Below is the draft text of a flyer I will be distributing at the Oklahoma State Fair this year. It will also be posted at my Printable Flyers Page . I am posting it here as a suggestion for how the agricultural system may change due to y2k.

AN APPEAL TO THE FARMERS OF AMERICA: DO NOT FORGET YOUR COUSINS IN THE CITY!

WE REMEMBER. . . The taste of freshly harvested produce. . . Grandma's creek jelly made from wild plums growing along Deep Red Creek and other such places. . . the aroma of freshly baked bread. . . displays of home preserved vegetables, pickles, jellies and jams at the county fair. . . the taste of a flaky pie crust that can hardly be found these days. . . fruit and vegetable stands alongside the road and in parking lots in cities and towns. . .

WE REMEMBER. . . When farmers brought their products directly to cities to sell to stores and customers. . . . When you went to the ice plant to get meat from your locker that was raised and butchered right there in the county. . . When eggs were bought directly from farmers and the chickens who laid them ran free, rather than spending their entire lives in a tiny wire cage. . .

WE REMEMBER When farmers often planted a few acres of black-eyed peas (or other crops) for anybody to come and pick. . . When Americans ate fresh produce grown around their towns, rather than shipped in from Chile and Mexico. . . When the family farmer wasn't an endangered species. . . When "going to market" was a special day. . . And when poor people in third world countries didn't go hungry because their food was being shipping to the North American market.

WE REMEMBER The days before corporations took control of the food processing and distribution chain. . . the many avoidable tragedies and political decisions that are contributing to the decline of the family farmer and the overbearing power of agricultural corporations. . .

OUR CHILDREN KNOW NOTHING OF THESE THINGS. They think food naturally occurs in plastic shrink-wrapped trays. They don't know the full and rich taste of a freshly harvested tomato. They don't realize the risks of their parents' abandonment of the family farmer in a short-sighted unconditional surrender to the agribusiness corporations.

CHOOSE LIFE? OR CHOOSE DEATH? Many years ago, the children of Israel stood before Moses, and he invited them to choose between life and death. Do not we, the American people, stand before such a choice today? Shall we go down the path of genetically modified factory foods grown by indentured servants and then processed and distributed through a brittle and unsafe just in time inventory system by a tiny handful of transnational agricultural corporations? Should the family farm be sold for a mess of pottage, our birthrights handed over to soul-less corporations? Should the family farmer become the indentured servant of agribusiness corporations and their New York stockholders? Should we continue to starve children in Third World countries so that we can import their produce to North America?

IF YOU ALWAYS DO WHAT YOU ALWAYS DO, YOU WILL ALWAYS GET WHAT YOU ALWAYS GET. The American farmer and the American consumer have been sold a bill of goods about food and agriculture. The primary beneficiaries are the stockholders of giant corporations and the politicians, not the consumer and certainly without a doubt not the farmer. The average age of the family farmer these days is in the high 50s. If we continue on this path, the last generation of family farmers has been born.

AGRIBUSINESS CORPORATIONS ARE LYING TO FARMERS AND CONSUMERS Big corporations have paid a lot of money to convince most consumers and farmers that the time is past to do anything different. But shouldn't we take their advertising with a healthy dose of skepticism? We don't have to do what Cargill, Monsanto, Chiquita and Del Monte demand of us. We can do something different. Here's a thought: Bring your products to the cities and sell them directly to consumers. Join together with your neighbors to develop your own small-scale processing systems and brands for marketing in your region. Us city folks spend billions of dollars each year on food  but when we pay $1.75 for a loaf of balloon bread in a plastic wrapper in the grocery store, you the family farmer receive about a penny of the purchase price. We've heard the wrapper costs more than the wheat.

