The good old days of back-breaking labour Last Updated: 12:01am BST 04/10/2008 Everyday life on a Victorian farm was no picnic, finds Matt Ford 'We smell and we ache," says Alex Langlands. "It's been a huge undertaking - and it's freezing up here in winter. But it's also been a real thrill." Alex Langlands and Clumper at work (top) and a farm resident (below)Alex Langlands and Clumper at work (top) and a farm resident (below)
Adjusting to hard physical work in wild weather was not the only challenge for the team of two archaeologists and a historian who retreated to deepest Shropshire to live for a year as Victorian farmers.
"Braces were a revelation," says Langlands, one of the archaeologists. "They used to wear their trousers much higher in those days, Simon Cowell-style.
At first we were using belts - seriously uncomfortable. The switch was a godsend."
It was the urge to get out of the library and find out more about the gritty details of the "forgotten voices" of rural life 150 years ago that led the group to conduct the experiment as a follow-up to a television series shown in 2005.
Tales From The Green Valley featured the same enthusiastic trio recreating life on a 17th-century farm on the Welsh borders. Once again the year-long project has been filmed for the BBC.
With everyone dressed head-to-foot in period costume, the farm looks so convincingly like something straight from the pages of Thomas Hardy it is almost eerie. Watching their mighty 17.2-hand shire horse Clumper pulling a log through shin-deep wild garlic with Langlands at his head feels spookily close to time travel.advertisement
The experiment began in September 2007, at the start of the agricultural year, when the team prepared the fields with a horse-drawn plough and sowed a crop of wheat.
"It was backbreaking," says Langlands. "It's very easy in the books to read that they planted this or that, but to be out there hunched over the plough in all weathers tells you a lot more about what life was like. We calculated you have to walk 11 miles to plough one field."
The Victorian period was chosen for study because it represents a historical cross-roads between old and new.
"It marked the birth of modern farming," says archaeologist Peter Ginn. "Railways and canals were making the country a much smaller place and that meant huge changes. Not only could you market your products all over the country, but you could buy mass-produced tools and machines instead of relying on local craftsmen."
The Shropshire farm is portrayed as the last of a dying breed, an old-fashioned mixed farm that lies on the cusp of a brave new world, and the series explores the myriad long-lost crafts that were necessary to keep it going.
"Even a moderately sized farm would have drawn on the skills of about 180 people," says Langlands. "Every village would have had a blacksmith, a wheelwright, a wagoner and dozens of other specialised trades, most of which vanished at the end of this period.
"We wanted to delve into their lives, as well as those of labourers, and so invited a great deal of the people who are keeping those skills alive to help us out," he says.
But it wasn't just out in the fields that the period marked a break with the past. Changes on the domestic front were just as dramatic.
"The workload doubled," says historian Ruth Goodman. "And that was all down to coal."
As the population of Britain grew there was no longer enough wood for fuel, and so the nation switched to coal, changing everything, including diet, in the process.
"It brought a different lifestyle from the moment you got up until you went to bed," says Goodman. "They had to use different recipes, because many quick cooking techniques, such as frying, don't work with a coal range, so there was a shift towards boiled and bland.
"Cleaning was also much harder. Not only was the house always filthy with coal dust, but washing clothes was more difficult. Under the old system you made soap from wood ash and washed your clothes in the river. Later you had to buy soap that needed hot water to work, which took a lot longer. All this meant that women were increasingly shut up indoors."
As a result of her time spent living in the past for Tales From The Green Valley, Goodman stopped using soap in her washing machine and says the clothes come out just as clean. "We're all victims of 150 years of hype by the detergent industry," she says. "We don't need it."
She also never eats factory-farmed food and loves cooking on an open wood fire.
For Langlands, the lessons are more physical. "Come on," he says, as he bounds over stiles in search of a suitable coppice from which to make sheep hurdles. "You learn to walk quickly when you're a Victorian farmer. There's lots to do."
Victorian Farm, by Alex Langlands, is published by Pavilion Books (£20) on October 20. The television series will be shown on BBC2 this autumn.
Who's who?
Alex Langlands, 31, is an archaeologist who studied at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London. His research has focused on medieval and Anglo-Saxon archaeology. He stood as a Green Party candidate in Salisbury during the last local election.
Peter Ginn, 30, is a trained archaeologist who studied with Alex Langlands at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London. His research interests include Egyptology, field archaeology and primitive technologies.
Ruth Goodman is a social historian focusing on the Early Modern Period. She is a specialist in costume and domestic life, and has worked as a consultant for the Victoria & Albert museum and on films, including Shakespeare in Love.
Farmers cling to their land Robert Whitescarver • Columnist • October 6, 2008
Gary and F.P. Mish are full-time farmers. They produce beef cattle, poultry, hay, corn and wheat in the Greenville area of Augusta County. They have farmed all their lives and so did their parents. They work hard, love the rural lifestyle and want to keep farming, but they fear the march of development will pave over many of the fields they farm. These "real" farmers recently chose to never develop the land they own by placing an "open-space" easement on it — in perpetuity. That means forever. I asked, "Why?"Advertisement
"We've seen so much land get broken up into development and we wanted to keep farming here in the Valley," F.P. told me.
The Mish brothers joined 10 other Augusta County landowners in 2007 to protect 2,331 acres of farmland. Augusta County now has a total of 13,493.3 acres of farmland that will not be developed, according to Laura Thurman, Easement Manager for the Virginia Outdoors Foundation, a state agency whose mission is to "promote the preservation of open-space lands" in the Commonwealth.
