Saying goodbye to another family farm from a city girl

The title once again says it all.  In two days my husband's fammily will sell the farm and then all that will be left of those days will be the memories and the stories that will be shared.  My father-in-law has been in farming for 35 years and it's time for him to move on  in his life.  There have been many hours and years of blood sweat and tears on that farm; and now all of the farm equipment and buildings will be sold.  Another famly farm is lost.

 

It doesn't make me feel good because it is in the family but more importantly, I appreciate the fact that farmers grow our food and that for much of the world as well.  Where do city people think their food comes from?  It doesn't just appear in the supermarket, although some city kids probably think that this is the case.  It has to be grown somewhere and then turned into the food that we eat.  The farmer is part of this chain and he is the first part of that chain.  Without the farmer, the food would not be grown or harvested.  Without the family farm, you don't have the love for the land and the sense of pride that goes with had work. 

 

Is there some sacrifice to living this lifestyle?  There certainly is and one of these is that you don't get to travel because you have to make sure that the work gets done on the farm.  You also have the sacrifice of income, especially in years when Mother Nature doesn't cooperate and give you good weather.  Working on a farm is not easy work either.  There is the planting of the crop, tending that crop and feeding the animals and caring for them if you raise them.  Raising animals, from what I understand, was not always profitable and the farmer did not always get a good price either.  The middle man did better than the farmer who raised the animal and the farmer is the one who invested much more effort in the raising of that animal than did the middle man.  Can you say fair?  I can't.  It's why my husband's father got out of the hog business when he did.

 

What might you ask will replace the family farm?  It is the corporate farm which is in business to make money and doesn't always care about the whay they use the land or the quality of their product.  It is so impersonal and the people who work on it don't have the love of the land that the family farmer has.    They probably don't have the knowledge that the family farmer has either and the corporate farms don't necessarily have the attention to detail that is needed.        They don't understand nature and how that works.  They only know about making money.  Is that what we want for our food producers?  I don't and I am sorry to see another family farm relegated to a memory.