WE START SMALL OR WE DON'T START AT ALL! Every parking lot in a city is a potential site for a farmer's market. Get together with your neighbors and look for new places to sell your products  directly to stores and directly to consumers in parking lots. (Churches will often be receptive to Saturday markets in their parking lots.) If you farm hundreds of acres, can't you find one or two or maybe even five or ten or 20 acres to experiment with growing and selling fresh produce to sell directly to us city folks? (Maybe you could partner with others in your area to do this.) Grind wheat and sell the flour to consumers! Bring your beans and peas to the city! (Oklahoma City hasn't seen a decent fresh black-eyed pea all summer long.) Market your products directly to eaters in the city! We are hungry! We have money to spend! Isn't our money as green as the corporations? Don't we deserve to eat good food directly from the farm, and also have the knowledge that our money has gone to preserve the family farmer, not destroy him?

YEAR 2000 CRISIS In these last days of the 20th century, there appears a new threat to the nation's food supply: the Year 2000 crisis, also known as "Y2K" or the "millennium bug." Representatives of the agribusiness industry have testified before Congress. They claim "Everything is OK," even though at any given time, there are only 3 days food in grocery stores, about a week in local warehouses, and 60 days in the food processing pipeline. After that, we are down to the contents of your granaries and storage bins, and livestock on the hoof. The food processing industry clearly doesn't like the idea of Americans stocking up on food  they have fine tuned their "just in time" inventory process, and any uptick in demand throws their schedules out of whack. We'd like you to notice that if consumer demand for food products in the last months of 1999 outstrips the ability of the corporations' food processing industry to supply products, this creates a golden opportunity for you to bring your food products directly to cities to sell to consumers. You wouldn't believe the prices that your $2.00/bushel wheat is bringing in cities, when packaged in plastic buckets. I am ashamed to tell you.

As with any marketplace, the possibilities are many: conventional farmers markets and flea markets, roadside stands, selling shares of your produce crop in advance to consumers in the city, "U-pick" operations, partnerships with your employees or people from cities (you provide the land, split the costs and labor), the wholesale market (restaurants in particular), specialty crops, and many kinds of value-added processing (southern smoked and salt- cured hams come immediately to mind, an interesting use for that crop of mesquite trees and a better use than selling them to a big company somewhere, you could probably market them in advance to urban consumers, which lessens your risk and supplies operating capital), organic produce (which usually sells for a premium, as do free-range chickens and eggs), organic grains and beans, and so on.

Direct marketing to consumers and stores by farmers and local cooperatives, coupled with a return to farming practices that don't indenture farmers to giant corporations, may be the most radical  but they are the most necessary  responses to the rapidly deteriorating situation of the American family farm. As with most seemingly intractable problems, the solution promising the preservation of the family farmer stares us in the face, it is right underneath our noses. It isn't located in Washington, D.C. nor can it be found in the boardrooms of giant corporations or the laboratories of land grant universities. To these people, farmers are a resource to be exploited, harnessed, and consolidated into their finely tuned just-in-time inventory factory food system. But like the Kingdom of God, the true and sustainable solutions are found within our own hearts and lives, in community with our neighbors, manifested in the decisions we make about the big and little things of life.

"My experience tells me that, instead of bothering about how the whole world may live in the right manner, we should think how we ourselves may do so. We do not even know whether the world lives in the right manner or in a wrong manner. If, however, we live in the right manner, we shall feel that others also do the same, or shall discover a way of persuading them to do so. Non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as cooperation with good. Real peace will come, not by the acquisition of authority by a few, but by the acquisition of the capacity by all to resist authority when it is abused." -- Mahatma Gandhi

If you are an Oklahoma farmer and are interested in selling your Oklahoma grown and processed food products at new farmers' markets opening in the summer of 2000 in the Oklahoma City area, please call us at xxx-xxxx.

