My hubby is the sprayer driver on the farm, and now I need to ask him all the glyphosate questions, curious what the regulation differences would be between US and Canada. We often have high humidity and I'm sure they sometimes have to spray the crop to dry it down.
I don't know if the regulations are different! We get so dry in July/August (when we harvest) that, usually, my husband wishes he had another week before we had to harvest for the crop to grow, so that's never an issue here.
These 2 posts were fun to read!... *added book to cart.* Very relatable and the the uniqueness of every operation is pretty cool. We pushed our calving date back to work with warmer weather and calve on pasture, and we are dabbling in more organic farming because of all the dang inputs with conventional. I do worry about our same arid climate and tilling required, though. Lately we have leaned into cover crops in the rotation, and wow, it sure has been nice to have winter grazing and delaying feeding cows everyday as we are needing to inch them closer to home before calving.
Stacy! These posts are fascinating to me! So much so that I have started the book Rich suggested and will be reading it while I head to Montana for work for the next 3 days. Really thankful for farmers and their families! Thanks for sharing all of this. I think I feel a lot of pressure (from who exactly i don’t know) to feed my family as much organic food as possible - so it is a little relieving that Rich had to look up what the dirty dozen even was 😅 Excited to learn more!
Ok Stacy, this book rocked my world! I ripped through it and had to tell all my most organic loving montanan gal friends what all the author had to say. So now they are reading it. Long story short, I thought it was a super well done book and am now feeling much relief about the pressure to buy all organically and am no longer afraid of GMOs! Really glad to have the curtain peeled back and learn about all the ways farmers’ love of the land shows up in how they grow food. Have you read it!?
Wow! That's a great review of the book! I told my husband what you said about the book; he was glad to hear it. I just started it! I'll be curious to hear what your friends think of the book.
I forgot to mention in my earlier comment that I thought the comment about tilling was really interesting. I know there's a growing "no till" movement in organic and regenerative agriculture but I don't really know how that plays out in the big picture, or if it's even possible for organic farmers who are growing on a large scale to do it without tilling. I think what I'm taking away from Rich's answers and some of the questions is that most of us with any knowledge of farming at all mostly form our opinions about it from the experiences of people farming on smaller scales, where the stakes are just different.
I have my preferences, and organic/regenerative agriculture appeals to me for lots of reasons, but I also know that in a situation where 3% of the population is feeding 97%, my preferences maybe don't matter so much in the big picture. If I'm going to buy from the larger system, I'm sort of accepting that there are going to be necessary tradeoffs, tradeoffs I don't really understand, that are being made to favor yield and efficiency.
Personally I would like to shift those numbers. 3% of the US population feeding 97% of the people just seems like bad overall risk management to me :). So I favor local farms when I can and am also trying to take on some of the responsibility by producing a little bit of my own food. But I still appreciate that there are farmers like Rich out there doing this on a bigger scale in the way that works for them, because unless we all suddenly start growing stuff, we are dependent on them to feed us.
I appreciate your willingness to read, even if you might disagree! :) I think part of what I want to do with my writing is humanize what we are doing. Like Rich said, we aren’t perfect. And while we aren’t “local” farmers in the sense that we sell direct to consumer, we’re still just people with a family to support. And we’re able to employ several people, so they can live here, with their families, and we can continue to see our rural community thrive. 💛
This was so interesting, Stacy, thank you (and thanks to Rich for answering the questions!)
It's funny, while I go out of my way (sometimes quite a long way out of my way) to support local farmers whenever possible, I just don't get too hung up about organics vs. non-organics on most products. I'm more concerned with how animals are raised and the soil is treated, and I don't think those labels always tell us what we think they do. It was good to hear Rich's take on why conventional is the right choice for your family's farm.
Thanks, Meagan! I passed along your thanks to Rich. :) I love that you support local farmers when you can, and I'm sure they appreciate your support, too! One of the biggest misconceptions I've seen online is that some people assume that bigger = bad. And while we are a larger operation, we still care for our animals and land. Mainly because it's the right thing to do. But also, animals and land are assets, so it would be dumb to mistreat them from an economic standpoint. Anyway, thanks for reading!
If Rich is ever up for another Q&A, I’d love to hear about the differentiation between a small, medium, large farm, and a CAFO. Like, literally, how many animals or acres are we talking before you’re considered “big”?
I will ask him! ;) I know the USDA determines size by gross income, not necessarily the number of acres / animals. This is from 2017, but I think it's probably still accurate, just to give you an idea of how it's determined.
Thanks for doing these posts! I know next to nothing about farming, so it was helpful to hear from an actual farmer about things like organic foods and GMOs.
Loved reading these! Don’t overthink the two vs one part, it works either way! This was great :) Thanks to your hubby for giving the interview. If I could scrub the internet of all the round up misinformation, I would be real happy 😅 It is difficult for a person not familiar with herbicides to get good, easy to understand, accurate info on it. There is so much fear mongering surrounding it. Hopefully some of the more skeptical people read the book he recommended!
My hubby is the sprayer driver on the farm, and now I need to ask him all the glyphosate questions, curious what the regulation differences would be between US and Canada. We often have high humidity and I'm sure they sometimes have to spray the crop to dry it down.
The book sounds helpful!
