Author of Finding Lights in a Dark Age, Saying NO to a Farm-Free Future and A Small Farm Future
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Posted on April 7, 2014 | 22 Comments
Maybe time for a quick post from down on the farm, so here’s a picture of part of our new farmhouse being shunted into position.
Well, I know it’s not much of a farmhouse, but I can only refer you to Mendip District Council’s Local Plan, Policy DP13, which insists we have to erect a temporary building with no foundations that must be removable after 3 years. “In this way”, to quote from Mendip’s document, “We will make it as difficult as possible for hippy upstarts with ornery ideas to get their foot in the door of England’s green and pleasant land, thereby saving the timeless and unchanging beauty of the countryside, with its oil seed rape, maize silage and temporary ryegrass leys, for the aesthetic edification of passing motorists and dog walkers, or those rich enough to buy farms whose purchase price far outstrips the value of all the produce that can ever be grown on them ”. OK, I’m paraphrasing a bit…
In any case, what you see before you results from the fact that Mr Mobile Home Relocator pronounced the platform we’d provided for it unfit for purpose, leaving us to move the darned thing the last critical 30ft ourselves after undertaking the necessary remedial work. Trouble is, whereas he had something like a 200 horse 4wd John Deere c/w hydraulic front linkage, our own dear little 50 horse 2wd Ford c/w only marginally hydraulic rear linkage that you see pictured decided it was more interested in aimlessly spinning its wheels on the track than putting in the hard yards to move the home. Fortunately, with your blogmaster Spudman pushing with the Ford, the intrepid Mrs Spudman tugging with the mini digger, and our lovely WWOOFer Teresa standing in between waving her arms about to pass communications between the Spudpersons in an increasingly desperate but I’m pleased to say ultimately successful effort to prevent the onset of major domestic disharmony, we managed to get it into place. All we need now is water, electricity, a few more walls and roofs, a large bookshelf for my collection of rare tomes on global agrarian history and we’re good to go…
Regular readers of this blog will probably think I’m building to some larger point about the present state or future prospects for farming on the basis of this homely tale.
Nope. I just thought you might like to see a picture of my new house.
Oh go on then, you twisted my arm. How about the following?
This website’s predecessor was called ‘Vegboxpeasant’, but I changed it to Small Farm Future on the grounds that (1) At that particular juncture, I was no longer actually selling veg boxes, and (2) I was worried that I couldn’t rightly call myself a ‘peasant’, given the typical definition of peasantries as joint family labour oriented to household production.
Happily, I can report not only that I’m now back in the veg box business, but that – as you can clearly see from the picture – my family’s labour is most definitely oriented to household production at present, in a rather literal sense.
Of course, I accept that as an owner-occupying truck farmer with the princely total of 18 acres at my command, farm labourers clamouring to work on my holding for the price of a meal, and another 500 or so (usually) willing labourers tucked under the bonnet of my trusty-ish Ford, I guess I’m a rather privileged peasant, and would no doubt have been ripe for liquidation as a kulak in Stalin’s Russia. But as Clem Weidenbenner pointed out on this website in a different context a few weeks ago, when it comes to classification there are lumpers and splitters, and I do think there are things to be gained by lumping folks like me in with all the other peasants. Those things, specifically, relate to political solidarity and common experience.
On the political solidarity front, I’m happy to be going up to London on 17 April – the International Day of Peasant’s Struggles – to demonstrate with my friends in the Land Workers’ Alliance outside the Department for Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs, asking it to pay more heed to small scale farmers here in the UK, and through our connections with our global umbrella organisation Via Campesina with the wider world. This article on the ‘peasant’ concept expands a little on the issue.
On the common experience front, well I don’t doubt there would be many differences between me and a poor peasant farmer picked randomly from a low income country, but I like to think that there would be some commonalities of experience on the basis of our mutual efforts to feed ourselves and other people via the vagaries of food markets. Paul Richards makes the following interesting comment in this regard:
“It is an obvious characteristic of small-scale resource-poor farmers that there is little scope (however orthodox economics might wish otherwise) to insulate the farm from other aspects of existence. This embeddeness is a feature of all people-intensive small-scale farming systems, irrespective of whether output is for market or household subsistence. Members of the farm household in these circumstances judge the success of their on-farm actions by whether they further their social projects more generally”.1
A nice point from a great thinker on small-scale farming, whose Indigenous Agricultural Revolution2 is still just about the best book I’ve read on the subject of peasantries, and how they’re typically misunderstood by the agricultural improvers who wish them into oblivion for their own good, and also often enough by sympathisers who wish to preserve them in aspic as remnants of a more authentic age or elevate their agricultural knowledge to the level of mystical truth.