-- robert waldrop (rmwj@soonernet.com), September 05, 1999

Answers

Hello Robert! My sweetie and I live on a farm/ranch ab out 90 miles SW of OKC. We raise and sell chemical-free beef; no antibiotics,steroids,or hormones of any type. We test- marketed one animal by getting the processing done,vacuum- packaged(this is a GREAT improvement over the old days), and frozen...then sold by the piece. It is clearly too much trouble,takes too much time and freezer space. There- fore we have decided to sell only by the half-preferably in advance. For instance, we are going to have 10 animals ready in late October this year. We have pre-sold 6 already and have 4 more to sell(have been taking 50.00 deposits to hold each persons order). Our price is $1.89 per pound hanging carcass weight. Our processor also ages the beef for at least 12-14 days for extra tenderness. The price includes processing and freezing. We mostly grass finish our animals, but may use some grain at the end month, depending on the forage available. People have raved about our beef, saying it is the best they have ever had. I have a job in town, and sweetie does all the hard work here - so neither one of us has had the time to really figure\ out a marketing plan; that is the typical farmer/rancher's weakest point,i.e.figuring out how to market what they can produce. There is a small farmer's market in Lawton,OK\ but they do not have(I'm pretty sure) electrical outlets that could be used for a freezer. If they did, I might take a chance on processing one or more steers and selling by the piece at a farmer's market to see how it would go. What do you think?? Is your e-mail real? I could send you one of our brochures:"Beaver Creek Farm's Naturally Better Beef" I always enjoy your posts and was glad to see that you are in OKC.

-- jeanne (jeanne@hurry.now), September 05, 1999.

From: Y2K, ` la Carte by Dancr near Monterey, California

Robert: "Us city folks spend billions of dollars..." should be "We city folks..."

Jeanne: Stock up on canning jars and a pressure canner. Can your meat and sell to customers who will return the jars to you when they buy their next piece.

-- Dancr (addy.available@my.webpage), September 06, 1999.

Dancr, I concede the grammatical point, but will retain the "colloquialism".

Jeanne, Dancr has an interesting point about the possibilities of canning meats. It might be worth considering adding a product line -- "custom canned meats" to order, eg. pints and quarts of canned roast, stew meat and hamburger would probably be the primary interests, I'm not sure about a "canned T-bone steak", although I suppose if you cut off the bone (but would it then no longer be a T-bone steak?). I'm sure you're not looking for any big capital investments at this date, but I do have information from a company that provides equipment for community canning kitchens that meats food safety regulations for commercial preparation of food. Complete set (with a capacity of several hundred quarts a day) starts at around $20,000. This would be an interesting project for a group of farmers (say ten farmers with $2,000 each). OR, a church or community group could make the investment.

Over at the Time Bomb 2000 forum, this discussion thead has blossomed quite a bit. Read it at:

Thread on farmer direct marketing

-- robert waldrop (rmwj@soonernet.com), September 06, 1999.

Here is a second flyer, which is the "flip side" of the Appeal to farmers:

AN APPEAL TO EATERS IN THE CITY: DON'T FORGET YOUR COUSINS IN THE COUNTRY

Oh the joys of life in the city. . . Where tomatoes taste like mushy water, mostly because they were picked while still green in a foreign country and then gassed so they would turn red. Chances are it is a special hybrid tomato with an extra tough skin so it can be harvested by machines and withstand lots of rough handling while boxed in warehouses. It might even have been genetically modified to produce its own pesticide. Yum! I'll have seconds, you bet. Just what I always wanted, a genetically modified factory processed food product disguised to look like a real vine-ripened tomato. (It works with cheese, doesn't it?)

Oh the joys of life in the city. . . Where we buy a loaf of bread for $1.75, and "generously" give the farmer who grew the wheat and thus made the bread possible One Penny. We pay no attention to the consolidation of the agriculture industry, even though one consequence of "fewer farmers, fewer but larger processing plants, bigger corporations" is a tremendous increase in food recalls and food poisoning due to contamination. Most food consumed in the United States passes through at least 1 of 6 giant transnational corporations, which are rapidly aligning themselves into 2 monopolistic, vertically integrated cartels. Remember what happened to the price of gasoline when the OPEC cartel was organized?

