I live on a farm.
I am not a farmer. Maybe I will be some day. I have animals, a garden, an orchard, and I grow plants, but I do not have the expertise (or the mortgage) to do so profitably. I have a lot to learn - it is amazing to me to see what my neighbors just know and the breadth of knowledge that they have about plants, animals, machines, weather, you name it. They are smart and resourceful - and they have to be, to be able to make a living in an industry where a heavy rain on the wrong day can wipe out a whole year's worth of hard work.
I am a member of the California Farm Bureau, and as such, every week I get a newspaper from them devoted to ag issues.
Ag Alert contains a lot of news you will find no where else - for example, last year there was a rash of bee thefts, where hives worth tens of thousands of dollars were stolen. It created a loss both for the beekeeper but also for his customers, who rely on beekeepers to bring hives at the right time in spring to pollinate their orchards. This was an education to me, an ex-city girl, who had no idea that bees were so valuable or that anyone would try to steal them. There are articles on crops doing well, crops doing poorly, new crops coming to California, noxious weeds like star thistle, etc. Ads for all kinds of ag equipment and services. Great stuff for me, deeply boring to the rest of you.
Of more interest, perhaps, however, is that this newspaper engages quite thoroughly in politics, and is slanted hard Republican. Richard Pombo is a darling of the editorial staff, and gets lots of favorable editorials and articles for his "courageous" service in the House. They usually have a position on every proposition on the California ballot - even ones with no obvious connection to agriculture. (Will they take a stand on parental notification for abortion this fall? Stay tuned.) When they wrote about Measure H, the Mendocino County initiative prohibiting GMOs, they wrote that the majority of the pro-H funding came from outside the county. This was true (although the initiative was completely proposed and sponsored and sheparded by longtime Mendocino County residents, farmers, and business owners). However, what they failed to mention was that the pro-H side was outspent something like 10 to 1 by Monsanto's PAC... also money from outside the county. Details, details.
There are two articles in the September 13, 2006 Ag Alert that I thought were of particular interest for the Daily Kos community. Unfortunately, they are not available online, so you'll have to settle for my excerpts.
Farm Team launches 'No Tractor Tax' Campaign
Making farming less profitable will not create jobs or keep California's economy strong. That is why the November elections are more important than ever for all California family farmers and ranchers. You have a choice in this election that will be critical to your ability to do business.
Note the stirring call to action. Note that the existence of agribusiness is not ever acknowledged in Ag Alert. All farms are family farms. After all, whoever owns it probably does have a family. Take a drink every time the phrase "family farms" appears in this one page editorial and you'll go through a whole beer, easy.
California is the most highly regulated and costliest state in the nation to farm and ranch, and the outcome of the gubernatorial race will have lasting consequences on our business climate.
Democratic candidate Phil Angelides' policies include more than $18 billion in higher taxes, changes to the Proposition 13 property tax protections, initiation of an employer mandated health care program and the willingness to roll back Gov. Schwartzennegger's successful workers' compensation reform.
I omitted another bit about why this was bad for family farms and ranches. The specific complaint is that they allege he wants to roll back the partial sales tax exemption on ag equipment and diesel, and the full exemption on propane. See this editorial printed in the Los Angeles Times, presenting a rebuttal of the $18 Million number and a list of Angelides' priorities that he considers underfunded, like his proposal to roll back tuition at state universities and to lower taxes for the middle class. Angelides has placed this tax exemption on a list of things he would like a commission to look at. As someone who owns a tractor, and is aware of how impossible it is to pay for a new one from the proceeds of harvesting fruits and vegetables, I'm sympathetic to the Farm Bureau view on this one. And, I'd be surprised if it costs the state all that much money. Most states have a similar exemption.
Angelides does not understand farming and ranching, as he associates family farmers with corporate interests even though 97 percent of California's farms and ranches are family owned.
This kind of line they use on Democrats up and down the state with great frequency. I have to say it's probably largely true. I bet there are few Democrat campaign people who read the Farm Bureau newsletter or realize it's mailed weekly all over the state - and I'd guess in many cases, to households with no other source of statewide news. My local newspaper covers only its namesake town - barely covering even other nearby towns. TV news is out of San Francisco or Sacramento, and largely unwatchable and irrelevant to my area.
Of course, I expect by the Farm Bureau's definition that most businesses of any type are family owned. Take hotels. The Hilton family works hard at their family business, just as the family who owns the Motel 6 in Lordsburg, New Mexico does. No difference, right? Both struggling in the marketplace to make ends meet.
And the Farm Bureau knows how to organize:
The "No Tractor Tax" campaign, with the participation of county Farm Bureaus, is taking action by posting campaign signs and holding events throughout the state in opposition to Angelides' efforts to raise taxes on family farms and ranches.
