Ethics: Fresh? Local? Organic???

I’ve hit the halfway mark at the farm – four months.  It’s hard to describe how I feel about the farm, and I often feel torn because I love the farming lifestyle, yet I dislike this farm in particular.  What have I learned so far?  I don’t want to work on this type of farm – a big business farm.  Now, there’s nothing wrong with having a for profit farm – farming is, in fact, a business.  However, I believe that the owners of this farm are focused exclusively on making money.  I’m part of a corporation – I’m at the bottom, one of the laborers, doing back breaking work so that two people can reap major profits.  This farm only started eight years ago, when they farmed only a few acres.  Today, they farm over fifty acres, have a crew of twelve laborers (eight of them immigrants, who are worth more than they are paid), own over twenty tractors, and use intensive inputs in the form of fertilizers (added weekly), synthetic mulches (plastic), and biological pesticides (a strange and goopy mixture of I don’t even know what).  Rather than a true learning experience, called an apprenticeship, I am just another laborer, and am expected to work hard and fast at all hours every day.  Of course I need to work efficiently, but he (the farmer) only treats us as employees, not as people he is supposed to be training. 

There are also some ethical issues, which is why it feels corporate.  In fact, one of our volunteers expressed to us that this is definitely an industrial organic farm.  My biggest issue (also a major issue for the other apprentices) is that the owner brings in much of what is sold at the markets.  That is, he buys in from other farms – some of them are local (not over fifty miles away), some are local-ish (a couple hours away), some are regional (North Carolina), and some are from…..California!  Our motto, which we wear on the back of our t-shirts, is “Fresh, Local, Organic”.  Since when is produce shipped to Florida from California either 1) fresh or 2) local?  Sure, it’s organic (usually), but it sure isn’t fresh, and definitely not sustainable.  Then we turn around and put signs on the produce like it was grown on our farm.  What’s going on here?  An even bigger issue is that some of the produce is conventionally grown (chemically sprayed) – and none of us are given a straight answer on whether it’s organic.  Crops we bring in include cucumbers, zucchini, potatoes, celery, broccoli, strawberries, tomatoes, corn, avocados, citrus, green beans, onions, eggplant, peppers, and lettuce.  Here’s something funny – we grow all of these except avocados and corn!  So he brings in food to supplement, so that he can “fill the demand”.  I have always had the impression that local farmers only sell what they can grow themselves.  Hmmm, not here.  We are deceiving our customers who come in, thinking all of the food is grown locally – they think they are supporting a movement that sustains local farmers.  I can look past all this because I understand that there are farmers out there who do business like this, and that they are, in fact, fulfilling a demand.  But I’ve discovered that I don’t want to be a part of it.  This couple saw the organic movement coming during the nineties, and they searched for a place where the market wasn’t already saturated; they started their farm in the right place, at the right time, so they could become wealthy.  This is not what I strive for. 

Now, these are just personal issues I have with the farm, and it isn’t a reflection of my overall mood and well-being.  I am very happy working on a farm – I know, without a doubt, that it’s the lifestyle for me, and I will always stay on the farming path.  However, in order to actually learn how to farm, I need to work on other farms – smaller farms (where whacky hippies abound). J