03/01/2016
Let's talk manure--really. The focus is on that particular topic because something happened just a few days ago in this beautiful Driftless region that won't make headlines in Chicago papers. Consider me your farm reporter--with news from the front. Heads up--this story may contain bothersome images.
Before the manure story unfolds though--a brief moment of nostalgia.
When I was a young girl, our family drive to the country meant looking out an open car window, smelling the fresh country air, pointing out red barns, and contented cows, their heads bent, eating grass in green pastures. 'Twas lovely and made lovely calander pictures.
Back to manure. A few days ago, outside a small nearby town, one million gallons of liquid manure ran all night, traveling two miles (yep, two miles) and ending up in a beautiful destination trout stream. Dead trout are being "fished" out of the stream along with what looks like sludge. Local residents are being told not to drink their water.
This incident originated at a "family farm", a farm that has morphed into a type of CAFO, (concentrated animal feeding operation). A farm that milks 1,750 cows--almost 2,000 confined cows. It's a 24/7 operation. The cows are always indoors, milked three times a day with the lights on to mimic daylight, "tricked" into more production. Almost 2,000 cows that, of course, make milk and incidentally, that by-product, manure.
The considerable quantity of milk is picked up and hauled to a buyer. The manure which, in the past, was one of the assets of a well integrated sustainable farm becomes a liability at that volume.
What volume is that, you might be asking? The manure in question was being transferred from a 3.3 million gallon storage tank to a 3.9 million gallon pit through a flexible conduit. That's a whole lot. The farm's projection for (you know what) for 2016 is 12.2 million gallons of liquid and 660 tons of solid waste.
Two years ago, this same farm, "Misty Morning" (the name evokes such a sweet image), got a $50,000.00 grant from the DNR (Department of Natural Resources) to be able to haul their manure. They had manure hauling trouble in 2013 when they milked "only" 1,400 cows. Now they've increased the size of the herd by more than 300 cows--totaling about 1,750 cows.
In over forty years as a farmer in rural America I've been a witness to big changes. "Big" as in the "get big or get out"--the mantra offered by Ag experts to address the loss of farmers, after the devastating farm crisis of the eighties relieved the country of thousands upon thousands of sustainable family farmers. Their problem--the rational sustainability they practiced wasn't meeting market demands.
A drive to the country now might be met with the stench of concentrated manure from various CAFOs --trying to make farming profitable. If you pass Misty Morning farm you keep your windows rolled up. This is not the calendar picture of the past. There are no cows to watch as they eat grass in green pastures, their facility is running 24/7 with the lights on.
Is this just news for Driftless residents who can't drink their water? I hope not. That, has been, and is, the million dollar question CSA was supposed to answer at its beginnings. Will a connection with a farmer bring the urban consumer closer to agriculture, the source of their food, and nature?
Right now, there's a lot of understandable interest and excitement about "local". Maybe its easier to identify and connect with urban agriculture. But its also in everyone's best interest to remember and support the farmers in rural America. There's a lot of land here, rich in wildlife habitat, vistas, and resources still waiting for the care they deserve.
The following excerpt is taken from earlier writings from Farms of Tomorrow by Trauger Groh and Steve MsFadden. Steve was our keynote speaker at the recent regional CSA conference, in which the "farmer" mood was split as to whether CSA is plateauing, is over with, or is still viable. I, myself, vote for viable.
"As farming becomes more and more remote from the life of the average person, it becomes less and less able to provide us with clean, healthy, life giving food or a clean, healthy, life giving environment. A small minority of farmers, laden with debt and overburdened with responsibility, cannot possibly meet the needs of all the people.
More and more people are coming to recognize this, and they are becoming ready to share agricultural responsibilities with active farmers...Out of this impulse came the first CSAs."
Tomorrow, February 26th, is National CSA Day. There's a huge effort to encourage sign ups across the country. Because I'm just now learning how to Facebook, I'm not a very active participant in that promotion. I've been working on this newsletter as my effort and trying to find a way, not to just sell my own CSA, but the idea of real support for "the right kind of farming".
Please consider renewing your support.
Farmer Renee
