In 2022 we closed our greenhouses due the double gut punch from inflation and labor.  We kept the microgreen operation running until this year, 2023, while we exhausted options. 

 

Re: inflation, our average input costs increased 36% [many over 50%] during the first 19 months after the current administration took office.  This increase in costs was simply unsustainable and crushed small businesses like our farm.  Anyone with a basic understanding of economics knows you can’t print $6 trillion in a few short years and not expect inflation, sadly neither political party seems to have received the memo.  While the Fed gave us a glimmer of hope that inflation was “transitory”, we suspected the rot was on the vine and indeed with no end to deficit spending in site, inflation became entrenched and small farms with no purchasing power are fighting a losing battle.  Where is the USDA in supporting small farms growing healthy food?  We wonder too.

 

Re: labor, finding people willing to do the hard work required at a farm who also can pass e-verify went from difficult to virtually impossible.  The number who quit with no notice, some taking farm vehicles with them, stunned us.  Given the choice of working quickly in a greenhouse or getting a raise to work in the a/c at Buc-ee’s, many took the road more travelled.  Perhaps one day we’ll hear a cogent answer why the same fiscal geniuses in Washington decided to pay people not to work while allowing millions of illegal immigrants into the country without equipping them with work permits enroute.  Understand that even our little farm was required to register employees via e-verify and hiring these wonderful, hard-working people who would likely love to work in an indoor farm without legal work permits is a felony.   In searching for a solution to this dilemma we were actually told “just pay them under the table like everyone else”.  Pardon?  We should commit crimes b/c the laws make no sense?  That’s a hard pass.

 

Are we casting all aspersions on the Feds?  Certainly not.  But farming is hard and small farms, especially, need the wind at their backs.  Not a stiff headwind from Washington.

 

So the next time you look for local, healthy food and find the options diminished and replaced by glyphosate sprayed, antibiotic injected, factory and foreign farmed food like substances, perhaps our little experience can shed a bit of light on the matter.

 

What can you do?  Read Joel Salatin’s books on the matter.  Read the Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan.  And vote with your wallets.  Find a good local farm like our friends at Ireland Farms and support them.

 

Were we in charge, Joel would be the Secretary of Agriculture, glyphosate and the countless chemicals sprayed on American food would be illegal and we would seek advice from Italy, among others, on how food should nourish our bodies, not poison us.  Ever travelled outside the US only to return home to stomach issues?  Us too.  Will the AMA agree that food is a critical part of our health?  Perhaps one day, but had I followed AMA guidelines I would have been dead about 17 years ago, so we’ll continue to seek wise counsel elsewhere.

 

So there you have it.  We did our best to grow healthy food for our beloved Birmingham community.  We proudly grew and sold/donated over $1.5 million in delicious, chemical free healthy food.  We marveled at our Lord’s creations and never tired of finding good bugs designed to eat the bad bugs precluding the need for harsh chemicals /poisons to do the same job.  We never expected to profit from the endeavor but our break-even hopes were thwarted by forces beyond our ken.

 

Southern Organics will now live on through our timber farming operations [currently > 250 acres with more coming soon].  

 

We remain grateful for meeting you on this journey and hope to see you supporting our local farmers and farmer markets.