Open-space easements are deed restrictions placed on property by the landowner to protect certain conservation values of that property, usually by limiting development or subdivisions of the property. Every property is unique and the language of its easement is adjusted to meet the desires of the landowner and the standards of the easement holder.
Why protect farmland from development? Everyone's got their own reasons. The Mish brothers want to make sure there is enough land to keep farming.
For society as a whole there are some very compelling reasons to encourage farmland protection. Locally, farmland is the cheapest land to provide services to. You know the old saying, "cows don't get on the school bus". But on a much broader scale, a global scale, it's important because that's where our food, feed, fiber and fuel come from. In America there is a new mouth to feed every 11 seconds and we lose an acre of farmland every 14 seconds. This trend is not sustainable. Some scientists believe the globe has already exceeded its capacity to care for its 6.5 billion inhabitants; indeed according to the United Nations the number of malnourished children in the world is increasing not decreasing and yet we are putting food in our fuel tanks.
Only 11 percent of the Earth's surface can support sustainable crop production, the other 89 percent is too steep, too dry, too wet, too cold or too hot. Have you heard of any new lands in America to farm? To the contrary, the amount of land to farm dwindles every day. To produce more food and fuel we will need to produce more per acre. We need a miracle or a technological breakthrough like we had with fertilizer, hybrid seeds and conservation tillage.
Land capable of growing food and fuel is a precious commodity and will get even more precious as our population surges to 8 billion. From a global and national security perspective we need to save all the farmland we can, especially farmland that can grow food without irrigation — the kind of farmland we have in the Shenandoah Valley.
John Eckman, executive director of the private, nonprofit Valley Conservation Council, stated that more "real" farmers are taking advantage of the recently enacted tax laws which allow them some advantages over other landowners who make less than 50 percent of their income from farming. "Combined with Virginia's very generous tax credit program, that allows you to sell the credits you can't use, it means real cash to real farmers."
Even with these tax incentives, most landowners conserve their property because they feel it's the right thing to do. Lacy Buchanan, a full-time farmer in Middlebrook placed, an open-space easement on his home farm in 2006. He said, "My boys want to farm and I wanted to make sure they had something to farm".
While most easements are donated to take advantage of tax incentives, 21 counties in Virginia also have "purchase of development rights" programs. These are the programs that pay landowners cash for placing these deed restrictions on their properties. Our neighbors in Albemarle, Rockbridge, Shenandoah, and Frederick counties have PDR programs on the books, though there is certainly not enough money available yet to satisfy the demand.
By far the most popular means of compensation for those landowners wanting to keep farms and forests from becoming developed are the tax incentives for donated easements. We may not have a PDR program in Augusta County but that hasn't stopped landowners from protecting their land from development. Landowners have a right to develop if they want to and they have just as much of a right not to develop. Both options are permanent but now there are financial incentives for the latter.
Fake Funny Farms - Maui County redefines agriculture to include vacation rentals. Sunday 10-5-08 BY: GLENN TEVES
By Glenn Teves
It seems like we’re constantly changing the definition to words to suit our lifestyle changes and our response to money. Once upon a time, agriculture meant the production of food, fiber, and timber. All of a sudden, this definition is being turned on its head with the recent enactment of a law that allows transient vacation rentals on agricultural lands. Has the County gone over the edge or do they know something that we don’t?
Just like the song of the late 60’s by Cat Stevens, "Where do the children play", my question now is "where do the farmers farm if they farm at all". With some farm land in Maui County exceeding $500,000 an acre, probably the highest in the nation, who in their right mind will want to farm when they’ll be spending the rest of their life paying for the land. Farm land has shifted from a resource, as envisioned in our state constitution, to a commodity sold to the highest bidder and the County is taking the lead in making this happen.
Fake and funny farms dot the island from east to west, along with a new generation of pseudo-farmers all trying to find a way to get out of farming, yet still benefit from the zoning and tax breaks. Now, there’s a new crutch to lean on and make big bucks with transient vacation rentals, and bed and breakfasts.
I attended a Sustainable Agriculture Conference in Kona last week and the first question asked of everyone was, "What will be needed to create stronger local and regional food systems that are less reliant on imports from elsewhere?" Expecting responses such as farmers market and community-supported agriculture, my response was 'a catastrophe'. The only way we will change in Maui County is when a disaster forces us to change. By that time, we’ll be eating each other.
Still, the question begs to be answered, “Who will grow our food when the farms are surrounded by houses with residents screaming about the tractor noise, dust, and funny smells and the farmers give up. This is already happening. But who really cares anyway! I still remember a farmer in Colorado I visited who used to spread manure on his fields from nearby feedlots each spring, and would receive a barrage of calls from irate neighbors. When asked, "What is that smell?" He replied, "It’s the smell of money."
Well, not anymore. Now with the New Wave Maui farming, you don’t even have to add manure or fertilizer to your fields. You can create a farm without even farming. All you have to do is construct transient vacation rentals on your farm land, and paste farm pictures on all the windows so your visitors think they’re staying on a farm. You can change the pictures by the seasons, such as classic Tuscany in the spring, or Napa Valley in the late summer.
