A lot of you who know me well know that I've been farming organically in Proctor, AR for about 3 months now. Those of you who don't now know.
One of the huge draws about small scale farming, or even farming in general, is that you take an active role in the food chain. In addition to being a draw for me at the beginning of this adventure of mine, it's been a reward. Buying salad mix, beets, turnips, collards, kale, basil, oregano, okra, tomatoes, eggs, and now, pork, has become a thing of the past while those items are in season at Delta Sol (the farm I work at).
Being an active part of the food chain can be ethically easy at times, and at other times, it can be difficult, or even trying. The easy times are when you wake up early in the morning, and walk out of your house to a frost covered lawn, and then cut rows of lettuce, or chard, or basil, and bring them into the harvest shed to prepare them for members of your CSA or customers of your farmer's market. To the unseasoned farm hand, it can be difficult. My boss, Brandon, had to assure me multiple times that the mustard greens and basil I was so brashly cutting would simply regenerate and produce more food for customers and CSA members. I felt like I was killing the plants. My ethical qualm wasn't killing the plants themselves, though. It was about killing the farm. Calculations ran mad through my head. "Well, lets see, we sell about 20 dollars of basil and mustard greens combined every farmers market. Over a period of about a month, that equates to a bit under $100 a month I cost the farm with my incompetence. This man is paying me every month to do jobs that I could quite possibly botch up so badly that I cost him about 20% of the cash he pays me each month in addition to paying my rent. Oh no. I should quit before I get fired. I'm going to kill Delta Sol Farm, and every last mustard green on it."
Yes. This is really the way that my mind works, however sad and twisted it may be. But luckily for me, I was not killing the mustard greens, and Brandon (the bossman, in case you haven't caught on by now) is a very patient man. On one hand, it surprises me on a very deep level that he hasn't beaten me senseless with a rake or shovel, not because that's the kind of person he is, but because very frequently, that can be the reaction I elicit from people. On the other hand, it all makes sense, because I am the resident pig killer at Delta Sol. This leads me to the part of the article where I discuss ethical dilemmas. That last sentence was the transition between this paragraph, and the one I'm about to start. My past writing teachers would be so proud!
We all have our strengths and weaknesses. My weaknesses are varied. I'm terrible at: keeping a clean house, being humble when I should be proud, being proud when I should be humble, working at a fast pace (I'm more of a slow and steady guy), remembering anything on my schedule, not procrastinating when I do remember to do something, etc. One of the strengths I have is the ability to throw myself into uncomfortable situations despite every nerve and brain cell in my body telling me not to do so.
Brandon's strengths are working quickly, being organized, having the ability to successfully manage a farm, social connections, and many others. To be honest, I haven't found many weaknesses he has. One of the few I have found is slaughtering animals. Pigs, to be exact. Don't get me wrong, it can be really difficult to slaughter and dress an animal. Just this morning I killed a pig, and I admittedly fought a battle against my stomach and it's propensity to turn like it did the first time I killed a pig. I do not necessarily have a strength for killing animals, but I do have the ability to turn my mind off of the fact that my stomach wants to empty itself upon the grass sooner than later, so that makes me the designated trigger man.
The first time I killed a pig and threw up, it was, to be completely honest, a terribly embarrassing affair. I threw up in front of my boss, an old man who has killed more pigs than I have lived years in my life by a factor of two or three, and my girlfriend. These are three people I don't like vomiting in front of more than anybody. To my boss, and the old man, it conveyed weakness. To my girlfriend, I imagine it conveyed a distinct image of unsexiness. But Mr. Reynolds (the old man) found it funny, Brandon did as well, and reminds me of it from time to time to keep me humble, and Meagan (the ladyfriend) still has an evident desire to kiss me, so I suppose all isn't lost.
In my life, I have killed one squirrel, two deer, and three pigs. I am not terribly well aquainted with death, but I have had some contact with it, and I can tell you it is never pretty. Whenever Brandon announces that we are going to kill a pig on the farm, it comes with a mix of excitement and trepidation. I am excited because I get the chance to quit relying on corporations like Tyson to provide me my daily bread (or meat as it is). I am excited because the pigs we kill get passed on to individuals who genuinely appreciate our products, and the fact that they have never seen the inside of a Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation.