The dozen or more press events ranging from as far north as Redding, down to Bakersfield and across to Santa Maria leave no doubt that family farmers view the re-election of Gov. Schwartzennegger as critical to the future of farming and ranching in California.
Before long you will see "Re-Elect Arnold, Supported by Family Farmers" signs on roadways across California. Yard and road signs are available at your county's Farm Bureau office.
Finally, in case you weren't taking the threat to your farming livelihood seriously:
There is no better time than now to become involved with the Farm Team. The future viability of our farms and ranches is at stake and doing nothing will have lasting consequences.
In their little highlight box, they thoughtfully tell you to expect Workers' Comp insurance premiums to "increase up to 100%".
It's really a fascinating bit of propaganda.
So, on to the next tidbit.
This week's lead story is about the pear crop in Lake and Mendocino county, a bumper crop that was supposed to make up for last year's disasterous results when a freak spring hailstorm knocked all the blossoms off the trees in quite a few orchards. Unfortunately, this year much of the fruit is being left to rot due to a labor shortage. Pears have a very short harvest window, and if they get overripe it is too late. But, it is a challenge for farmers to have a crew on standby waiting for the right moment - and if a crop comes in late, the schedule for all the harvesting becomes a mess in a hurry.
Of course, this is a segue into immigration policy.
"They (members of Congress) all say they love the family farmer, but I don't feel that love," Scully told local media last week in the midst of her ruined crop. "They're putting me out of business."
Tighter border security, competition for workers from other industries and a broken temporary worker program have all conspired to create a dire labor shortage for this small, but valuable crop.
Pears have been grown in California since the Gold Rush, but each year the acreage shrinks.
Kelseyville, where much of Lake County's pear growing and packing is centered, has a total population of about 3,000. During the harvest that's just wrapping up, Scully said the community pitched in to help in the crisis. Retired people, stay-at-home moms and high school kids have been filling some jobs in the packinghouses, but she said the picking on 12-foot ladders needs to be done by experienced workers.
If the border crackdown continues without a guest worker program, she said, "most family farmers around here will go out of business."
"Do people want to maintain the high-quality food supply we have in this country?" Scully asked. "If they do, then they need to recognize that some agricultural areas need a way to get skilled workers, particularly from Mexico.
"These people aren't immigrants. They come here and work and then go home to their families and the country they love."
This is a real problem for some of these farms. At the same time, I'm not thrilled with the way some farmers end up treating their workers. It is hard to work regulations that get the abuses but not the people who genuinely try to do right. And, I've been surprised to learn that in this area, anyway, the picking jobs are already paying more than minimum wage. High schoolers routinely work in picking and packing jobs rather than at McDonald's.
The most successful farmers of specialty crops in my area have solved the labor problem in one of two ways. One, have a passel of kids. Two, diversify the farm very carefully so that there is work and income year round to keep your employees permanently. Neither is easy.
"I don't know if I'll try one more year," said Nick Ivicevich, 69, who has been growing pears in Lake County for 45 years. His orchards include one of the county's oldest, a 3-acre block first planted in 1885.
He chokes up when talk turns to the possibility of removing his orchards, which his family had hoped to continue farming.
Ivicevich said production costs for his crop are about $2,500 an acre, with an additional $1,000 an acre needed to cover harvest costs. The past few years have been financially challenging, he said. Rising production costs, competition from China and weather conditions have all made it hard for Lake County pear growers to make a profit.
But this year's crop looked so good he said he felt like the struggle was worth it.
"This is what I waited for my whole lifetime, is what I was thinking," Ivicevich said.
He expected to harvest 2,100 tons of premium pears, compared with last year's 1,400 tons. His hopes began sinking when his contracted picking crews were held up by late-ripening crops in the Sacramento Valley. They arrived 10 days late for harvest.
It is tough to be a pear farmer, for certain. And as your sole source of income - well, that's a mighty risky position. The pear orchards are beautiful; I would hate to see them come out and go to grapes. There is a benefit to crop diversity.
Pear growers have tried to compete by producing higher quality fruit and by marketing their very best fruit themselves, not just to farmer's markets but also through their own direct internet sales such as Harry and David, GotFruit.com, and The Fruit Company. Whenever I see pears in the supermarket, as I did today, for 89 cents a pound, I wonder how a farmer can possibly make enough to cover his costs let alone draw a reasonable wage given his meager percentage on that sale.
The Republicans have done an excellent job of manipulating the fear and uncertainty farmers and ranchers feel into votes for them, largely because Democrats seem to have abandoned the field (so to speak). For many urban California residents, their contact with rural California is restricted largely to the occasional trip up and down Interstate 5. We need to at least start trying Highway 99 once in a while.