Market Farming

["Rick Williams" <mrfarm AT frontiernet.net>]

Steve Sando wrote:
> You've stated your case, very well at times, but it's starting to drive me
> nuts when I see your name popping up in my Inbox. Don't worry, I
> know how to
> delete but I think your quantitiy of posts is diluting whatever
> message you
> have. I'm not trying to be funny, but I don't see how anyone
> could read them
> all, let alone think abut them and write them.

It takes little time to read ... it takes a lot of time to write well.

> And of course it enters my mind, how successful you can be if you have so
> much free time to campaign the rest of us to your point of view?  How can
> you be farming and marketing, too? I hope you are doing well but I think
> you'd do even better if convincing the rest of us on this group that your
> opinions are right was a slightly lower priority in your life.

These are not necessarily my opinions on the main issue of late. I am
primarily trying my best to explain the FB organization and how it works.
When I try to keep it short I am criticized for not getting specific. When I
get specific I have folks like you criticizing the amount of material:) It
is not easy being in the middle sometimes.

I have a full time job off the farm and so am gone most weekdays for 10
hours or so. Judy quit her off farm job several years ago. She puts in a
pretty full day of farming chores and activities plus the things that she
wants to do for fun. Although we can not replace the income, we feel it is
worth it because we are secure enough to be able to afford it. I will
usually put in an hour or so after work during the week with chores. During
the weekend it varies a lot. Today it was in and out a number of times,
visit by my 86 year old mother, working on some "getting ready for winter"
stuff, etc.

Pretty typical weekend along with the Saturday Farmer's market. Now about
the chore time. We primarily make our farm income from direct marketing
Jersey beef, handling a few dairy heifers, selling a small amount of produce
at the farmers market now including our beef (I plan to post on that), also
some stocker cattle.

How much time does it take to handle the beef part? Not much. That is why
you need about 1,000 stocker cattle if you are operating a commodity beef
stocker ranch. We have only 150+ acres so do not want to do this. Remember,
with stockers, some years you will actually lose money:(

With our kind of place, once you get through the first few years of setting
up cattle handling facilities, fencing, lanes, water system, and conversion
from row crops, it is not that labor intensive. The marketing is the biggest
part of our time now. The produce production is more of an extension of a
large home garden really with surplus to sell. As you know, one can fill
every working hour of every day with "work", but having off time is
important too. On thing that I do not do is watch TV on a regular basis. And
I am a pretty fast typist, although I make my share of typos:)

> I value your opinion and I'm not trying to "bait" you but you seem to be
> getting frustrated by our responses.

When the Farm Bureau is repeatedly attacked and little is said other than
how they only support big agriculture, etc, etc. I suppose I could just sit
back. But that is not easy for me to do. If you were on a list and you were
being attacked for being a market farmer, I suspect you would be respond.
Maybe not.

Perhaps I am saddened by some of the responses, yes, but I realize there are
many different views out there.

On some issues I wait a day to see if anyone will comment so that I can hold
off. Sometimes that works. Sometimes it doesn't. Evidenced by the
interesting responses on wolves which are quite divergent on this list.

Sincerely,

Rick Williams
Misty Ridge Farm
Dairy heifers and dairy beef graziers
Viroqua, WI

www.mistyridgefarm.com