As you know, I'm not against meat consumption - I love a good burger or steak grilled out in the open air on a summer afternoon. On the other hand, considering the state of the world (too many people, not enough farmland) and the various and sundry problems (and questionable morality) of the factory-farm system that raises commercial meat products, it's looking increasingly like meat is going to once again be a luxury item, to be enjoyed on occasion rather than as an everyday source of protein.

This is not necessarily a bad thing, and it's a golden opportunity for ranchers to tap into today's niche markets – where the demand for clean, sustainably-raised meat products is literally exploding.

Now, in case you missed it, 2010 Small Farms Conference at Oregon State University in Corvallis back in February had presentations on this and other issues on topics of interest to small farmers who are tired of struggling and being under-appreciated (and underpaid).

If you haven't been to this conference yet, I highly recommend that you get it in gear and get registered for next year's conference, which is going to be on the 26^th of February 2011.  What you can learn from this little get-together is how you, as a small farmer, can actually make a decent living at what you do while helping your neighbors and community – all things I tend to harp on a lot on this blog.

This year, the conference at a total of 18 presentations in the areas of production, marketing (the biggie for a lot of us) and government and social policy as it relates to our occupation. If you couldn't get there, here's a sample of what was covered:

• Alternative Meat Marketing Strategies: Pretty much what I started out with. I was surprise to learn that there have been ranchers selling their beef, lamb and poultry direct to high-end restaurants and specialty food co-ops since the 1980s. One lady from eastern Oregon (there's actually some prime cattle country in that area) is now able to sell her grass-fed beef to the Bon Appetit organization, which is introducing this kind of sustainably-raised meat and produce to places where they have to feed mass numbers of people every day – like educational institutions, hospitals and large companies with in-house cafeterias.

• Agri-Tourism: Why not make your farm into a tourist attraction? It's amazing to me how little people know about their food and how and where it's grown and the people who do the work of raising it. It's also heartening to see that those same people are genuinely curious and anxious to learn about how that food goes from seed to the table and are willing to pay good money for an education in this regard. (Hey, remember the story of Tom Sawyer and the whitewashing of Aunt Polly's fence?) Check out the site at http://www.OregonCountryTrails.com to learn about one agritourism model that's working well.

This is just a small sample of what's happening as small farmers reassert themselves. After all, it's what most of America started out as. To find out more (and download the current issue of their magazine), try visiting http://smallfarms.oregonstate.edu/newsletter.

Are biofuels really a good idea?

There's been a lot of controversy on this subject. On one hand, it's a good idea to wean the country off of foreign oil coming from countries that aren't too crazy about us. (For example, the U.S. imports almost a million barrels a day from Saudi Arabia – and if memory serves me right, that's where all but two or three of the 9-11 hijackers were from. Tell me again why we're doing business with these people?)

On the other hand, folks are arguing that every ear of corn that was used to make ethanol was an ear of corn that was taken out of the mouth of a hungry child somewhere. (Considering what happened to the price of tortillas in Mexico and the effect on the population of subsistence farmers in that country, they may have a point.)

The fact is, with a growing, hungry population, we can't afford to be turning food-producing land over to the production of motor fuels. But there are some alternatives.

Recently, a team of agronomists and others in the biological sciences finished a study showing some sources of biofuels that work a whole lot better than corn.

Those of you who are up on your history remember that when Thomas Jefferson bought the Louisiana Territory from old Napoleon Bonaparte back in 1803, a lot of his detractors whined that he'd just spent $15 million on "The Great American Desert." And in fact, it was just about the last part of the country to be settled.

It's no desert, though. In fact, the Great Plains are home to almost 300 different species of grass – and as anyone who has had a lawn can tell you, grass grows like crazy. This diversity is part of the key. According to the study, each acre of land in the northeast that's under the control of the Conservation Reserve Program (this is where the study came from), containing a number of native prairie tallgrass species, could conceivably produce 600 gallons of biofuel a year without taking anything away from food production.

Most of the mix consists of switchgrass, big bluestem and indian grass. The great thing about switchgrass is that it grows almost anywhere. Even better, it has one of the best input/output ratios of anything we've got. What that means is that it takes very little energy to produce a lot of energy – in fact, depending on where it's growing, that ratio can be up to 20 to 1. (In simple terms, that means one gallon of fuel to produce twenty – which is pretty darn impressive!)

The same cannot be said for corn, however, which yields only about 1.28 units of energy for every 1 unit of energy input.

