(Continued from Page A 24)
hostile environment, but how to
positively thrive in this age of un
certainty.
“Fanning on the edge ... of
what?” I asked my wife Melanie
when the idea for this column
first surfaced.
“You don’t need anything
else,” Melanie said. She knows,
after putting up with me for 28
years tomorrow (happy anniver
sary, dear!), that I sometimes get
ahead of myself. “It could be the
edge of town, the edge of market
ing, the edge of innovation. Take
your pick,” she said. “The list is
endless.”
Wise woman, my wife.
Lancaster Farming Editor
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Andy Andrews has that kind of of production, a cynic would say
common sense, too. “I am look- that the farm economy is sink
ing for alternative farming meth- ing. Time to man the lifeboats,
ods in these days of dismal dairy Take the money and run.
prices. Anything you could sup- But like Andy, we farmers
( ( A grower I met from Alabama, for exam
ple, sold part of his land to a housing devel
oper. The builder then gave everyone who
bought a new house a one-year membership
in the farmer’s weekly vegetable service. It is
OK to get creative and use your imagina-
tion. ? 5
ply to help ‘jump-start’ a sagging tend to be optimists. And like
farm economy would be great!” firefighters, we don’t give up eas-
Sagging? With nearly every ily. That’s why we’re still farm
commodity selling below the cost ing, despite low prices, rising
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c-'sts, droughts, floods, and this
nearly sunless spring that looked
more like February than May.
Fortunately, many farmers are
volunteer firefighters. (Yeah, I’m
a volunteer, too. Twenty years of
service, so far, but who’s count
ing?) That’s good because farm
ing today is a lot like firefighting.
You have to be quick, flexible,
and always keep thinking half a
dozen steps ahead. When normal
procedures don’t work or fire
conditions deteriorate rapidly,
you have to change tactics and
tools to quench the flames.
The farm economy today may
be giving off heavy smoke.
Flames may be blowing through
the roof. But we can still save the
house and its occupants, I be
lieve, if we keep our heads and
make full use of the many re
sources at our command.
Former Texas Agriculture
Commissioner Jim Hightower
gave us a place to start. “When
you find that you’ve dug yourself
into a hole, the first thing to do is
stop digging,” he said two years
ago at the annual “Farming for
the Future” conference hosted by
the Pennsylvania Association for
Sustainable Agriculture.
“Dump debt!” U.S. Sen. Kent
Conrad (D-N.D.) told farm writ
ers at a press briefing in Wash
ington this spring. “Dump debt,
and become politically active to
insist that government dump
debt as well. This is the worst
possible time to add to debt.”
He was talking about the big
picture in Washington, of course
the soaring federal budget def
icit, the possible impact of Presi
dent Bush’s proposed tax cuts,
and mounting problems paying
for Social Security and Medicare.
Commodity programs are at
risk. Taxpayers are getting sick
of farm subsidies. “It’s clear to
me that the pressure on support
for agriculture is going to be in
tense,” the senator noted.
So even paying off your credit
card bill is a good step in the
right direction. We don’t quite
have the money to do that right
away, so I did the next best
thing. I just transferred the bal
ance to a new card that offers
zero percent interest through Au-
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Lancaster Farming, Saturday, June 7, 2003-A37
gust 2004, as long as I make the
minimum payment each month.
We’ll pay it off long before inter
est kicks in again. And if we do
charge anything to our old card,
we’ll pay it off every month.
Diversification is a survival tip
strongly recommended by Tom
Dorr, USDA undersectary for
rural development.
“The farm of the early 21st
century will look nothing like the
farm of the early 20th century,”
said Dorr, who farms in lowa.
“American agriculture is at a
crucial crossroad. New strategies
and new ideas are needed. It’s
time we paint an American
Gothic for the 21st century.
“I’m not encouraging farmers
to take senseless risks, but I
would say that farmers have not
used their asset base their land
to its maximum return.”
Good point. Instead of going
to a bank and borrowing money
to modernize our vegetable oper
ation, Melanie and I sold our de
velopment rights to Lehigh
County in 1997. Then we poured
most of the money right back
into the farm, paying cash for a
heated greenhouse for seed start
ing, a used walk-in cooler, a used
tractor with a front-end loader, a
PTO-powered tiller, a plastic
mulch layer, and other equip
ment.
We also paved our 600-foot
gravel driveway. That was a
good business decision. Now 100
families eagerly drive out to our
farm each week during the sea
son to buy vegetables, herbs,
blueberries, and cut flowers.
They don’t have to worry about
mud or gravel messing up their
fancy cars or shoes. Most of our
customers come from within a
15-mile radius of the farm and
live in new houses on Used-To-
Be-A-Farm Acres.
We sell everything we can
grow, directly to the people who
will eat it. The only problem is
keeping up with demand. There
are an awful lot of hungry people
out there. And most of them tell
us that they’re completely fed up
with the tired, tasteless produce
in the supermarkets. We set our
(Turn to Page A 39)