The Tao of Farming

Live and learn.


You win some, you lose some.


C'est la vie.

All these axioms may help us face little failures in life but I'm seriously considering putting farming in a class by itself.

Farming's axioms could include:

No matter what you do, you will fail.


Everything is for naught.


It's a zero-sum game and you'll get zero as the sum. Every time.

You get the idea.

Here is a photo of our beautiful wheat that is just about ready to be harvested. Last year, we lost most of our wheat crop to the floods and we didn't have insurance. We did manage to recuperate some of our losses as organic wheat went for $18/bushel (as compared to regular wheat that was going for about $5/bushel) and we got about 50 bushels off our land. (We should have gotten over 700 bushels.) So, we were able to pay for the combining, had a little money from the wheat, and milled some of it into flour for our CSA members and ourselves.

We re-planted wheat for this year AND took out insurance on it. (We're pretty bright.)

Well, last weekend, we traveled around our land and were thrilled that the wheat was looking very good (full heads, ripe, drying out like it should) and the clover and grass we planted this spring was coming up just as we hoped under the wheat to make hay in the late summer and fall. Of course, not all the fields were primo, but the fact that SOME were really excited us. Our farm was really coming along. It wasn't simply comprised of weed fields anymore. Our planning was working out. And, remember, we were insured.

What could go wrong?

We did what we always do. We called our mentor, Dan, to schedule the combining of our lovely wheat. He had the sad duty of informing us that organic wheat prices had fallen to $6/bushel.

WHAT???????

OK. OK. Let us recover ourselves. OK. We'll be OK. We had counted on the insurance to pay around $9/bushel. But that would only happen if the crop failed. What do we do now that we have good wheat that will only bring $6/bushel?

Do you see how unfair this all is?

So I proceeded to call the local grain dealer to find out the exact going price of organic wheat. Kevin was very happy to take my call but also had a sad duty to perform. Not only is organic wheat going for very little, it is not going AT ALL. He knew of NO ONE wanting wheat. Everyone he knows has wheat leftover from last year. He is recommending that we find a place to store our wheat (another expense) for at least two months and then, MAYBE, we'll be able to sell it. No guarantees.

Too bad we didn't have the floods this year.