Hope, Farming and the Lord 101

As I mentioned in some detail in my last blog, I underwent something of a baptism by fire when my first wife and I were separated and divorced. Between getting cheated on, getting divorced, selling up my farm, and watching my income as a feed salesman fall in half thanks to the BSE crisis, which effectively closed the Canadian border to most livestock exports, 2004 was a really, really rough year. I'll admit that I spent considerable time looking at my rear end to see if someone had attached a real big sign saying "KICK ME" because it sure felt like someone was doing so for most of the year.

However, once I came to the conclusion that feeling sorry for myself wasn't getting me very far, I thought maybe it was time to try something different. The upside to no longer having a home, a farm, a wife or a job worth having is that I was completely free to try again, and once I saw this, I began to incrementally take advantage of it. Long story short, I quit my feed/seed/chemical sales job about corn planting time in 2004, became an international hay broker, and I began to educate myself about "alternative" agriculture in a number of ways both practical and theoretical. I also got to know a pretty foreign horse lady...also recently divorced...who I took on a whole bunch of hot dates and who REALLY made me look forward to hay selling trips in the Southeastern US. Perhaps not coincidentally, about this time I started selling a lot more semi-loads of hay in Tennessee, particularly within commuting distance of Nashville. :)

We started selling beef direct to consumers in 2005/06. We rented a little bit of land and bought enough cattle to use the land efficiently by going partners with my good friend Bob Stannard (who grew his half of this business into a very successful company...Vermont Natural Beef..check his website out). Note that we owe most of our success to the fact that we DIDN'T buy land, fancy pickups, fancy equipment, tools or really anything else excepting a roll of electric fence, a water trough, and a pair of fence pliers. If one is going to succeed in making a start up work, one HAS to focus one's limited resources on owning productive assets. I'm not trying to toot our own horns over much but in agriculture thinking this way is REALLY outside the box. So is selling direct to consumers in order to capture 100 % of a consumers retail dollar instead of pennies on the dollar when one sells commodities wholesale.

Today, situation normal is that most conventional farmers invest several hundred thousand dollars at a minimum (and often much more than that) in start ups before they turn their first dollar in revenue. In most cases, IMO this is financial suicide and also a great way to give oneself ulcers. This is especially true in integrated agriculture (ie building chicken houses for Tyson or hog houses for Smithfield, etc.)...perhaps moreso because the degree of control you exercise over anything determining your profitability is low at best.

Changing one's view of the world one grew up in is a hard lesson of a thing to do. I love to read and I particularly enjoyed the following authors in 2004 and subsequent years (books in parenthesis): Gene Logsden (Chicken Tractor), Joel Salatin (You Can Farm and Family Friendly Farming) and Allan Nation (Pasture Profits from Stocker Cattle). Also, Wendell Berry, who describes the community in which I grew up in startlingly accurate detail in books like Hannah Coulter and Jayber Crow, Ben Green (Horse Tradin', The Village Horse Doctor) and David Newell (If Nothin' Don't Happen and The Trouble of It Is). Every one of these authors played a role in getting me fired up about rural living and making a living farming again.

I want to encourage farmers who want to gain some understanding of what Mr. and Mrs. Joe Consumer think of our food system today to read (sometimes with a grain of salt):

Holy Cows and Hog Heaven by Joel Salatin
Omnivores Dilemma by Michael Pollan
Animals Make Us Human by Temple Grandin
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver
The Informant, Kirk Eichenwald

and to watch Food Inc., even if parts of it makes you mad, as it did me. Perhaps you'll realize, like I did, just how abyssmal a job our current crop of agricultural leaders are doing at addressing the issues presented. Perhaps you'll also realize, as I did, that maybe some of these books as well as the consumers that read them have a few valid points. Consumers aren't all whack jobs who want to run farmers out of business, although this is how they mostly get presented inside industry publications. Perhaps you'll wind up agreeing, as I do, that some of the practices common in commercial agriculture today are no longer defensible to today's consumer and they flat out need to change, the sooner the better.