You can create the ultimate in local cuisine by heading down to Safeway or Costco, buying all kinds of fruits, vegetables, fish and shrimp from Chile, Mexico, China, and who knows where, head back home, and whip up a luscious brunch for your unknowing visitors. No one would be the wiser, and visitors would have a once in a lifetime experience as a result. If you want to get fancy, you can spice things up and add a little more ambiance at the same time by tying a Holstein cow near the entrance to your rental units.
I would never have come up with this great idea on my own, and have to thank the county council and the mayor for thinking ‘outside the box’ and being on the cusp of regional land use planning. I hope they keep their thinking caps on, because I know this is only the beginning of some great ideas to come. If they run out of more ideas, I have some smart pills on hand that I can donate to them, but they have to move fast because it’s only good until my rabbit gets the runs.
CQ TODAY ONLINE NEWS – AGRICULTUREOct. 6, 2008 – 2:41 p.m.Midwestern and Southern Lawmakers Still at Odds Over Farm-Work RuleBy Aliya Sternstein, CQ Staff
Months after enacting a new farm law, lawmakers are rehashing a fundamental argument: What constitutes an 'actively engaged' farmer? The debate is more than academic, because only those who meet the criteria can qualify for federal agriculture subsidies.
Some Midwestern lawmakers are urging the Agriculture Department to write regulations that would tighten the definition of 'actively engaged' partly by setting a minimum number of hours that someone must spend farming or managing a farm operation. Southern lawmakers say that could shut out farmers who hold multiple jobs and they are urging the department to retain the status quo.
At issue are concerns that wealthy, absentee farmers are gaming the system to collect farm payments. Currently, actively engaged farmers must contribute their own land, money or equipment — and they must either work the farm themselves or manage labor. A 2004 survey by the Government Accountability Office found that most large farm operations meet the requirement by asserting active personal management.
However, the GAO reported, there is no measurable, quantifiable standard for what constitutes active personal management.
'People who appear to have little involvement are receiving farm program payments,' Lawrence J. Dyckman, natural resources and environment director at GAO testified to a Senate committee on June 16, 2004.
Congress left the question unsettled in the new farm law (PL 110-246), although the legislation was accompanied by a manager’s statement that listed 'actively engaged' among the criteria the Agriculture Department should consider in setting new eligibly guidelines for assistance.
Iowa’s two senators, Agriculture Chairman Tom Harkin , a Democrat, and the Finance Committee’s ranking Republican, Charles E. Grassley , are calling on the department to establish measurable standards — such as a minimum number of hours that must be spent working on or managing a farm — to prevent payments from going to absentee farmers.
But a group of 64 House members, many from the South, signed a letter to the Agriculture Department last month opposing any change to the definition of an actively engaged farmer.
The House members argue that setting a minimum number of hours for active work or management of a farm could have a ripple effect across the agriculture industry. Young farmers may no longer be able to supplement their farm income by holding off-season jobs and out-of-state landowners may be reluctant to risk their money to buy farmland and lease it out if they cannot collect government payments, the lawmakers argue.
'We encourage you to tread lightly with any changes you propose, any further changes risk jeopardizing the statutory and regulatory balance contemplated by Congress in the new bill,' said the letter for the group led by Rep. Bob Etheridge , D-N.C.
The debate reprises a fight that played out during the farm bill deliberations, when an amendment by Grassley and Byron L. Dorgan , D-N.D., to change the definition of 'actively engaged' was rejected. Instead of requiring someone to farm the land or manage it, their amendment — which the Senate rejected — would have required both criteria.
Many Southern lawmakers say they oppose tinkering with the definition for an actively engaged farmer because the new law includes other provisions designed to preclude payments to absentee landlords and wealthy farmers.
Harkin countered that the Agriculture Department should revise the definition 'so that we do not close down one set of loopholes only to leave others wide open.'
Mystery illness kills 100 horses at farm Tainted hay suspect at EquiTransfer in south Marion By Fred HiersStar-Banner
Published: Friday, October 10, 2008 at 6:30 a.m.Last Modified: Friday, October 10, 2008 at 7:40 a.m.
OCALA - As many as 100 horses died at a farm outside Summerfield during the past 10 days after the animals became ill, littering the farm's pastures. The death toll is unprecedented, say state veterinary officials.Bruce Ackerman/Star-BannerDr. Jose Davila stands in a stall with a customer's mare at Equi Transfer on County Road 475 in Summerfield on Wednesday.More Photos:
* Horse Tragedy A Mystery 10.09.08
The cause of the illness, so far, remains a mystery.
Owners of EquiTransfer, Jose Davila and his wife, Francis Ramirez, both veterinarians, had to euthanize the horses after the animals showed neurological problems and began collapsing. The couple say they think the cause of the illness was contaminated hay that wreaked havoc on the animals' nervous systems.
Davila and Ramirez would not say who they bought the hay from, but said that EquiTransfer is the supplier's only customer and that they have disposed of all of the suspect hay. Davila said they did not want to name the supplier because of potential legal consequences that could result if the hay turns out not to have been the problem.
"I wouldn't wish this on anybody," Davila said Wednesday regarding the death of so many horses. "[The horses] started trembling and fell on the ground. It was like they were having seizures."
Meanwhile, Davila and Ramirez, have sent samples from the dead horses, as well as from the hay, to toxicology labs in New York and Pennsylvania to determine what caused the illness on the 87-acre farm.
The farm also sent two dead horses to the University of Florida Veterinary Medical Center to conduct necropsies, but those reports failed to find an apparent cause of what sickened the horses.
