Animal, Vegetable, Miracle_ A Year of Food Life - Barbara Kingsolver [40]
Experimental programs like these, though new and small, are notable for the way they turn a certain economic paradigm on its head. U.S. political debate insistently poses economic success and environmental health as enemies, permanently at odds. Loggers or owls? People or green spaces? The presumed antagonism between “Man” and “Nature” is deeply rooted in our politics, culture, bedtime stories (Red Riding Hood’s grandma, or the wolf?), and maybe even our genes. But farming at its best optimizes both economic and environmental health at the same time. A strategy that maximizes either one at the cost of the other is a fair working definition of bad farming. The recent popularity of agriculture that damages soil fertility still does not change the truth: what every farmer’s family needs is sustainability, the capacity to coax productiveness out of the same plot of ground year after year. Successful partnerships between people and their habitats were once the hallmark of a healthy culture. After a profoundly land-altering hiatus, the idea may be regaining its former shine.
Is Bigger Really Better?
* * *
Which are more economically productive, small family farms or big industrial farms? Most people assume they know the answer, and make a corollary assumption: that small farmers are basically asking to go bankrupt, they’re inefficient even though their operations are probably more environmentally responsible, sustainable, diverse, and better connected to their communities than the big farms are. But isn’t it really just about the profits?
If so, small farms win on that score too, hands down. According to USDA records from the 1990s, farms less than four acres in size had an average net income of $1,400 per acre. The per-acre profit declines steadily as farm size grows, to less than $40 an acre for farms above a thousand acres. Smaller farms maximize productivity in three ways: by using each square foot of land more intensively, by growing a more diverse selection of products suitable to local food preferences, and by selling more directly to consumers, reaping more of the net earnings. Small-farm profits are more likely to be sustained over time, too, since these farmers tend to be better stewards of the land, using fewer chemical inputs, causing less soil erosion, maintaining more wildlife habitat.
If smaller is economically better, why are the little guys going out of business? Aside from their being more labor-intensive, marketing is the main problem. Supermarkets prefer not to bother with boxes of vegetables if they can buy truckloads. Small operators have to be both grower and marketer, selling their products one bushel at a time. They’re doing everything right, they just need customers.
Food preference surveys show that a majority of food shoppers are willing to pay more for food grown locally on small family farms. The next step, following up that preference with real buying habits, could make or break the American tradition of farming. For more information, visit www.nffc.net.
* * *
The people of southern Appalachia have a long folk tradition of using our woodlands creatively and knowing them intimately. The most caricatured livelihood, of course, is the moonshine still hidden deep in the hollow, but that is not so much about the woodlands as the farms; whiskey was once the most practical way to store, transport, and add value to the small corn crops that were grown here.
These hills have other secrets. One of them is a small, feisty cousin of garlic known as the ramp. Appalachian mothers used to regard these little bulbs as a precious spring tonic—one that schoolboys took willingly because it rendered them so odoriferous, they’d likely get barred from the schoolhouse for several days. For reasons