The System

I knew it before, but I am sure of it.
Being a farmer, the way that I am, is fighting against a system, a system that even if it's fighting us and won't let go before major problems occur, is followed and even loved by most of the people.

We chose to produce things the way our ancestors did for tons of reasons.

Life as itself doesn't need human intervention to produce. Of course, you can prune, you can water, you can trim, but it doesn't need to be boosted by some kind of chemicals to produce. A tomato is a tomato and even if you let the plant grow by itself, you'll have a tomato at the end, maybe not as much as if you took good care of it, but still you'll have one.

Though, people nowadays are used to have a Pantone 186C tomatoes, same color, same form as the tomato they ate 2 days before. Grocers choose tomatoes for the clients like they would choose the logo for their next ad campaign. I remember a conversation I had with my neighbour about the day a grocer pointed him a tomato on a billboard saying "bringing me that and nothing else". My neighbour was producing 20000 tomatoes a year. He gave up.

Reason? Simple.
You can't produce a tomato like that without using chemicals and genetically modified stuff.

When I bought my apple trees in April, to the question asked by my provider, when not knowing much about apples, I answered Cortland, all she could tell me was:

"Are you sure?"

Cortland apples are popular. The market loves them. But to be able to have a nice and beautiful Cortland apple like the one you are eating everyday, your trees as to be chemically treated ... 15 times a year.

15 times!

Still want that piece of apple pie?

We don't know that. Well, or we know, or we pretend not to.

Recently when I discovered all the shit that was in my hens feeder I stopped feeding them with hormones. Of course, hormone fed hens produce more eggs and produced a lot of bigger eggs.

Do I want steroids in my eggs?
No

Today when someone told me with a point of disappointment :

"Well, can I take 2 dozen of your eggs 'cause they are really small!"

I understood that I too was now fighting the system.