Justice for Black Farmers Act--First Take

 Successful Farming has a piece discussing this bill, introduced by Sens. Booker, Warren, and Gillibrand. Warren's statement of support is here. The legislative language is here . (I'm not sure the bill has actually been introduced--the draft language doesn't have a number and I can't find it at Congress.gov.) Mother Jones has an article on it.

It includes several reforms and programs, most of which are focused on black farmers (defined as American-born).

The biggest ask is a program to give qualified applicants of up to 160 acres of farmland, representing from $400,000 to $800,000 in value (using Farm Bureau's average farmland value of $4,100) at no cost.

Other provisions seem to oust OGC from civil rights matters, to put additional layer(s) of authority and/or review over the existing civil rights structure and the FSA county committees, and call for an extensive research and statistical work by ERS and NASS. In addition to the provisions on black farmers there are changes relating to packers and stockyards, conservation, and local markets.

There's an "Oversight Board" focused on current and future USDA/FSA operations and an "Equity Commission" focused on historical and structural issues to do a report within 2 years, and a Civil Rights Ombudsman.

I'm still trying to understand everything in this.  Some things which struck me:

• while I don't see anything about the composition of the Oversight Board, the Equity Commission is specified in detail--black farmers, NGO members, and HBCU faculty.
• there's a discrepancy--the title is for "Black Farmers" but some of the language is "socially disadvantaged".
• Alcorn State's Policy Center is written into the bill.  It's headed by Eloris Spight, who seems to have moved from the HR side at NRC to policy before moving to the education world in 2014.

For now, that's what I have. 

Big Farmers --Past and Present

 Successful Farming has a piece on 3 of the  biggest American farmers: row and crop farmers (which I think means excluding fruits and vegetables).  That led me to this on William Scully, an Irish immigrant, who died in 1906 with 225,000 acres in the Midwest.

It's a reminder that America has always been a country where some can get very rich.

Today's Tractors

It's amazing how far out of touch I can get.  Was discussing this morning the likely cost of a modern tractor.  I guessed 6 figures.  My first search turned up this ad for a used John Deere, a 2016 model. Asking price is $300K+.  Further searching showed a lot more progress in guidance and precision than I expected.  Also checked wikipedia and their entries seem somewhat out-of-date.

The Importance of Weather and Farming in the Civil War

 John Fea at Way of Improvement posts an interview with Kenneth Noe, author of a book on how weather impacted the Civil War, both directly and through its impact on farming. Seems interesting. Likely a similar book could be written on any war of years, for example the American Revolution. 

Rebanks and the American System--Corn Laws Redux

 James Rebanks had a best-selling book back in 2015--The Shepherd's Life, a memoir of raising sheep in northwestern England.  More recently, as described in his Twitter account, he's diversified his operation with pigs and cows, and put more emphasis on diversified farming and conservation.  And he has a new book, English Pastoral (currently only on sale in England).

It took me a little while, but my new book is now on sale (for pre orders)

It is about everything I care about and love and I hope you like it pic.twitter.com/kpg2u7JmZH

— James Rebanks (@herdyshepherd1) May 28, 2020

This week BBC America had a clip of him and his wife as they argued against the "American System" Their concern was the negotiations between the UK government and US over trade terms, as the UK leaves the EU.  If there are no trade barriers/tariffs on agricultural trade, they fear that UK agriculture will be overwhelmed.  (I sense a reprise of the repeal of the Corn Laws back in 1846.)  

Rebanks outlines the case for a protectionist stance towards agriculture in this March article. And it's based on his book tour (NYTimes piece) of Kentucky when selling his first book.

On Fences and Hedgerows

Here's an article on hedgerows in the UK. 

I remember visiting North Carolina ASCS offices with the district director (this was 1968 or 9) and noticing some barbed wire fences (not many in the tobacco-growing area) with the wire on the outside of the posts.  I was struck because in NY we put the wire on the inside; dad explained it meant that cows pushing against the wire were pushing against the post, while if it were on the outside they would be forcing the staple out of the wood.

Years later I learned the difference related to the way agriculture developed in the Northeast versus the South.  In the Northeast livestock were fenced in; field crops were attractive to livestock.  In the South livestock, especially hogs, were left to roam free, field crops of tobacco and cotton weren't attractive to livestock, fields of corn etc. that were attractive were protected by fencing out.

Now I'm guessing the use of hedgerows in the UK reflects the relative scarcity of wood--no split rail fences there,  the fact that fields developed long before barbed wire became available, and the development of a historic pattern.  Hedgerows would seem to require a long lead time to grow; not like a fence which can go up in a few days.  So if farms have been around for centuries, there was time for hedgerows to develop.

