Today’s landscape of the “American Farmer” changed. We see large acreage owners that plant thousands of acres across America and large ranchers that operate large livestock operations, but we often forget the thousands of small hobby-size farmers and ranchers. This is a growing segment of land owners in many states.

As baby boomers are reaching retirement age, many of them are choosing to move back to the country, having left the farm for industrial and white collar jobs in urban areas. As retirement age approaches, they feel the need to return to their roots.

Young families are another growing community of land owners that recognizes the benefits of living in the country and owning a small farm. Most of today’s rural landowners are far from what our grandparents would have considered a “farmer”. Many just want to purchase some acreage and raise a few horses, goats, sheep, or start a small cattle operation.  This type of landowner is often referred to as a “hobby farmer”.

I grew up living on a beef cattle and poultry farm operation in East Alabama. My wife and I are raising our sons on a cattle operation and I would not have it any other way. Living on a farm instills some key qualities in you for a lifetime. I have been involved in livestock and agriculture my entire life. In a previous career, I covered 15 states for a livestock supplement company. In my 10 years of traveling the Eastern Seaboard and Southeastern States, I learned one thing- you can find all shapes and sizes of livestock farms and hobby farms.

It is during my travels that I met many interesting people with unique livestock operations. One fall day in the Piedmont area of North Carolina, I went to visit a very influential goat producer in that area. It is here where I had my first experience with Fainting Goats. Take it from me, you haven’t lived until you walk into a paddock with about 20 goats running around. I took a five gallon bucket and beat on it like a drum. In an instant, 20 or so goats fell to the ground like you had shot them all with one shot. The Fainting Goats laid there for about 5 minutes and finally jumped up like nothing every happened. This producer owned 24 acres and sold his fainting goats as a novelty, for $200 each. That goat producer was a unique individual with a unique livestock operation.

In the past 10 years, we’ve seen an increase in the number of meat goat, dairy goat, and sheep operations. Due to our ethnic diversity, there is an increasing demand for goat meat here in the US. Goat meat is the number one consumed meat in the world. Small hobby farms are the leading supplier for goats and sheep. A land owner with 10-15 acres of pastureland can operate a profitable goat and/or sheep farm in most areas of the United States. You don’t have to have 15,000 acres in Texas to operate a small ruminant farm. Often, I receive calls from buyers looking for a small acreage tract to start a hobby farm. Most are only looking for around 20 acres or less, which is just enough land in Central Alabama to begin a hobby farm with about 40 head of goats or sheep.

Another group that can survive on a small acreage is equine owners. Horses are a passion. If you don’t agree that they are a passion, just ask a horse owner. Horse owners make large investments in their livestock. Many times when someone with horses is looking for real estate, they prefer a small 5-20 acre piece of land with suitable pasture. Unlike production livestock owners, many equine owners have horses simply for pleasure or companionship. Of course, there are exceptions for trainers, breeders, and those who raise working horses, but the majority owns a horse simply for pleasure.

The last group would be the cattlemen. The people that say “Where’s the BEEF?”! Unlike goats and sheep, cows are large and take up more space and acreage. In my hometown, we can run one cow unit per acre comfortably. In Western Montana, you would need 100+ acres for that same cow, so farm or ranch sizes can vary for cattle producers and the area in which you are living. My market area consists of many small producers that own 40-50 acres and have 25-30 cows. Across the Southeast, Northeast, and Midwest there are thousands of these producers. These landowners work off of the farm and have a few cows to utilize the land they possess. Much of this land is often inherited from previous generations, but the current owners have a pride in their operations and its heritage.

We are experiencing an increase in first generation cattle producers. These are people that feel the pride in land ownership and stewardship. The Cattle Industry in the USA is experiencing a generation flip at this time. Many of our older generation producers are passing the operation to the next generation or when the next generation has no interest, they simply sell the property. What happens to some of these farms is somewhat unknown, but much of the land that these cattle producers have been utilizing has a highest and best use in forage production. So the cattle industry is a little different than the goat industry. Many of the goat producers are first generation, having started their farms in the last 20 years.