Oh the joys of life in the city. . . Where we studiously ignore the plight of the vanishing farmer, even though the last generation of family farmers has been born. We willingly sacrifice the birthright of our cousins and family in rural areas on the altar of the false gods of economic rationalization and corporate greed. We eagerly embrace the politically correct economic superstitions that are encouraged by the public relations departments of rich and powerful corporations (as well as by the think tanks and university laboratories that they finance), whose deadly fruit is the destruction of rural life. The nation is currently experiencing the third massive wave of farm bankruptcies and consolidations since the 1970s, but judging from the news and the opinion polls, few of us in the city realize or care about what is happening in rural areas. The stock market may have bubbled up to historic highs, but prices for wheat, corn, cattle, and pork are at all-time lows (you wouldn't know this looking at the prices in your supermarket, especially in the meat department, hmm, what can this mean?). We have so surrounded the farmer with laws and regulations and debt that many of them feel trapped and see no way out of the present impasse. We encourage them to do more of the same, to reach for new "efficiencies," even though the price of "more of the same" seems to be "more of the same". After 3 waves of bankruptcies in 25 years, wouldn't you think we were down to the really efficient farmers anyway?

Oh the joys of life in the city. . . Where everything seems so stable and secure, even though the grocery stores only have 3 days inventory, the warehouses that supply them have one to four weeks inventory, and the entire food processing pipeline has only about 60 days in it. After that, we are down to livestock on the hoof and grain in the bins of our country cousins. Not that we would know much about what to do with a whole wheat kernel anyway. This just in time inventory corporate factory food system is vulnerable to power and transportation failures, terrorist attacks, and regularly is afflicted with food safety problems. But the corporate officers assure us, "Everything is fine, don't worry, be happy, don't ask questions. Ignore the man in the corner behind the curtain manipulating the controls!"

Oh the joys of life in the city. . . Where our tables are filled with foods from all continents, which we eat with relish and to excess. Meanwhile, we close our eyes to the hungry and starving of other lands who are hungry and starving because the food they used to eat is now being exported to the United States. Or the land that grew their food now raises cash crops for export  at the demand of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the bankers and Congress of these United States. Your own personal banker may be one of those making these demands of these poor people.

Oh the joys of life in the city. . . Where our kids think that food comes from the farm in shrink-wrapped plastic. They don't know  and most of us have forgotten  the sweet taste of freshly harvested corn on the cob, the rich taste of a home-grown and vine ripened tomato (you wouldn't think it was in the same vegetable family as its corporate-grown cousin). We close our eyes to warnings about the chemicals and additives, pesticide residues and genetically modified crops in the corporate machine food system. We try not to think about the chemical stews we are feeding our children or the tanks of chlorine and feces that "fresh" chicken is soaked in before being packaged for sale in the local supermarket. We prefer not to think about the factory chickens laying the eggs we buy  who spend their entire lives in a cage, with their beaks cut off. The chickens in the lower level cages are encrusted with the feces of the chickens above them (don't forget to wash those eggs you buy in the supermarket real good with soap and water before you crack them!). We don't think about these things because when we consider the corporate food system, we have been taught to see the Jolly Green Giant and the Keebler Elves, as though these fictitious advertising gimmicks were real! ("It's on TV, it must be real, the ad guys say it is so! And when were they ever wrong?")

IF YOU ALWAYS DO WHAT YOU ALWAYS DO, YOU WILL ALWAYS GET WHAT YOU ALWAYS GET! If we think we ought to just give in and live with this situation (the "Do as the corporations say!" option), all we have to do is keep doing what we are doing right now. We should just shut our ears to the cry of the starving poor whose food we steal to add pounds to our waistlines and dollars to the dividends of Del Monte and Chiquita, among many who could be mentioned. We must close our eyes to the tragic demise of the family farm and sell our birthrights for a handful of beads dangled before us by glib corporate PR departments. We shouldn't ask questions like: "Mr. Produce Manager, how much of these vegetables are from this area, how much from elsewhere in the US  and how much is imported from overseas?" Or, "Why isn't this produce from foreign countries labeled as to its country of origin? Manufactured products imported from abroad must be labeled, why not produce?"

