EMERGENCY RISK REDUCTION

With a long career in agriculture, I have been fortunate to be exposed to both large and small farming. As part of my Masters’ requirement at Texas A&M, I tested mechanical irrigation systems in the San Juaquin Valley of California on multi-crop farms that averaged 25,000 acres. As mentioned in earlier posts, I grew up in South Carolina on a dairy of approximately 275 acres. I now live in British Columbia, Canada on 4.5 acres, of which about half is farmed, almost totally in fruit trees and berries.  

Sometimes I think the smaller the farm, the more the work. I remember having breakfast with farm managers in Bakersfield, California who checked their crops by flying over them in private planes. Here in BC, I sometimes travel on a public road through a ranch of private and leased land totaling 350,000 acres. Hard to manage this on horseback! Of course, work seemed non-stop on our dairy, and if nothing else, it gave me a work ethic!

But these couple of acres of fruit and vegetables are as much effort as any. I now appreciate why strawberries are expensive. We have 16 rows averaging 100 feet each, and by the time I finish weeding them, it’s time to start again. Ditto with the picking. It simply never ends, during the season. Part of my attitude is that strawberries grow low to the ground, and it’s a long way down for this old man’s back! It comes with an obligatory soak in the bath.

What amazes me is how much can grow on a small acreage if the soil is productive and cultivated. This includes getting the stones out, breaking up the soil to a loam, folding in the natural nutrients, and watering. The seed or small seeding will do the rest. It is almost magical. I can almost see the plant growing. Of course this means the weeds will grow in this fertile soil as well. Hence, we continue to whack them away.

This reminds me of a ‘parable’ of Jesus to a crowd of people following him. As a person of faith, I have heard this illustration many times. Jesus speaks of a seed (His Words) falling on four types of soil (the Heart of a Person). One soil was hard, on a path or road. The seed never got in the ground, and was eaten by birds. Secondly, seed was thrown into rocky soil, and barely germinated, producing no fruit. The third seed went into fertile soil and grew well at first, but the weeds choked out the fruit. Only the last seed that went into well-cultivated soil produced amazing fruit, and lots of it.  

Working in these berry and vegetable rows is beneficial in several ways. It’s productive. I realize how much can grow on so little soil, as long as it’s fertile and well-cultivated. I realize how so many in today’s proverbial ‘younger generation’ knows very little about where their food actually originates – as it appears magically in the grocer or restaurant.  As I have said in other blogs, our society is fraught with food insecurity, rather than security.

It’s also therapeutic. After hours on my laptop dealing with agricultural emergency management issues, I sometimes think about these words of Jesus, as I quietly work the rows. It slows me down. It allows me to contemplated life. It allows me to see the ‘fruit of the harvest’ and the direct impact of one’s own effort. Despite weeks, months, and years of grudgingly awakening at 5AM to milk cows, I am glad I