Many people have discovered the tax benefits to owning a farm.  It is this fact that has driven some to purchase a few acres. Others simply want their children to experience what they remember on their grandparents’ farm. 4H and FFA clubs across the country are seeing record numbers of children with livestock projects. Most of these children live on small family farms that do not derive their sole income from the farm. Like most businesses today, small family livestock operations will not make millions. It’s a slow process that is typically cash poor and land/asset rich. It will take most operations several years to realize a true profit. In a positive light, if someone wants to purchase a small farm, livestock production can help pay for the land. Many of the acres that are in livestock production are not fit for tillable ground or residential land and grazing this land is its “highest and best use”. Sure , you could plant some of it in trees for a future timber harvest, but trees are kind of boring to some land owners.

Here are a few tips for anyone looking to purchase a hobby or small farm:

1. What are your goals for your property? Always know what you want to do with the land prior to purchasing. Make some visits with other area producers and do your research. If done properly, it will pay off.
2. Fit the type of operation to the type and size of the property. If you have 10 acres in Central Alabama, you can probably comfortably run 5-6 cows and maybe 25 nannies or ewes. In West Texas or Oklahoma, 10 acres would be a good start for a cattle operation with one cow. Make sure you research your particular market area for forage types and number of head per acre for each type of livestock.
3. How much capital will I need to invest after I purchase my land? Purchasing the land is just the first step. Subsequently, you will need to factor in the cost of the livestock, fences, water, barns or shelters, working pens, shade, and basic equipment.
4. Analyze the size and goals of your operation. Many producers may see an economic benefit from hiring out some of the work on the farm, like spraying pastures, clipping pastures, hay harvesting, and livestock hauling. Equipment costs are high today. Many times you can hire a neighbor to do that work for a fraction of the cost.
5. Livestock are very time consuming. If you cannot be there or have someone to check on your livestock, you probably don’t need livestock. It will be when you are not around the cows are out, the goats are in the neighbor’s garden, and the bull is standing in your neighbor’s heifer pasture having a good time. Owning livestock is time consuming but very rewarding to those who are capable.
6. I cannot stress this enough, do some research before you purchase a farm or pursue a livestock operation. Go talk to the old timers that hang out at the local feed store. Also, talk to the younger producers. Get out and go to some livestock sales and shows, as these are great places to meet producers. Take a little bit from what each producer tells you and form your own opinion on the direction you should take.

Owning a hobby farm, mini farm, “farmette”, or whatever term you would like to use, can be very rewarding. There will always be a need for livestock and the majority of livestock production in the US comes from small family farms. Being a land owner of any type of land has responsibility. You can control your destiny. Land is a solid investment that you can walk on and see every day. Unlike the stock market and other Wall Street investments, put your money into something that you can enjoy- land!

Lately, you might have noticed or read an article written on a relatively new scientific practice, agroforestry. If you are not familiar, it is a method of growing trees and shrubs on the same land parcel with crops and/or livestock. By combining the two practices, proponents of agroforestry believe that it will provide farmers and landowners “highest and best use” of their land.

The trees would provide protection for a wide-range of potential crops and give farmers an opportunity to profit by adding more than one source of income on a single tract of land. In turn, it would increase the land value for owners choosing to implement an agroforestry plan.

Agroforestry certainly has it benefits. Recently, it was written that the USDA supports agroforestry as a method of land improvement and environmental stewardship. You can read the contents of this article here. As the article makes reference, a good example of agroforestry is when land being used to raise livestock is planted with timber for future harvest and pine straw is harvested for added income between cuts.

The above article details the plan USDA Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan revealed at the North American Agroforestry Conference held in Athens, Ga.  Merrigan refers to the plan as the USDA Agroforestry Strategic Framework and it is intended to be used as a guide for implementing an agroforestry plan.

Additionally, economic, medicinal and environmental benefits are predicted from landowners adopting the plan. Commodity prices have been on the rise in recent years as a direct result of an increased demand and decreased supply- brought about by a worldwide population boom. Agroforestry would mean more consumable goods being brought to market. Medicinal uses would come from the crops and the trees covering the crops.

Agroforestry would benefit the environment by adding and restoring nutrients to soil used for growing commodities. Less soil erosion would occur from plentiful tree growth. The farmed trees would be a source of wood products that could be used for fuel. This would result in less deforestation and conservation of our Nations woodlands.

