Culture, history, identity

When I first worked on a vegetable farm back in 2005, the farmers often talked to us about the growing practices used on the farm. We sold at a dozen DC-area farmers markets each week, with our tent signage proudly displaying, in brief, our farm identity:
 

NO PESTICIDES
NO HERBICIDES
NO FUNGICIDES

It was clear to us that nearly all of the other produce growers were conventional farmers, using chemical pesticides and fungicides as a key element of their vegetable-growing system. And it was just as clear to us that many customers sought out our sign when choosing which farm to buy from. We workers each went to market once or twice a week, and at every market customers would ask, upon entering our tent, “Are you Organic?” We'd begin our reply, “We're not Certified Organic but we use no pesticides, no herbicides, no fungicides, and use a foliar fertilizer sprayed on the leaves that has no runoff issue and is FDA certified as a...” “Oh yes, that's what I mean—thanks!”

Back in the 90s, long before I worked there and long before anyone was asking for Organic, the farmers realized that customers were interested in this simple description of growing practices and put the sign up, a sign that remained unchanged even as Organic went mainstream. The constant interface of our farm with other farms at market—and with customers—reinforced to us what our farm was and how it differed from the conventional farms, creating a strong cultural identity based around using ecological growing practices while not being Certified Organic—indeed, there were very few Certified Organic farms at the farmers market in those days.

When I started my own farm, I stayed close to the growing practices familiar to me as a worker. But I moved away from farmers markets towards CSA, where I no longer see other farmers each week or talk with customers at market, so I hardly think about my growing practices anymore—they're just, to me, normal.

But growing practices are still important, and maybe even a key reason you chose to join this CSA (I hope so!). It's worth taking a moment to make the point that virtually all farms—whether in big agriculture, or farmers markets, or even CSA farms—who don't advertise their growing practices farm in a way that is reliant on the inputs of conventional chemical pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, and fertilizers. And for that matter, virtually all Certified Organic farms are similarly reliant on pesticides, fungicides, and fertilizers selected from the USDA's Organic-approved list.

This farm uses no pesticides of any type, instead excluding bugs with netting and fabric cover, or hand-picking them from the plants. To combat fungal disease I plant resistant varieties, or make multiple plantings knowing the older plants will eventually succumb. Weeds are blocked with biodegradable plastic mulch (which, incidentally, is not approved for use on Organic farms even though it is 100% biodegradable, and so Organic farms instead use miles of regular plastic mulch that goes straight to the landfill or is burned). I do think my growing practices are objectively better for the world than the practices of conventional farming—and, for that matter, than the average Certified Organic farm. Moreover, I'd advocate for the principle of less reliance on off-farm inputs over a farming system based on the products of industrial agriculture.

But if you'd ask my why I use these specific methods, as opposed to some other set of environmentally sane methods, it's not like I've made a rational assessment of the options and come to the conclusion that my assortment of methods is the ecologically superior farming practice. (It could actually be argued that a system where the soil is never disturbed and weeds are killed with herbicide may very well be “better” environmentally than a system like mine that is reliant on frequent mechanical tillage—never mind those cutting-edge farms now working out new methods of doing no-till farming without herbicides, a farming system that may someday become the new “sustainable” standard.) No, the underlying reason that I farm in this specific way is just that: it's just the way I do it. Culture, history, identity.

As in any farming community, I learned to farm through working for the older generation of farmers (or “hippie farmers” as their neighbors called them), receiving principles and values passed down through cultural lineage, ready answers serving as a guide for all future decisions. No pesticides, use rowcover, keep planting, don't till when wet, sell everything, buy used, avoid debt, work hard in the summer, because then there's winter. Cultural restrictions are inherently limiting (What plant disease is this? No idea, won't do anything about it anyway), always in tension with new ideas (it used to be “Kill your rototiller” and now it's “Don't till ever”), but hopefully change over time to meet the future. The point, after all, is not so much to find the "right" answer but to maintain a sense of cultural- and self-identity as the world changes.

As keenly as I feel my farming perspective guide my farming decisions, I don't claim to have the “right” way to farm along sustainable, ecological lines. I just have one that works for me. There are surely things I would be happy to do on my farm if only I had learned to farm that way, just as sure as there are things I would reject except that I happened to “grow up with them” when I was learning. To be sure, the growing practices I employ and advertise to the world do aim to further sustainable ecological farming. And since you've joined this CSA, chances are you also value those same things. At the end of the day though, the reason I do these particular things on the farm is the same reason most of us live our lives as we do: that to do otherwise would be to compromise an inherent part of our history, our community values, our identity.