The farm has been bustling this week. Some of us have been cleaning up from maple season, pulling taps and cleaning and sanitizing equipment for a long summer’s nap. Some of us have been prepping for planting in the high tunnels and hoop-houses, clearing out any detritus from the last planting season, making sure all systems work and prepping the soil for new seeds and transplants. Some of us have been focused solely in the perennial crops, pruning apple trees, blueberries and raspberries, getting ready for a summer of bursting flavor and hot days of picking.
The daffodils are now in full bloom — an uplifting sight even on the darkest days. It gives me hope that things might get better and days lighter. Maybe the tulips will come along soon. The apple trees will blossom, the lilacs will burst into bloom and perfume. Even though the days can be foggy and bleak, the daffodils give me hope.
There has been a lot of back of house work at the farm as well, ordering seeds, ordering Christmas tree transplants wherever they can be found due to shortages, ordering supplies to repair broken stuff, trying to keep employees paid and positions staffed, trying to keep the books in the black, maintaining machinery and fences and choosing our starter calves to keep the beef herd producing and trying to figure out how to pay for them as the price is about double (which is a tough task with beef herd shortages a problem all across America). All of these backstage tasks are a bit daunting at times, just as prepping the soil and fighting the weather can be. You never know when a bump in the road will become a mountain, and stress is an everyday feeling on most farms. Very disappointing.
A fellow local cattle farmer from whom we are buying our starter calves gave me a call this week to let me know that one of the steers we had reserved had been killed by a pack of coyotes. He described them as wolves, as their howling on the mountain behind him sounds much more wolf-like than coyote-like. The loss of this $2,000 dollar animal is a blow directly to his bottom line. The risks of raising a living creature are tremendous … disease, injury and in this case, death, and it is no surprise that the cost of meat is so high. Very disappointing.
This year, many outside challenges have hit the farmland. The tariffs placed on every single exporting country to American soil are a tax on American citizens and a financial and planning challenge like none other. No one thinks about how dependent we are on other nations for what we use and wear every day until something like this hits. With much of our fertilizer and maple equipment coming from Canada, our packaging and glass coming from Poland and the Czech Republic, parts and pieces from China, our maintenance and supply lines in the books just went up from 10% in some cases to 150% in others, with no timeline for when deals and lower prices might come back, we are stressed. The stock market is stressed and unsure, making all of us, not just farmers, nervous. Some businesses are even shouting they are going to have to close because of unsure markets and prices for products way beyond what their customers will pay. Very disappointing.
Lots of American farms rely on foreign buyers for their products. The uncertainty, high tariffs and inability to take giant risks is putting lots of farmers in a pinch like never before. Contracts are being cancelled with buyers looking for suppliers in other countries. Farmers are faced with a potentially business-ending decision: Plant and then maybe not have a buyer for your product, putting you in default with no income and the possibility of losing the farm? Not plant and try to ride out the storm, putting shortages of product into the already messy mix of the economy and maybe putting your farm under, not able to ride out a year of no income? Most farmers carry debt … and if you take away income and debt remains, it is the death knell of some producers. We will see farms shutting down. Very disappointing.
Economic pressures have made it a necessity to raise wages on the farm to attract workers, if we are lucky enough to find workers. Most small and mid-sized farms like ours cannot afford to pay wages like folks can make elsewhere, as the pressure to sell food at lower prices to match grocery store pricing is a constant challenge. Lots of larger farms have turned to foreign workers to fill the empty positions to milk the cows and pick the produce, and as we are seeing in the federal war on workers and residents, even those with green cards and paths to citizenship, farmers are in a mess. Just a warning. Farmers in a mess equals farmers going out of the business equals food shortages equals much higher prices in the store. We are all in a pickle, not just us farmers. Very disappointing.
Sigh. But then there are the daffodils … I guess we can keep looking for the hope in the daffodils.
