Thursday, August 27, 2015

Detours


Summer time travel is full of road work and we found our share on my college visit with Reed to Purdue.

Detours are associated with dirt, delays and danger.
  1. Dirt. Anytime you are trying to improve something it is messy. You have to move a lot of things around and bring in some new resources from the quarry, steel mill and equipment...lots of equipment. This is true on our farm. We have been working 12 years to improve the organic matter on our farm. We have added 3.5 million pounds of compost from sources off the farm and created about 500,000 pounds from sources grown on the farm.
  2. Delays. Construction takes time. Sometimes the project scope is years. On the farm if soils have been depleted they didn't get that way over night and the won't be healed overnight either. Sometimes it can take decades or even a lifetime to rebuild agricultural soils.
  3. Danger. We kept seeing signs about the fine and prison sentence for killing a construction worker. It is interesting that a construction worker in Illinois is worth more than one in Indiana, I'm sure that is just the vagaries of the legislature. There are many dangers in agriculture. Dangers to the health of farm works from very toxic and potent chemicals. Dangers from the near total death of the life in our soils. Dangers from a government who will put the small farmer out of business with well meaning but highly restrictive regulations. Dangers to a way of life that is disappearing. Dangers to the health of the American public from GMO's and chemicals in our food supply.

Maybe it is time to get back on track in Agriculture. Take the road less traveled. Take the straight path. No detours.

Vote with your fork.

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