The farm, on South County Road 475, is an embryo transfer facility in which Davila takes fertilized eggs from donor horses and implants them in surrogate horses.
Davila said he doesn't know the financial loss due to the disease, but estimates it to be in excess of several hundred thousand dollars. He said his horses are insured.
The couple said that the suspect hay arrived Sept. 26 and 27 and that by Sept. 28, the first few horses became sick.
"When we saw two or three, that wasn't common," Davila said.
Within hours, the couple said many more horses showed neurological problems, including twitching muscles, inability to stand and seizure-like symptoms.
Davila and Ramirez contacted other local veterinarians to help treat the horses and rid the animals of potential toxins in their stomachs.
By last Friday, antitoxins had also arrived from the University of Florida veterinary college, which the farm used to treat the sick horses, Davila said. EquiTransfer also gave the antitoxin to its healthy horses as a precaution.
There are at least 400 horses on the farm.
Davila said he is not sure whether the treatments worked, or whether horses got better on their own.
When the disease was at its worst on the farm, horses were "dropping like flies," he said. A few horses could still begin to show symptoms of the disease, but most appear healthy now, Ramirez said.
Davila said soon after his horses started dying he informed veterinarian Mike Short, with the state veterinarian's office, which is part of the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.
"If you look at what's occurred, there's no evidence it was contagious," Short said Thursday. "It looks like it's mostly associated with hay."
The death of so many horses on a single farm because of contaminated feed, however, is something most veterinarians have never heard of.
"It sounds fairly improbable to me, but stranger things have happened," said Diane Kitchen, another state veterinarian with the Florida Department of Agriculture. "We've never heard of anything like this on these numbers."
Carol Clark, a veterinarian with Peterson & Smith Equine Hospital in Ocala, said the most likely cause was something the horses ate, but only the toxicology tests would be able to show what made the horses die.
Clark said there were many ways hay can become contaminated.
Poor storage of hay can cause mold contamination, she said, but added that toxins in mold generally do not cause the kinds of problems EquiTransfer saw with its horses.
If dead animals are accidentally wrapped into the hay, that could also contaminate it, she said. But that would contaminate only the single bail, not all the other bails delivered to the farm, she said.
Another culprit could be botulism, Clark said.
In the case of botulism, the bacteria Clostridium botulinum produces spores which sticks to the hay when it is cut and baled. The spores become bacteria, which produce a deadly toxin.
The bacteria thrive in environments absent of oxygen.
In some cases, grass that is cut and wrapped and allowed to ferment, which is conducive to the deadly bacteria's growth if not handled correctly, Clark said.
The processed hay is called haylage and is typically given to cattle because cattle are less susceptible to botulism, Clark said.
Horses are highly susceptible to the disease and many veterinarians, including Clark, due not recommend haylage be given to horses.
Davila said the hay he gave his sick horses was haylage, but that it was inoculated to make it safe for horses.
It is unlikely state animal officials will get involved to ensure the supplier's hay, if any is left, is not sold to another farm, though.
That's because Steve Dwinell, a Florida Department of Agricultural official, said the state only regulates animal feed, not hay. Feed includes supplements such as protein mixes, hay is essentially dried grass.
"There has to be evidence of some regulated commodity'' for the state to investigate, Dwindell said. "[Hay] is not considered a regulated feed."
There have been four complaints from citizens made with Marion County Animal Control against the farm since 2005, county records show. When Animal Control investigators visited the site, they found the complaints unfounded and the horses well-fed and healthy.
As for the farm's latest problems, the department's spokeswoman, Christy Jergens, said, "As of right now, there doesn't look to be any legal problems. If something else is found, that could be a different situation."
Illegal Aliens hard at work on North Farms By RACHAEL HANLEY TIMES STAFF WRITERSUNDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2008
Francisco and Raymundo are preoccupied when visitors enter the large Jefferson County barn where they're working on a sunny Wednesday morning.
They are among a handful of Hispanic workers moving along rows of docile cows, herding them in and out of place, attaching and detaching milking equipment and hosing manure off the barn's cement floor.
Francisco is a stocky 33-year-old in manure-splattered coveralls and gumboots, while Raymundo, a lanky, pock-marked 18-year-old, works in a T-shirt and jeans.
Francisco pauses when he sees Dr. Mark J. Thomas, a veterinarian with Countryside Veterinary Clinic in Lowville, who asks in Spanish if both men would be willing to describe their lives as illegal aliens working in the north country. Francisco nods, although a half hour passes before they have time to sit down in the small, bare room that serves as the farm's office.
Through Dr. Thomas's translation, the men recount their journey into the United States by foot, van and smuggler. They talk about the lack of jobs in their Mexican hometown of Veracruz, the loneliness of living far from home, the dreams they're working toward — a house, a store, an education.
Although they smile frequently, both men describe days full of hard, tedious manual labor, the only way they know how to improve their own lives and those of their families.
"There's no money. There's no work" in Mexico, Francisco says. "My friends helped me come here."
Both estimate they work up to 12 hours a day, six days a week, but say they'd work every day if the owner of the farm would let them. Even on their day off, they rarely leave the farmhouse they share with other workers.
Francisco and Raymundo are at the heart of a labor polemic. Critics contend that north country farmers are contributing to a system that depresses wages, fills domestic positions with illegal foreigners and promotes human trafficking.
Yet, a growing legion of political and agricultural leaders say that unless federal laws are changed to permit farmers to hire more workers like Francisco and Raymundo, the north country's farming industry — where labor is increasingly hard to find and expenses are overwhelming profits — will collapse.