Anyway, I for one certainly judge the success of my on-farm actions by whether it furthers my social projects more generally (a good thing too, because to be honest at the moment that’s just about the only thing that’s keeping me ticking as I toil away on the house and the land towards rather uncertain goals). For me, this blog has become an important part of attempting to think through what those projects are. So I’ll be returning to more serious matters in my upcoming posts…time permitting. One of which probably ought to involve taking a closer look at the labour that gets done on the holding by volunteers and by machines. But before that, first we need to talk about populism, and then about the balance of nature and the rambunctiousness of gardens.
References
Richards, P. (1993) ‘Cultivation: knowledge or performance’ in Hobart, M. (ed) An Anthropological Critique of Development, London: Routledge,
Richards, P. (1985) Indigenous Agricultural Revolution, London: Hutchinson.
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Nice digs… (is this a term used on your side of the pond?) – if not, too bad – it lends itself to the situation.
Out of curiosity, does your coming: “large bookshelf for my collection of rare tomes on global agrarian history” include ‘The Soil and Health’ from 1947 by your countryman Sir Albert Howard? If not I have to recommend it as highly as anything I can think of at the moment.
Thanks again for references to be perused. Paul Richards has not made it onto my bookshelf, and I may need to remedy that.
And there are a couple other references here I have to admit no prior knowledge of… Kulaks and WWOOFers. On the Kulak front I have to confess my Anglo-centric knowledge of history focusses pretty heavily on the stateside events of 1929 and the following years. Much of economic and political life here in the U.S. stills follows directly or indirectly from the devastation of that market collapse. So I’ve completely missed the fate of the Kulaks. A more rounded knowledge of 20th century world history could have helped when I was in Kazakhstan a dozen years ago on a Farmer to Farmer exchange. Though knowing my propensity to say things and ask questions that aren’t always appropriate in sensitive conversation I suppose its just as well I didn’t know of Stalin’s treatment of Kulaks.
And WWOOFers – which sounds to me like an analog speaker’s bass component. Something whose relative diameter the college boys would use to compare their audio credentials… But on following through to find out what Teresa is member to I also learned of Crofters. And these Scottish agrarians are interesting from a landholding perspective. I read something of crofts as places and crofters as tenants with some land rights that can be passed within a family. But if these latter are tenants in the model I’m familiar with – not owners – what rights do they hold to continue on their plot? Are the crofts held publicly, or is does a private holder have title? Do members of a croft community tend to specialize in ways analogous to other markets… say a dairyman and a cheese maker, a poultry person, a shepherd, and so forth? Is there a commune aspect to the arrangement?
The poor crofters were driven off by 18 acre owning kulaks who drove them into the sea to become Americans, freeing up the land so sheep could be grazed. There used to be a saying that “sheep eat people” and along with the english enclosures this is why. As far as I know crofting is long gone just like common land and rent control.
“major domestic disharmony” will definitely ensue if you continue to call the wwoofer Teresa “lovely”. I suspect you meant really, really helpful but it comes over as pervy. I’m only saying this Chris for your own good.
And as for the kulak thing you really need to drop the marxist thing and learn to love Magon and Zapata. Again it’s for your own good.
All the best,
Tom
Hi Tom:
I’m glad I took a second to think about your comment… for I’d originally thought there was a slight to Americans buried within it. And of course there really is no reason to feel slighted – even if that had been the intent.
Rent control… yeah, lets go there. Or maybe not.
Patrick Whitefield on April 10, 2014 at 10:26 said:
Actually the crofting system was set up as a response to the enclosures and is very much alive and well today. A Scottish friend likened it to the Reservation system for Native Americans. There are close parallels.
Thanks for the comments, and nice to have you back on here Tom, though to be honest you’re sounding pretty grumpy in your post above. Forgive me if I respond in kind.
Some brief points:
Scottish crofting is alive and kicking – you’ll find answers to some of your questions about it Clem on the Scottish Crofting Federation’s website: http://www.crofting.org/index.php/faqs/67 . The SCF is one of the two UK organisations affiliated with the international peasant group La Via Campesina, the other one being the Land Workers’ Alliance with which I’m involved.