I also highly recommend The Stockman Grass Farmer, a monthly publication chock full of successful direct marketers who have turned out of the box ideas into a successful full time living.

Gonna cut this short....hope it stimulates some thought. Never did get around to mentioning the Lord, but it sure makes a great title, don't it ? :)

Paradigm Farms - The reason behind the name

This is likely to be a long post. It may well be so long that I wind up dividing it into two parts. If I had a hunting dog that wandered onto as many side trails and I seem to, I'd give him away, but when I tell a story orally I veer onto side trails all the time so why should writing be any different ? :)

As some of you know, I grew up on a working "conventional" farm which was situated among other working, "conventional" farms in a place that was then, and remains to this day, Canada's bread basket. As some of you may remember reading in our Paradigm Farms blog, I gained my passion for agriculture by following my grandfather, a gentle, patient and kind man, literally through every season when I was a child. With a couple of exceptions, his business and farming mindset was very conventional, if quite current, for the time and place in which he was brought up. He grew commodities (milk, oats, grain, beef cattle, dairy heifers, field peas and sweet corn for the canneries, etc.), and he sold them to someone else to do something else with before they ever their way to someone's table.

His type of commodity agriculture has always required a relatively large scale to produce an adequate living for the operator of choice. By the standards of the day, my grandad ran a large, prosperous farm. He farmed a LOT more land in the 1940's and 50's than I do today and he farmed it far more intensively (and some might reasonably say more successfully) than I do right now. He continued to grow his land base and continued to branch out his business right up until he retired, a whole bunch of years later.

My formal education, which I gained at the University of Guelph, Canada's best "land grant" university, did an excellent job of backing up everything I learned from watching and doing at home. So too did my first couple of jobs after college.

The problem was that by the time I graduated college in 1994, the profit margin in conventional agriculture was GONE. One could possibly make it work, if by chance one inherited one's land and equipment and/or had a spouse with a really good off farm job to support one's large and very expensive hobby.(I've done a lot of crappy things in my life, but to my credit I have never believed in putting my wife to work to support me ! Remember that, Melissa !) If you think horses are expensive, try 3000 (or 30,000) acres of commodity corn and beans ! I promise that after the bills come in, you'll run back to horses. Unfortunately, IMO, most ag industry jobs, land grant universities and most extension personnel STILL do an excellent job of backing up a business model that nearly guarantees failure for those starting out.

After my dad passed away suddenly and very unexpectedly, I returned home, bought our family homeplace, and did my best to make a go of it, still convinced in the precepts if not entirely in the economic reality behind conventional agriculture. As far as it went, I did it all "right", at least according to the extension experts and land grant university types, and through luck and some skill I made the operation modestly successful. What this means is that my business turned a lot of dollars. My cash flow was excellent. Unfortunately it was mostly flowing right back out the door. Even in my best years, I worried about how to make the business a truly viable long term model which would allow me to pay my bills, earn a reasonable living and continue to expand over time, hopefully without borrowing very much money.

I don't guess I'll ever know how that all would have turned out. I was blind sided by a divorce in 2003, and despite my ex-wife's intense dislike of me, she sure liked the thought of getting her hands into the little bit of money I had earned and saved. I sold our farm, which we had bought from my mom after dad died and which had been in our family for seven generations, to pay her out. I hated being forced to sell at the time, but maybe it saved me from an even worse ending a few years down the road. There was much that I loved about the way I grew up (and much that I still want to replicate today) but the business model that served my grandad never really did serve me. Failure has the ability to teach lessons much more effectively than success. I loved my first wife and I loved farming. I failed at both. The day my farm got sold was the day I fully realized my losses. It was the worst day of my life. I vowed that I was done forever with conventional commodity agriculture. My paradigm(s) had shifted, though to what, I wasn't at the time so sure of.

Two years later, shortly after I married Melissa, we bought a bunch of beef calves with a partner in Benson VT. The goal was to finish them all and sell them direct to consumers. We didn't have any money to buy grain but we had plenty of grass, so we grass finished every one of them. Surprisingly, we sold everything we finished, and even more surprisingly to me, the beef was delicious...among the best I have ever eaten ! To honour my mid-life re-introduction to a very different kind of farming, Melissa and I agreed it would be very appropriate to call our new venture Paradigm Farms.

