I freely, and openly admit my inadequacies when it comes to forces of nature; especially as they relate to my love, and passion for organic farming.
I know a little bit of everything, a lot of some things, and a treasure trove of a few select things – all as they relate to farming organically.
Early in the spring of 1989 I was driving from D.C. to Seattle. I distinctly recall my trip across Nebraska on US Route 40 that roughly parallels Interstate 70. Every 10 miles there was a small farming town with a grain storage facility, and a (blinking) red light. What humbled me most about this journey through the heartland of our fine country was the vast riches of our mid-west farmland.
Fast forward to the early 90′s when I was living in Decatur, Illinois. The office building where I worked, on the outskirts of town, was surrounded on 3 sides by rotating crops of corn, and soy bean. Many of the people I befriended there were farmers of megalithic farms – some as many as a thousand acres, or more. When it came time to harvest the corn, or soy bean in the fall, they were manning their combines 24 hours a day; sometimes for days, if not weeks, to harvest their crops.
Driving down North Brush College Road in Decatur, Illinois on any of those given days meant seeing a long traffic jam of grain trucks carrying their precious load to the Archer Daniels Midland processing facility. ADM, otherwise known as “The Supermarket to the World” was one of two large corn/soy processing facilities in Decatur; the other being A. E. Staleys. Never mind the ever-present smell of corn/soy processing that permeated the air in Decatur, or the oddly shaped, mini-epcot center designed dome building on the grounds of ADM (purported to house experimental crops of engineered foods), their presence was evidence that there is a looming threat on the horizon of our seemingly endless supply of food.
Most disconcerting to me was/is the Arrogance of those farmers, and many more like them that are renowned for minimal crop rotation, and mono-cropping on a large scale. If alternating crops, or mono-cropping is not enough, add the generous application of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, and a sundry of other chemicals to generate the yield that keeps these farmers forever in debt to their land.
To some degree, I believe some of those farmers might be humbled by the very scope of their farms, and the yields. Can you imagine the farmer, sitting high in their combine, looking out to the horizon, over endless rows of corn, and seeing the occasional speck of a farm in the distance? That might be a humbling experience, wouldn’t you think?
But, humbled they are not – They are Arrogant to believe: they have all the technology, pesticides, herbicides, fertilizer, equipment, and Genetically Modified (seed) Organisms that are necessary to meet the food demands of this country, and the world at large…they are farming in a fashion that is saving the precious topsoil that bears the fruits of their labor….their impact on the environment is minimal, that the chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides they are using are safe….the foods produced on their farms are fit for human consumption….they are having a positive impact on the lives of those who consume the products they produce….and, the list goes on.
