This story first appeared on the Sap Bush Hollow Farm website on April 2nd.  

Jean-Michel Sibelle and his wife Maria are selling their farm in France. It has been in their family for over a century.

I don’t know Jean-Michel and Maria. But my stomach churns as I read about them in the NY Times in a piece published this week titled Angry Farmers are Reshaping Europe.

The regulations are too strict. The costs are too high. The work is too hard. The income is too low. And then there’s the clincher: their kids don’t want to take it on. 

I don’t want to be an angry farmer.

But this season, I have to admit, I know keenly how it feels to be an angry farmer.

It’s not just European farmers who are feeling the pain.

Like a lot of farmers, it’s not until the winter months when we can afford to take a hard look at the numbers. The growing season requires too much running around to allow for the deep analysis, to try to figure out why we’re pulling so much from savings in order to cover the bills. So while news reports declare that inflation is settling, family farmers that direct market, like ours, are only just now coming forward to their customer base, letting them know that prices have to go up. Way up.

In 2023, our livestock processing fees went up 50 percent, even through we processed fewer animals. Labor went up 20 percent, feed went up 55 percent. Across the board, the cost of production increased by 25 percent.

As we’ve faced down the reality of the numbers, I’ve become just another angry farmer.

Right now, I don’t want to be thinking about the numbers. Last winter, I began a series of interviews with my mom and dad, reviewing farm protocols. This winter, the plan was for me to spend more time outside with Dad, more time reviewing the transcripts, more time directly with the animals, trying to absorb what he knows about running a farm — about monitoring the animals’ health, winter grazing, about bringing the livestock through their reproductive cycles.

I’m supposed to be learning how it’s always been done, so that my family can continue on the land for over a century.

But the numbers demand something different. I need to tear apart the website and the point of sale systems and institute a massive price increase. I need to prepare our existing customer base to accept the price increases for our spring CSA recruitment. I need to work on the farm’s marketing plan to bring in new customers as we brace to lose those who can no longer justify paying what we ask, especially when neighboring states with lower labor and expenses are able to generate the food at a much lower price.

I’m supposed to be learning from Dad how to perform artificial insemination and how to balance a feed ration and how to do body condition scoring.

Instead, I’m having to learn how to do search engine optimization, how to download .csv files and implement massive price changes that will upload to the website without having to do manual changes. I’m having to learn about Google ads and Google analytics and the Google search console in an effort to secure our little family farm a share of the tiny socially-conscious meat market that is increasingly gobbled up by slick on-line grass fed meat aggregators who have coopted all the language of the homespun sustainable local food movement and re-packaged it into branded boxes and perfectly crafted ad copy with click-and-deliver efficiency…all of it far removed from the troubles, messes and realities of a true family farm.

I grow angrier and angrier, as the pull of my family’s mountain pastures and our tradition of raising livestock has landed me in front of a computer for hours and hours each day.

When I think of what it takes to keep a farm operational, I think about repairing fences and rotating pastures and feeding pigs. Instead, I feel like my role as the current generation at the helm of the family farm is to be a data analyst, software engineer, web marketing specialist, content creator, copy writer and bookkeeper. Except all those people get paid for what they do. By contrast, I toil in front of this screen with no paycheck, under the weight of incredible guilt, worrying about which of my customers won’t be able to afford to eat our quality food any longer while I try to make sure the farm brings in enough revenue to cover the feed, the butcher, and the insurance, so that the rest of my family can feed the pigs, fill water troughs for the sheep, check the pastures, repair the fences, gather the eggs and feel what it’s like to be real farmers.

It’s so hard not to be an angry farmer right now.

I know how Jean Michel Sibelle and his wife Maria must feel.

Except for a few little differences.

This work may have fallen to me, but my family slowly wraps their heads around how it’s eating me alive. Ula starts using her freshman writing class to generate articles that I can use for our website. Saoirse digs into her college files and begins pulling up stories she’s written to contribute. Dad, who rarely takes a pen to the page, sits down and begins writing articles to help put more engaging content on our website. Bob grabs a laptop and begins working at updating our contact information and web details across the internet. The customers begin sending back their CSA order forms, and they sign up for beef shares, lamb shares, pork shares and chicken shares and subscriptions in record numbers. The equinox comes, and with it my freedom to push away from my desk and go back into the cafe kitchen, simmering broth, kneading dough, laminating croissants, roasting meats, and forgetting numbers by dancing, dancing, dancing as I cook. The cafe opens at 9am for the first day of the season last week, and the place fills up with friends, neighbors and long-time customers, so happy that their favorite weekend brunch spot is open once again. Spring has come, and the hum of the season has begun. Our family business feels like a necessary heartbeat, pulsing with joy as customers walk in and out the door, buying meat and eggs, sitting down for coffee and a visit.

Jean Michel Sibelle and his wife Maria are a reminder that there really are global forces tearing us small farmers apart. There will always be more regulations, wars, climate challenges and savvier business people who will be one step ahead of us, seizing upon what we do and then yanking it away.

But for today, I still have daughters who love this land and place as much as I do. I still have a father who patiently explains the differences in our deworming protocols. I still have a husband who takes my manure-soiled clothes and plunges them into the washing machine when I return from those cherished trips out to the barn. I still have a mother who is willing to wash the eggs and compassionately listen when I grow frustrated with the demands. And I have a community of customers who still know the difference between a slick grass fed meat marketing campaign and a heartfelt family business. And when I do stand up from this computer, it will be to place my feet on the ground and to walk this land, as I’ve done for the last 45 plus years, and as I intend to do for the next 45 plus years…sometimes angry, sometimes peaceful, but always grateful.

If you enjoyed this, please share this with friends & family to get the ideas to spread.  Better still, you can help make the magic happen for as little as $1/month by hopping over to Patreon and looking up Shannon Hayes.  Or, if it’s easier, you can also donate to support the podcast by sending a check to Shannon Hayes, ℅ Sap Bush Hollow Farm, 832 W. Fulton Rd, West Fulton, NY  12194.

And that’s a really important thing to do, because all of this— the podcast, the blog, the books and the creative recharging that happens over fall and winter—   are a result of the support of my patrons on Patreon.  And this week I’d like to send a shout out to my patrons Yvaine Melito and Amy Renaud.  Thank you, folks!  I couldn’t do it without you!

Interested in learning more about Sap Bush Hollow Farm? Visit us on the web here.