WE START SMALL OR WE DON'T START AT ALL Here's the most radical thing you can do to help this situation: buy products directly from farmers. There are many options: (1) Traditional farmers markets and roadside stands. Many areas have them, but nowhere has enough of them. Look for them and spend at least some of your grocery dollars there. (2) Food circles. These programs unite urban eaters with rural farmer. They will often publish a directory or guide. Call your local "cooperative extension" office (look in the government blue pages in your phone book), such offices may be associated with a state university or the USDA, another possibility is the direct marketing program of your state department of agriculture. (3) Produce deliveries. Make a phone call, turn in your order, have it delivered right to your home. (4) Buy shares of a market garden. Some direct marketing farmers sell shares in their crops in advance to urban consumers. You pay up front, or with installments, and as the garden comes in, you get regular weekly deliveries. (5) Beef, pork, chicken, and eggs can all be bought from producers, with the butchering and wrapping done to order.

MORE IDEAS. . . Talk to your priest, rabbi, or pastor about starting a Saturday farmers' market on your church's property. Convenience is important, and religious institutions are scattered all over the urban landscape, usually very conveniently located for residents. Work together with rural churches to get farmers into the city. Help establish community canning kitchens where farmers or other small operators can prepare processed foods for sale to the public. Farmers, like other businesses, respond to market signals. If we want to do our part to help preserve rural life and family farmers  and let's face facts here, many of us have rural roots, and have family still down on the farm, so this isn't just an intellectual exercise, this is a family issue  us city folks need to start sending market signals to farmers: "We want to buy products directly from you. Our money is green, we spend billions on food, we know you are getting a pittance for your products. Sell directly to us eaters in the city. We need tasty and nutritious food but we also need to do our part to ensure that there will be many more generations of farmers and to preserve rural life." We can also grow more food in cities ourselves.

THERE'S NOTHING IN THIS ABOUT LOWERING YOUR QUALITY OF LIFE. . . What's being talked about here is increasing the quality of life and the security of your family by developing personal relationships with the people who grow and process your food. The best and most expensive restaurants look for fresh food bought from local producers, do you suspect that they know something about what it takes to prepare haute cuisine?

"My experience tells me that, instead of bothering about how the whole world may live in the right manner, we should think how we ourselves may do so. We do not even know whether the world lives in the right manner or in a wrong manner. If, however, we live in the right manner, we shall feel that others also do the same, or shall discover a way of persuading them to do so. Non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as cooperation with good. Real peace will come, not by the acquisition of authority by a few, but by the acquisition of the capacity by all to resist authority when it is abused." -- Mahatma Gandhi

Robert Waldrop, Archbishop Oscar Romero Catholic Worker House, Oklahoma City

-- robert waldrop (rmwj@soonernet.com), September 06, 1999.

Robert,

You are making the assumption that farmers grow anything that can be sold at the farmer's market. Most farmers in the midwest grow corn or soybeans made for processing not eating. Any cattle is on feedlot or pigs in those wonderful confinements that smell so good. They haven't figured out how to confine sheep yet and make them survive. Most of the farmer's don't even have a garden for themselves (no time - not cost efficient), they buy the same junk at the grocery store that city people do.

Like Jeanne, most farmers and their spouses also work off the farm for the priviledge of farming. If you want to farm, you grow what takes care of itself or the least amount of your time because you don't have time for more.

Do I sound bitter, yes I am. I want to farm in a responsible manner and have it work with the land not ruin it. But until the farm is paid for and we have the equipment we need, we both work off the farm and even if the above criteria was met, we couldn't make enough money on the farm to pay the utilities and put clothes on our backs. In other words, farmers are subsidizing the food you all eat.

-- Beckie (sunshine_horses@yahoo.com), September 07, 1999.