Kulaks were the wealthier Russian peasants, who in Bolshevik orthodoxy were regarded as incipient capitalists, and bore the brunt of expropriation.
On Marx, I disagree with you Tom. It should be apparent from this blog that I’m not a Marxist but an agrarian populist, and therefore I certainly respect Zapata et al. But ‘dropping Marxism’ as if there is nothing to be learned from Marx and other Marxist writers is just absurd – indeed, IMHO any responsible and workable form of agrarian populism simply has to address the criticisms Marxists (and others) have levelled at the chequered history of previous populist movements, which is a large part of what my article in ‘The Land’ is about. Likewise, I’m not an anarchist, though it would also be absurd to argue that there is nothing to be learned from that political tradition.
Perhaps I’ll write something on crofting and the clearances at some point – but Tom I’m unmoved by the equivalence you seem to be positing between 18 acre owning ‘kulaks’ in 18th century Scotland and an 18 acre owning veg grower in 21st century Somerset, which I don’t think stands up to much historical or political scrutiny. Still, it’s undoubtedly worth bearing in mind the differences between landowning peasants and landless ones – something that historically Marxists have been much better at doing than populists.
Sir Albert Howard is another one in the in tray Clem, but not that particular book – thanks for the recommendation, I’ll try to follow up on it.
And finally I guess I’ll invite Teresa to comment on what I wrote rather than engaging in any third party arguments in her name. It’s not my intention to offend anyone over this sort of thing, so if I’ve done so I apologise unreservedly. But at first blush I’d have to say that imputing sexual deviance to me because I used the phrase ‘lovely WWOOFer’ is ridiculous, and frankly pretty offensive in itself.
Thanks Chris,
I had a brief look at the Scottish Crofting Federation’s site – or something like it (will follow your link to see). I didn’t stay long enough to discern how land tenure is operating in their system.
Land tenure keeps popping up in all sorts of debate/discussion where poverty, food security, and sustainability are under consideration. I’d always tended to think of the matter in terms of private property with protections through the rule of law. But from a global perspective this is woefully inadequate and I suppose its high time I do some learning on both historical and present political fronts. And if it comes to it I suppose I may even have to read a little anthropology (shudder).
Sir Albert Howard is a great writer. Not only is his subject matter interesting, its fun (to me at least) to read. And there is some historical coverage in ‘The Soil and Health’. Heavens, I think I probably need to take another peek myself – I think he may have commented about land tenure issues in India during the British occupation.
Thanks Clem – including for your wise reminder in your other post on the benefits of not feeling slighted even where a slight is intended. I could do with keeping that in mind.
Yes, land tenure and anthropology – it’s kind of what I grew up with as an anthro student, though a lot of it makes more sense to me now that I’m actually farming. But I appreciate your shudder. I’m currently reading Ester Boserup’s ‘The Conditions Of Agricultural Growth’, one of those tomes that has been plucked from obscurity to be lauded by the neo-improvers. Interesting, but not fun to read. So I’ll look forward to Albert Howard!
On Boserup’s magnum opus our intrepid Spudman remarks:
“plucked from obscurity”. …ouch?
I believe Rachel Carson’s ‘Silent Spring’ hails from about the same period. I’m not trying to conflate the two simply by their early 60s publication, or by their being put forward by women. Nor would I want to leave the impression I consider them both to be the final word on their respective subjects (indeed I have only a passing acquaintance w/ Ag. Growth, but have read Spring from front to back). But “obscurity”? It makes one wonder if Malthus bashing is somehow a criminal enterprise 🙂
Love the “paraphrase” bit. Good luck with the new plush digs. I hate to say this after reading the post. But one thing really stands out in my mind, “a large bookshelf for my collection of rare tomes on global agrarian history.” Be still my beating heart!
It is hard to compare the debate on peasants, crofting or its equivalent with anything in the US. There is certainly the same dynamic between large corporatized agriculture and small farms. But the history of land use laws is quite different. Then again, my failure to grasp that connection may be entirely my fault.
I read articles in The Land that require translation before any comprehension dawns. The piece in the last issue or two where they tried to trace the ownership of a parcel of land was disturbing and illuminating.
I am reminded of the history of the Southern Tenant Farmer’s Union in the 30’s and 40’s here in the South; an integrated radical farm worker’s alliance of sharecroppers and farm workers. A terrific pictorial history called Roll the Union On covers their history.
