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It’s Monday and I am going to THREAD about BIGGEST LITTLE FARM, the latest pricy-food-for-rich-people farm held up as an example of how we fix agriculture. Grab your COFFEE. There’s a lot to cover. latimes.com/home/la-hm-big…
Let me start by saying I am TOTALLY rooting for them. The Chesters are working their asses off trying to build soil and grow crops and raise animals at Apricot Lane Farms. I grow OYSTERS and am WILDLY in favor of expensive food for rich people.
They are growing DIVERSE fruit & veg crops, incorporating animals, making soil health a priority and I say BRAVO. The question here is what this tells us about larger questions of SUSTAINABILITY.
The first, absolutely NON-NEGOTIABLE stepping stone of SUSTAINABILITY is that farms have to be PROFITABLE. Let’s do some MATH on this farm. Per the LATimes piece, they are USDA “small,” meaning under $250K in gross income (on 213 acres).
They have a “team” of 60 PEOPLE. You divide, and scratch your head, and then read about INVESTORS and VOLUNTEERS. Then you understand. This DESPITE selling eggs for $15 per dozen, and $21 marmalade.
It’s possible that they’ll BECOME profitable, though I’m gonna bet no. But if they do, what’s the lesson? That in order to be SUSTAINABLE, meat & produce has to be UNAFFORDABLE for just about everyone.
And another lesson here is that BONA FIDE soil health practices like DIVERSITY and COVER CROPPING and COMPOSTING get wrapped up with the silly aspects of BIODYNAMIC farming, like ASTROLOGICAL planting.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodynami…
There is DANGER here because consumers take away the idea that ONLY stuff with a label like ORGANIC or BIODYNAMIC is RESPONSIBLY GROWN. When in reality some CONVENTIONAL stuff IS and some of of that other stuff ISN’T. You can’t know.
The other thing about SUSTAINABILITY is that is has to be SCALABLE. There are 400 million acres of US cropland and only about 3% is fruit and veg. The rest is ROW CROPS, and that’s the AG we have to IMPROVE to make an impact.
If you want to read about people who are implementing SCALABLE sustainability practices growing AFFORDABLE food, read @miriamhorn’s RANCHER FARMER FISHERMAN. You’ll meet @jjknopf and learn about his wheat. amazon.com/Rancher-Farmer…
I want the Biggest Little Farm to SUCCEED. But I don’t want people to get the idea that this is what ALL FARMING should look like. This isn’t really a FARM, it’s a CHARITY. And like many charities, I think it’s VERY WORTHWHILE. But it won’t feed us.
OK done.
OK done.
