84-Lancaster Farming, Saturday, Hecember 30, 2000 On Being a Farm Wife (and other hazards) Joyce Bupp Time to salute a new year. Time to turn a chapter, start anew, resolve to clean up our act. Time to clean up this messy desk, scattered with clippings. Clippings which keep tangling themselves in my mind, like they do among the stuff on the desk. “Gas mileage at 20-year low,” intones one reporting on our na tional obsession with driving ve hicles the size of houses. Another laments the skyrocketing cost of home heating fuel, clipped to one printed just last week of a funds scarce family chopping down trees in the yard to use for heat. Mingled in are blurbs on farm land preservation efforts, along with a recent one relating to pre serve farmers, if we’re going to preserve farmland. And a couple more report ordinance strategies aimed at preventing “corporate” (read, large) farming in numer ous municipalities of the region. Unrelated stuff? Not in my opinion. They’re indicative of two lynchpin national policies which have helped grease our booming economy of the past three-plus decades. Cheap fuel. And cheap food. So we’ve happily bopped along these years, driving increasing bigger, fuel-hogging vehicles to ever-larger homes located farther and farther from the urban cen ters where we work, shop, and do business. And we’ve paved over more farm fields with concrete and blacktop so we can get there and back faster. Meanwhile, remaining farms e/ffx'j* See pages 816-819 battle increasing economic pres sure to continue producing cheap food with evermore constraints of size and regulation and taxes to help fund the growth and to battle issues raised by a popula tion on the move into their back 40, spurred by this economy nourished by cheap fuel and cheap food. To stay in business, remaining farmers are urged by economists to get bigger, to be more efficient, to maximize their resources, to specialize and grow, to diversify and grow. But efforts to grow their farm businesses me increas ingly thwarted by the sprawl feeding from cheap fuel and cheap food, tossing roadblocks out to halt growth and size. Farmers, frustrated with low returns from cheap food and in creasing population pressures, wear out, sell out, and move out. Remaining ones responding to encouragement to get bigger for efficiency may then find them selves battling legal, regulatory and municipal strangleholds for being “corporate,” or “too big.” Food production shifts farther away, where there are fewer peo ple, fewer rules, fewer regula tions. Also fewer markets, fewer processing. Which means that cheap food has to be trucked to where people are to eat it. Requiring more and better highways. More fuel to get it to markets. More labor in a shrink ing labor pool to move it. Does this make sense? Suppose...just suppose.. someone in a position to make such decisions decided this will be the year to get serious about weaning us from cheap, im ported oil. Serious enough to implement an energy policy pri oritizing use of fuels from the re newable resource of farm-pro duced grain. Suppose...just suppose...that such a grain-based fuel shift had a major impact on raising farm commodity prices from their present 20-year lows. Suppose that if grain commodities became truly profitable, farmland loss would drastically slow. We might be able to get serious about pre serving both farmland and the farmers who till it. Suppose...just suppose... senior citizens might not have to face the prospect of choosing be tween buying fuel or buying food and medicine. A single father struggling to make ends meet to provide for his kids might not have to chop down the trees on his lawn for heat. A nervous, shaky economy would calm down. Sales for cottage-sized, 4WD, SUV’s might even pick up again. Suppose such a policy could ultimately make us independent of the squabbling sultans and sheiks of the desert oil cartel, while boosting our farm econo my. Now, wouldn’t that be a New Year’s resolution worth making? OK, these clippings have messed with my mind long enough. Into the trash with ’em. We can at least start next year with a clean desk. noncorrosive Delnn valve is self cleaning & simple to operate l • 12” in diameter & 8” deep. • 3 gallon capacity- 6 times that of other bowtsl • Fast recovery- 3 gallons per minute at 40 psi. • PVC construction- guaranteed unbreakable, inhibits bacterial growth. •With nonrestrictive splash guard. • Cleaner- water fill located at bottom. • Bottom drain- for easy cleaning. • Adjustable water level. Call or write lor additional information S the name of your nearest dealer Information On Housing ITHACA, N.Y. As people grow older, their life styles and housing needs change. Some choose to live independently, while others may need assistance with some aspects of daily living. A new bulletin from the North east Regional Agricultural Engi neering Service, Housing As We Grow Older, NRAES—4I, pro vides valuable information to help older people explore differ ent options and make decisions about their housing and personal needs. The 46-page publication cov ers six major topics: choices for independent living; choices for supportive living; designing the physical environment; moving to smaller, efficient housing; com munity support services; and home financial decisions. Each chapter describes available op tions in-depth and guides people through a decision-making pro cess. Also included is an evalua tion form which lists questions ■CIDS GULP MORE MILK While youtha