Outsmarting Nature

Many people would like to see food production go “back to nature,” and I think that sounds like a fabulous idea. But where I live, Nature could care less if my family eats. I have tried raising backyard chickens for eggs, and vegetables in a small garden, and I have been met with challenge after challenge. My latest challenges have more than two legs.

Rest in peace, girls. :(

I’m posting this because my chicken coop has officially become a playhouse for the kids. The last of my beautiful, jumbo-egg laying hens are gone, becoming another meal for the local wildlife. I commented on an article in my local paper about urban chicken farming, saying that maybe an urban backyard may be the ideal place for raising chickens, since my woodland home has become a banquet hall for hungry predators. Someone was quick to “educate” me, telling me I needed to provide them a coop so they would roost. Thanks for the tip, but my chicken mansion had Fort Knox-like security at night. It provided not an ounce of safety, however, for my free-rangers during the day from coyotes and hawks. If I try it again, the days of go-where-you-want will not be an option for my girls. And some wonder why commercial chicken producers keep their birds in houses. Hmmm – cruelty or protecting your investment and the food supply?

Cucumber beetles. Thank you, Ric Bessin, entomologist
friend at the University of Kentucky, for the photo.

In addition to my latest chicken chapter, we also attempted a small garden. It is close enough to the house that the deer and rabbits have not been visiting, but the Cucumber beetles absolutely love the squash and cucumbers that I have provided for them. Since I do not have to rely on this garden to feed my family, I have not used any chemical pesticides. I would go out occasionally and knock them away, but didn’t discover their damage early enough. They were clipping off all the blossoms. No blossoms, no fruit. Did I mention that I also have a mysterious, volunteer gourd growing near the garden? The Cucumber beetles really like that one, too.

I obtained the vegetable seeds from Seminis, which is currently marketing a much-talked-about genetically modified hybrid sweet corn called Obsession II. I asked their marketing team recently if any of my seeds were genetically modified, and they said, “no.” I put in a request for beetle resistant squash. If that does not happen soon, and I expect to have any decent harvest, I believe I’ll have to go to chemical warfare. Maybe organic methods work in other places and growing systems, but I have yet to be successful with them. I even had a conversation with an organic farmer in Nebraska explaining that I have had no luck growing cabbage. And to my surprise she said, “That’s why we don’t grow cabbage.”

My chewed up cabbage from last year. Something enjoyed it!

Our final challenge this spring and summer has been the insects that feed on me and my animals: ticks, mosquitoes, horse flies, deer flies and chiggers, as well as the diseases they are known to carry. I've tried just about every product and method available, and the only real relief comes from dousing my kids head to toe with Deep Woods Off every trip outdoors. I can only imagine what that stuff is doing to our bodies as we breathe and soak it in. Nothing works for the horses (but our bond grows stronger every summer because they know I am pleased to provide them a good scratch or squash a juicy horse fly). I am waiting for some smart person to develop a pill or injectable medicine to keep the little bloodsuckers off our skin. 

My challenges are not unique. Our farmers face similar adversity every day, and they are using technology and better management methods to help keep nature from destroying the food supply:

• Crop rotation and natural predators
• Crop protection products
• Structures for plants and animals
• Conventionally-bred hybrids
• Irrigation
• Genetically modified varieties that withstand drought and pests, and allow more efficient pesticide use
• Vaccines and antibiotics that keep animals healthy
• Maintaining wildlife refuge areas

And I even know of a vaccine that controls horn flies on cattle (www.flyvax.com) that could significantly reduce their stress. 

Are there any of these methods that you approve of? Any you don't? Are some okay to use when maintaining a lawn or golf course, but not on food? If you do not want antibiotics used for meat animals, does that mean you would forego the same medicine for your child or pet to manage antibiotic resistance? If you don't want any trace of pesticide residues on your produce, does that mean you don't use manufactured pharmaceuticals in your own body. Are their methods you feel do more damage than good?

On one hand I appreciate technology—where would be without it? Hungry, diseased, dead?—but on the my semi-misanthropic hand, I sometimes blame technology for growing the population in the first place, thus providing us the challenge of finding, using and growing the resources to sustain weaker selves. And I understand why some blame technology for creating more challenges or environmental problems, like antibiotic resistance or reductions in beneficial insect populations.

Did I happen to mention one of these
ran 25 ft. behind me and kids on Saturday
night? I've had just about all of "nature"
that I can stand.

Some believe going back to basics (no pesticides, no manufactured fertilizers, no genetic modification, no animal confinement) will put the Earth back into a more natural balance, as "God intended." This philosophy may actually work for some farmers and gardeners. And these food producers have a pretty good base of customers and supporters in our current day. 

But is going back to the beginning really the answer? Do we sit back and pray for the best, or do we use the minds that God gave us to continually outsmart the nature He created in order to flourish?

The biggest issue I have is that some are encouraging our lawmakers and regulators to restrict the use of technology and dictate how food should be produced. Based on my experience, I don’t think there is any way we could produce enough food for our increasing population using 19^th century farming methods. I also know that some technologies may need to change — or get better — to protect the Earth and future generations.

What I find as the silver lining here is that I think we can have it all – enough food for everyone, today and in the future, with less strain on our environment. I believe environmental responsibility is a value shared by all farmers, whether they are USDA certified organic, heritage seed savers, or the 3000-acre corn farmer using the latest genetically-modified variety so she does not have to spray as much pesticide or use as much fuel. I see a future of farmers working together for that common goal, and it may be as simple as a crop farmer having a conversation with his bee-keeping neighbor to manage when is the best time to spray any insecticides. But farmers must be able to choose what works best for their climate and the nature-created challenges on our changing planet. At my house, that may be GMO squash and a shotgun.

