Small Farms Consevancy

[ngcmcn]

Howdy Folks;

In the current Small farmers Journal there is an article on the Small Farms Conservancy put forth by Lynn Miller as well as many others. The article contains the minutes of a group meeting at Sanborn Mills farm in Louden,NH. which was attended by interested parties from across New England. I have read most of the article. Many good ideas seemed to be tossed around. I’m still taking it all in as to what and how a Small farm Conservancy would work, where it would work(regional locals) and how it could work as a force for change in our present American culture, as well as how that effects the use of land.

So i just wanted to throw this out there because its getting late and i need to do chores. I interested to hear peoples thoughts on this movement.

Neal maine

[Big Horses]

Been on board since the beginning. Lynn talked to us about it a couple years ago, and it’s a great idea and movement!
JH

[ngcmcn]

So JH, it seems to me the Small Farm Conservancy is a huge can of worms. It strikes me as part big business.i.e. insurance coverage,retirement, part educational institution.. If i didn’t know better, I’d almost say he was creating a new state, or a new political party ,but then again maybe thats what this country needs. Its an ambitious, huge undertaking which could really make a difference. Can you give me a little of your insight into the SFC plans to implement their goals?
Neal maine

[goodcompanion]

@ngcmcn 14230 wrote:

So JH, it seems to me the Small Farm Conservancy is a huge can of worms. It strikes me as part big business.i.e. insurance coverage,retirement, part educational institution.. If i didn’t know better, I’d almost say he was creating a new state, or a new political party ,but then again maybe thats what this country needs. Its an ambitious, huge undertaking which could really make a difference. Can you give me a little of your insight into the SFC plans to implement their goals?
Neal maine

Much as I agree philosophically with pretty much everything Lynn Miller writes, I guess I’m with you in that I don’t really get many aspects of the SFC either.

Neal, you seem to take issue with the scale of the approach. I have to say I’m with you there. For instance when we try to address the issue of say, farm insurance, you kind of have to assume that this is an important permanent problem for small-scale farmers and worth addressing on an institutional scale nationwide. This to me seems like an unwinnable fight, and not worth the agony since the burden of liability insurance on the smallholder is probably a temporary anomaly anyway–a symptom of a hyper-litigious culture in which the main actors are corporations, and likely to go the way of Lehman Bros. within a few decades. Define your farmer-logger insurance scheme in relation to the national insurance system and you are part of that system, whether or not it is flawed nearly to the point of collapse.

Why do we even have to have a national insurance system? Why do we have to have a national retirement system? A health care system? Will we never be able to return for a system in which communities look after their own for such needs? By undertaking a macro-level scheme I think we assume we will not, can not. This seems at odds with the uber-local focus of our farming and forestry efforts as members. It does not play to our strengths.

SFJ readers are a kind of “community” I guess, just like people on this forum are a kind of community, but it is a huge leap of faith for me to see that dispersed community coming to my personal aid materially if my barn burns down. Why should I not look to my nearest neighbors for such aid, and if my neighbors and I can find a way to rely on each other for such help, why would I need a national scheme? Conceptually it is all very, very, abstract to me. It is a tough sell for a community of interest that prides itself on concrete, tangible work of soil, wood, flesh and bone.

The educational component is the easiest to take seriously because it is the one area discussed where we have already found benefit in networking nationally. It is not such a leap for me to imagine development of common standards, accepted rights and obligations for typical farmer/intern contracts, and so on. I would be all for that, it is doable.

Other than that I have to say that I personally don’t have much faith that the SFC effort won’t be a waste of time and energy, and a diversion from our primary objective, building local community and self-reliance. My interpretation is that Miller, on the verge of stepping off the SFJ stage, is thinking about his legacy, and wants to see his powerful command of language precipitate a group action that will quickly take on a life of its own and improve the lot of all his loyal followers. I don’t get it.

