killed and pretty much eaten.  I worry about my dogs
(Rottweiler & Shepherd mix) being out too far.  Especially at night.  The
Rot got pretty ripped up last year.  Something took a chunk out of her ass.
Doubt that was a raccoon.  They're pretty vicious when cornered.  Probably a
pack of coyotes got after her.

But, the coyotes control the rabbit population and mice, ground squirrels
and moles.  The coyotes only come around people when they are really
starving.  So I see them out in the fields occasionally and hear them often
at night.  But they rarely come to the homestead.

My Shepard is a mixed dog.  Found her living in a field.  I'd swear that dog
is part coyote.  Her hunting strategy and attack methods are very
coyote-like.  She even has the look to her.  Difficult dog to train but she
is my best watch dog.  Also my best mouser.  Forget the stupid cat.

People do shoot coyotes here.  Not supposed to but they do.

OK, I'll grant you, coyotes aren't wolves.  Nevertheless, wolves have their
own place in the environment.  So do the damn birds who get after my
apricots and strawberries every year.

I think, that when one decides to farm - in whatever specialty one pursues-
deciding that anything that interferes with it must be eradicated when you
by very profession work in the natural world, is shortsighted if not
entirely self centered.

I hate weeding and weed control, but I learned to do it without using
herbicides.

Rick, you have a product that focuses on what is naturally available even
though you have to do the work to maintain the best quality grasslands.

I decided to go organic several years ago and had to learn the ways to
maintain soil fertility and feed the plants.  Hey, the fertilizers my
ex-husband uses at his nursery are primo.  He thought I was nuts. Working to
keep the soil the best paid off.  I worked hard on that.  And even he
appreciated that.  His line of growing is different than what I was doing.
We are all trying to control what we can.  His industry... ornamental
growing.  Different approach but they have their own control issues.

It's all a matter of balancing what we do with where we are and how we want
to be.  I always knew when he was sterilizing greenhouses.  Even with all
the protection steps, he always came home with that Vapam (sp?) look on his
face.  And me wondering how in the hell to wash his clothes.

I live in what I call The Midwestern Chemical Wastedump of Agriculture.  I
understand the method and I understand the madness.  In a county with one of
the highest cancer rates in the entire state of Illinois... I wonder.  What
is going on in the aquifer?

In an area where we have too many children with leukemia, an elevated rate
of brain cancer... how come we aren't thinking about how our agricultural
practices may be producing that?

Why, because profit is more important in the short term?  Hell, several
years ago, they used planes to dump pesticides on this county to eradicate
Japanese Beetles.  Our area is one of the worst areas for infestation now.
And who else got the fallout on that?  Pets?  People?  Where did that stuff
go when it went into the rivers and drainage ditches?

Controlling nature... it's something all of us in farming have to deal with.

I think we ought to consider the consequences of control... not only to
those wild things out there that make farming more challenging, but also to
the logical consequences to ourselves as human beings.

Sometimes we solve a problem only to produce more complex ones.

Del Williams
who was Farmer in the Del
Clifton, IL
delannw AT dlogue.net