People today remark to me that I walk around most of the time with a goofy grin pasted on my face. Damn straight I do. I'm a full time farmer. I've got one HELL of a wife. I have several viable businesses going on, and I'm living my childhood dream. If that's not reason enough to walk around smiling, I don't know what is !

Agribusiness Blasphemy

I've been a proud farmer all my adult life. To the bottom of my being, I believe in what I do and in what I stand for. First and foremost, I primarily try to act as a husbandman in all that I do. It's my job to tend after my piece of God's good earth and the creatures that roam on it and to do both in a manner that is respectful toward the part of creation which I have been entrusted.

My neighbours and my friends, representing small and large farms, both conventional and organic, mostly believe like I do, and they bring every bit as much passion as I do to the table each and every day.

I read a series of articles in a mainline agricultural publication earlier today that made mock of everything I and most of the farmers that inhabit my world stand for. The gist of the articles, and indeed, the underlying gist of most of the publication is that farm animals are nothing but protoplasm designed to be manipulated, caged and disposed of as we see fit with little or no regard paid to their needs, wants and desires. Indeed, one of the articles in the cluster of nonsense I read had the werewithal to suggest that animals are happier in artificial environments (think factory type caged laying hens and sows in gestation stalls) than they are living more naturally, and, unbelieveably to me, the article cited peer reviewed research to back their "facts" up. Even more unbelievably, there was yet MORE peer reviewed research in another article that suggested the environment benefitted in a number of ways by ALL factory agriculture choices, from monoculture corn and beans in the midwest to locating huge feedlots and dairies on brittle western land. By this point, I was shaking my head so hard I thought it was going to start spinning all the way around.

I'm left to wonder whether or not these people actually believe the nonsense they are spewing ? I'm also left to wonder, yet again, who'se agenda they are supposed to be protecting when they spew this stuff. I don't have to wonder whether or not farmers like me need better representation than we're getting from the folks doing this nonsense research or writing these garbage articles. I KNOW that.

In a burst of irony, this same publication had several articles in this very issue wondering why consumers are turning in droves toward local production, bypassing corporate agriculture with their food dollars. Well, duh.

Where I grew up....

The little general store in the village, loafer's bench removed for winter, 1987.

When I say I grew up the old way, I meant it. This acre and a half was (and remains) our garden spot. Notice the rows of garlic mulched with straw. This became a hobby for one of my uncles during his retirement. Photo taken Nov 1999.

The view from the top of the hill at "Grandpa's", a 50 acre piece of pasture kitty corner to our homeplace. That is Lake Ontario in the far distance. We farmed most of what you see in the near distance. Photo taken fall 1990.

Our homeplace, Christmas morning, 1994. The house dates from 1869 and is the second dwelling on the farm, built by my great-great-great grandfather's sister.

Showing cattle, Durham East 4-H Show, Blackstock Fair, 1985. I'm the guy in the jean jacket, in fourth place when the photo was taken.

Trip to our family homeplace

I have been off, lollygagging around at our family homeplace in Ontario these past few days and leaving my lovely bride in Tennessee to tend the farm ! I returned to the US on just in time for Canada Day ! I had a great trip, and as usual I forgot my camera and only managed to see about half the people I wanted to. That's okay, as it gives me a reason to go back ! :)

Not really much to report on; the weather was fabulous (re: lovely and cool) the entire trip and everything went smoothly regarding my flights which was a bonus considering I flew to and from Buffalo, NY. I enjoyed the time with my family; my brother and his wife were up from Windsor with my niece, and as always, I enjoyed spending time with many of my old friends. I try not to rank any of my friends according to whom I like best, but I will say that it's nearly impossible to hide anything from someone who has known you since the cradle. :)