Cheers,
Brian
PS Can’t seem to get your “subscribe” button to activate.
Brian:
Do you ever market anything at the Knoxville Farmer’s Market??
My daughter and son-in-law go frequently, and when the Mrs. and I are in Knoxville to visit we usually go as well.
Clem,
Well, it is a small world. We don’t use the market in Knoxville. All of our business side is direct marketing meat (sides and quarters). But I do have plenty of friends who market at the square. They have developed a nice market. Feel free to shoot me an email at [email protected] next time you are in the area. Be happy to give a tour on the farm.
Cheers,
Brian
Brian:
Maybe you’ve mentioned this earlier here or on your blog, but where do you butcher? Here in Ohio there are still a few lockers or other places that will do custom butchering (with USDA inspection which allows trade), but its not nearly as available as it is was even 20 odd years ago. Growing up in southern Illinois we took steers to a locker in a neighboring town ~ 3 miles from the farm. This is no longer an option there (hasn’t been for quite a while).
Access to slaughter facilities (with inspection) has become a fairly serious issue for many Local Food folk. Is this similar in central and eastern TN??
Clem,
You are right on the money. In my opinion access to USDA inspected facilities is the missing link. We are in the midst of a small farm revival and have a consumer base that is well educated on the damage that industrial farming is doing to their health and to the planet. But the number of USDA inspected plants continues to decline.
Fifteen years ago we had three plants within an hour’s drive we could use. But they all ceased working with the USDA a few years after that date. Today we’d have to drive two hours (each way) to drop of animals. Then factor picking up the meat, another four hours. Add another couple of hours to get it to a farmer’s market. You have then burned more fossil fuel than it probably takes to ship a steer from the west and drive the packaged cuts to Kroger’s.
So we have always opted for the custom route until things change. As you know with custom meat, the customer is buying an interest in the animal. I actually like having customers buying a side of an animal. You deal with a customer that is more committed to nose to tail eating. When you deal in cuts, everyone wants steak or pork chops. No one ever asks for a beef heart, which when ground makes a terrific hamburger!
But it raises larger issues than government approved cuts of meat. I personally would opt for a clean small family run custom slaughter house, than the mega-slaughter mills killing 20,000 hogs a day. But the real issues, as I see it, have more to do with nurturing or recreating communities of scale.
How we get there from here may be a moot point. But I think I’ve taken up enough of Chris’ blog space for now.
Cheers,
Brian
Oh good grief, the internet is a dreadful way to communicate. It was a gentle bit of ribbing and not grumpy in the slightest.
Lambasting yourself as a Kulak only means anything if you know the history of marxism. Nobody else cares. Even mentioning them puts a great big sign over your head saying “I am a marxist” even if you arent.
My conveniently picking the words “18 acre” and “kulak” should’ve alerted you to the fact it was a wind up as you had previously shown unease that owning 18 acres made you a kulak. As a red blooded member of the english yeomanry (another type of kulak) I took the opportunity to take the piss.
The real class enemy had 100s or even thousands of acres which you should take comfort in knowing is not your league.
C’mon lighten up!
Thanks for the further comments, everybody.
Tom – apologies if I misinterpreted your post. Indeed a problem with internet communications, particularly when reading grumpily late at night after a couple of rough days at work. Even so, I don’t think an interest in Russian history or debates about the differentiation of the peasantry ought to brand anybody a Marxist – they’re highly relevant to figuring out a contemporary agrarian populism, so you ought to care!
Clem – apologies for calling Boserup ‘obscure’. By the time I was a student in the 1980s her work had been relegated to ‘background reading’ in my economic anthropology course, only for me to find lots of people suddenly enthusing about it anew in the 2010s as a kind of sacred tome of anthropogenic ‘improvement’. It’s certainly no crime to bash Malthus – in fact, it’s a popular leisure pursuit these days, but I’m not sure that setting up a Malthus vs Boserup bout is terribly revealing. Perhaps I’ll try to post something on that one of these days.
Brian – hopefully no apologies due (sorry about the subscribe button, though, I’ll investigate!) but thanks for your interesting comments. Yes, I think the American and European histories are very different, albeit with a similar power dynamic between small and large-scale, which is interesting. Thanks for the reference – I’d like to learn more about US small farm activism, as I suspect there’s much to be learned from it for us today.