In the end, I believe that nature will continue to change, and organisms will continue to adapt. The winner will be the one that adapts the quickest. And if a manufactured technology is what it takes to prevail, I will not pass judgment. Nature is a beast, and I want to survive! 

Feel free to follow me on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/FoodMommy or on Twitter: @foodmommy.

7 Families Went Hungry…

At least they would have gone hungry if they were depending on me and my small “farm” to feed them. A raccoon killed seven of my chickens last week.

You can guess that I was extremely mad. I have put a lot of time, money and emotion into those chickens, and I was looking forward to collecting their eggs to feed to my family. I was also having the debate with my oldest child whether we should be eating the extra roosters. She had finally decided that eating them would be okay, but the raccoons beat us to it. And it wasn’t pretty. The most frustrating part was that out of the seven killed, very little of those chickens were actually eaten.

We still have nine chickens left: two roosters and seven hens. This will be enough to provide us eggs, and we will be able to share with our family and neighbors. You can imagine that we have upped our chicken security. They now are put into a large dog crate covered with chicken wire each night (tree limbs are provided for them to roost on), and we have set a trap outside their home for the past several nights. And yes, we have captured several culprits, but nothing in the last two nights. We will continue to do this until their new critter-proof coop is ready, which should be by this weekend.

But why is this story important? I recently attended a conference of farm women, and a featured speaker asked us if large-scale/commercial/factory farming is “right.” That seems to be the million dollar question these days regarding food production. Many people want to see farming like it was in the good-old days where more than half the population had a small farm in which they raised most of their food and enough to feed a few non-farming neighbors. But things have definitely changed.

Fewer and fewer people have dedicated themselves to producing our food. Most of us just don’t want to do it… it requires land, capital, long hours, and a lot of faith. It’s not as easy as the internet games Farmville and Farmtown on Facebook make it out to be. I think someone needs to program in unpredictable natural disasters, disease, pests, low prices and high inputs. Then let’s see how many people want to dedicate hours to producing their virtual crops.

Having worked for farmers in the modern age – and unbeknownst to most of the world, 95% of these farmers are not food company owned – I have a real appreciation for their growing success. It was comical to see the article in Time magazine about how farmers are becoming rich these days. But the difference between a wealthy banker or stock broker and a farmer is that any profit made by the farmer is immediately invested back into his or her operation – they buy more land, they buy better equipment, they hire more people, and they invest in methods to improve the sustainability of their practices. They are not off buying yachts and summer homes in France. They are creating jobs and investing in their communities and the future of our food.

Now, I will admit 100% that I am not immune to the “factory farm” expose videos showing our food animals being mistreated or in poor living conditions. I made myself watch the Mercy for Animals video of the corporate hog facility in Iowa. I immediately left the house, turned my chickens out to run around the farm and proclaimed to my husband that I would no longer be purchasing pork from my grocery store (which was named in the video). I also suggested that we buy a pig or two to raise ourselves, just like my grandparents did, but that didn’t fly.

And since I have undertaken the task of advocating for our US farmers and their practices, I had to ask myself, “How do I defend this if I don’t like it?”

That has been a tough question, but something I felt I needed to address. After several weeks of contemplation, my answer about the morality of farming comes down to this:

In most cases, I believe the individual farmer feels a strong sense of duty to feed his or her fellow man. That sense of duty may be tied to faith and/or a real desire to contribute a basic necessity for life. Most farmers do not intentionally set out to abuse animals or pollute the environment, but try to produce food the best way they know how at the time with the resources they have available to them.

Improvements are constantly being made – not for making loads of money, but to maximize future productivity. Making a profit is still important, however, and we cannot lose sight that farmers must provide for the basic needs of their families as well. I believe a lot of farmers are complacent at just getting by, but operating at a loss for several years is difficult to endure for anyone, which has led to many farmers leaving the business.

I also believe most farmers are willing to listen to the needs of consumers and will “fix” certain aspects if it makes logical sense. Some farmers are turning to niche markets to meet those needs and help themselves stay afloat financially. What I don’t want to see happen though is our food supply drastically reduced because going back to the “good-old days” makes people feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Our farmers will need to feed 9 billion people by the year 2050, and there are still cases of famine across the globe. We still need efficient, larger-scale operations to feed the majority of the under-privileged people across the world and even in our nation.

Now back to my chickens… I love the fact that I am producing some food for my family in the best way that I know how. The chickens I have left are happy and get to eat as much horse poop, bugs and green stuff as they want. Raising chickens is expensive (I could have already purchased 1700 dozen eggs with what I have spent in food and housing) but it makes me feel good. But I would be hungry if I had to depend on these chickens to feed me and my family. Okay, seven families may not be hungry, but I have lost several years’ worth of eggs and a few meals worth of meat in one night. The notion circulating that we could all sustain ourselves on 4.5 acres of land is laughable to me. God doesn’t make things so easy. That perfect world only exists on Facebook.

It is my true opinion that we have the ability to feed our people on the land available to us, without deforesting millions of acres and without causing further destruction to our natural resources. I am seeing some amazing technology coming down the pike to help us achieve that. Some may think that it is more “right” to not use pesticides, synthetic fertilizers, genetically-modified crops, or confine animals, but I can guarantee that if we all turned back the clock on food production, many more people would be starving. Where is the morality in that?

Update: After having a great conversation with a reader I wanted to clarify that I will never try to defend bad behavior of farmers or food companies. But I feel I need to defend agriculture in general - big or small - for putting food on our tables. I have said it before; farmers have a really hard time recuperating from the misdeeds of a few. It is our right as consumers to demand better, but we must also realize what it will take to feed more people with less resources.