I engaged the services of Frank Stapleton, an auctioneer a few miles from home, to get rid of an old horse drawn buggy that my mother and uncles enthusiastically purchased for us at a neighbours auction some years ago. (Interestingly, Frank's auction barn is part of a complex he owns that also contains a gas station, a convenience store, a feed dealership and the post office all rolled into one.) When I discovered it was going to cost the price of a new truck to get the buggy to TN, buy a driving horse and buy tack, I determined the buggy needed to stay right where it was, though preferably in someone else's hands. As is usual in our little community when one doesn't have a long history of dealing with a person, we play the game of, "Who are your people ?" and "Who do we know in common ?" Frank started, and we didn't get past the first question before we moved to his office and he started telling me stories of dealings with my dad, my uncles and my granddad that I had never heard before. Several hours later, and much the richer for the knowledge and stories, I left the buggy to it's fate. As far as I know, it will be auctioned tonight; come to think of it, I ought to check the advert online ! :)

On the trip back to the States, I figured out that my phone also took pictures, and I have included a short selection of bad photographs (combined with poor commentary) taken between home and the American border.

Hope everyone has a great weekend and enjoyed celebrating Canada Day yesterday, or WILL enjoy celebrating the 4th on Sunday !

I couldn't believe the draconian speeding violation fines on the 407 ! Of course, this being Ontario, I took this shot while passing the sign at 135 km/h ! :)

My part of Ontario was originally settled by folks from Cornwall in England and also from Northern Ireland. To this day, Kendal has an active Orange Lodge, as do most of the small communities in my home county. Thankfully today the Orange Lodge signs are little more than a curiosity. A hundred years ago...even 50 years ago....a sign like this (posted, as this one is, at the entrance to a community) represented a real threat and was reason enough to keep moving along if one had an Irish Catholic surname. Niagara Falls ! Despite the lack of proximity, I flew to and from Buffalo, NY as it was nearly a thousand dollars cheaper than flying to Toronto. I took full advantage of the border crossing to re-acquaint myself with Niagara Falls, Ontario and Niagara Falls, NY.

Back in the day....

In many ways that count, the little village in/near which I grew up is much as I remember it in my youth. I'm still related to more people that live there than I'm not and many of the homes, farms and businesses remain in the same family as founded them a couple of hundred years ago. But time and change have crept up and there are a few significant differences, many of which relate to how small the world has got since that time.

The general store that sat on the four corners in the village is closed now and has been for some time. Three generations of the same family ran it for over a hundred years, but when the current bachelor store keeper came to retirement age some years ago it was unceremoniously shut down. Given that it's only 10 miles on good, fast roads to a choice of big grocery stores in town and given that nearly everyone in the community today works "out", I doubt there'll ever be another store on the premises.

It sure wasn't this way at any time in the 1970's, although maybe the writing was on the wall by the end of the decade. The road wasn't very good or very fast and many of the families that supported the store made their living right in the community although even then, some did work out. Back then you could buy kerosene, gasoline, cold meat, hardware, a full line of dry goods and boots as well as a pretty fair selection of farm supplies all under one little roof. Pop came in bottles and the cooler was just inside the door with a piece of tin over the top to keep the cold in. A twelve ounce bottle (this was before metric) cost a quarter, recently raised from 15 cents. The candy rack and penny candy jars held a lot of fascination for me at the time; especially the caramels which were high at three pennies a piece. It wasn't unheard of to pay for things in trade or in kind rather than in cash; I've watched folks do it many times. Everybody with good credit ran a tab and if you wanted something that wasn't on premises, the storekeeper would fetch it for you when he closed up early on Thursday afternoon to go to town to lay in additional supplies in preparation for the weekend; Saturday night especially. My grandparents shopped virtually nowhere else, although they would ask my mom (who went to town to the A & P every Thursday herself) to fetch back certain items, including prescriptions, which were unavailable there.

The store came with it's own group of loafers who sat outside on the porch; old men mostly (including the father of the storekeeper); men long retired off the farm who had moved to the village to take life easy. I remember one day when I was pretty small; maybe six or seven years old, sitting outside on my bicycle eating a popsicle when a car drove up. The driver and passenger looked thoroughly addled as they should have given their explanation that they were enroute to Montreal, some three hundred miles distant. This got the loafers pretty fired up; none had been that far from home themselves but all knew the right roads to get there and they all started speaking at once. The loafers were doubly fired up that the lost car arrived at the store going the wrong direction to reach Montreal, at least in this lifetime. When order was finally restored and they all began to calm down the following conversation took place.

