Category: Challenges

Crap on the Farm, Literally!

I love that I get to farm outside many days out of the year! The feeling of pulling into a field to fertilize an open station tractor, on a nice sunny day, it just never gets old. But then there’s the day when you pull into the field and you feel a bit of a sprinkle.  

 So you look up only to realize that that nice refreshing sprinkle on a hot sunny day is coming from a big gun, that’s shooting green!! For you city folks, that means it’s shooting manure.  

Yes I got the field done, because sometimes life on a farm isn’t all sunny days, sometimes it comes with a lot of crap! Happy Friday everyone hope your’s isn’t too “crappy” (sorry couldn’t resist!) 

1 Reason I Spray Round-up on Our Farm

We had a few nice days here in Oregon last week, and when it comes to spring time that means all hands on deck! This year in particular has been challenging because the rain just hasn’t stopped enough for fields to get dry in order to do much spring work. So in a matter of three days we were all running around like chickens with our heads cut off, fertilizing, spraying, planting, painting, you name it we were at it!

I had two sick kids at home so my role was mostly logistics manager via cell phone from the house. Nevermind a crying infant and wild toddler…I think I pulled it off pretty well.  But I did get to switch with Matt to enjoy a glorious 75 acre roundup spray application.

Round up in the past few years has gotten a bad wrap. Whether it be studies that it’s found in breast milk or the link to those oh so awful GMO crops, most are all very unscientific and unfounded. But that’s a whole series of blog posts, today I wanted to share why round up has made us more sustainable on our farm.

We have been growing no till spring wheat for about 5 years now on our farm. No till means that we don’t work the ground after the last crop is harvested. This saves not only time, fuel, and money, it also saves all the worms and bugs that have been making homes in the soil.  It gives the soil another year of resting which reduces soil compaction too.

 In order to do this however we have to be able to give the wheat a chance to grow in an uncompetitive atmosphere. If you were to take the field below, notice all the grass and weeds that are growing (basically everything that’s green)?

 That is all volunteer crop and weeds that if we planted into and never killed would be too much competition for our wheat crop and the wheat would grow a little bit, but would never be enough to even be worth harvesting.

So in the fall we spray round up on the fields to kill what grows after the final harvest of grass seed. Then we come back right before or right after planting to get one last application. Also round up only kills what is on the top of the soil, not disrupting any future plantings.

 I proudly wore my Monsanto hat, even though I was applying a generic brand of round up. I can’t help but appreciate having round up as a tool in our tool box that allows us to be better farmers and treat the land well.

NO to Raising Oregon’s Minimum Wage

12695324_10153364784806146_364154184_o (2)This afternoon a bill to increase Oregon’s minimum wage will be heard in a committee in the House of Representatives.  While I won’t be there in person to testify, I have submitted testimony with my thoughts on why I don’t want the minimum wage to increase.  You can read my full testimony below.  If you agree with my thoughts on this issue, please don’t hesitate and contact your representatives today!  They need to hear from the business community, they need to hear from seniors, they need to hear from us in the middle class, that we don’t want what will inevitably be an increase to our cost of living.

My name is Brenda Frketich and I’m a third generation farmer from St. Paul. We raise grass seed, hazelnuts, wheat, clover, vegetables and vegetable seed on our 1000 acre sustainable farm. I employ anywhere from 4 to 10 employees throughout the year, depending on the time of year.

As a business owner and an employer I am against the raising of minimum wage in Oregon. I am against this for a number of reasons and not one of them is because I just don’t want to pay more for labor. I would love to pay my workers more, I would love to run a business where I didn’t worry about our bottom line at the end of every day. But that’s not the world that my business runs in, it’s a world where you have to watch your bottom line constantly and the call to the banker can be one rain storm away from a disaster. As farmers we run a risky business, but we do it the best we know how and with tools that we hope will work. We have run a good business in this state for three generations and I don’t plan to be the last. Which is why I am writing you testimony today in opposition of the raising of minimum wage. Below I have spelled out my three main reasons I believe it should stay where it is currently.

First of all we already have a high minimum wage; the third highest to be exact in the United States, which is currently $9.25.  The third highest minimum wage, while at the same time ranking 30th in unemployment.  I don’t think that a correlation can be made with better jobs, more jobs, and a better economy linked to just paying entry level workers a higher wage.  Minimum wage is just that, a minimum for starting out, not to be confused with a living wage. These are two separate issues that are being muddied together. People make choices every day for where they want to work, what type of industry they wish to be in, and as legislators you should be working to make sure that options are available for them. Not falsifying middle level income jobs that are really just entry level. Because there is a need for entry level positions, they serve a purpose and you would be doing dis service to those who do need those jobs. For instance, high school kids.

Our farm in particular has always tried to take an active role in the youth of our community.  Hiring many high school aged workers during the summer.  We do this more as a favor to them, to help them earn money for college, let them learn about the farm, how to keep a job, and the responsibilities that entails.  I know that we aren’t the only business in Oregon that takes pride in the attention that we pay to high schoolers that might not otherwise have any work experience.  But I am afraid that situations like this, will be hard to find if the cost of that worker is dramatically increasing in the years to come.  It is just too high for businesses to absorb.

So where will this increase in pay come from? Because businesses, or at least a vast majority of them aren’t running on profits that justify such an exorbitant increase in wages. There is no giant pot of money sitting around on our farm just waiting to be dipped into to pay for this pay increase.  For many businesses in fact I believe and fear that the increase pay for entry level employees will take away from current employees, even those in the middle level of employment.  The money will inevitably come from reduced hiring tactics, decreased benefits for current employees, and even cuts in bonus pay or yearly wage increases. This isn’t just putting businesses in Oregon in a bad situation, it’s putting all employees at all levels in a bad position.

In the end, this isn’t a good fit for Oregon.  What we need to do in this state is focus more on working with businesses, to make them more successful and that will in turn create more jobs and more importantly create more middle level jobs.  I don’t think that falsely “creating” jobs at the middle level will do anything but harm businesses here in this state.  Instead it will increase the cost of living, hurting those very people you are trying so hard to protect and lift up.  The economics have to add up, and in this case they don’t at all.

Thank you for your time and consideration on this very important issue to our state. And please do with is right for Oregonians by voting no to this hasty measure.

Respectfully,
Brenda Frketich