The New York Farm Bureau estimates there are up to 25,000 migrant workers in the state, and Jefferson County Agricultural Coordinator Jay M. Matteson estimates there are 300 to 400 migrant workers in Jefferson County alone.
The reason there are no hard numbers is simple. Farmers fear that openly admitting they hire illegal workers could result in raids by federal officials, deported employees, ruined livelihoods and jail, said Julie R. Berry of the New York Animal Agriculture Coalition.
Ms. Berry, an agricultural outreach coordinator, said that even printing a farmer's first name could lead federal officials to a farm.
"It's pretty easy for people who know the farms and know the farms that are hiring Hispanics to know who it is immediately," she said.
The trend from domestic to foreign — and usually illegal — workers started in the mid-1990s, according to a 2005 Cornell University study. Researchers spoke to 111 Hispanic workers on 60 dairy farms in the state and found that the vast majority of employers had hired the first of their Hispanic crews after January 2000.
"Whenever a new practice is adopted, there are always early adopters," said Thomas R. Maloney, senior extension associate in the Department of Applied Economics and Management, Cornell University, who co-authored the study.
"Other farmers look at what their neighbors are doing," he said. "If it's working, then they're willing to give it a try."
Dr. Thomas estimated that his combined clients employ more than 100 Hispanic workers and that the workers have enabled farmers to expand both the number of milking rounds and the size of their farms.
"If you drive by any large dairy in Jefferson County, you could almost assume there are Mexicans working there," Dr. Thomas said.
Anne, a thin, energetic woman, never thought she would be able to expand her dairy farm beyond a small herd of 100 milking cows.
To get to even that point, Anne and her husband had relied on an Amish neighbor. When he quit, the couple went in search of local workers and encountered problem after problem.
New hires would not show up for work, they would ask to be paid under the table or even call from jail and request bail money, Anne said.
With no competent workers, Anne and her husband became sleep-deprived, overwhelmed and miserable. They were stressed to the point where their marriage was in jeopardy, she said.
Then, one day, a vehicle pulled into the barnyard.
"A young Hispanic man got out and, in broken English, asked me, 'I need work. Do you need help?' And I literally threw up my hands and said, 'Fine. Yes. Today,'" Anne said. "He was back the next day and started. It was the beginning of something new."
Anne, who asked that her real name not be used, said that she and her husband had no choice.
"I did not come to Hispanics because I said, 'Gee, this is going to be fun to be operating in a gray area,'" Anne said. "I came to them out of necessity."
The desperation of dairy farmers who need reliable, knowledgeable employees to tend their herds is equaled only by their fear that any open acknowledgment could have dire consequences if authorities decide to raid their farms.
"A lot of the farms I've worked with haven't necessarily wanted to utilize Hispanic labor because of the issues with immigration," Dr. Thomas said. "Eventually they say, 'Well, we can have dedicated, hardworking employees who are always here on time' and have decided to go that route."
Dr. Thomas said that any dairy farm suddenly losing workers would create "an animal welfare issue."
"Just imagine, those workers are responsible for cleaning, milking and taking care of calves and so forth," he said. "Sure, (the farm owners) would make do and probably find family members and whoever to fill in. But it would be a real issue, beyond any other kind of disaster you can imagine happening on the dairy."
Since the consequences are so grave, reports of raids can send shock waves through the agricultural community.
On Sept. 28, the Rochester Alliance for Immigrant Rights reported that 40 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents raided trailers in Sodus and arrested 11 immigrants and their children. As of Sept. 30, nine men were still being held.
In a statement about the incident, RAIR's Robert Resto said the men were farm workers whose "only crime is to work very hard from sun to sun."
The history of large-scale temporary farm worker programs in the United States can be traced to 1942. The United States had just entered World War II and needed manpower for farms. The Bracero temporary worker program invited Mexicans to take agricultural jobs across the border.
Bracero lasted until 1964, when it was replaced by H-2, which expanded to include nonagriculture jobs in places where not enough domestic workers could be found. Under the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, the temporary worker program was divided into H-2A (for agricultural workers) and H-2B (for everyone else).
Aimed at managing the ebb and flow of seasonal laborers, H-2A was framed for production and harvest jobs lasting less than a year. No provisions were made for longer-term work, a necessity for year-round dairy operations.
Agriculture groups recently have called for further reforms to make H-2A applicable to the dairy industry.
Last fall, officials from Farm Credit of Western New York said at a congressional hearing that an estimated 800 farms statewide were vulnerable to a severe labor shortage. As many as 445 dairy farms, with 7,000 on-farm jobs, were at risk of going out of business, they said, a shortage they blamed on a lack of domestic workers.
"Not everybody in this country is accustomed to or wants to work with cows," said Julie C. Suarez, director of public policy for Farm Bureau of New York. "Because of demographic shifts, and cultural shifts as well, we tend to rely on migrant labor not just for seasonal jobs, but for full-time jobs on dairy farms."
Two measures recently introduced to address the labor problem, Ag Jobs and the Emergency Agriculture Relief Act, have faltered at the federal level.
The short-lived Ag Jobs was heavily criticized as a form of amnesty for undocumented farm workers. Its predecessor, the relief act, included a provision for 1.35 million farm workers to continue working for five years. The relief act was removed from the Senate's Iraq War supplemental funding bill on procedural grounds.