Switchgrass also makes excellent cattle feed, but it's none too good for horses, sheep and goats – meaning that unless you're raising just cattle, it's probably not practical for that use.

Next time, I'll be telling you about some of the tax benefits that are available for biofuel production.

Interesting thing happened during the last Depression. Prices on goods and services actually dropped.

This isn't mysterious or complicated; it's a simple function of supply and demand. The same thing is happening today; a lot of prices are either holding steady, or even declining.

Except for the farmer.

Damnedest thing you ever saw – last year, farmers wound up paying over 30 percent more for seed corn than in 2008. Soybean seed went up too – almost 25 percent.

What the hell's going on?

Remember a few weeks ago when I was on a rant about big corporate ag firms? They're at it again. In the great tradition of huge corporate conglomerates, it's all about more. "Enough" is the dirtiest word in these guys' vocabulary.

Except now, they might just have gone a little too far over the line. Now, the Justice Department is looking into every farmer's favorite company – Monsanto. Remember, these guys are probably the same ones who bought off politicians in India and are getting them to make it a felony even to criticize their product, which is GMO seeds.

What ticks me off is, these guys are always mouthing off about "competition" and "free markets" – and they're all fine with that, as long as it doesn't apply to them. Over the past several years, Monsanto has been buying up all its competitors and pretty much getting a lock on the market for GMO corn. Not surprisingly, we’re paying well over twice for these seeds what we paid ten years ago.

This isn't new. We've been there before – about 120 years ago. They called it the "Robber Baron Era." It was a time when a few powerful individuals – J.P. Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, John Rockefeller and a few others – managed to create monopolies in certain key industries and stick it to everyone else. Then, in the early 1900s, the American people decided they'd had about enough.

We're at about that point today. Is President Obama going to be another "trust-buster" like Teddy Roosevelt?

Maybe...it seems that Monsanto has crossed a line. The head honcho is having to answer some pretty hard questions. Of course, he's claiming just the opposite. In a recent article in the New York Times, he said: "We were the first out of the blocks, and I think what you see now is a bunch of people catching up and aggressively competing, and I’m fighting with them."

So tell me, Mr. Grant (that's his name) – how come we’re paying over twice as much for seeds today as we did ten years ago?

Mr. Grant also went on to say that farmers are buying his company's products because they liked what those seeds produce, not because they don't have any choice.

I don't know much about all the legal issues involved here, but I know this – if it looks like a cow pie and smells like a cow pie, I don't have to pick it up to know that it's a cow pie.

Source: Neumann, William. "Rapid Seed Prices Draws U.S. Scrutiny." New York Times, 11 March 2010

I've spent a couple of weeks ranting about corporate agriculture, their complete disregard for the environment, for workers, for communities, for anything but their bottom line.

By now, Americans from across the political spectrum, from the Tea Party to the Coffee Party know all too well who their congressmen are really working for.

Whether you lean to the left or the right, there's no avoiding the fact that our federal government doesn't seem to care anymore. If we're going to fix things, we're going to have to do it on our own and at the local level.

This is where Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) comes into the picture.

Since the 1980s, CSA has really been catching on. The way it works is actually a lot like what happens when a businessman takes a company public by selling stock. The farmer offers shares of his harvest to local subscribers. These folks pay up front or make arrangements, and once the harvest starts coming in, they get to come out to the farm every week and pick up a box of fresh, seasonal produce.

This is a win-win system for everyone. When a CSA grower sells subscriptions, it helps their seasonal cash flow – so they don't wind up having to take out loans to buy my supplies so much. It also means they can do marketing early on in the year before they’re out working in their fields from sunrise to sunset.

It also gives the growers a chance to get to know you folks and for you to know them, building relationships – which means building stronger communities.

Meanwhile, you're going to be tasting food that's fresher and better (including better for you) than anything you've ever tasted. By eating seasonally and locally, you're helping the environment by reducing the use of fossil fuels (to offense to hard working truckers, but transporting food a thousand miles or more is an issue we need to be thinking about), and chances are good that you're going to taste some things you haven't tasted before.

Best of all is the effect it has on kids. If you're a parent, you know how hard it is to get kids to eat their vegetables. However, when the family buys into CSA, the kids experience a sense of ownership – and guess what? Suddenly, they're eating those veggies and loving it!

You can learn more, including where to find CSA farms in your community, at Local Harvest, an online non-profit organization dedicated to this growing institution.