We do have a small number of farmers and ranchers who produce a product that the public might consume. Grain growers, for instance, have to have the grain cleaned and milled. Our local graneries won't sell directly to the public as it is too much of a hassle.

Their buggest barrier beyond marketing is ADA (American Disabilities Act.) If they sell anything directly onsite, they have to put ramps into the barn, special large doors, large concrete pads for wheelchairs, etc. If there is a Congressperson out there, let's get this amended to exempt farms.

I watched our local Buffalo Ranch surmount the problem of finding a facility to butcher heavy carcass, marketing and product I.D. only to be strangled to death by ADA.

U-Pick doesn't work because liability insurance is prohibitive.

We have local growers who have tried to develop a marketing niche by joining under the "Pride of Siskiyou" label. Unfortunately, local chain supermarkets won't buy from them as they require a large contract. A few years back they did a catalogue that had jams and jellies, organic flour and fruit, ferral deer and ostrich. Nothing has worked. They are starting on farmers markets but the hours are inconvenient. Some of this has been paid for by your federal tax dollars with through the Forest Service to try and backfill rural economies that it has destroyed by bans on logging and grazing.

-- marsh (armstrng@sisqtel.net), September 07, 1999.

I posted this in another thread, but am very interested in answers and ideas. My apologies if you have come across my questions elsewhere.

How many days or hours can a high milk yield cow go without milking? How about an average milk cow? I'm wondering if we can pick up a cow on the cheap before the die off. Perhaps, more equitably, people can take cows into custody while the power is out. This is done with racing horses and breeding quality dogs when there is no room or money to take care of the animal, but the owner wishes to see the animal cared for and retain ultimate ownership at the same time. Ideas?

Sincerely, Stan Faryna

-- Stan Faryna (info@giglobal.com), September 07, 1999.

8 maids a milkin, Stan. Although they really must be milked every day, modern cows will, apparently, not take kindly to hand milkin.

http://cnn.com/TECH/computing/9903/25/foodchain.y2k.hln/index.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/et?ac=000140326706927&rtmo=rEahQ99X&atmo=rE ahQ99X&pg=/et/99/3/11/nbug11.html

Does sound like an interesting idea, though. Got strong hands?

-- marsh (armstrng@sisqtel.net), September 07, 1999.

I wish I could give you the whole article on the following, but I am a lousy typist with carpal tunnel. The full article by Bob Johnson can be found in the special Vegetable section of the Sept. 1, 1999 edition of California Farm Bureau's Ag Alert. Although slightly OT, it illustrates the price structure of produce and what happens when that gets out of kilter.

"Earlier this summer, Salinas grower Greg Lazzerini plowed under 45 acres of lettuce rather than pay the cost of harvesting the product and selling it on the depressed market.

"He also gave up on selling 100 acres of broccoli and 20 acres of cauliflower. And he plowed under 75 acres of two-year-old but still productive artichocke plants owned by his Triangle Farms in Gonzales.

"In total, one-sixth of the 1,500 acres farmed by Lazzerini's Triangle Farms has been plowed under this year because prices are too low to justify the cost of harvesting."...

[According to studies conducted by University of California Extension farm advisor Kurt Schulbach of Salinas] "Harvesting accounted for between 60 percent and 70 percent, depending on the yield, of all the cost of producing head lettuce in Moneterey County in 1992. The combined cost for land, labor, overhead and materials to produce 750 cartons of head lettuce on an acre, for example, was less than $1,600. But the cost of harvesting was more than $2,625."...

"It costs Lazzerini, for example, around $6.80 to produce a carton of head lettuce. Of that cost, he estimated that $4.20 is for the labor and boxes for harvesting."

-- marsh (armstrng@sisqtel.net), September 08, 1999.

