How's your other footprint?

Not the carbon one.  Other than climate change deniers, if the importance of your carbon footprint hasn't been impressed upon you by now...

I'm talking about the footprint you leave by eating sustainably.

After a decade as a rancher, a sometime farmer, and an organic gardener for the last 3 or 4 years, I'm starting to feel qualified to ask a few questions regarding how food gets produced ...not just factory farms but the stuff you and I are proud to produce and buy.

Here's a question for ya: How's yer farmer?

I wasn't sure exactly how many legs a cow had when I got into agriculture ...so I did a lot of general research while I was trying to find out what I needed to know.  As it turns out, I needed to know it all.

And while it might be too much to ask of you, you need to know it all, too.

So whaddya say?  Let's get started.  Anyone who has educated themselves to the extent that they know how much we all need to avoid herbicides and pesticides and antibiotics and embrace food from techniques that guard the soils that produce the stuff of life ...surely won't be scared-off by taking it a step further.

Full disclosure: my wife and I make a fine living from our ranch and we provide a fine living for those who work for us, all without resorting to unsustainable practices.

We are, however, by far, the worldwide exception.

Would it surprise you that the vast majority of cattle ranchers in the United States are hobbyists?  Would it surprise you that most sustainable farmers can't pay themselves the minimum wage?  Don't take my word for it.  Ask the US Census, the USDA, and the IRS.

Would it surprise you that the fresh-faced, white, educated farmer at your local farmers' market can't pay themselves even the local minimum wage for their farming/market-gardening efforts?

How would you like to know that your favorite farmer from your favorite farmers' market can't live off that substandard income of their farming (nor fairly pay any employees) without off-farm income?  Even conventional farmers and ranchers struggle to live off of their on-farm income.

Last question: what does all that mean?

Mind you, these farmers are the core of sustainable farmers.  These are the true believers.  These are the people who have brought us to an age in which delicious, naturally raised produce is widely available ...even if at a big premium over the supermarket's earth-killing cheap veggie prices.

It's surprising, even to me ...but not THAT surprising.  Making a profit in agriculture is difficult even under the best circumstances ...but it's always has been that way.

But if you click Google's link, "organic farmer career," you'll find scads of links that encourage young folks to enter organic/natural/unconventional farming.  Knowing what the statistics say, that career field doesn't seem to be anything that you would recommend to family and loved-ones.

I've even read lots of press lately that speaks of programs to encourage and facilitate the homeless and unemployed military veterans from the latest attempted conquests to take up farming.  If you know anything about agriculture, you'll know that it's always been that way.  Getting off the farm was the original American Dream for a reason.

Since I already said that I've asked you my last question ...I'll just tell you what I think.

I think that it's natural.

I think that it's natural to propose to populate farms with the forgotten of our society. After all, it's always been that way.

No matter how white nor educated those current farmers may be, farming is akin to slavery ...it's why you don't do it.  (I only use the example of white market-farmers to direct your attention to how difficult it is for even the most privileged of us.)

Without incredibly expensive machinery, lots of poisons, and a cozy access to capital, you cannot farm with the hope of not having a job in town.  Even with all that, you are looking at fighting economic failure everyday.

Now, don't tell me how YOU fight economic failure everyday ...farming without those machinery, poisons, and capital is a losing proposition from the start.  Start thinking that this is different.  That's crucial to your understanding of how food is produced.

Since the dawn of agriculture, farmers have never been part of the middle class, let alone the ruling class.

Although rich farmers may disagree with me, without slaves or expensive machinery and its adjuncts, there has never been a rich farmer.

Even moderately successful farming is an accident of birth.

I remember reading for the first time the phrase, "land dependent" in regard to farmers and ranchers.  "Of course!" I said.  "You have to have land to farm!"  Nope, that's not what the term meant.  It meant that you already had to OWN land to even think about farming.

Other than factory farms that are able to pay for more and more land ...you only farm if land has been left to you by your forbears.  Even then, if you farm it in a non-mechanized way (slavery being technically illegal,) you will probably sell to a larger, more conventionally farming concern.

Your favorite farmer from your favorite farmers' market is most likely renting a piece of land ...and working in town to pay the rent for it.  That farmer's spouse is probably shouldering most of the weight of the actual farming operation.  Not exactly liberating, is it?

Your fantasies of a more rewarding life, in the open air denied to your office or cubicle, with that "good kinda tired" instead of your off-farm exhaustion are just that: fantasies.  Current sustainable farmers have "both kinds of tired."

OK.  Now.  So what?

Personally, I think we are living in a golden age of healthy food.  That particular kind of food, mostly unavailable since the advent of mechanized agriculture, is being produced by well-meaning people who got into farming with the same zeal as we got into eating.

That current crop of farmers will not, contrary to fantasy, stay farming for long.  Ask them.  Make them tell you the truth.  Nobody is naturally inclined to tell you that their business is unsustainable and on the verge of failure.

So what so we do now?  (OK, that's my real last question.)

I don't know.  Maybe you can help me think it through.  Maybe I can help you, too.

Produce and meat, sustainably produced and without poisons, is already very expensive.  Can we pay more?  That doesn't seem likely.

What I want to happen ...is what YOU want to happen.  I don't want this current crop of healthy food and healthy food producers to disappear in the inevitable crash of young motivated farmers finally giving up.

How do we do that?  (my real, real, last question.)