Prior to the recent debut of this idea everything else Miller has ever written, near as I can tell, is about how over-reaching, cancerous and grossly over-scaled the nation as a whole is, and how patient toil with hands on lines is the cure, I can agree with that. But now we are invited to believe in the promise of a national macro-level approach that to somehow overcome all these terrible systemic problems Miller has been telling us all along are basically insoluable. I’m confused.

[Plowboy]

Great well thought out answer Erik. While I wouldn’t have put it so articulately I agree with you. The only way to really conserve the small farms is if it would be profitable to be one. If people are going to be paying dues or premiums or what have you to this organization where will the money go if it doesn’t work out? While the idea is a noble one making it work may be difficult.

[goodcompanion]

Plowboy,

Believe me, I’d love to be wrong here. I’d like nothing more than small farmers linking arms coast to coast. But that won’t happen until the world changes in such a way that small farmers regain some measure of real importance, as you suggest. If that happens, a lot of the problems currently being discussed will either take care of themselves (are we still going to have a problem with development encroaching on farmland if the megafood production and distribution system starts to break down?) or at least the situation would probably be so altered in such a case as to render the current conversation pretty moot.

[Carl Russell]

While I agree with much of this appraisal, having been involved with some of the preliminary discussion, my sense is that Lynn and his core group realize the magnitude of the undertaking. As many of you know Lynn is a high-soaring big picturist. He is prone to grandiose notions and language. I think his inclination is to flesh out the depth and breadth of this concept because of the implications it could have on the community of farmers around the world.

Realistically though, they are starting where they know they can have some real impact. The discussions we were having at Sanborn Mills Farm this fall were focused primarily on how networking, mentoring, apprenticing, knowledge sharing, labor sharing, and land conservation can all play significant and current roles in strengthening an organization like SFC. These are also some of the most significant foundational components to creating successful future farm communities.

I also know that there is no intension of being some coast to coast blanketing organization. There is a recognition that Lynn (and SFJ) has unequaled name recognition and precedent-setting outreach as assets that could be used positively to pull these effort together with the help of lots of regional efforts. It really is no different than what he has been preaching all these years, it’s just in the current packaging, it seems too much for one over-worked, over-extended, and aging farming magazine editor to pull off.

Many of us have been working for years to build strong community to address all of the issues that SFC is championing. Lynn Miller knows this. He is really not trying to be the ONE to solve these problems. I think he is clear about his legacy. He has built a huge clearing house for communication and disemmination of ideas through the journal, and he wants to be able to use it to great advantage. It may not happen the way he is laying it out, but bare in mind that he is both a farmer and an artist, and he is fully capable of modifying the approach as it moves forward.

He wants as much honest feed-back and discussion as any of you are capable of. Contact him directly. I know he would love to talk with you.

We are on board, and we will do all we can, through the contacts that we have developed here and through the Northeast Animal Power Field Days, to try to bring to the ground the best efforts of this group.

Carl

[goodcompanion]

@Carl Russell 14237 wrote:

Realistically though, they are starting where they know they can have some real impact. The discussions we were having at Sanborn Mills Farm this fall were focused primarily on how networking, mentoring, apprenticing, knowledge sharing, labor sharing, and land conservation can all play significant and current roles in strengthening an organization like SFC. These are also some of the most significant foundational components to creating successful future farm communities.

Carl

Carl,

Of course I know you and NEAPFD are on board and I hesitated to even get into this line of discussion. It’s not my wish to undermine anybody’s good ideas or well-intentioned efforts (particularly yours, and this is your board, after all) while there is any hope alive of them working. Particularly with the notion of on-farm education I do think there is a role to fill and potential for resounding success.

But taking a community of interest from the realm of ideas to the realm of action is where the rubber meets the road. I am not sure that the SFJ community is ready for this transition. I am apprehensive about the scope as I understand it.

I guess I understand what SFJ is and what its role is in my life, I understand what DAP is, I understand what NEAPFD is and value them all. Probably when the SFC takes on a definable shape I will be a staunch supporter, but right now I don’t understand what role it proposes to play in my life very well at all. I am also a recovering former Quaker and have a lot of difficulty with group efforts that are idealistic, ambitious and open-ended.