Jefferson County Legislator Barry M. Ormsby, R-Belleville, who supported the act, said the decline in available domestic labor over the past two years has been "of real concern."
"We're not looking to bend rules here," he said. "The lion's share of these workers aren't looking for citizenship anyway. They're looking to come and provide service that's necessary up here and return to their families."
Not everyone agrees on the roots of the labor problem. A lack of domestic workers exists, local agriculture experts note, even with average wages estimated at $11.32 per hour, including benefits, in 2007.
The Federation for American Immigration Reform, which has pushed for legislation against legal and illegal immigration, argues that farmers already have "access to all the foreign labor that they want."
"Our view has been there is no shortage of labor in the United States," Media Director Ira H. Mehlman said. "What you have is a main industry that decided it doesn't want to compete in the local market for labor."
Mr. Mehlman argues that hiring illegal workers is a way for farmers to get out of paying equitable wages and benefits, while shortchanging the tax system and ignoring federally enforced working conditions.
"The federal government shouldn't be regarded as a personnel agency, to provide you with workers you want, at the time you want them, at wages you want to pay them," Mr. Mehlman said.
The 2005 Cornell University study found that Hispanic employees worked an average of 62 hours per week. Workers told the researchers that they preferred to work up to 66 hours and said they would leave their current employment and move to another farm if they could not work at least 55 hours.
"That's a very important thing to note," said study co-author Mr. Maloney. "A lot of these folks are young Mexican men or young Hispanic men, and go to employers and say they want to work lots of hours so they can make as much money as possible while they're here and send money back to their families."
At the time the study was conducted, such workers' wages ranged from $5.50 to $10 per hour, with a mean pay of $6.87.
The minimum wage rate in New York increased to $7.15 per hour in 2007. That year, a Northern New York Dairy Farm Business Summary from Cornell University put the average salary of a Jefferson County farm employee at $11.32 per hour, including benefits.
Mr. Maloney has taken trips to Mexico where he's seen the fruits of work in the United States: expanded farms with coffee plants, new herds of cattle, newly built homes.
"The object for many, not all, is to create a better life back home so they can go home and have a business and have a better lifestyle than what they have now," he said.
For Francisco and Raymundo, the journey to the United States came with significant dangers.
Francisco said he paid $2,000 to have a guide known as a "coyote" smuggle him across the border, after which he wandered in the desert for four days with a small group of people. None of them had food or water, he said.
In Texas, he caught a bus to Buffalo and then made his way to Jefferson County.
Dr. Thomas, who speaks routinely with Hispanic workers such as Francisco and Raymundo, describes such workers as "extremely motivated, hardworking." He said he sympathizes with their difficult decision to live in a foreign land, far from their homes, family, children and culture.
"I almost equate it to a deployment, so to speak, but for many years," he said. "They're in a country where they're nervous or afraid at times."
Francisco and Raymundo both said that they had come to Northern New York because there was no work or money to be found in their hometowns. Having grown up in rural areas, the men said, they understood cows and found dairy work easy to learn.
Francisco said he supports six children and his wife with his earnings. He's managed to purchase a small shop in Mexico, which his wife runs, and hopes to save enough so that he can return there.
Raymundo, who also sends money to his family, said he would like to save enough so that he can go back to school.
It has been difficult for the workers to relate such dreams to the local community. Francisco said he's met almost no one who speaks Spanish. Neither he nor Raymundo has time to take English classes, he said.
Interpreters who work on farms across Central and Northern New York say that the biggest problem among undocumented workers is isolation.
Lupita, a certified interpreter who asked that only her middle name be used to protect her clients and the trust they place in her, said illegal workers are reluctant to do anything, such as visit a doctor or talk to a police officer, which might draw attention to their status.
Their reluctance makes them particularly vulnerable when it comes to legal and health issues, she said.
"To me, they should be able to ride a bike down the road freely, without thinking, 'Oh, my God, is immigration going to stop me?'" Lupita said. "You should be able to do that without being deported."
Lupita imagines that a program that allows dairy workers greater freedoms to live and work in the United States could be more beneficial for everyone.
"Think about it. If there was a choice where you could stay in our country with your family, and make it, would you go through that?" Lupita said. "They really have no choice."
In 1997, after the Immigration and Naturalization Service raided dozens of farms in Western and Central New York, even legitimate workers were reported to have quit and moved on.
A New York Times story about the incident described crops rotting away in fields for lack of hands to pick them.
It is hard to know how extensive the reach of agencies such as the ICE has been in the decade since. Michael Gilhooly, ICE's director of communications for the Northeast region, said his office does not keep track of the number of arrests or raids in particular counties.
"We only keep records for the entire state, except for the New York City area jurisdiction," he said. Mr. Gilhooly did not respond to requests to provide the state numbers, although he denied that there had been any increase in focus on dairy farms, as local agriculture experts contend.
"It's natural for people to worry that law enforcement, in this case ICE, is focused only on their industry," said Lev J. Kubiak, special agent in charge at the Buffalo ICE office. "Really, nothing could be further from the truth. This year alone we've done major work-site investigations nationwide; very few of them had anything to do with the farming industry."
Mr. Kubiak said the concept that an entire contingent of workers will disappear due to an ICE raid, a deeply held fear among farmers, is false. Instead, farms more often lose their work forces after a single illegal worker is arrested and warns his fellow employees with a call from the police station, he said.
