…"every man is called to give love to the work of his
hands. Every man is called to be an artist." The small family farm is one
of the last places - they are getting rarer every day - where men and women
(and girls and boys, too) can answer that call to be an artist, to learn to
give love to the work of their hands.
~ Wendell Berry, Bringing it to the Table: Writings on Farming and Food
~ Wendell Berry, Bringing it to the Table: Writings on Farming and Food
Back in January, I began the One
Page a Day Challenge and immediately threw away my quill. Now in April,
I’m participating in the A to Z Blogging Challenge and prepping for a
Wilderness Writers’ Retreat. I need ink,
a stiff drink and therapy.
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F
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arming as
art.
Wendell
Berry’s definition makes sense. I know
when I’m creating art ~ of any kind, I enter an almost-Zen state. And this is especially true when I’m
gardening.
From planning
the layout, to choosing the seeds and transplants. Even the mundane chores of cleaning out last
year’s plant debris (with echoes of “Bring out ya dead!” sounding in my head) and
stirring the compost heap brings me peace, the tension draining out of me.
There is
something about playing in the dirt. And
sadly, it’s fast disappearing.
F is for
Family Farms
I’ve
forgotten the girl’s name, but I’ll never forget what she thought: that food
comes from the grocery store. I thought
she was having me on. But no, she had
never visited a farm in her 20 some years.
Had no concept of planting, wedding, harvesting. Everything that goes into growing food.
I should
have immediately taken her to my home and put a rake in her hands.
Because
each year, it gets tougher and tougher for small farms to make it. And although I believe in smaller government
involvement ~ the less, the better ~ something needs to be done to help ease
the crazy tax and insurance burdens of the small farmer.
One
charity I support is the American Farmland Trust. Recently, they sent me the following letter,
that I would like to share with you:
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State funding to protect family farms is down 39% from where it was
six years ago. This means that family
farmers often have no choice but to sell their land to developers who
transition their local farms into urban sprawl – shopping malls, McMansions
and parking lots. |
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Farmland protection funding
programs provide states with money to purchase development rights to protect fertile farm and ranch land from unchecked
development. When these funds are slashed, we all lose. |
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AFT is leading a ground game to
advocate in capitals across the country so that governors and state
legislatures don’t slash our family farms. Please donate to support this
work. |
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One example of our work in action
is the urgent campaign we are spearheading in Maryland. |
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Maryland has the third highest rate
of farmland loss in the country—losing nearly 20,000 acres of farmland a year
to hungry developers. |
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Last month, Maryland’s Governor
Martin O’Malley proposed to cut funding for farmland protection in half – by
$23 million dollars. In response, we are mobilizing grassroots support to
urge state legislators to restore full funding for family farms in the budget before it goes
before the Governor. |
Two of my
neighbors are thinking of selling their land to developers ~ the taxes are
simply too much for them to carry anymore.
It breaks my heart. One, because
I hate to see all that beautiful land get swallowed up in the maw of suburban
sprawl. And two, and quite selfishly I
might add, I don’t want to lose my precious privacy.
I have
always hated suburbia and barely tolerated it when I lived across the river
from DC. Now, I loathe it with a passion. It’s soulless and draining and encourages the
Keeping up with the Jones’ lifestyle that so many people get sucked in to. That’s bad enough taken alone. But factor in the loss of farm-able land, and
where does your food come from? Huge,
industrial farms that use GMOd seeds and plants?
Oh, that’s
convenient! And very fishy.
 |
| Image Credit: Mikaela D'Eigh, 2014 |
Supporting
Local Farms
So other
than donating money to a charity like AFT, what can we do to help small farms
continue to survive and thrive?
Stop buying
the majority of your food from the grocery store. Most of it has come so far from the farm
where it grew or was raised, that it’s not as fresh or nutritious as it was
when it was picked/slaughtered. Not to
mention, you have no idea whether it truly is organic, was grown sustainably,
or was fed GMOd grain or not.
But if you
can meet the farmer face to face, you can ask
him or her about their farm. What
practices they use. What they feed their
animals. Some will let you visit the
farm and a select few will even let you work on the farm. Or you can be like me and go one step
further: Become the farmer. You won’t
regret it.
It’s very
Zen.
Oremus pro invicem,
~
Mikaela
Do
you support local farms? How? CSA?
Co-op?
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