[ngcmcn]

Erik,

Are you teaching English, or philosophy at Middlebury College? You write well!

“But taking a community of interest from the realm of ideas to the realm of action is where the rubber meets the road.”..

………..and if i could add to this a quote a thought that until the need arises for a localized susustainable food source then people won’t really see it as viable. Not that food could be the only reason to encourage many of the proposed SFC goals. What about education? Why not subsidize a farm to take on apprentices, interns………..use the existing educational platforms that exist/ As far as insurance goes i know many people that live with out it. Lynn has been preaching a long time on the soivernty of small farms and the evils of the greater cultural mess at large. When gas spiked a few years back it almost seemed a blessing…….suddenly local was cheaper and reasonable no matter what it was. Lumber ,food ,milk, bread. Local money stayed close people stopped driving to distance shop.

I don’t know? One thing Lynn Miller has been successful in is getting people to think about alot of different issues with this SFC. Thats good.

Neal

[goodcompanion]

@ngcmcn 14246 wrote:

Are you teaching English, or philosophy at Middlebury College? You write well!

Ah..ha ha..thanks for the compliment. I’m not at that pay grade though…I just farm with horses, arbitrate toy disputes between my toddlers, and bake bread.

I’m just overeducated. I come from an academic family and they wouldn’t leave me alone and let me farm until I’d had a good strong dose of what they were having. But that Carl Russell, he can really spin a phrase to rival Wendell Berry or whoever you care to name. What’s his excuse?

@ngcmcn 14246 wrote:

When gas spiked a few years back it almost seemed a blessing…….suddenly local was cheaper and reasonable no matter what it was. Lumber ,food ,milk, bread. Local money stayed close people stopped driving to distance

Neal

If you liked that price spike I think the future has more of the same in store for us. I’m banking on it.

[Carl Russell]

goodcompanion;14243 wrote:

Carl,

Of course I know you and NEAPFD are on board and I hesitated to even get into this line of discussion. It’s not my wish to undermine anybody’s good ideas or well-intentioned efforts (particularly yours, and this is your board, after all) while there is any hope alive of them working. Particularly with the notion of on-farm education I do think there is a role to fill and potential for resounding success.

But taking a community of interest from the realm of ideas to the realm of action is where the rubber meets the road. I am not sure that the SFJ community is ready for this transition. I am apprehensive about the scope as I understand it.

I guess I understand what SFJ is and what its role is in my life, I understand what DAP is, I understand what NEAPFD is and value them all. Probably when the SFC takes on a definable shape I will be a staunch supporter, but right now I don’t understand what role it proposes to play in my life very well at all. I am also a recovering former Quaker and have a lot of difficulty with group efforts that are idealistic, ambitious and open-ended.

I agree with all of this, as I said before. I also wonder how SFC will affect me and mine particularly since I have spent most of my adult life trying to address these very concerns myself….And I am not alone in this community of interest.

And I don’t think critical analysis is an act of undermining. That is how I became involved. I don’t tend to just jump on a band wagon. I like an intellectual interaction. I really don’t see SFC going anywhere as a Titanic, carrying everybody to safety(oops maybe that was a better analogy for Erik). It will have to be an “IDEA” that take shape in actions by people who want to move it forward at the individual and local level.

I’m glad to have this discussion here…and I don’t see it over yet.

I have no excuse, just taken by language at an early age, and I love to practice. Thanks for humoring me.

Carl

[Gabe Ayers]

Well, I guess our pennies for your thoughts portion should be shared. I say our because even through I write in this forum and elsewhere under my name, nothing I know or express is solely of my making, but a sum of many experiences, most being empowered by shared experiences with other farmers, foresters and ground level workers in this broad cultural community.

Lynn and I talked about this years ago when he sent out the first letter or actually he called me before that letter arrived and we had a couple of conference calls on the issue early on. I think he has HHFF on the advisory board and at least one individual in our group has contributed money to SFC to have HHFF included somehow.