In Southern Georgia, a new agribusiness might be on the horizon from agroforestry. In Tifton, Georgia, scientists have discovered what is being called a pecan truffle. Read the full article by Tracy Coley Ingram of The Tifton Gazette here. The edible fungus got the name “pecan truffle” after being discovered growing where pecan trees were planted. Farmers gain income from both pecan harvesting and the truffles that grow beneath their soil, plus the truffles growth contributes to a healthier crop of pecans, as the article  notes.

The overall added benefits to our ecosystem and us, can’t be denied. The supporting evidence is there. Landowners and farmers should be overjoyed with newly found potential for additional sources of income and increased land values. When it comes to agroforestry, the goal of the USDA is to continue developing the scientic practice and to provide farmers, ranchers and landowners with the latest information, training and tools needed to implement a plan. Agroforestry might soon be synonymous with the farming industry.

We’ve been in the time of hay for more than a month. This is the hot center cut of summer, that slab of days when each breath breaks a sweat.

Farmers are making hay while the sun roasts. Heat makes misery in this work. The only worse misery is too much rain, which keeps farmers from making hay when it should be made or spoils cut hay before it can be baled.

In my part of Virginia’s mountains, our hay is typically a mix of cool-season perennials like orchardgrass, bluegrass and tall fescue; native warm-season grasses; and legumes (which fix nitrogen in the soil), such as clover. Thistles and burdock turn up at this prom like obnoxious thugs from a rival high school. Alfalfa, a planted legume, is rarely grown here, since it’s a five-star meal for three-star cattle.

While our hay is made over several months, the best is put up during a two-or-three-week sweet spot when the seeds are not quite mature but the leaves of grass are fully developed.

Cut too soon, and the hay’s moisture content will be too high. This impedes curing and causes other problems. Cut too late, and it’s less palatable and nutritious.

I’ve helped a neighbor make cattle hay as late as November, which we both knew would amount to nothing more than nutritiously empty belly filler. We made it…because it would not have felt quite right to leave it unmade.

Farmers make hay as soon as the window opens and go until they’ve put up the last bale, long after the window has closed and the shades have been drawn. Stockpiles are usually a mix of different hay quality—excellent, good, fair and poor.

Hay is stored solar energy. It feeds livestock during the months when pasture plants — even weeds — are dormant. Cattle and other ruminants with their four-chamber stomachs get the lower quality stuff. Horses need better chow because they have only one stomach. Behind their backs, horses are called, “hindgut fermenters,” as are elephants, pigs and wombats.

On short-summer mountain land like ours, one cut of hay is the norm. Farmers in wetter and warmer places can cut the same hayfield two to four times each season. A first cutting produces more bales per acre than successors, but the quality tends to be lower.

In a one-cutting place like Blue Grass, it makes little financial sense for a person who only needs a couple of hundred bales to devote the land and acquire the machinery to make it himself. It makes more sense to pony up the $3 or more per square bale for the quality that’s needed and have it delivered and stacked where it’s supposed to be.

But I know farmers with small hay needs who insist on making their own. They’re particular, and they want their hay just so.

Made-hay is taken as an expression of the maker’s character. Is it weedy? Was it put up damp? Is it tightly bound? Is it a good size?  It takes skill and integrity to make good hay down to the last flake.

I’ve found that most farm jobs share two characteristics: First, they’re not much fun; and second, each one is finite. Every field contains only so many bales of hay; each fence line requires driving no more than a certain number of stakes. I find semi-self-delusional reasoning ever more useful as I get older.

Most farmers now make round bales, which are really chunky cylinders. They weigh from about 800 pounds to more than 2,000 depending on the equipment. When they’re wrapped in plastic, they remind me of giant, chopped-up Tootsie Rolls. One person properly equipped can cut, fluff, rake, bale and stack round bales from a tractor seat.

The older method made square bales, which are really rectangular prisms or rectangular parallelepipeds. Novice hay buyers should stick to haggling over the price of square bales and not insist on geometric correctness.