"We're trying to encourage a culture of compliance," Mr. Kubiak said. "When people hire people illegally, and do so knowingly, they are creating an incentive for people to be smuggled into the United States and live here illegally."
Farmers can avoid hiring illegal employees by working with ICE and by using the Internet-based E-Verify system to check that Social Security numbers and names match, he said.
"A lot of times, in many instances, there is a willful blindness when there is a strong suspicion or concern that the workers are illegal," Mr. Kubiak said.
"I do know that it's particularly difficult for the dairy farmers if they knowingly or accidentally hire illegal aliens and those aliens get arrested and they're not there to work," he said. "I would hope that would be incentive for dairy farmers to take every step possible to make sure workers are legally working in the United States."
Like Mr. Mehlman, Mr. Kubiak said that illegal workers may also be paid less money, have fewer benefits and work outside the oversight of regulatory bodies such as the Occupational Safety and Heath Administration.
Anne, who employs four Guatemalan workers among a staff of 13, disputes such charges. In fact, she said she provides more benefits to her foreign workers than to her local employees.
To make sure workers want to stay at their farm, Anne and her husband provide housing, heat, electricity, telephones, satellite television and a four-wheeler for employees to use during their time off.
The Cornell University survey of Hispanic workers found that most employers provide similar benefits.
All four Guatemalans have shown her documentation, such as photo IDs and Social Security cards, to prove they are in the country legally, Anne said. But Anne also buys groceries and other necessities for them, a point that she said could indicate their illegal status.
"Frankly, all four guys ask me to bring everything in," Anne said. "That's their signal to me that they know that their documents aren't going to pass muster."
Anne said her Hispanic workers pay their taxes, a point she bolstered with copies of their and her neighbors' W-2 forms. Rather than siphoning off benefits to which they were not entitled, Anne argues, her employees contribute part of their wages to a system they cannot, or will not, use.
"They're not slave labor. They're well compensated," she said. "They pay their taxes, they support their families, just like you do, just like I do."
Raids or other enforcement actions remain constant fears.
In the past year, her farm has received three phone calls from family dairy farms to let her know they were shutting down operations and selling their cows, moves she attributed to a lack of workers. She said that hiring Hispanic laborers, whether they be legal or illegal, is the only way her farm has found to survive.
"I get very fearful. I get very apprehensive," she said. "The hard reality is I'm not sure I would keep doing it on my own."
For the past 10 years, Nova Scotia’s farm businesses have been subjected to immense pressures that continue to drain much of the vitality and creativity from the industry and place them in an uncompetitive position. All of these negative synergies have combined to have an impact much greater than any single event might have had in isolation, an impact that is beyond the capability of farm businesses to deal with either individually or collectively.
The negative synergies that have had such a devastating impact on Nova Scotia’s farm businesses are well-documented. Drought in 1997 was only a harbinger for the impact climate change would have on an industry already struggling to come to grips with immense changes in market structures, driven by the consolidation and the globalization of the food industry.
The red meat industry has all but lost a major component – the hogs. The ruminant livestock sector is still struggling with the impacts of BSE, and the entire industry is becoming increasingly frustrated by a "compliance conundrum" being driven by changing public values associated with the environment and food safety.
In August, GPI Atlantic released a new report, Economic Viability of Farms and Farm Communities, which confirms the precarious state of agriculture in Nova Scotia. The report examines industry trends since 1971 using several key indicators of farm economic viability, including net farm income, expense to income ratio farm debt, total debt to net farm income ratio, solvency ratio and return on investment.
GPI’s August 2008 report is an update on an earlier report. That 2001 report warned explicitly that: "All five indicators of farm economic viability … in the Nova Scotia farm sector show that farm viability in Nova Scotia is being seriously eroded … Put simply, many Nova Scotia farmers can no longer afford to farm … If current trends continue … major parts of the province’s agriculture sector will disappear."
The 2001 report was the handwriting on the barn wall: Writ large was the story of an industry that was clearly at risk. The 2008 report confirms that Nova Scotia’s agricultural industry continues to slide further away from economic viability, with all key indicators trending sharply downward.
Net farm income on Nova Scotia farms has dropped by an average of 91 per cent since 1971, and in 2007 reached the lowest levels ever recorded. Nova Scotia farms have recorded negative net farm income in four of the last six years.
The expense to income ratio on Nova Scotia farms increased from an average of 82 per cent in the 1970s to 97 per cent in 2006, far exceeding the 80 per cent threshold required for a healthy farm sector. This indicates that the prices paid to producers for their products are inadequate relative to rising input costs, and are not keeping pace with farm expenses.
Total farm debt in Nova Scotia increased by 146 per cent between 1971 and 2006; and the solvency ratio of Nova Scotia’s farm businesses has increased by 106 per cent since 1971, indicating that farms are becoming much less sustainable, with the increase in farm debt rapidly outstripping any appreciation in the capital value of farms.
With so many clear indicators that the industry is in decline, it should be obvious – even to those with a minimal understanding if the agricultural industry and its importance to the province’s future – that changes in public policy are required to transition the industry to one which can survive in post-modern global markets.
Most farmers now feel like Alice in Through the Looking Glass: Alice found she had to keep running faster just to stay in the same place. The queen’s advice to Alice: "Now, here, you see it takes all the running you can do to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that."
While farmers have learned to run twice as fast, the problem is the road has become full of pot holes and obstacles. As the GPI report suggests, few have the resources to "stay the pace" any longer.