I am also nervous. I am nervous because we have spent the last three to months breaking our backs to respect the sanctity of the animals we raise. They are animals, and as a result have a right to live as animals do. We give them forested areas of the land we farm on because pigs have evolved to live in forested areas of our earth. We dislike the fact that so many animals are solely fed grain to fatten them up, so we limit the amount of the grain they eat, and leave the pigs to eat the vegetation they live around for the most part.
The cumulation of this work resolves itself, or forever ends in dissonance, as I, the resident executioner, rest my pointer finger on the trigger of a 20 gauge shotgun. If I f*ck up, and shoot the pig in the wrong place, it has a longer, more painful death than it deserves to have. At the end of the day, what does it matter that we put the pigs in the forest rather than confined feeding stalls if I miss the brain stem by an inch and the beast I have so lovingly fed, petted, and fostered dies a painfully prolonged death?? In my mind, if I do that, I'm only slightly better than the monsters who end up feeding the majority of the American populace. It all boils down to the quarter of a quarter of an eighth of a second in between the moment when the firing pin strikes the primer behind the 20 gauge shotgun slug, and that same slug finds an unwelcome home in the skull of the pig we happen to be slaughtering that day.
I apologize for the graphic nature of my explanation, but I should point out now that if all goes according to plan, the pig doesn't feel the slightest bit of pain. Because of the fact that the slug travels faster than the speed of sound, the pig doesn't even have a moment to consider or register the boom of the shotgun. One moment it is happily eating away, and the next we pass the pig along to customers who, in turn, eat away at that pig. An entire life, and not even one bad day. Just a quick, painless, mediocre moment passing between this life, and the next, depending on where you stand on the issue of god letting pigs into heaven, or reincarnation. Although humans tend to anthropomorphize animals, they aren't like humans. Every time we've killed a pig, I've seen other pigs in the pen nudge it out of the way because it was laying on food that they wanted, and just moments after the killing, the remaining pigs in the pen come up to the fence line for a scratch on the ear. They truly do not register emotional pain in the same way that humans do. Would you nudge your brother or sister out of the way for food only 15 seconds after their death?? Would you seek physical affection from someone you knew to be a killer? If not, it's because you are a human, and not a pig. I truly cannot stress the difference between animalian and human psychology. I have a true heart for animals. If I thought that I was causing the animal true misery or pain, I would resign myself to a life of vegetarianism. That moment, however, has not yet come, and I don't expect it to. All animals at Delta Sol, from the chickens in my backyard, to the cows, and the pigs are treated with respect from the moment they enter the bounds of our property, and continue to be respected until the moment they leave the property on the way to the meat processor.
It's a philosophically difficult job. My adrenaline spikes every time that I make the decision to pull the trigger. I say that it's a philosophically difficult job, but really the difficulty is all in my gut( and in this instance I don't mean physically). Not because I have a gut instinct that killing animals is wrong, but because I have a gut instinct about killing an animal being an important event for a human life. I always thank the pigs before and after they die, and I always eat pork the night after I've killed a pig. I do this for a lot of reasons, but chiefly among them is to remind myself of why I do what I do. I remind myself that pork is tasty. I remind myself that I cared for the animal sitting on my plate, and gave it a damned good life, and an easier death than most humans are afforded. I remind myself that the pork I eat will give me energy to keep on feeding myself and customers of Delta Sol Farm.
Now, I must leave you all to cook some pork steak, seasoned in New Mexico red chile that my wonderful woman (pictured below) sent me. Thanks Meagan.
EDIT: Earlier in the essay, I regrettably referred to people who work for concentrated animal feeding operations as "monsters." I need to revoke that statement. I have a fierce feeling of opposition towards those who continue to propagate monoculture within the agricultural world, and feel that all farms should have a variety of plants and animals regardless of their specialty. When it comes down to it, though, all farmers, whether they are farmers for Tyson, or a large pork/beef/soybean/rice operation are simply trying to feed themselves and their families. They are human, and ultimately, whether I agree with their farming methodologies or not, end up feeding many many mouths both in America, and the rest of the world, and they work their butts off to do it.
