Short Lived Is The Family Farm
This is the end of life as we know it.
Monday it was announced that a new Ford battery plant would be coming to our back yard. We are approximately two miles away from the mega site. While opinions are divided among the people of Marshall, the majority of us farmers don’t like the idea of the impact this will have on us. Close farmer friends of ours have lost ground to it and even those of us who maintain our land will be affected by it. While it is currently all speculation, we’re envisioning more farmland gone by new developments. We know it’ll bring more traffic and potential conflicts with people and issues with things like spreading manure. Plus we already struggle with people driving through our fences so I don’t imagine that getting better with more traffic out our way.
While the specifics of the mega site and the enclosing solar may be unique to us in the Marshall Michigan area, we are not unique in the struggle that is farming. The effects of Covid wreaked havoc on the farming community. As prices soared in the grocery stores, farmers saw less and less profit. In 2020, politico reported that farmers received an average of 14.6 cents for every dollar sold in food. Dairy farmers in particular began to hurt as schools which account for a vast majority of fluid milk sales closed. As bad as the effects of the pandemic were, things were going rapidly downhill even prior to 2020. According to the USDA, in the mid 2010s, farmer’s net income dropped almost 50%. To read further on this subject and see sources, check out this article by Farm Aid called Understanding the Economic Crisis Family Farms are Facing.
Honestly, this is really depressing. The fear of the unknown is overwhelming. Can farmers continue to make it with the loss of farm ground and ever increasing restrictions?
Truth be told, we can’t. We can’t keep farming in this economy. We can’t keep farming with our land being taken. We can’t keep doing what we do with government thinking they know better than we do how to farm and what to do with our land. We small family farms can’t keep farming with government and solar and mega sites pushing us out. We are rapidly approaching the extension of the small family farm.
Yet, I believe there still is some hope. But we need your help.
YOU can save family farms.
We need your help to keep going as do many other farmers. I’ve complied three ways that you can save the small family farms.
Buy directly from them! This is huge. By cutting out the middle man, you are helping farmers so much. As something I read said, “farming is the only business that you buy your inputs at retail and sell them at wholesale.” You may be seeing prices rise in the grocery store, but I assure you that we are not seeing an increase of profit. Our inputs are getting higher, but we are not making more when we sell it wholesale. But when you buy directly from a farmer, your directly supporting that farmer instead of big business like Meijer or Walmart. Directly selling to consumers might be the only way we survive this perilous economy. Find your local farmer that you can source your food and goods directly from! We currently sell freezer beef and will be opening our herd shares this spring for access to fresh, unprocessed, whole milk! Plus we have more in the works to come! But besides us, you can get individual cuts of meat from Marshall Meats (Bosserd Brothers) and all your greenhouse, summer vegetable, and fall fun needs from Bosserd Family Farm. They’re the best people and you definitely should support them. And Blight Farms Inc. sell pigs for butcher too!
Spread the word about small farms! We can’t get people to buy from us if they don’t hear about us. Maybe you’re not in the financial position to buy direct, but you can still support small family farms. You have no idea how much a social media share or a forwarded email to a friend or recommending a product impacts small farms. Getting the word out about what we do and offer is essential to our survival.
Last, but maybe the most important, you can pray for small family farms. Never underestimate the power of prayer. In these trying times, if all you did for us is pray, we are certain that would be enough. We rest in God’s provision and His sovereignty.
The future certainly looks bleak for us farmers. Perhaps I am an eternal optimist, but I think, in spite of all the uncertainty, that not all is lost. I think it will be hard. I think we will struggle. I think it won’t look like what we imagined or hoped for even. Even so, I don’t think all is lost. But I do know that we need your help. YOU are the ones who can save the small family farm.
