I wrote this article for my blog, Agsurrection.com and posted it on December 11th 2016.
The original post is here: http://www.agsurrection.com/2016/12/11/better-days-through-better-ways/
If regenerative agriculture is in your wheelhouse, or growing your own food is something that interests you, please check out our site at http://www.agsurrection.com.
So today my arms are sore. Its not that I am a stranger to physical labor but I spent yesterday afternoon strong-arming the steering wheel of a tractor made before my father was born, pulling a corn-picker which may or may not have been on the manifest of the Mayflower.
Todd has been too busy to write much lately, largely because he's trying to harvest his corn before the snow sets in here. He asked a favor of me to help rearrange things in his barn to accommodate the wagons of corn while he continued to harvest. I took one look around and after fifteen minutes of "I don't want to lose that," I decided it would be easier to have he and his son Samuel sort out what went where. That meant I was going to have to pick corn. I'm no stranger to tractors since that's what I learned to drive on, but I'd never driven anything this old.
Five minutes of instruction and ten minutes of trial and error and I was off, at a brisk 1.3 miles per hour (give or take). I grew up around farm equipment as I mentioned before, yet somehow this was different. I've never picked corn one row at a time, and every single tractor I've ever driven had power steering (I sound like such an entitled Millennial, I know). It also happens to be between 20 and 25 degrees Fahrenheit and I dressed with the task of moving things around in a barn in mind. And as I checked my weather app on my Iphone 6 it occurred to me how absurd that seemed.
So after about three hours or so as my core temperature veered dangerously low, I pondered something. This equipment was state of the art in it's day. This stuff was the pinnacle of harvesting power when slicked back hair and poodle skirts were in style. But I found it so backwards and uncomfortable to run because I have grown up on more advanced technology. I started thinking about how untold thousands of farmers had been sitting in my exact same position for decades past. The sheer amount of driving would necessitate that there be a farmer on practically every 100 acres in order to have time to harvest everything in the four months between ripening and snow flying. I have to admit the way my arms hurt and the cold chilling me to the core, that those fellows had more intestinal fortitude than I.
Todd says that he uses this kind of equipment to prove that it can be done and because it's easy to work on. While I can't argue with either statement, I do have to admit that there's definitely a benefit to modern technology. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not ridiculing Todd's equipment. It's very effective at what it does. I am just soft. I'm used to things that take 4 or 6 row swipes, not one row per pass while I manhandle a steering wheel. Our motto, "With the promise of better days through better ways..." is part of a line straight out of the FFA creed. "With the promise of better days through better ways, even as the things we now enjoy have come to us through the struggles of former years." For those who didn't wear blue corduroy this may not mean much. For those who did you probably already recognized it.
I pondered on the "better ways" part. Clearly farming has some better ways than it did 65 years ago. But in what ways are they better? Are they more effective? More efficient? Better for the environment? By and large I feel like it made the farmer's job easier so that he could take on more acres, but ignored the nature of the farm. They tried to take the guesswork, the praying for rain, and the uncertainty out of the farm. It's fine that these men and women made choices to make farming a more stable financial enterprise, but the opposite has occurred. Due to unintended consequences along with a good share of "we've always done it this way", they've managed to speed up the destruction started with a plow attached to a horse, and made the growing of grain a very tight-margined enterprise.
My intention is to use the 3 ethics of permaculture. Care of the Earth, Care of the people, and the Return of all surplus to the first two. If the men and women over the last 65 years had adhered to, or even known of such a thing, then perhaps agriculture would look completely different. I think Todd adheres to those principles, and his farm reflects that.
But today my arms hurt, and its a good reminder of what kind of thinking got us here. But that's ok, because tomorrow will be a better day.