Who Needs Vegas?

Photo credit: Bending Bridge Farm

One of my favorite agricultural mentors once told me that farming is the oldest form of legalized gambling.“Do you think they could build all of this if the house lost more than the bettors?” he asked, sweeping his arm toward the strip of casinos lighting the desert night as we passed through without stopping to try our luck with what else, a one-armed bandit.“If you’re going to farm, remember that no matter what you do Mother Nature is the house and she will always win more than you.”As the years have rolled by, I realize old cowboy Jack’s wisdom, especially as I don my union suit reserved for brutally frigid temperatures to do farm chores this morning. My outside to-do list sits idle, as do my fellow farmers’ tractors, as we wait to get started on the 2019 season. No where was this more evident than the pictures from Bending Bridge Farm between this time last year and this year. You can’t plant your fields when they are covered in snow.The gamble to farm is more than just betting against the weather. While most people would welcome a burst of warm weather in relief from winter, fruit growers hold their cards against such events that signal their trees to blossom prematurely only to lose to a late spring freeze killing off their crops (and your cobblers) for that year.In addition to Mother Nature, farmers are increasingly forced to bet against the government. There are more federal, state and municipal regulations and oversight hefted upon farmers than the average consumer realizes. Much of it is under the guise of food safety despite the reality of food-borne illness outbreaks coming from large-scale, multi-national conglomerates transporting goods across multiple levels to reach the consumers.My livestock is required to be processed under USDA inspection in order to be sold across state lines and by the cut at a public farmers market and I’m ok with that. But the niche slaughterhouses and meat processors who bet on the growing demand for locally grown and processed meats are losing against the insurmountable bureaucracy treating them the same as their industrial counterparts. Forced to maintain a mountain of paperwork, much that pertains to none of their business, small processing plants are buckling and closing creating less access to locally produced and processed meats.Similarly, small-scale farmers wanting to attend community markets may need to obtain permits from multiple agencies—state, county, borough/city—in addition to their market fees and liability insurance. Want to sample your products? That means you’ll need a ServSafe® certification and an additional license.Add into that the 22 assorted commodity statutes known as “check-offs” that require farmers to pay into a pool to fund research, promotion and lobbyists. Beef, pork, lamb, eggs, fresh-cut flowers, dairy, watermelons, and honey to name a few.See how it feels like someone is swiping chips from the farmer’s pile?To hedge their bets, farmers are moving away from a single specialized crop. Dairy farmers are dropping like flies, but the ones holding on and even succeeding, such as Rock Hill Orchard, are who have diversified, be it bottling their own milk, making value-added products like cheese, ice-cream and yogurt or adding non-dairy crops to their operations.Losing the bet on an early spring means I’ll be playing chicken with the hay supply meaning will I have enough stored hay to get me through until the pastures are ready. With snow-covered fields in March, that’s a bet I’ll most likely lose. At one time, that meant choosing between buying hay or heating oil, a dilemma I’ve come to find I am not alone in talking with other agrarian gamblers.But the biggest bet of all is the customer. Will they show up to market and buy what we grow?When I was a kid stopping with my dad at a seasonal roadside stand in the summer to buy cantaloupes and watermelons, we went for the largest ones we could find in the bin. When those same farmers started attending metropolitan markets, they found that their customers didn’t want to carry gargantuan melons and placed bets on growing heirloom versions that were smaller, easier to carry. Sure, their bets paid off well until Mother Nature offered up one of her wettest growing seasons in years flooding the fields, floating the melons to rot in standing water. The house won again.Every step of getting food on to your plate is full of bets. Bets against changing climate. Bets against increasing regulation. Bets against competition with box stores and resellers. However, unlike traditional gambling problems, there is no treatment or Twelve-Step program for those of us with addictions to agriculture. We will gamble with our last dime and then some when it comes to producing food. Some call it a sickness or mental defect, others refer to the desire as a calling, a passion. I think it’s a little of both as I continue to lay down my chips in the pasture betting that I’ll beat the house this season safely getting my products to market.