Once the grass is cut, fluffed up to dry with a tedder and raked into windrows, a tractor pulls a baling machine that spits out twine-wrapped square bales. Each weighs 50 to 100 pounds in the field. As they dry in the barn, they lose water weight.

Two or three people “make square bales”—one on the tractor, one or two on the wagon hitched to the baler. The job ends with stacking the bales in the barn. Square bales involve more sweat, more risk, more pain and more time; round bales involve more invested capital.

In light of the years I spent in undergraduate liberal arts and graduate school, I am always assigned to “work the wagon.” As each bale is pushed out of the baler and up its tail-like metal chute, I’m supposed to grab it with a metal hook, carry it to the back of the wagon and “build a load” of 100 to 120 bales from back to front. All of this hooking, carrying and building has to be done before the baler spits out the next parallelepiped. If I’m a slug and don’t get there in time, the rogue bale rolls off the wagon and down the sloped field like a convict running for freedom. Those with a chip on their shoulders come apart as they tumble.

While working the wagon is generally considered something that any 14-year-old farm kid knows how to do, it’s trickier than it appears. All the hooking, carrying and stack-building takes place on a rolling, pitching, lurching platform that is slicker than a peeled peach.

The bales have to be stacked tightly and interlocked or they will fall off the wagon. “Loose load” is not something that you want to find in your obituary. A tight load resists the wagon’s inevitable jostling that jiggles your stack into a mountain of Jell-O. It takes spatial sense and experience to build a load six or even seven courses high that survives turn after turn on a 30-degree slope.

If “your” load falls off, the tractor bunny takes a break, gets a drink of water, stretches and may compose a pertinent haiku to pass the time. When your load is on the ground, it’s your job to put it back on. Do this three or four times, and you will either learn how to build a load or figure a way to switch places with the tractor bunny.

At its best, working a wagon is hot, dusty, dangerous work. But it gets worse.

Once you’ve hauled the wagon to the barn, the hay has to be unloaded and restacked, which is hotter, dustier and just as dangerous.

In recognition of my extensive CEO experience and talent for telling underlings what to do, I was started right at the top of this organization—30 feet up in the hayloft, just under the metal roof. Outside, in the shade, it was 95 degrees.

To get bales to the top of the loft, they might have to be thrown upward, bale by blessed bale, in three or four lifts. A mechanical hay loader spares you only the first lift or two. Sooner or later, each square bale has to be barn-stacked individually by hand.

Making millions of square bales each summer left rural America with ruined backs and hostile teenagers. Round bales are better for big farms, but square bales will always be needed on places with just a few four-leggers.

Putting up hay is a farmer’s save-and-spend strategy. You save in the summer what you need to spend in the winter. And it’s always better to have a little left over than to run short.

This summer’s hay will be found in every drib of milk and cheese and every drab of beef and lamb that we eat in 2011. Like a few other things, it’s better that you don’t find any.

I am a nonpoint-source (NPS) polluter.

Everyone I know — and everyone I see around here, everyone — is just like me.

None of us permanently fence livestock out of our farm watercourses that form the Virginia headwaters of the Potomac and James Rivers.

Our cattle, sheep, horses, llamas as well as organic free-range poultry deposit nutrients — principally water-soluble nitrates and phosphates — in their waste products daily, sometimes hourly. Cropland and pasture can absorb some of this material without affecting water quality.

What isn’t incorporated and what’s deposited directly into running water, however, travel downstream into the Chesapeake Bay. Each pasture or manure-fertilized farm in its 64,000-square-mile watershed contributes to the buildup. An overload of nutrients causes high rates of algae and other plant growth, which limits the light-absorption capacity of the water on which the grassbeds depend and depletes oxygen, which makes life hard for those that depend on it. Despite several decades of goal-setting and concern, the Bay is not infrequently described by its friends as an environmental zombie. Other watersheds around the country also struggle with nutrient overloading.

My farm and others pollute these waters in other ways too. Manure carries bacteria and other vectors of disease. A second type is water-soluble inorganic pollutants, such as toxic metals, salts and acids. A third type is organic compounds, such as petroleum products and pesticides. And a fourth is suspended sediment—particulate matter that reduces the water’s ability to absorb light and affects the health of fish populations.

