What is in a name?

It was 38.9 degrees Centigrade here the day before yesterday. That’s way too hot not to mention hotter than just about anywhere else in town. According to my min/max thermometer, it was a cool 33.9 degrees here yesterday. Even still, dad won’t let me go outside to play.

So, I’ve been thinking and reading about what we can call our place. What kind of farm are we?

Organic is a lovely word. It brings all sorts of warm fuzzy feelings to mind of sunshine and happy plants. Just, these days, that word has lost much of its potency. We don’t use any chemicals, in part because we don’t like what they do for the world, but mostly because my health won’t allow it. Eating foods grown with petro chemicals has a strong negative effect on my immune system – even more than it does on a healthy person. So we are extremely strict about the use of chemicals and we don’t even use things that would be okay under governmental organic guidelines. But if the word ‘organic’ has been shanghaied by the big agri-businesses and industrial food chain to the point where it no longer means all the good things it use to mean - and shanghaied it has been - then is it worth our time and money to become certified? The general consensus in the family is that the certification process is arrestingly expensive.

Local is one of my favourite buzz words these days. I buy most of my foods from local sources; if I am not able to buy from the farmer directly, then from a small butcher or farmer’s market. When it comes time to buy something that isn’t produced locally then I buy it from a local company. I’m very aware of where the food comes from and I feel terribly guilty when I buy something imported from far away or that is produced out of season. The same goes with tools and supplies for the farm. We bought many of our tools used from other small farmers (some turned out to work great, other’s broke within a week – but that’s a risk you take) and when we had to buy something new we didn’t go to some big box shop, we went to a small shop and supported a local business.

Most of the produce we hope to produce won’t travel well so, for the most part, we will only produce local foods, &c. So, I think that ‘local’ is a word we can use to describe ourselves.

We are in essence a family farm. Various types of farming are deeply engrained in our family’s history. All of our families experience would be considered small scale farming by today’s industrial standards, but much of was managing manor farms in England. My G’pa, a brick layer by trade, always kept a large kitchen garden, plenty of beautiful flowers, fruit trees and often livestock. He has over 90 years of experience growing things. Add my father and myself into the mix and we have three generations of different farming experiences under one roof. Of course, each generation has different styles of doing things. This presents us with the opportunity to learn from each other which is something that hardly ever seems to happen in the world these days.

Eco-friendly is a word which I would like to use. The thing about eco-friendly is that it means so many different things these days that one really isn’t certain how to use it. We are very conscious of the environment and try to act in a friendly way towards it. But in the end, I don’t know if we should use this term as it seems to have lost much of it’s meaning through over-use. Very much in the same way ‘organic’ has.

Sustainable, now there is the word for me. To me this means a combination of things. It means not destroying that which you depend upon. For example, don’t deplete the soil by growing the same mono-culture in the same place year after year or by augmenting the soil with chemicals. It also means being self sufficient. For example, use the chicken poo to nurture the plants in the garden rather than importing fertilizers (natural or otherwise) from outside. This also means saving money by not spending it on things that you can make (or your chickens can make) and can be altered with just a little bit of effort into something wholesome and nourishing.

Ethical? My dad loves this word for describing how we treat our critters. As far as general use of this word goes, I think we qualify. In fact, the SPCA (Society for the Prevention of the Cruelty of Animals) has a certification that you can apply for where they inspect your farm to make certain your animals are being taken care of. I think I would like to apply for this once we become more established. But as for the word ‘ethical’, as a philosophy student, it’s a difficult word for me to utilize – there are many ethical systems, some of which condone nasty behaviour for the betterment of the group (Nazi Germany during the second world war for example). So, as a philosopher, I would rather use a different word to say that we treat our animals kindly and in a way that they feel safe and free from cruelty.

So, for the moment, that makes us a Small, local and sustainable family farm. Unfortunately, that doesn’t sound as impressive as I had hoped. Can anyone suggest any better descriptive terms we could use to describe ourselves?

Until the weather cools down again and I can go play outside, I’ll practice being a farmer on this odd little game I found: Free Farm Game