This is in response to several people talking about canning meats. PLEASE be very carefull if you choose to do this. Fruits can be easily canned because of their high sugar content, and pickles and tomatoes because of the high acidity (though they are now reccomending adding vinigar or lemon juice to tomatoes because we have bred them for sweetness and they are no longer as acidic,) but non-acidic vegtables like beans and things like meat must be handled very carefully. They require pressure cooking AND being thoroughly cooked after you open them (home canned green beans need to be boiled for 10 minutes before eating them. Not a ready to eat food for Y2K!) I'm not saying you can't do it, just be aware that canning meat takes special equiptment and time. (I can 150 quarts of tomatoes, about the same of pickled beets, and a little less of applesauce each year, mostly all from my backyard garden, but I freeze my beans.)

On the other hand, I get a home grown calf from a friend each fall, and there are some things that can be done with beef. Drying it for jerkey is an excellent way to preserve it. I keep even the dried meat in the frezer till I need it, but it will easily last durring a weekend camping trip, and could be handed out as samples easily enough. Also, beef bacon is surprisingly good, and from a young cow also not nearly as fatty as the pork kind.

Selling any procesed foods, even in local farmer's markets, can get caught up in red tape very quickly. Your kitchen must be approved and everything. (I decided not to try because I would have to not let my dogs have their run of the house.) But you can always sell to friends...

I wish you luck in your endevors. Just please do contact your local extension service for updates on how to process things. They will know the latest information. And do it before trying your Grandmother's old recipie. What we grow now is different than what we grew then, and vinigar is now regulated to be weaker than it used to be. Some of the old recipies could have very unfortunate consequences. By all means learn to grow and can your own food! (I have canning parties where two or three friends show up and help for the day, then take a few jars of what ever we made home as payment. Much more fun then slaving away alone!) Just please learn to do it safely! I fear some of the deaths from Y2K may be from those who try to prepare using outdated information.

Good luck and good preservation!

-- Tania Baildon (tbaildon@yahoo.com), September 08, 1999.

Robert...you heart is in the right place, but its obvious that you are a city boy. Most farmers, even dairy farmers, buy their milk at the store. Grain farmers buy their flour at the store... and on and on. The reason why it won't work: Time, time, time, laws, health department, FDA, insurance, Disability Act,expenses, time and more time. A farmer has a 24 hour a day job on the farm. He works off the farm 8 hours a day. He works 7 days a week, tries to be a good church/community/family member, go to the kids sports events, have some time with his wife and kids, and on and on. Why would he take a day and gather up 200# of potatos and go to the city. He spends time, lunch expense, gasoline and if he sells out he will just break even. And furthermore, the public expects the farmer to sell it cheaper (even tho its days fresher) than the supermarket. !! Economically, ya can't do it. The gentleman farmer who is into specialty herbs might be able to augment his hobby. Thats about it. Last year we planted 2 acres of watermelons. Buy the time we watered,fertilized, fungicized, etc. even tho we sold every melon off the wagon out front of the farm, we lost money. And that doesn't count the hours I spent weeding, picking melons and hauling them out to the road,etc. Nice idea but we have tried it and it doesn't work.

Taz..

-- Taz (Tassie@aol.com), September 08, 1999.

Taz,

If it doesn't work, today. Maybe, it will work tomorrow. I think all of us may face the challenge of rethinking what we have learned by book and experience.

So count me in for one watermelon. Got pumpkins? And do you ship too?

Sincerely, Stan Faryna

-- Stan Faryna (info@giglobal.com), September 08, 1999.

I may live in a city now, but I was raised on a farm and have lots of family still in the farming business. There are lots of successful direct selling operations and options, I'm sorry yours didn't work, but it doesn't necessarily invalidate the concept. Also, as with anything else in the marketplace place, consumer education helps. I wager that most people don't realize that the chicken they buy in a supermarket does in fact soak in a tank of chlorine and chicken feces on its way to your table.

There are also loopholes. E.g., in Kansas City I knew of somebody who provided fresh "free range" chickens. He couldn't sell them in interstate commerce, but his operation was perfectly legal for in-state Missouri sales.