Clean-water legislation focused on controlling point sources of pollution from the likes of sewage plants and industrial sites, which, in the early 70s, were thought to contribute about 85 percent of the water-pollution problem. Today, point sources are highly regulated and contribute only about 15 percent of the pollution; NPS pollution, such as the runoff from farms (including mine), precipitation, drainage and all other sources that don’t qualify as point sources, now contributes an estimated 85 percent. In addition to livestock in water, fertilizer applications — particularly from poultry litter, large dairy operations and municipal sludge — contribute to nutrient overload. Most individual nonpoint sources contribute a little bit of pollution, but the cumulative load is very large.

Fencing livestock out of watercourses would reduce nutrient loading and contribute to helping the Bay, but it’s only one among a number of nonpoint-sources of pollution that make up the problem.

As always, hard questions arise over what seems to be a fairly straight-forward matter.

First, are the additional cost and limitations that nitrogen reduction through additional livestock fencing worth the gain? Some would argue that cost should not be a consideration at all. Others argue that the marginal improvement in water quality that would result from fencing would have only marginal impact on the Bay’s environmental and aesthetic qualities.

Second, there is the question of who should pay for installing the huge amount of fencing that would be required, as well as its routine maintenance and subsequent replacement? Should polluters — that is, individual farmers — pay for their own fencing? Should there be a livestock tax or a meat-consumption tax to finance the program? Should the expense be cost-shared or tax advantaged (beyond being deductible)? Should small farm polluters be exempt from a fencing requirement?

Third, should the fencing be permanent or would temporary fencing be permitted? I do rotational grazing, such that cattle are next to a stream perhaps 30 days out of a 180-day grazing season. Would I be allowed to rig up a temporary electric fence during those grazing days?

Fourth, who would enforce compliance and what would be the penalties? How could thousands of farms be inspected? Through satellites? Is that where we want to go?

Fifth, how would a baseline measurement of individual farm loading be established and then monitored?

Nothing is simple, easy or cheap about this idea. But as the focus shifts from point-sources tononpoint sources, fencing will be increasingly on the agenda—and that will affect most farmers, consumers and taxpayers.

Footnote: Robert McCartney added another perspective on this issue with his column, “Redefining the beautiful lawn when it comes to bay’s health,” Washington Post, April 25, 2010. He reports on an April, 2010 study by Chesapeake Stormwater Network that found that “mowed turf grasses” (i.e., lawns) have become the largest “crop” in the Chesapeake Bay’s watershed. And this crop involves fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides–all of which, in part, find their way into the watershed’s streams and rivers as runoff. Lawns are not the biggest sources of such pollution, but they are the only source that is rising; agriculture, sewage and air contamination are falling. The largest area of mowed turf grasses is the D.C. metropolitan region north to Lancaster, Pa. The White House lawn is part of the problem.

It’s a relatively new USDA effort that can provide funding to owners of farms and timberland for certain types of biomass materials. These need to be sold to certain types of “qualified biomass conversion facilities” for the production of heat, power, bio-based products and advanced bio-fuels. Landowners would get a matching payment — as much as $45/dry ton — to subsidize the cost of collecting, harvesting, storing and transporting low-value biomass to such facilities. The subsidy can continue for up to two years.

BCAP is also supposed to fund up to 75 percent of the cost of establishing eligible woody and non-woody perennial crops in specified project areas, along with annual production payments for up to 15 years. (Proposed BCAP rules)

Apart from the small amount of matching payments that has already been activated, the BCAP program is on hold until August, 2010, or later, pending Congressional review of the final guidelines.

The BCAP roll out created a fair amount of controversy. Sawdust and chips that had been going to existing manufacturers and processors were being redirected to “qualified,” and sometimes subsidized, plants. The cost of certain raw materials to existing facilities was rising as a result. Qualified biomass plants numbered only a few dozen, and questions about what was an eligible material were raised. A friend of mine was nearly apoplectic at the idea that his tax dollars were being used to subsidize a plant that was exporting pellets to Europe. A good, recent overview – “Biomass Markets—Friend or Foe: How will New Biomass Subsidies Impact the Market?”.