The realization that you don’t have the resources to keep up with the future is quite disturbing for any individual who has hundreds of thousands of dollars and a lifetime invested in a farm business. It becomes even more disconcerting with the realization that the circumstances that have contributed to your situation are, for the most part, outside your own sphere of influence.
Eight years ago, farm leaders in Nova Scotia recognized that change was needed; they also recognized that change has to begin somewhere – with a planning process. It doesn’t just happen – people, stakeholders, have to make it happen. For eight years, farmers have engaged industry stakeholders in what can only be described as a comprehensive approach to planning for the future.
At this point, it is beginning to appear that government has viewed farmers’ efforts to attempt to manage the industry’s problems and their future as a useful diversion, providing cover for the kind of superficial support that has been provided – support that will always result in disillusionment as the expectations of those in need are raised and then not met.
In The Hollow Men, T.S. Eliot wrote that the world will end "not with a bang but with a whimper." Eliot’s perception might well describe the way farmers feel about the future of their industry. Agriculture in Nova Scotia will end – not with a sudden bang, but with a slow, grinding to a halt as the system just stops working.
Laurence Nason is chief executive officer of the Nova Scotia Federation of Agriculture.
Lifestyle blocks replace farms as urban sprawl gathers pace
Lifestyle properties – often expansive mansion-like residences with park-like gardens for the kids.
Increasing numbers of lifestyle properties are cropping up around New Zealand’s towns and cities as farm land converts to residential use, according to new property research.
The development of country lifestyle patches close to metropolitan cities and provincial centres has drawn an increasing number of families out of the city to 'greener' locations within 45 minutes drive time of the central business districts, says the research findings from leading real estate company Bayleys.
Bayleys Research senior analyst Ian Little said that traditionally, buyers of lifestyle blocks – rural land holdings of between 0.4 – 30 hectares – had been interested in the land’s income-producing potential, such as from grazing or orchard production. Close to half of lifestyle blocks nationally deliver annual returns of $40,000.
"While these groups are still represented, people today are buying lifestyle blocks which are much smaller than the traditional '10–acre block', and have no intention of using the land for agricultural purposes. They are in it strictly for the country ambience," Mr Little said.
"The five most popular reasons people buy these properties today are country lifestyle, peaceful environment, space and privacy, clean air, and a healthy place to raise children. While wishing to enjoy the benefits of a rural lifestyle, many purchasers still require access to metropolitan areas for employment and business purposes.
"Easy access to motorways and urban areas is one of the key determinants of lifestyle property values. Properties close to cities or major towns tend to appreciate at a faster rate than those further out."
Figures from the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry estimate that the number of lifestyle blocks around New Zealand was increasing by 7000 per annum, although this number was expected to have fallen off in the current subdued property market.
"In areas where lifestyle subdivisions have been limited – perhaps due to stringent council subdivision rules - value growth has been marked," Mr Little said.
"Furthermore, as lifestyle areas located on the fringe of urban centres continue to come under pressure from expanding residential and commercial requirements, values of these lifestyle properties have increased significantly.
"The influx of 'lifestylers' from big cities has in turn brought increased vibrancy to many rural areas, and the increased population has meant that country shops and cafes have become more economically viable, while rural school rolls have also increased."
Mr Little said the lifestyle block trend has encircled virtually all of New Zealand’s bigger cities and population bases – including Whangarei, Auckland, Hamilton, Tauranga, Rotorua, Napier, Hastings, Gisborne, Wanganui, New Plymouth, Palmerston North, Wellington, Nelson, Blenheim, Queenstown, Christchurch and Dunedin, as well as numerous smaller towns.
The Ministry for the Environment provides policy and implementation support of the Resource Management Act - aimed at balancing the needs of urban and rural areas in an economically and environmentally sustainable way.
Resource Management Act implementation manager Craig Mallett, said lifestyle blocks were very popular around urban areas, and in general, councils had done a good job of creating an appropriate balance of agricultural and residential uses of the land.
"They (lifestyle blocks) are moving now to urban residential limits so that the smallest lifestyle blocks stay within certain boundaries," he said.
"This has been a planning issue for more than 20 years now, and it can generate concern about urban sprawl and loss of productive farmland. However, some lifestyle blocks are quite productive economically, and contribute to the economy."
Bayleys country manager Richard Graham said that for some farmers, land subdivision had been a quick way of accessing capital to re-invest into their commercial operations.
"For farmers, particularly those near the urban fringes or coastal areas, land values and rates have increased out of proportion to the land’s productive capacity. By subdividing, they are in some cases freeing capital to invest in making their farms more productive in other ways," he said.
Quotable Value reports that in the 10 years to December 2007, the value of improved lifestyle sections across the county has outperformed the residential market - rising by 144 per cent across the country while residential house values rose 130 per cent.
This year, as with the mainstream residential property market, activity around the sales of 'pony properties' has slowed, while values have slipped. The average value of lifestyle property nationally in the June 2008 quarter was $552,019 according to the Real Estate Institute - down on the record level of $621,606 set in the June 2007 quarter. Sales volumes are also down.
"It seems likely that the current restrained level of market activity and downward trend in prices will continue in the short term as the sector faces the same economic environment as the housing market as a whole," says the Bayleys research report.
"The mid to long-term outlook, however, is positive. Interest rates are falling, unemployment is low and the economy, which has slowed significantly over the last 12 months, is forecast by most commentators to pick up again in late 2009 or early 2010."
