The joy is easy. What little boy doesn't dream at one point of driving a big truck or a big tractor? Equipment of all shapes and sizes seems to be the purview of the little boy (and many little girls as well), clearly evident by the fact that nearly a third of the people at the expo were under the age of twelve. I got to sit at the controls of more than twenty big, expensive farm machines capable of clearing a field in minutes or picking acres of wheat in a single day. The ten year old in me was thrilled. There were innumerable knobs and levels to try, pedals to press, hydraulic chairs to bounce in. It was simple fun.
And then, the mature adult in me kicked in and I was abruptly sad. This is not as easy to explain as the joy, but I will attempt to be brief. These various machines and tools are the latest and greatest products of what I know of as "big business farming." No longer are farmers working several crops on farms smaller than 40 or so acres. Now, farming so often means working a single crop (wheat/corn/soy) on 500 acres with million dollar machines. (I'm not exaggerating there - a fully equipped combine like the one in the picture costs more than $1.5 million once you factor in attachments and support vehicles). These machines are so heavy and so massive that they literally crush the life out of the soil, requiring more big, expensive machines to fluff the soil back up again before it will sustain anything other than scrub. Farmers, in the quest to meet their ever mounting loan balances, work bigger and bigger farms and require bigger and bigger yields to make a profit. To do this, they add innumerable chemicals to the soil and spray awful insecticides and herbicides on their crops, just to push yields to a level where, in a normal year, they may be able to pay their loan payments.
This can best be exemplified by a common sight at these events - the spray truck. Some of these are massive, almost as big as this combine, and all exist for a single purpose. They spray chemicals. Chemicals to enrich the soil. Chemicals to kill insects. Chemicals to kill unwanted plants. Chemicals to stall ripening for storage of crops. It goes on and on. A quarter of a million dollars for a machine that does one thing. These behemoths don't even have a trailer hitch most times.
It is because of this, among other things, that we are committed to small-scale farming. We hope to be as organic as we can be. Although certification is difficult, due to the fact that a single neighbor who uses chemicals can keep you from getting certified, we have the goal of Certified Organic ratings for our cash crops in mind. We will compost. We will spread manure. But we will not buy a million dollar tractor or a quarter-million dollar spray truck. And while the ten year old in me will shed a tear over that, it's only natural that the adult say no in order to protect the child. In this case, my inner child will have to cry it out. We're not doing it.
P.S. I'm not saying the state of things is the farmers' fault. By no means. This is a symptom of a greater problem, one I hope to talk about more in a future post. That is, if you don't mind a little more ranting on my part.
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