The public feedback USDA received on the proposed rules resulted in a modification that requires that wood waste and residues used for biomass be limited to those that would not otherwise be used for a higher-value product. This protects existing end-use products (like particleboard, and plywood) that use sawdust and wastes.

From the perspective of a small timberland owner, the final BCAP rules might actually do some of us some good. In the hardwood forests that I know best, two types of woody biomass are routinely underutilized or undervalued: slash (tree tops) left on the ground from logging and low-value species that are not worth cutting for pulp. Timber Stand Improvement (TSI) cutting could remove these low-value species and, hopefully, generate income for landowners as BCAP feedstock.

On my own lands in the past, I have told loggers to simply drop these low-value species to improve the resource-uptake of the high-value species left in place for the next harvest. I have seen loggers refuse to cut and haul low-value hardwoods to a pulpwood yard six miles from the logging site because it wasn’t worth their while to do so.

To make BCAP feasible for landowners, qualified BCAP facilities would need to be reasonably close to the logging sites. Processors who would “alter” the raw product for use in these facilities would also need to be available.

Disposal of fly ash and boiler ash from a biomass facility can present environmental issues inasmuch as both (but particularly fly ash) can be contaminated with cadmium, copper, chromium lead, arsenic, aluminum, zinc and barium. Combustion methods and tree species determine the concentration of these elements in each type of waste product.

Private timberland owners would benefit from BCAP rules that encourage using slash and low-value species culled for TSI purposes in small, decentralized biomass facilities, say, one to a county. The technology for burning wood to make either process heat or steam for power generation is well-known. Focus on many small facilities, rather than a handful of very large ones, would spread this program’s benefits and not concentrate harvesting pressure on a handful of timber resources.

I am always hopeful, but rarely optimistic.

Agriculture’s future seems to be a growing forest, with some trees in trouble.

Net cash income, which reflects the current year’s production whether or not sold in that year, is projected to gain almost 8 percent ($5.5 billion) up from 2009’s $76.3 billion. Net cash income reflects farm solvency—the ability pay bills and debt. Net farm income reflects an increase in wealth from production.

Total production expenses in 2010 are forecast to rise to $281.4 billion, only $0.7 billion higher than 2009’s forecast. Expenses rose $99 billion from 2002 to 2008, but have temporarily leveled off. Fuel and property taxes are expected to rise, but feed, fertilizer, lime and interest are expected to decline.

Direct government payments to farms will decline from about $12.898 billion in 2009 to about $12.362 billion in 2010.

As always, there will be gainers and losers year to year in the farm economy. Both crop and livestock production values have trended up for the last 40 years, though each sector has witnessed good years and bad years during that period.

For 2010, total crop receipts are forecast to drop $6 billion, following a decline of $16.8 billion in 2009. Crop receipts are projected lower across the board, except for small increases in cotton and greenhouse/nursery products. Livestock receipts are expected to increase $11.5 billion in 2010.

The USDA also released recently its agricultural baseline projections, which provide 10-year projections for agricultural commodities, prices and farm income. Income and production are projected to trend up from a weak start in the early years of the 2010-2019 decade. Sustained biofuel demand and global food demand are projected. Direct government payments are projected to flatten out at about $10 billion a year.

The long-term positive trend in receipts for both crops and livestock has driven the corresponding long-term upward trend in agricultural land values—crop, pasture and timber.

Macro-level trend values don’t show the shifts within the farm economy to a greater concentration of production and income in the largest farms. Middle-size farms — the ones that are associated in the public consciousness with “the family farm” — are declining in number.

The 2007 Census of Agriculture counted 2.2 million farms, a net gain of almost 76,000 farms over 2002. The trend is toward more small and more very large farms. Between 2002 and 2007, the smallest farms — with sales of less than $2,500 annually — grew by 74,000. Those with sales of more than $500,000 grew by 46,000.

Middle-sized farms of several hundred acres have a hard time making it with conventional crops. They may, however, be better scaled to organic/natural products, which are a strong growth sector.

The 2008 Organic Production Survey released in early February found 14,540 farms that were either USDA certified organic or exempt from certification with sales totaling less than $5,000 annually. They amounted to 4.1 million acres, of which 1.8 million were pasture/range, and the rest crop land.