-- robert waldrop (rmwj@soonernet.com), September 08, 1999.

Robert,

Here in Iowa, the same loop-holes exist for most animals. I sell you the live animal and deliver it to the butcher for you and you pick up the meat from the butcher. Unfortunately there are very few places to take chickens any more.

I have to agree with Taz in that every farmer I know buys at the grocery store including us. I don't have the time to milk my goats and weed my garden. We don't make a penny off of this farm and I don't know if we ever will. Once it is paid for we may have other options, but not right now.

I agree with you that in the future we may need to do things differently and that is why I still attempt to have a garden each year and have enough seed for a very large garden and I keep breeding my milk goats and keep all of the poultry and small livestock we do even though they really don't pay for themselves.

-- Beckie (sunshine_horses@yahoo.com), September 09, 1999.

Robert, I think you are on to SOMETHING here. The final form is still to be worked out, but something is happening. The snips and links below are for your browsing pleasure:

* * * * * * * * * * * FARMS OF TOMORROW (Book)

In 1990 when we wrote Farms of Tomorrow there were perhaps 60 community supported farms (CSAs) in America. Seven years later, when we returned to the subject to research our new book, Farms of Tomorrow Revisited (Jan., 1998), we found that there had been a phenomenal surge of growth in the movement, and a general deepening of commitment and knowledge among the existing farms. In the face of the world's general agricultural and social news, this struck us as wholesome and heartening.
SNIP
Farms of Tomorrow Link

COMMUNITY SUPPORTED AGRICULTURE

Terra Firma Farms

Offering fresh organic fruits and vegetables right off the farm to your neighborhood - many of them delicious varieties not found in stores. As a local grower we are able to grow for taste and variety, not only for shelf life the way many farms must. There are many good reasons to buy fresh organic food, and as our loyal subscribers will tell you taste is not the least of them.SNIP

Terra Firma Farms Link

COMMUNITY ALLIANCE WITH FAMILY FARMERS In a community supported agriculture project, members pay a portion of a farmers production expenses, and in return receive weekly shares in the harvest. Farmers benefit by having operating funds available "up front" and a guaranteed market. Members receive a diverse supply of fresh, in-season produce, and are often invited to take part in life on the farm through events like workdays and potlucks. Although there are many variations, reconnecting consumers with the land and the farmers who support them is an important part of every CSA project. SNIP

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LASTLY

CALIFORNIA FEDERATION OF CERTIFIED FARMERS MARKETS

Did you know a total of 1,159 organic farmers sold over 70 individual commodities, grossing $75.4 million from 45,493 producing (physical) acres in 1992-93. All but 5% of the growers raised some fruit, nut or vegetable crop. Organic production in California is highly concentrated: The largest 7% of organic farms claimed three-fourths of the total gross sales, while half of the farms were smaller than 5 acres with annual sales of under $7,500.

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FOOD for thought, NO?

-- Greg (balzer@lanset.com), September 16, 1999.

Amen! Beckie. We raise organic lambs. They are grass fed--out in the sunshine eating dandelions etc. People rave about the flavor and tenderness of the meat but we make only about $2500.00 a year on the 65 lambs that are born each year. It pays the taxes and the sheep keep the farm from looking abandoned. We sheared for 2 days this spring. Wool sold at $.24/lb minus $.10/lb handling charges at a cooperative. We drove 3 hrs total, volunteered 6 man hrs of time, and spent $5.00 on plastic bags for the fleeces. We got a check for $41.52. Whoopie! Do we direct sell? Sure. But our customers know what the price of lamb is at the livestock auctions--they have computers too--and they expect that price. We come out $3.00/sheep ahead because we don't have that shipping cost. Could we ever make a living at this? No. Are we subsidizing delicate palets in NYC? Yes. Do I feel sorry for people who don't taste fresh food? Really. Perhaps if they came to help birth a lamb at 2am on a February day when it is 10 below. Perhaps.

-- pamela (jpjgood@penn.com), October 26, 1999.