Northern Farmer

Things are calming down a bit here today. There’s plenty of work coming up when things unthaw a tad bit, but for now I’m just trying to catch up with some of the odd jobs we couldn’t really get to in the sub zero weather. I took care of five beef customers today, they came to pick up their orders. Things are going very well on that front. Now I’ll be putting the orders together for the next three to be butchered shortly. Everyone that wants to be put on the beef list has to deposit fifty dollars to show good faith in the deal. Years ago I almost had a slight wreck because I didn’t do that and one customer, (in fact this is the only one that ever did this), called me all excited wanting to buy a half. All sounded well and I told him that I’d have it butchered shortly. Well, I get it butchered and called him for his cutting instructions and he told me that he’d take a half in about a month because he was a little shy of money at the moment. Funny, a few days earlier he had all the money in the world. So as I listened to him matter of factly telling me that he’d take one the next month, even knowing that one was dead and hanging, didn’t bother him in the least,…I hung up on him. Luckily I had another customer on the waiting list so that customer got jumped up in the line and was happier than heck. But that has always lingered with me, the thought of a non committed customer that has very little common sense. So since then there’s been a deposit required and I’ve never experience a problem to date.

This afternoon we had five beef customers drop by and two egg customers. Now this is much different than industrial farming where a person never sees the consumer of their farm products. Just get a check from a corporation, most likely the lowest possible price the corporation can get away with. What an incredible difference there is between the two systems! And you know, the best advertising a person could ever get is free. I’m not talkin word to mouth, I’m talkin real big advertising! The media and big ag themselves! There is not the slightest problem getting customers for our products and they all have one thing in common, they want good quality, safe food for their families that they know they could never purchase in a store. With massive beef recalls almost everyday in the news and total bungling by big ag spokes people,well a farmer has never had it better that wants to sell something that’s safe and healthy! An example of big ag’s statements is from the NCBA, they’re the official packer lackey organization of the “beef industry”. I borrowed this from Good Farmer John’s farm newsletter, (without permission). Sorry about that GFJ, but I am a farmer pirate!

The spin put out by big ag in this is very interesting. Spokesman for the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, Bo Reagen summed up the problem with, “What happened in this case was that there were some animals that were harvested out of compliance,”

Harvested out of compliance alright! The supposedly USDA inspected slaughterhouse permitted “downer” cattle (cattle that cannot get up and walk on their own) to be slaughtered. The problem with this is that these animals are forced to lie in manure, which can eventually increase the presence of e. coli on the meat itself. It is simply a by product of the commodity perspective our industrial food system has. Thousands and thousands of animals are processed daily at these large facilities. As with any large scale manufacturing system, 99% success sounds pretty good. However, we are dealing with food here. One percent failure rate is way too high!!

That got me thinking! One percent doesn’t sound like much, but when one plant is slaughtering 12,000 or so head of cattle a day and figures 99% is a pretty safe figure of food safety, well that one percent of “oops” every day means that 120 head are in the system unsafe or against the supposed law. Anybody getting this? That’s 120 every day! And that’s just one plant! No wonder I can’t eat meat from the store!

But remember the “industry” is looking out for every man, woman and child, (right). The only thing that they look to every man, woman and child for is how to pick their pockets, and their health be damned! Get em sick or poisoned up, no problem, they have a medical system that should take care of that and who owns large portions of the pharmaceutical industry, hmmm?? Got you coming or going! But of coarse they say buying from a farmer is a fad, and probably unsafe to boot! Well, I guess there’s allot of folks that are wanting to live dangerously and buy from us dirty farmers. Probably suicidal to boot, eh! But no matter what big ag cooks up they will not stop this massive movement of people, of families wanting quality food for their families!

You know, I might have said this before but I have never advertised and we sell allot of beef. And one of the most rewarding things was when a Christian homeschool group from down in the Twin Cities discovered us. Half of this week’s beef went to those wonderful folks! And what’s so rewarding is listening to how thankful they are to have a farmer they can buy quality food from. And that just spurs me on to do better and better for those families. This isn’t some high end income stuff, these are regular folks and better customers would be hard to find! Yup, its different when you see the customer’s children, show them around, get to know them. It makes a person just do the best job he can for those families. In a strange way they become an extended family of the farm. Now that’s a concept that is totally lacking in the industrial system! But around here its becoming a way of life!

This entry was posted on Monday, February 25th, 2008 at 7:23 pm and is filed under Northern Farmer. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.