Organic production totaled $3.16 billion in 2008. Organic farms had an average of $217,700 in sales and expenditures of $171,800 in 2007, compared with $134,800 in sales and $109,400 in expenditures for the average U.S. farm.

Buyers of small farms with diversified specialty products — organic, grass-fed, direct-marketed — have a shot at making a little money from their efforts. The largest farms have the best shot. I would be very hesitant about buying a 300 to 400-acre dairy farm with 100 cows or a corn-and-cattle farm of about the same size.

Our four-day county fair celebrates our gatherings. On the first night, we shoot balls of paint at each other; second night, we bash into each other’s clunkers; third night, we match teenage boys with big belt buckles against bulls with big bull things; and on Saturday night we cheer trucks and tractors as they pull increasing amounts of dead weight down a meaningless track. Many find higher meaning — even metaphors for modern life — in each of these activities.

County fairs give everyone a chance to strut his or her stuff in front of friends, neighbors and enemies. The quality of what we produce is serious business. Self-esteem and reputation are locked into every hopeful Mason jar of pickled eggs.

Winners are not expected to show swelled heads in public, but a little gloating might happen on the ride home if you’re holding a blue ribbon. I base this statement exclusively on hearsay…and not on any first-hand experience with my wife who happened to take five blues and two reds in the seven classes she entered at the horse show and one more blue in the parade. (It’s a good thing I worked all that in, believe you me.)

I’ve always been drawn to the exhibits of misshapen vegetables, particularly the Jay Leno look-alikes on the potato table as well as the rumble over who raised the largest inedible zucchini, which comes down to whether you’re a pound person or a length person.

Fairs provide a break from the harvest. They’re an excuse to spend money foolishly and see people whose names you’ve forgotten. But mainly they provide an opportunity for comparison and ranking.

It’s easy to forget that harvests — not warehouses — supply our supermarkets. Food is grown anew each year, much of it in a spring-to-fall span. This is not obvious in the grocery aisles I frequent.

The traditional small-scale agriculture that gave rise to community fairs was packed with risks from weather, war, weeds and weevils.

Modern farming has eliminated much of this roll-of-the-dice aspect of producing food. Were it not so, we could not create the surpluses that allow society to function with 98 percent of us doing something other than chasing cows and cursing weeds.

Modern harvests depend on controlling the different environments in which agriculture occurs. Where rain is hit or miss, we irrigate. With pests, we kill them. With market risk, we hedge. With politics, we lobby the appropriations process, tax code and regulatory agencies as well as anybody. These techniques have succeeded, but they come with costs and have had consequences that no one foresaw.

The movement to produce food locally for local markets uses an earlier supply-demand model. Products depend on the season and the harvest. These farms are small, not big. They don’t sell into the commodity markets; they sell directly to individuals. The cost of farm-to-market transportation is largely shifted to consumers. Rather than use chemicals to control harvest risks, they ask their customers to pay more for products. (www.localharvest.org)

The conventional model produces lots of relatively cheap food whose quality is a matter of current public debate. The local-harvest model produces a relatively small amount of expensive food whose quality depends on the practices of individual producers and processors.

Whichever model a farmer follows, Nature imposes discipline on its human partner. To get a harvest, you have to do certain things when those things need to be done. If you do them wrong or half-right, you get hammered. If you are lazy or procrastinate, you end up like the “sluggard” in Proverbs 6: 6-11 or Aesop’s grasshopper.

Few Americans today live off their own harvest, which is how most of us survived when the Constitution was being ratified. The need to produce the products that sustained us drove our people’s desire for acquiring land. Dirt of your own meant life.

Today, even farm families buy much of their food at supermarkets.

Survival 220 years ago depended on a harvest that each family had to make, save and stretch. Families had to live within their harvests. From the richest farmer to the poorest, everyone understood these values.

County fairs call up the memory of those harvests, but we have uncoupled ourselves from the discipline, thrift and make-do that they imposed. I don’t think we get them back in a jar of green tomato chow-chow even when it’s best in show.

Today, the closest thing most Americans have to a harvest is a long-term capital gain. Profit is the crop we hope for, not potatoes.

Every agricultural harvest has a dark side. With the exception of foods like dairy products, harvests kill the things gathered, the things we eat. Our civilization understood from its beginning that every shepherd slaughters his sheep.