I don't know if the regulations are different! We get so dry in July/August (when we harvest) that, usually, my husband wishes he had another week before we had to harvest for the crop to grow, so that's never an issue here.
These 2 posts were fun to read!... *added book to cart.* Very relatable and the the uniqueness of every operation is pretty cool. We pushed our calving date back to work with warmer weather and calve on pasture, and we are dabbling in more organic farming because of all the dang inputs with conventional. I do worry about our same arid climate and tilling required, though. Lately we have leaned into cover crops in the rotation, and wow, it sure has been nice to have winter grazing and delaying feeding cows everyday as we are needing to inch them closer to home before calving.
Thanks for reading, Haley!!
Stacy! These posts are fascinating to me! So much so that I have started the book Rich suggested and will be reading it while I head to Montana for work for the next 3 days. Really thankful for farmers and their families! Thanks for sharing all of this. I think I feel a lot of pressure (from who exactly i don’t know) to feed my family as much organic food as possible - so it is a little relieving that Rich had to look up what the dirty dozen even was 😅 Excited to learn more!
Hi Katie! How was the book?? Hope you had / are having a good trip to MT! Thanks for reading! I really appreciate it!
Ok Stacy, this book rocked my world! I ripped through it and had to tell all my most organic loving montanan gal friends what all the author had to say. So now they are reading it. Long story short, I thought it was a super well done book and am now feeling much relief about the pressure to buy all organically and am no longer afraid of GMOs! Really glad to have the curtain peeled back and learn about all the ways farmers’ love of the land shows up in how they grow food. Have you read it!?
Wow! That's a great review of the book! I told my husband what you said about the book; he was glad to hear it. I just started it! I'll be curious to hear what your friends think of the book.
I forgot to mention in my earlier comment that I thought the comment about tilling was really interesting. I know there's a growing "no till" movement in organic and regenerative agriculture but I don't really know how that plays out in the big picture, or if it's even possible for organic farmers who are growing on a large scale to do it without tilling. I think what I'm taking away from Rich's answers and some of the questions is that most of us with any knowledge of farming at all mostly form our opinions about it from the experiences of people farming on smaller scales, where the stakes are just different.
I have my preferences, and organic/regenerative agriculture appeals to me for lots of reasons, but I also know that in a situation where 3% of the population is feeding 97%, my preferences maybe don't matter so much in the big picture. If I'm going to buy from the larger system, I'm sort of accepting that there are going to be necessary tradeoffs, tradeoffs I don't really understand, that are being made to favor yield and efficiency.
Personally I would like to shift those numbers. 3% of the US population feeding 97% of the people just seems like bad overall risk management to me :). So I favor local farms when I can and am also trying to take on some of the responsibility by producing a little bit of my own food. But I still appreciate that there are farmers like Rich out there doing this on a bigger scale in the way that works for them, because unless we all suddenly start growing stuff, we are dependent on them to feed us.
I appreciate your willingness to read, even if you might disagree! :) I think part of what I want to do with my writing is humanize what we are doing. Like Rich said, we aren’t perfect. And while we aren’t “local” farmers in the sense that we sell direct to consumer, we’re still just people with a family to support. And we’re able to employ several people, so they can live here, with their families, and we can continue to see our rural community thrive. 💛
Great information! Thanks for taking the time to answer all these questions so thoughtfully.
Thanks for reading, Liz!!
This was so interesting, Stacy, thank you (and thanks to Rich for answering the questions!)
It's funny, while I go out of my way (sometimes quite a long way out of my way) to support local farmers whenever possible, I just don't get too hung up about organics vs. non-organics on most products. I'm more concerned with how animals are raised and the soil is treated, and I don't think those labels always tell us what we think they do. It was good to hear Rich's take on why conventional is the right choice for your family's farm.
Thanks, Meagan! I passed along your thanks to Rich. :) I love that you support local farmers when you can, and I'm sure they appreciate your support, too! One of the biggest misconceptions I've seen online is that some people assume that bigger = bad. And while we are a larger operation, we still care for our animals and land. Mainly because it's the right thing to do. But also, animals and land are assets, so it would be dumb to mistreat them from an economic standpoint. Anyway, thanks for reading!
If Rich is ever up for another Q&A, I’d love to hear about the differentiation between a small, medium, large farm, and a CAFO. Like, literally, how many animals or acres are we talking before you’re considered “big”?
I will ask him! ;) I know the USDA determines size by gross income, not necessarily the number of acres / animals. This is from 2017, but I think it's probably still accurate, just to give you an idea of how it's determined.
https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/Highlights/2021/census-typology.pdf
Thanks for doing these posts! I know next to nothing about farming, so it was helpful to hear from an actual farmer about things like organic foods and GMOs.
Thanks, Erin! I appreciate you taking the time to read!
Loved reading these! Don’t overthink the two vs one part, it works either way! This was great :) Thanks to your hubby for giving the interview. If I could scrub the internet of all the round up misinformation, I would be real happy 😅 It is difficult for a person not familiar with herbicides to get good, easy to understand, accurate info on it. There is so much fear mongering surrounding it. Hopefully some of the more skeptical people read the book he recommended!
So true; there is a lot of misinformation on the internet! Thanks for reading and your encouragement!
I appreciated it being in two posts! This was so fascinating and informative.
Thanks so much, Lauren! I'm glad you got something out of them!