From the loafer in charge to another, "How far d' ya reckon it is around the world ?"

"Hell if I know."

"Well then, how about you ? You always was the geographer in this group." This from one to another.

"Reckon it'd eat up 25000 miles. Why ?"

"Cause 25,000 miles less three hundred is how far it is to Montreal if they keep on the same way they're pointed now."

"Well, by God, they need to get that car turned around then."

Said to the lost driver, " You heard the man. Get 'er turned, feller !"

About then, somebody came out with cold drinks for the strangers, and for some reason, as I remember it, also with a pound of cheese. Sounds like a nasty combination today but it seemed to make sense then. This was all handed through the window with much thanks issuing from the car. Directions were given and the car set off headed the right way.

Slowly over the next several years, the old men who loafed at the store died off and were replaced by others; brothers in some cases, neighbours and friends, and as I mentioned, some years after that the store closed entirely. But the story never died among those of us in the know. On my last trip home in September of 2009 to attend my brothers' wedding, the nephew of the lead loafer told me the story as I sat on the steps of the closed store, eating a popsicle I bought somewhere else in the warm early fall sunshine. He didn't know it, but I told him I knew the story first hand. I was there.

Dad

One of the things that drove my dad absolutely batty was watching his father-in-law, and in later years his son stand around staring off into the middle distance on a perfectly good day apparantly doing nothing when in his opinion, action was called for. Every good farmer needs to take a few minutes in his day to inventory all those things that are in the process of wearing out or needing imminent repair in order that when he goes to town for parts he gets all that he needs. That is what we were doing and in the end I know it saves time and avoids trips. Dad knew this too, and at least he overtly respected it with my grandad, but he made no bones about getting after me, his eldest son, for standing around wasting daylight when there were things to be done ! He also couldn't abide someone lollygagging around when entering or exiting a house. He would physically hurry folks though any open door all the while saying, "C'mon, c'mon...get a move on through that door...wasting heat ya know...". I actually find myself replicating him on that as my wife Melissa will attest. :)

As anyone who knew him will readily remember, dad was a type A personality on steroids when it came to getting work accomplished. One of the best descriptions of him I've ever heard came from one of our neighbours, a man known himself to be a hard and persistent worker. While talking about dad one day and not knowing that I was standing directly behind him, he shook his head and said that John was a man that went through life at an angle of 20 degrees to the forward in high gear all the time. He was exactly right with his metaphor; it's one I use to this day to describe my dads' working tendencies and general mannerisms to those that didn't know him.

Of course there were other sides to the man as well. He was, underneath the bluster, a big, tender and gentle man who in a lot of respects kept a childs heart throughout his life. He commanded an instant presence when he entered a room; so much so that I can see him yet, looking around and over his shoulder at the silence that was moments before a chattery party, bellering at the crowd that by God as near as he knew this wasn't a funeral and they'd better keep having fun ! I've seen him laugh and cry in the space of a few minutes when he was entertaining with or being entertained by his many friends.

Sadly, his name, his legacy and his sons are all he leaves in this world. He died after suffering a massive heart attack while working in Chicago, Illinois. He had heart problems for much of his adult life and suffered two heart attacks of moderate severity while he was stillin his 30's. His mother's family is riddled with heart problems; in addition to killing my grandmother it has killed second and third cousins, great-uncles and my uncle, dad's only brother, late in the fall last year.

On Monday of this week I celebrated a birthday and every year I get older I spend a little more time thinking about my own mortality. This is espcecially true around my birthday and for a little while after. Lest readers think that I've morbidly got one foot stuck in the grave, what I actually think about isn't how I'm fixing to die...rather the focus is on living fully and accomplishing what I want to in a timely fashion. This isn't a dress rehearsal, although I see a lot of folks living their life as if it were.

Hope everyone is having a great Wednesday !