We understood that we, too, were subject to the Grim Reaper — the skeleton with a scythe — who harvests us in wars, disease and even on the backyard deck if need be. Maybe this is why we mock death at our county fairs with paint-ball fights that are never fatal. Maybe we are trying to buy off the Grim Reaper by sacrificing our vehicles instead of ourselves.

The nicest aspect to every harvest is being finished. Every year, the day comes when the barn’s full of hay, the woodpile needs no more sticks and the cellar shelves are lined with the jars of August.

Like writing, it’s fun having the harvest done, not in doing it.

The southern migration generally was initiated in the 1980’s with several freeze events that killed a majority of the groves in the northern regions. Developers love citrus groves, as there are rarely wetlands issues associated with the sandy soils that enable groves to thrive. As the population of our state has increased, many former grove sites have been developed into all types of uses.

During the expansion of the last couple of years, many citrus properties were purchased by investors and national developers with the intent to develop. Not much consideration was given to the value of the ongoing citrus production operation and many times the groves were abandoned. This was a very unfortunate mistake.

The short-sighted view said that the citrus properties would be developed in the short term and there was no need to continue to properly manage the groves. However, the time-consuming processes of development pushed many of these projects beyond the immediate demand resulting in losses in more than one way.

In addition to giving up the agricultural exemption for property taxes, several crop years of fruit were forfeited during a time of historically high fruit prices. The demand for developed properties has waned and generally, the values are now closely tied to the value of the agricultural operation. Consequentially, the value of all of the planning, permitting, and engineering for properties purchased for development, may now be zero. Recent losses associated with a short-term outlook emphasize the need to properly manage land.

Ranch properties throughout the state were also subject to heavy demand for development. As most people drive past large acreage tracts, they do not recognize the complexity of the required management. Cattle operations, sod and row crop farming, wetlands issues, water use and permitting, maintaining the agricultural exemption for property taxes are just a few of the issues landowners face. Operators are also required to comply with a variety of government regulations relating to any chemicals that may be used.

A prudent manager will be aware of income opportunities presented by conservation easements. Whether the easement is given in favor of a public or private entity, qualifying properties can generate significant one-time income.

There are additional income-producing opportunities, such as leases for recreation, hunting, farming, sod farming, citrus, timber, cattle operations, and more. Natural and conservation lands need strong supervision and property taxes can be reduced through proper agricultural use. Property security can lessen potential liability to the owner(s) and upkeep of the land’s appearance adds value. Professional land management will provide a strong plan for the property’s future that can improve value over time

The case for a professional land manager can be made easily. An inexperienced land owner does not know what he does not know and that lack of knowledge can be expensive. A commercial building must be properly managed in order to return the required yield to the investor. In the same way, land must be managed properly.

In your search for a good land management firm, it is important to find a team of professionals who are knowledgeable in all types of land. From small orange groves to ranches that number in the tens of thousands of acres, your land manager’s background and hands-on experience are important components to ensure that your needs as an owner are understood. Don’t let yourself or your client lose precious income by taking the short-term view. Manage for the future!

Morris, who pioneered the concept of growing agricultural crops to provide the majority of nutrition to wildlife, said that by following intensive feeding practices, recreational land owners can turn” land that has marginal value into something special.”  Feeding can also improve the native habitat since it won’t be decimated by wildlife. The practice is particularly beneficial to smaller tracts of land, which might not otherwise support a sizable wildlife population.

Morris pointed out that by food plots, he doesn’t mean that “one-quarter acre of oats in the winter.” Instead, he advocated planting many acres in protein-rich crops such as clover or soybeans. That type planting is what produces “the magic” of larger size and weight in game animals, he says.

In today’s slow market, plantings that produce more and better game can differentiate a property and get it sold. “If you’re hunting and have the choice of several 14-point bucks and one 17-point, which one are you going to shoot?,” he asked by way of illustration. He also pointed out that it’s not necessary to improve land to its utmost to attract buyers. Instead, he advised owners to make some small, cosmetic changes that demonstrate the possibilities of the land and then show prospective buyers a management plan of ways to enhance the land further.