Over the past couple of years i’ve grown more in tune with farming. Listening, watching, and reading a variety of sources. I have tried to be open to all the sectors of the AG and homestead commnity. Its been clear that the more acerage you work, you either need more labor or more chemicals. Consider my sweet corn this year. I planted close to 2 acres of corn, but one particular half acre plot was my focus for food. It was planted with a hybrid sweet corn. I applied 3 foliar treatments of 20-20-20 and one heavy side dressing of 10-10-10. No other chemicals were used. For weed control I used my dad’s old Massey Ferguson 204 and a one row cultvator. This weed control worked well until the storm. When the corn was about knee high we had a heavy thunderstorm with a downburst and it laod all the corn over. It recovered over a week or so with almost no damage, but that week was enough to allow sunlight to the ground and the weeds to take off. We still look to have a good crop, but not as good with the weed competition.

I could have spent hours in the garden with a hoe, but i don’t have that time. I could have selected a round-up ready variety and sprayed my way to success, but I don’t really care for that many chemicals. Those are the two option, more labor or more chemicals. This is corn for my family so there is no one to pass the cost onto through produce sales, and thats OK. We’ll eat corn we grew. That brings me to Prop 12.

California has passed a mandate that determines how pork sold in the state must be raised. The prop also has some restrictions on poultry and beef. The pork is the big kicker. Now farmers across the mid-west have to make a decision, do they change their entire operation to meet California’s demands or no longer market to California. Its a hard choice. Some farmers are growers for the big firms and if they tell them to change, they will have to and then pray they won’t lose the family farm with the cost. Smaller farms that are not tied to big ag corporations could maintain their current operaions, but they will need to compete against the economies of scale the big boys will bring to the table.

The cards are stacked againt the smaller guys. I’ve linked a Joel Salatin video below. He states this point far better than I could during his testimony to congress.

Long and short of it, California has passed a law they think is right and now their citizens will be facing a pork shortage and $10 a pound bacon. As Thomas Sowell says “There are no solutions, only trade offs.” In this case the trade offs are not good ones in my opinion, consumers and farmers will pay the price for an invented morality.

Joel Salatin at Congress