Every year since 1999, I've been amazed to see a tiny seed grow and produce so much food. As I'm planting these seeds, in my mind, I can picture them growing and producing beautiful fruit. It does not always happen that way but I have to have faith that it will. If not, then why bother. I know it's the reason why I'm still going at it. To do what I do in this part of Texas is kind of foolish. That's why you don't see a whole bunch of vegetable and fruit farms here. It's hard to do here with the crazy weather and the bad soils. But yet here I am on year number 10 in Texas. I have the soil better but still not ideal. I can somewhat help the soil but I can't control the weather. So we just have faith, irrigate when needed and pay the high water bills. I just consider it as a part of growing here.
Over the years I have grown weary of farming. It's nothing like when I first started. We have way too many regulations and licenses to obtain. Do you realize that the wholesale price on Tomatoes are the same now as it was in 1999? At the same time, all the supplies, seeds and other costs to grow them have doubled. Kind of hard to get the numbers to add up the way you want. Another thing is that anything related to growing natural or organic costs even more. But here I am still farming. You may ask why? Why would you keep doing something so foolish? Well, I keep doing it because I love working the soil, planting, nurturing the plants and harvesting them. If I was rich I would do it just for those reasons then give everything away. But I'm not rich and have to have money to keep going.
It breaks my heart to see so many people buying from big box stores, Amazon or fake lying farmers at some of the local markets. I would bet that most people don't even know how a field ripened tomato tastes. That might be why I have met so many people here that do not like tomatoes. They've been eating those cardboard tasting ones. You know the ones, like you get at a fast food place on your burger. Yuk!! A good tasting one isn't always the prettiest one. But are you buying it to look at or to eat?
I have been hopeful that people would wake up and buy from local farmers. Last year when this stupid virus hit, we were swamped. Had someone even call crying looking for food. Kinda sad, that a local farm will be the last resort to buy food. Anyways, I thought that this crisis might be a wake up call for the public. But it appears that people are back to their old ways. I'm thankful that we have some very faithful people that buy from us every week or bi weekly. Without them I would have been done a long time ago.
We're fighting to keep farming. Seems like some in the powers that be do not want small farms to continue. They have a lawsuit now against the State of Texas Dept of Agriculture for targeting small farms and trying to stop them from farming. Can you imagine we're having to fight against the state to continue and hope enough people buy from us. Just so we can keep farming and make a very small profit.
Well I'm still hopeful.
Comments