The gist of our exchange, (given the agreement of needs for what Lynn proposes as benefits to this culture) was about structure of the effort as it relates to the experience we have had by being a 501c3 non profit Public Charity. I think I’ve written about this before, but not sure where…

First we referred Lynn and the members of the conference call to the lawyers we used to obtain this tax status. It is easy to get started with a wide description of how your organization will serve the public good. But it is a different matter to obtain this status on a long term basis given there is a five year review to be sure that you are doing exactly what you say you do. We have been through that and have an understanding of how the system works from that experience.

The 501c3 status is a way for the people to address public needs that are not being addressed by existing entities of the government. This makes sense
because that status allows the organization to compete with the government for revenue by having tax deductible status or paying less taxes for donating to the Public Charity. In other words the group is essentially competing with the government for revenue by being in a tax deductible status. So you must be serving the public good in a way that is not currently being served by the government.

I think this will be the crux of SFC lasting. Many of the proposals of SFC are currently being addressed by multiple agencies within government. The true challenge will be for SFC to define it’s place in the big picture as serving the public good in a way unique unto itself. If not, the status will be revoked upon the five year review and any gains prior may have to be repaid to the government which opens a real can of worms or what ever organism you want to replace worms with, i.e. maggots, parasites, malignancies, etc.

My hope in being on the advisory board is to help have SFC built upon a foundation that withstands that review and is constructed in a way that defines it as worthy of the status for the good and honest reasons we all agree upon. Things need to be different for small farmers everywhere and just like Carl and others – I have worked my entire adult life to figure that out. I continue that work every day in one way or another, just in the daily survival or our own personal farm and forestry “business”. It is a screaming understatement to say this is not easy. We are all bucking as system that devalues, reduces, marginalizes the human component in addressing the very needs of our own selves and our own communities.

I share in the Don Quiote (sp.) syndrome with Lynn, although neither of us has ridden a donkey regularly, but both (as well as many others) have battled dragons as windmills and are usually only given a stick to fight with.

This entire effort is extremely complex, particularly given the participants are folks that strive for a simple life. It’s a machine gun firefight shooting paradoxical bullets.

Just thought we would share what we have already shared. I support Lynn as he has always supported us. I hope for the best results from this effort and find the man to be a cultural icon for his persistence through a long time period of dismissal from the status quo. He has bucked off the system repeatedly and somehow landed on his feet over and over. It is the same for many of us.

There is always another windmill on the horizon and my hope is to supply him a stick of black locust to make his sword from. He is entirely capable of finding his own donkey and most of us here would loan him ours….

The entire experience has provided us another opportunity to try to explain what our organization is about. I am thankful for that. The greatest success we could achieve is to have others do similar work in their geographical communities and at least some of that is taking place.

Thanks for reading and participating, now we all have to go do our real work of husbandry to our surroundings. Unless you are in the SW US, you better bundle up…

Salute~

[Big Horses]

Some very well put words here before me. I’m not quite so eloquent usually, but somehow eventually get my point across (usually 😉 ).
I guess I’d have to answer that the SFC will mean something different to each person, yet hopefully have some common points as well. I see it as a great starting place for something very good for all of us, to happen… be that education, or whatever. In a condensed and simplified version, I’d say the world will be a bit better place because of it’s existance, no matter what the outcome. There is nothing more powerful than education, and no better way to accomplish that than getting a group of people to open their eyes and minds to issues. I hope the SFC will give many people an opportunity to experience that. Will the SFC accomplish all it’s original goals?… well, I’m not able to predict that, and neither is anyone else, but it’s got as good of a chance as any. The thing I see that I really like is that it’s got a wonderful mix of people on board, and getting an even more broad mix all the time, from loggers and farmers to lawyers and doctors….this, in my thinking, is a good way for good things to get done. To me, the SFC is a “vehicle” if you will, for a chance to maybe have a bit of impact in the “steering” of our future. I’m sure that there’s going to be points along the journey that I may not agree with what’s happening, but I’m willing to try to look at the overall benefit and support that.
There’s lots more thoughts I have about it, but it’s below 0 here this morning still, and I’ve got to get the rest of the chores done, plus that will give me some more time to think of what I want to say. I really value the viewpoints on here and the previous posts…thinking is good for all of us, and every set of eyes has an opportunity to see things in a little different light.
I guess my final thought to try to leave with would be… why wouldn’t the SFC have a chance to make a difference??? As they say, every journey starts with the first step, and if that step isn’t ever taken, the journey never exists……
John