Crops Under Solar?

I'm a bit dubious about this.

Construction is slated to begin this spring on a 1.2-megawatt solar array on the Kominek farm. Some 3,300 solar panels will rest on 6-foot and 8-foot-high stilts, providing shade for crops like tomatoes, peppers, kale, and beans on a five-acre plot. Pasture grasses and beehive boxes are planned for the perimeter.

I guess it might work, since the veggies will get early morning sun and late afternoon sun.  Production won't nearly match that from acreage dedicated to the crop, with no shading, but there's advantages to two streams of revenue.

Definitions of Farming: US Versus EU

Defining who is a "farmer" is complicated.  It's been 35 years since our legislation first tried to define "actively engaged in farming".

Yesterday I came across this piece, discussing EU's efforts first to define "active farmer" and now to define "genuine farmer".  The Irish are holding listening sessions with various farm groups (which are interesting in themselves, as different than US groups) which come up with various standards.

Why I'm Skeptical of Some Ag Activists-II

To carry on from my previous post:

In and after the 1920's people could choose between locally grown produce and that grown further away. Over time people chose the salad vegetables grown in California (mostly) over their local produce.  Why?  Presumably because the CA produce was available through more of the year and perhaps because it was cheaper and more consistent in quality. 

In the 1920's "organic" wasn't a category, wasn't a characteristic that would have played into anyone's buying decision. I don't know when people actually ended up with salad vegetables that weren't organic.  I suspect chemical fertilizers came more slowly to local farmers than to the larger concentrated farmers in California.

Why I'm Skeptical of Some Ag Activists--I

One reason I'm skeptical of some positions taken by ag activists against "factory farming".

What we currently have in the country is the result of millions of decisions in the past.  Within the memory of people still living most farms were small family operations, "small" at least by current standards.  And they were organic, mostly. (I'm thinking of the 1920's.) So a very stark contrast to today's agriculture.

I think many activists would say 1920's agriculture was overall more desirable than 2020's agriculture. Accepting that position just for the sake of argument then raises the question: how do you put the toothpaste back in the tube? 

Problems with "Model" Farms

This is a good analysis of efforts to model different and better ways of doing farming.  I'm a lot older than the author, so we both may be stuck in the past.  Underlying a lot of the analysis is a more general law which applies in education and medicine: replication will kill you.  That is, a "model" farm that actually works for a number of years, and many such ventures don't, may fail when replicated to other environments.

"Family Farms"

ERS has its 2019 report on family farms out:

Family farms accounted for 98 percent of farms and 88% of production in 2018.
Large-scale family farms accounted for the largest share of production, at 46%.

Over 50 percent of farms are either retirement farms or run by persons whose primary occupation is not farming.

Note that "family farms" can be corporately owned, so long as one extended family owns the corporation.

The New Face of Farming

Farming is open to anyone with the ability to sustain 7 digit losses  year after year. It's called "lifestyle farming" in this Bloomberg article.

(I remember when IBM had its PC printer operation in Lexington KY (later sold to Lexmark), and farms were being subdivided into 5-acre farmettes, raising questions about handling of tobacco quotas.  Or consider the new money in the UK in the 19th century who bought country estates because of the prestige attached to the land. )

Contract Farming for Strawberries?

Contract farming made an early appearance with hens, putting the small farms like my mother's out of business.  It's spread to more and more areas of agriculture, but I wasn't aware that strawberries are now included.   See this Civil Eats story.

Vertical Farms and Big Greenhouses

Seems to be a lot of activity with vertical farms (depending on LED lights, not the sun) and big greenhouses.  The initial idea was to grow greens, which made sense because they're quick and easy to grow and reasonably valuable.  With the legalization of marijuana the horizons have expanded in some states. Hydroponic tomatoes have been around for a while.

See this Reuters piece on vertical farms.

See this on an urban farm in Paris.

And this on an aquaponics/greenhouse farm in Maine.

And this NYTimes piece on a big greenhouse in Kentucky.

I'm not convinced that such farms will make a big contribution to the food supply over the next 10 or 20 years, but hope I'm around to see.

An Example of Problems in Expanding a Farm

Followed Walter Jeffries at Sugar Mountain Farm (blog) for years. He used to post regularly about the work he and his family did with their farm, raising hogs and selling meat.  He was terribly meticulous as he planned and built his house and farm buildings, with the piece de resistance his own state and federally-inspected butcher shop.  Self-reliance was the motto he lived by, and he did it damn well.

For some reason he never explained, after completing the shop he stopped blogging, except for the occasional post about deals on pork. That's been true for several years now.