Thanks Chris, you’re a gent. I do care about the kulaks, they were mercilessly slaughtered I just think what happened to them is a narrative mostly told and listened to by the left.
No, carry on Brian & Clem if you want. Always happy to host conversations. Similar issues around slaughterhouses for small farmers over here. Cronon’s book on Chicago that I mentioned a while back was very good on the way that the meat packers broke the small butcher/slaughterer trade.
Glad that Small Farm Future has brokered some useful interaction from across the ocean. Maybe the internet isn’t such a bad way to communicate after all! So we have two Englishmen arguing about Marx and two Americans sorting out market arrangements in Knoxville. Hmmm – no I won’t try to make any inferences…and no slight intended to any individual or nationality!
Thanks. I have some passing acquaintance with the Brits fratricidal political tendencies. I had some friends in the British anarchist movement years ago. I remember two jokes. Hope no one takes offence.
Joke one: what happens if you put three Trotskyist’s in a room? You get four political parties.
Joke two: what happens if you put three anarchists in a room? You get four newspapers.
Now that I have typed it, it doesn’t seem that funny. Must have been the beer the first time I heard it.
Speaking of politics, a topic I’m interested in a more skilled writer tackling is the farmer’s market. I have a sneaking suspicion that it simply puts the farmer in direct competition with his compatriots for the benefit of the market. I’m interested in historical models for co-op selling of produce, of which there are plenty.
My best,
Brian
Clem on April 10, 2014 at 13:06 said:
Brian:
Thanks for the thoughts on your meat marketing system. We used to sell our beef by the side or quarter as well – but had the USDA stamp back then as it was available. And I can second the notion that beef heart is excellent food. Beef liver is very good if prepared well (Mom’s – errr.. Mum’s liver and onions bring back fond memories).
I like the anarchists and newspapers joke better, and haven’t had a beer in the last several hours.
On the politics/social nature of a farmer’s market I think a lot depends on the individual market. I’ve been to the Knoxville market several times. Its likely the largest I’ve ever been to. And its my impression there are as many booth’s there selling craft and art type wares as there are farmers selling food items. There are some VERY specialized booths as well. One booth I saw last fall was selling peppers. Only peppers. Fresh, dried, dried and ground, different varietals, different levels of heat, and stories to go with ‘em all. Not convinced the guy was making enough to justify his investment, but perhaps his presence was a brand building effort.
But I wonder whether there isn’t some value in putting farmers in direct competition with each other? I realize it doesn’t help if price competition gets out of hand in a race to the bottom. But I think people do want to feel they are getting value for money and if shopping several stalls to find the ‘best’ price is inducement to go to the market in the first place then having lots of stalls competing may serve a longer term benefit.
We ran a roadside stand from our truck farm when I was growing up. This is a completely different model, with some benefits (and some other aggravations). And today I’m seeing quite a few CSA efforts that represent still another model. Lots to mull over.
Cheers,
Clem
Brian Miller on April 10, 2014 at 22:28 said:
Clem,
I agree that competition can be healthy. And I think the farmer’s markets have the potential to create a more durable community. My criticism of them as they exist today is that they are primarily a play-ground for the better off. And those farmers that succeed best are the ones who can play that game. Savvy marketing wins out.
Again, there are many models for connecting producers with consumers. And an ideal world will have a bit of everything…no one size fits all. Small farmers in our area have discussed, without action, the idea of a producer’s co-op; selling our produce, eggs and meat to area grocers, restaurants or direct to customers at select markets.
“…primarily a play-ground for the better off.”
Very interesting observation. And though I’d not perceived them as such I can readily see how you can. There’s a smaller farmer’s market near where I live that is (to me at least) a bit more down to earth. But even this more humble effort is still not going to feed poorer members of society. There are efforts to build infrastructure allowing STAMP recipients to use their electronic cards at these markets (STAMP is a U.S. food assistance program for lower income folk).
But something else you said in passing caught my eye:
“Small farmers in our area have discussed, without action, the idea of a producer’s co-op”…
and the salient part to me is “without action”. I’m only guessing here, but doesn’t the independent nature of farmers work against you? On the flip side most farmers I know are among the most practical folk and if a producer’s co-op makes sense they will eventually adopt it or something like it. But it won’t happen in a New York minute.
Patrick Whitefield on April 10, 2014 at 10:28 said:
“OK, I’m paraphrasing a bit…” but not much!