Driving through Southern Alberta at this time of year is incredibly beautiful, especially after all the rain we've had. The fields are spread with the glorious shades of green grains, splashes of blue flax, and the glaring brightness of yellow canola.
The scene is beautiful until you reflect on what those crops represent and what's behind the beautiful façade.
Those green grains will be used as silage in feedlot operations or left until the fall when they are sprayed with glyphosate (Roundup) to speed the process of ripening. Neither alternative is good for the environment, livestock, or you.
That beautiful blue field of flax probably had artificial fertilizer added to the soil and a few doses of herbicides, insecticides, foliar fungicides, and pre-harvest glyphosate. Nothing good here.
Then there's the yellow canola, GM (genetically modified) to withstand glyphosate. Canola is hazardous on so many levels. Just in the last few weeks, Bayer AG, which bought Monsanto, announced it will pay out more than $10 billion to settle tens of thousands of U.S. claims brought against Monsanto over its Roundup herbicide, used on all these crops.
Here's why we farm organically.
Why We Farm Organically – Martin Van Popta
I talk to a lot of folks about why we farm organically. There are, of course, many reasons why we've made this choice.
The foremost reason is we know that we have to do the right thing before God and man. We don't practice chemical or GMO agriculture because we don't want to poison His creation.
Our food heals people instead of causing cancer and other illnesses. There are those who argue that chemicals and genetic modification are harmless or "not that bad," but we know that's a deliberate lie told by the same liars who brought us DDT and PCBs.
Chemicals and giant machines are not the way to go. It's very difficult to run a profitable operation when chemical companies have their hands in your wallet all the time and your tractor is worth more than your house. We've learned that the critters in our soil are more than happy to make fertilizer for free when we treat them right, so we don't see any sense in killing them with expensive synthetic fertilizers. You'll also notice that most profitable farmers have learned how to service their own equipment.
I have heard too many times the heroic adage that chemical farmers are "feeding the world." This is another deliberate lie that chemical and machinery companies use to distract farmers from managing their finances responsibly.
Chemical companies and industrial machinery manufacturers cooperate to hand out rewards to the farmer who can grow the most bushels on one acre. They tell the farmers that it's their moral obligation to feed the starving people all over the world. And the farmers believe it even though most of the crops they grow aren't edible. So, the ag companies get wealthier, the farmers go broke, the people are poisoned, and nobody in the third world has an extra morsel of food.
I would love to see all farmers liberated from the hoax that they're doing mankind a favor by producing an overage of poisonous food.
The world doesn't need more food; it needs better food. The land doesn't need cheaters and mercenaries to increase production; it needs healthy cooperation to do the job it was created to do.
Efficient farming isn't about fewer farmers per quarter section. Efficient farming is when a quarter section can feed ten farmers.
Efficiency doesn't mean farming only one organism; it's about layering and stacking your plants and animals so you can reap more than one harvest.
It's not about bushels per acre; it's about dollars per acre.
If family farming wasn't just a small step above medieval serfdom, maybe the children would see the opportunity and be willing to help out. If farmers stopped signing over their lives and their farms to industrial ag corporations, maybe there would be something left for the children to inherit.
I want the farmers to come home again. I want them to want to come home.
Healthy happy farmers = healthy happy people.
Healthy happy people = healthy happy farmers.