But today he had a post into which I can read a partial explanation. He was robbed and his fencing sabotaged.  From the post:

we were robbed on Friday 8/23 at 4:50pm by five people in three vehicles – a small red car, a large black pickup truck and a smaller black pickup truck. The robbery and the fence sabotage may be linked to an ex-employee who had previously stolen a pig that was recovered by the state police. Clearly the robbers had insider information and knew exactly what they were doing and looking for as well as knowing when ...nobody was here

Back in the day there were no employees, just Walt, wife, and two kids.  I'm guessing that the kids have grown and at least the elder, the son, have moved out, possibly for college. (Maybe they had reservations about having their lives recorded in the blog?) But the operation as Walt developed it was more than a 2-person operation, so he had to either retrench or hire employee(s).  Getting good employees in rural areas is hard, and Walt might not have been the best supervisor in the world, being very focused on getting things right.

Occasionally you see reports of cattle rustling or theft of products--while living in rural areas has many advantages, you're far from law enforcement and so dependent on neighbors to keep a watchful eye out. But Sugar Mountain Farm is picturesque, but remote. Vermont has been hit by the opioid epidemic, as seen in this piece.

I'm sorry for Walt and his family for their loss.

The Size of "Small Farms"

NFU comments on the Family Farmer Relief Act.

And a new Congressman tweets about it:

Read more here about the bipartisan Family Farmer Relief Act which passed the Senate last week. I join @NFUDC in urging the President to sign this legislation as soon as possible to bring relief to small farms and allow more farmers to stay in business. ⬇️ https://t.co/In7iAzGu3X

— Congressman Antonio Delgado (@repdelgado) August 5, 2019

What does it do?

Raise the debt limit for Chapter 12 filing from $4 million to $10 million.

When big farms have thousands of cows and thousands of acres, I guess $10 million is "small", but it's hard for an old man to get his arms around.

Post on Dairy Farm

The WaPost has an article on the death of a dairy farm. It's more than an article:

One more year on the farm

A visual narrative of one family’s fight to save their land

Photos and video by Ricky Carioti | Text by Annie Gowen Aug. 3, 2019

After seeing a number of stories on the plight of dairy farms I'm frankly becoming numb to the plight of the families.   So my reaction to this is: flat flat land.

The Down and Dirty Dairy People

My mother always celebrated the goodness of farmers, particularly dairy and poultry farmers. Se would be disappointed at the shenanigans described in this thread.

Alright, today’s the open show and all these cows are ready to compete. Figured now’s as good a time as any to do the sequel to my last thread. This time: A Study in Dairy Infighting. pic.twitter.com/DIzwtNm42o

— 😇💖😈 (@songlin221) July 27, 2019

A Circuitous Route to Farm Survival--Cather, Stephens, and Somerby

Among the books in our house when I was growing up were three or four by Willa Cather, including My Antonia..  I've read it several times, but unlike some people I know, my wife for one, I don't have a great memory for the contents of what I've read.

Bob Somerby has his blog, The Daily Howler, which I follow.  He's often repetitive and usually idiosyncratic, predictably criticizing journalism and liberal pieties, although from a liberal background.  (He was a roommate of Al Gore and Tommy Lee Jones at Harvard who has never forgiven some journalists for their criticism of Gore.  Also taught school in Baltimore for years, leading to sharp criticism of educational panaceas and the misuse of statistics.)

Yesterday he wrote a piece picking up on a Brett Stephens op-ed in the Times, in which Stephens uses My Antonia to discuss immigration.  The book is based on Cather's childhood, spent in Nebraska among immigrant families, mostly Czech, with the central character the "Antonia" of the title. It's a rich picture of immigrant and farm life on the Nebraska plains which I recommend. I also recommend both the Stephens piece and the Somerby piece.

Somerby has a quote from the book, which reads in part:

"There was a curious social situation in Black Hawk [the local market town] All the young men felt the attraction of the fine, well-set-up country girls who had come to town to earn a living, and, in nearly every case, to help the father struggle out of debt, or to make it possible for the younger children of the family to go to school..

What I'd point out is it's the 1880's, not now, and farmers are being supported by off-farm income! Most people don't realize that most American farmers do rely on off-farm income today.   Usually, when that's discussed, it's treated as a revelation and an indicator of how bad the farm economy is. But maybe it's time to reconsider.  (BTW, back in the day most FSA clerks (program assistants) were the daughters and/or wives of farmers, or former farmers.)  I think what's going on is the same logic as my father used when he notoriously came home and told my mother she was going to have a flock of chickens (mom held that grudge until she died).  The logic--diversification reduces risk.  That's true whether you're talking investments in stocks and bonds, or agriculture. Hens and dairy have different economic cycles. But an even better diversification is a nice steady income in town, whether it's 1880 or 2019.