For several decades, “Reduce, Reuse & Recycle” has been a mantra for many people who hope to live in a more environmentally sustainable manner. But in the last few years, the 3 Rs have also been helpful in managing day-to-day finances in an economy built on low interest rates, disposable goods and cheap imports that has now turned inflationary.
Humans have been recycling since before planned obsolescence took over, but farmers never stopped. To most people, “Recycling” means throwing a can, bottle, or cardboard box into a different bin than trash and trusting that the material will then be stewarded through a process by which it used to make a new product. To farmer the process is a bit more hands on. There are many farmers who never throw anything away, mentally itemizing each unused item for the parts it might provide later or the material that might be used for a project down the road. If you call that pile of junk a “Boneyard” it’s not hoarding, right?
For farmers there is a 4th “R” that is missing from the tag line: Repair. Unlike most consumer goods, farm equipment is not truly mass produced and is thus never really “cheap”, nor is it easily transportable. Most tractors and other farm equipment have historically been designed to be repaired over and over again. We have tractors at Terra Firma that are 40 years old that still run perfectly, and other implements that are even older. Newer tractors are actually harder to fix, as they feature numerous electronic components that tend to fail more quickly than the older analog systems. I’ve seen old tractors sell for more at auctions than newer ones for this reason.
Technology is actually helping make the 4th R easier, not just for farmers but for everyone else too. Internet videos and discussion forums, in particular, have unlocked a wealth of information about how to fix things and internet shopping has made it much easier to find the needed parts. The fact is that you don’t need to be an expert to do every repair — only some. All you need is the right tools and an expert to show and tell you how to do it. You don’t even need to know the lingo anymore.
At the same time, the state of California has greatly narrowed the ways in which the fourth Rs can be achieved. Air quality regulators, for example, do not want us to fix old tractors and trucks. Cost-share programs encourage farmers to buy newer, cleaner-burning tractors in exchange for trading in older tractors — after first drilling a hole in the engine so it can never be used again. And heavy-duty truck regulations require that older trucks be taken off the road when they reach a certain age, regardless of how much life they have left in them. Those trucks are then usually sold out of state, where they of course continue emitting the same pollutants. Local engine emissions are the only rubric that is considered, and there is no consideration for the environmental cost of building new tractor or trucks to replace perfectly good older ones. In my personal opinion, this is not environmentalism but rather NIMBYism in its highest form and a regulatory overreach of Orwellian proportions.
Of course you can’t repair everything. There are things that wear out completely and can’t be fixed. For example, we have a small fleet of pickup trucks that we use around the farm, and since I’ve been farming, we have replaced one of them every two or three years. Unfortunately the current age of stagflation doesn’t give us the finanical leeway to buy new pickups — or even used ones. We’re spending more time fixing the old ones and doing a lot of finger crossing. Most farmers I know, as well as many other Americans, are in the same situation.
Cooking at home and joing a CSA fit don’t start with an “R” but it fits right in with the others in turns of environmentall and ecological sustainability. We’re seeing an increase in our membership, and we very much appreciate it.
Thanks,