[ngcmcn]

Okay, I’m going to try and say something eloquent to keep up with you guys. All these post have got me thinking. Jason thanks for an insight into the nuts and bolts of getting a 501c3 going, I had no idea. Sounds like quite a bit of work, but worth it.

When i start thinking about forces of change in this culture more then a few things come to mind. Many moons ago when i was briefly in college i remember having a long discussion with a fellow student who was into Sociology. Basicaslly is what he said was “whenever you start trying to theorize about whats going on in a culture, that you can only go so far, you run out of road quick. The bucket has a leak”

This stuck with me. So the other day I’m reading a diary of a farmer in jackson me. from 1888. Day in and day out he writes “Cut wood, kepted the woods roads open with the horses.” helped the neighbors, sold a bit of this, sold some of that. “Cut wood.” “Milked.” “Fixed the horse stall.” “helped the neighbor,” and on and on. Cut wood was to keep warm in a thin walled old house. So it seems to me that in our present culture where many people don’t even know their neighbors that survival is a bit isolated so to speak.

I don’t need you to help me fix my car. I’ll take it to a professional. But i need that car to drive 45 miles to my job. People are less dependent on each other and distant from the land. Financial income is more dependent on a product or good coming from far away then from local sources and i see this as a vast weakness of our present economy nearing(not helen and scott)the point of serfdom with all the crazy credit insanity. i read a figure today that 50% of Americans wouldn’t last more then a month financially if they lost their job. It seems to me in the old days some one would’ve had a little extra to help a family in need or help rebuild a barn, or help see the haying through after an injury to a neighbor. I’d call that real insurance, not the medievial pay your pennance and go to heaven kind we have now.

So yes maybe SFC could help foster ideas of a different regional/cultural base and help to nourish and expose those ideas or at least offer them as an alternative to a crazed population. I read some where once that the single most destructive invention to our present western culture………….has been the automobile. Sociologic theory? Maybe? the fabric of our communities is definetly strained by cars.

Any hoo, as Carl and many others have said, living by example is to me the most effective means of change, and getting SFC agenda out there would help people who might have not even considered alternatives a source for inspiration. Rock and Roll

neal

[goodcompanion]

@Biological Woodsman 14266 wrote:

This entire effort is extremely complex, particularly given the participants are folks that strive for a simple life. It’s a machine gun firefight shooting paradoxical bullets.

How about, it’s like a paper tiger living in a glass house of cards who has cried “wolf” once too often?

Seriously, though, thank you Jason, for an insight into part of the origin of the SFC I knew nothing about. It makes a lot of sense and based on what I know of 501C3s your concerns could figure very heavily into the success or failure of the SFC.

Wow. I think many of us would argue that our government’s efforts to provide appropritate education, affordable insurance, and retirement for small farmers are not really doing the job (is that enough of an understatement?), but that won’t stop them from trying to discourage the SFC from setting up shop in competition.

Is the SFC maybe the least vulnerable on the education front? Nothing like a network or curriculum for farm apprenticeships exists within the federal government.

A little aside–Laura Ingalls Wilder of the Little House on the Prairie series was bitterly against the Social Security system, believed it was the purview of families and communities to look after their own and that federalizing that responsibility would weaken rural society. I think she was even arrested at one point for non-compliance, in the 30s. Just a little illustration that these limits on any effort to self-organize rural life have been around for a long time.

[Author]

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