Son of a Farmer

Walking across the cotton fields this week, reality is slowly but surely settling in the marrow of my bones. That early-mid August rain we desperately needed didn’t happen. With minimal moisture in the soil, this is turning into “one of those” years where you end up a rain or two too short. If the cotton plant was a man, I’d hate to have to fight the son of a bitch because it is much tougher than I am to make through this summer like it has. No rain in the forecast for the next few days. Perhaps we should all squiggey our third eye together and have a raindance. It’s worth a shot.

      Ever since I moved back to my family’s farm in 2005, I’ve been trying to understand where we’re headed in agriculture and why. Needless to say, the more I see out the tractor window the more confused I become. The vision of our industry is as clear as West Texas skies in a spring sandstorm. The Earth becomes nothing more than a brown haze consuming our sense of direction.  

          We have such a huge impact on all living creatures – farmers, that is – including one another. We’re more than just the bridge between humanity and food. We are more than just neighbors. We are flesh and bone guardian angels of the soil, protectors of life. We are here to ensure the survival of agriculture and preserve Nature’s delicate cycle which keeps everything spinning round. We are valuable allies when we want to be.

          It takes all walks of life for crops to evolve from tiny seeds to fully mature plants. From bees and flies to microscopic bacteria in the soil, we have billions of helpers along the way. As fellow farmers, we also must be tentative to not only our own crops but also our neighbors’ crops just across the turnin’ row.

          Yet it is apparent we are hell-bent on decimating the purity in Nature and even our personal relationships because of our adopted-style of chemical farming. And all of this madness in the name of money? Crazy but true.

           In the past three years, I’ve both heard of and witnessed more “drifting” problems from genetically-modified farming than ever in our farming community. In a frenzy to control weeds without a plow, Roundup farmers scurry across their land in panicked fashion with crop dusters and colossal spray rigs pumping out poison like vengeful venom machines. Here in West Texas, the wind seldom rests and carries upon its breezes those tiny particles of poison into neighboring fields, homes, and gardens. This “drift” on conventional crops sickens the plant to such a degree, preventing the plants from producing its full potential. Organic food crops curl up into a fetal position, setting tiny fruit (if any at all) rather than large, healthy produce.

          My garden was killed by my neighbor early this summer as Helena Chemical Company pumped Roundup across his cotton crop. My tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, corn, and garlic withered to nothing. Even after attaining tissue samples from a laboratory (a $300 cost), Helena Chemical representatives informed me they planned “to do nothing” to compensate me for my food or time. Instead, they wanted to blame a flying service putting out Roundup more than half a mile away on another neighbor’s field. And this is how the game is played in modern agriculture. It boils down to accounting with no accountability. And my neighbor (whom I’ve known my entire life) took the side of Helena, insisting they could not have drifted because he was there to watch it. (Even though they sprayed 30 yards from my garden.)

          We have been conned into this rigged game of commercial agriculture ruled by corporations designed to take as much money as possible from us. They neither have our best interests at heart nor that of our soil, water, or air. Yet year after year, we contribute billions of our hard-earned dollars to companies like Monsanto, DuPont, Dow Chemical, Bayer Crop Science, and other deviant corporations focused solely on profits.  

          To the occasional passerby, fields appear normal and weed free. But it is what we can’t see that is killing our industry, the American farmer, and everything else around us. Genetically-modified crops dominate the landscape like neighborhood bullies on a late-evening street corner. Trouble is bound to happen before sunrise. Weed issues are treated with cancerous herbicides such as Roundup, atrazine, and other modern forms of 2-4D, Agent Orange, etc. Insects, of course, are also treated with the latest version of poison rather than a healthy crop rotation and organic fertilizers. We’ve gotten so far off track; we don’t even know where the train is supposed to run anymore. I’m not sure if we even listen for the whistle.

          The concept of  ’get big or die’ has created such a monster American farming now resembles the physique of a steroid-infested body builder with a pea-sized brain rather than a fine-tuned, hard-working athlete with a keen mind. We’ve beefed up family farms to such a degree they resemble the overfed, malnourished livestock of factory farms.

          As commercial farmers, we’ve traded in our title as stewards in exchange for “producers” so we might gain more paper money per acre each year and hang on to another season of debt-ridden life. We’re stuck in an eternal one-year plan centered around a cleverly-modern recipe with venom as the key ingredient.  Pleased as pudding, we pump this poison as fast as possible across our farms, treating our long-term problems with short-term ideas. Focused on appearance rather than health, we scurry across rural Earth like toxic cosmetologists hoping to collect as much money as possible before closing time. 

          Instead of thinking our weed and insect issues could actually be derived from unhealthy soil, we dare not listen to rational reasoning. Distracted by a long list of titanic annual payments, we haven’t the time to build our soil with organic matter and nutrients. We only want to get rid of the problems right now – consequences be damned. Do we want to solve our problems or transform them into uncontrollable monsters, passing them off to our children like some diabolical family heirloom? With all the talk of Global Warming or Climate Change, we need to look no further than our daily contributions of poison to a planet already overwhelmed with decades of gluttony and greed.

          When I returned home to my family’s farm, I wasn’t exactly sure if I was ready or not to become a farmer again. More than a decade had passed since I last worked the Earth on a regular basis. Much had changed. What I had not forgotten was unfamiliar. Yet, deep down I knew the farm was exactly where I needed to be.

          After a year of getting my feet wet, the connection between the Earth and myself grew strong. Accepting my return, I knew I’d made the right decision to come back home. Many challenges lied ahead, and I welcomed them with open arms – learning as much I could on a daily basis about plants and their relationship to the soil, about our soil and its relationship to insect issues, and about the farmer and our relationship with Nature. The more I learn, the more determined I am to be a true steward of the soil, a flesh and bone guardian angel of the Earth. It is an uphill battle I am fully capable of surviving.

          No matter how many times we get kicked in the teeth when changing agriculture for the better, we cannot rest on our oars. Motivation must come from within. Not from some outside source. Let us not depend on government who weakens us with dependence. Let us not rely on the corporations who rob us of our profits. Let us not blame ‘the system’ designed to crater our revolution. Let us not pass off our own transgressions on others when we are perfectly capable of change for the better. No matter what sales pitch we are fed at a free lunch, we are better than this. We must be better than we have been. Evolution is often a wonderful deed performed by the most intelligent of creatures.

          So long as one profits financially from a crime, it is difficult to consider the act so horribly wrong. While refusing to believe the inconvenient consequences of our actions, reality is often too cruel to accept. Perhaps we don’t perceive something as a problem until it directly affects us in a negative fashion. Let us not be an industry blinded by our profits because our crimes against Nature are obvious whether we admit it to ourselves or not.

          For those who read this publication regularly, I do not mean to preach to the choir, but this message is intended for the attentive suits in the first row all the way to the snickering teenagers in the back pew. This message is also for myself to never forget what I strive to be as a farmer. I do not write these words to depress or degrade my fellow farmer. On the contrary, I write these words because they are the painful truth. Isn’t that what is supposed to set us free or at least restore these brown skies back to blue?

That’s right. And who is the latest state with the grandest juevos rancheros of them all? Oregon, that’s who. Their governor signed the bill and it passed all the way through with flying colors. This is incredible news for not only agriculture but the economy, as well. Hopefully, this catches on and soon. Read more.

Congrats Oregonians. You make me proud.They join North Dakota, Maine, and 14 other states quickly passing legislation to make hemp happen. The biggest hang-up? The Feds and the dreaded DEA. Keep those bastards out of their fields!

“I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the civilized world. No longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men.” – President Woodrow Wilson, 1916 (three years after signing the Federal Reserve Act)