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A community of small farms?

5/5/2012

1 Comment

 
Today I had a rather frustrating run in with another farmer at the University Farmer's Market. My policy is to never directly criticize another farm, because I know how difficult farming can be, and I think we should be supportive of each other rather than critical. I've seen flame wars get started on blogs, and I don't want to go there. So I will just talk about my experience in a vague way.

I was at the market to buy some produce and grains, but I couldn't help wandering about to check on prices of other meat producers. At the farm stand in question, I saw that the farmer wasn't busy, and asked the farmer about the slaughter facilities they use. I was curious to hear how they dealt with having to use a USDA Inspected facility (required to sell at a farmers market). Now, perhaps in retrospect, I shouldn't have tried to strike up a conversation at the market where I could be getting in the way of this person making sales (although to be fair, there were two people working the booth). After getting in a few questions, I mentioned that I was a pork producer getting started in my first year. After this, I was rudely told that the farmer didn't want to give any secrets away to their competition. I was caught off guard by this person's response, and basically had to turn around and quickly walk away to avoid saying anything nasty in return.

I thought I was entering into a collegial conversation, but ended up getting the opposite. Perhaps this person was having a bad day, or maybe I came across in an unintended way, but I hope this isn't the norm in the local farming community. I am the first to say that a farm needs to be run as a for-profit business to be successful, and maybe I'm naive to think we can all support each other as a community. I suppose only time will tell.

In the meantime, if you're a farmer or thinking about farming feel free to use this blog as a resource and to ask my opinion anytime you'd like. We're a long ways from meeting the demand for thoughtfully raised food in the Puget Sound Region.
1 Comment
James
9/22/2012 06:06:50 pm

This is a tough one I think. Some demonstrate a strong sense of community around the common goal of providing good, honest food sustainably and ethically.
Walter from Sugar Mountain Farm and Tim & Liz from Nature's Harmony Farm immediately come to mind - and there are many others.
My take is that these people share the vision that hopefully some day everyone will buy their food from people like them, and the world will be a better place for it. It's tough business and many don't succeed so these people are willing to help and share, even if it might mean more competition. But like you say, there's plenty of demand and we're a long, long way from maximising its full potential.
On the other hand, because of the challenges faced by small-scale farmers many of those in business are struggling just to stay in the black, so might choose to guard their hard-learned knowledge fiercely.
I don't know what the answer is here. I think we ought to work together and I feel it is our best chance of survival collectively in the face of powerful status-quo food system...but I can see how circumstances might discourage this too.

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