Before we talk about the reality behind what everyone calls The Teen Pregnancy problem, let’s take a moment to sum up what we have learned.

First, there is no such thing as The Teen Pregnancy Problem. It was and is a myth, created by adult men, to scapegoat teens into accepting blame for a problem they had no part in creating. It is, instead, A Straight Adult Male Behavior Problem. Straight, as opposed to gay. Gay men play no part of this, get off their case completely. Haven’t they been dumped on long enough?

Second, Bill Clinton. With regard to his treatment of women, he was a walking contradiction, personally garbage, publicly quite agreeable. Whatever you think of him, he and his administration created almost the entire myth we are talking about, the myth of the Teen Mom.

Third, abstinence has become the answer to everybody’s questions- will it stop pregnancy? Yes! Will it stop AIDS? Yes! Will it stop STD’s? Yes! Will it stop the breakdown of the family? Yes! Will it restore morality? Yes!Will it………? Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! And Yes, Yes, Yes…!

The fact that it is all an illusion doesn’t matter. What matters is we are giving the people what they want. A one stop, one shot, one way ticket, a simple, morally certain, value laden, palatable, easy to swallow pill, a righteous way to view sex, pregnancy, and teens, and all they entail. Just abstain, Jr. Just say no, Mary. No No No. Hallalejuah. We have seen the mountain.

So now lets move on the the truth. There are 10 dynamics behind the SAMBP, 10 reasons why teens choose pregnancy over a different future. At the end of each dynamic, I will grade it either “Teen ” or “Adult”, for who is responsible for this dynamic.

1. The Adult Birth Rate- The Teen Birth rate has followed the Adult Birth Rate almost lockstep for 80 years. Adults have more children than teens, of course. But if the ABR goes up, so does the TBR. If the ABR falls, so does the TBR. And it does it almost at the same time- look at the chart:

We all follow our role models, but teens do it better than almost anyone. Which is why the ABR is so valuable. We can go to any city, town, community in the USA, and just by asking about the ABR, we can predict what the TBR will be in a few years. What looks good to an Adult, looks especially good to a teen. Grade- Adult Responsibility.

2. Poverty- Understand this- “Teen pregnancy does not cause poverty. Instead, poverty causes teens to begin bearing children at an earlier age.”( Kristen Luker, Dubious Conceptions, 1996).

Poverty is the greatest social ill of our times. And, maybe forever. Forced into poverty, anybody will do anything, at anytime, anywhere. A hungry stomach has no conscience. And teen pregnancy is no exception.

According to Mike Males, author of Framing Youth, 80-90% of all teens come from poverty. They come from poverty, they don’t become poor. Pregnancy doesn’t make you poor, young or old. Poverty precedes pregnancy. People born into poverty tend to stay poor, while people born into middle class or above wealth tend to stay that way.

Money gives you choices. You can choose from a variety of options for your future when you have even a modest amount of wealth. Poverty limits your choices. Your future, often times seen from a poverty stricken teen’s point of view, looks damn near just like the present. What future? College? Too expensive. Moving away from home? How? Job? Where? School? This crumbling pile of bricks? Adult Role Models? Where? Happiness? What’s that?

The zip code in California that is arguably the poorest is 93702, a dusty area near Fresno somewhere. Almost half of the residents live below the poverty line.  Average income well below the poverty line. In 2005 or there abouts, 20% of all births were to teen girls (200/1000 births 15-19), almost 4 times the state average of 41/1000.

On the other hand, the zip 90077 is arguably the wealthiest zip in the state of California. LA, Hollywood, mansions, movie stars. Wealth, not riches. Money passed down through generations. In 2005, or thereabout, 0% of all births were to teen girls. 0. None. It’s about how money gives you choices. You see a different type of future when you are not poor. Forced into poverty, as I said, a teen girl searches for a way to get out, to leave, she searches for a better future. Grade- Adult Responsibility.

3. Early Sexualization/Sex Abuse- Mike Males points out that over 60% of all teen mom’s have been abused. However, in his extraordinary expose “Scapegoat Generation”, he cites several studies in which up to 70% and higher reported abuse.

But the most breathtaking indictment of the ignorance of the role of sex abuse in teen pregnancy was his story about 14 year old junior high school students. Only 6% reported having had intercourse, which means that 94% did not. Of the 6% who said they did have intercourse, only 2% said they had voluntary intercourse. The other 98% said they had either been raped, or a combination of rape and voluntary sex. Why are we as a society lecturing teen girls about abstinence? Almost all girls don’t seem to want to have sex at such a young age.  They don’t need pontificating from adults,  they need from protection from adult men who are raping them.

The role of sexualization in teen pregnancy is often ignored and misunderstood. Look no further than Jamie LynnSpears, who sat by and watched her role model, Brittany Spears,  both sexualized and sexually abused for years. Sexualization is using sex to manipulate another person, and we see it constantly. The young girl, being leered at by fathers, stepfathers, brothers, cousins, family friends, uncles, almost always in the intimate family/friends circle. Touched, prodded, patted, petted, always with that sexual tone, that sexual manner. She becomes flattered, happy by the male attention, exploited but without her knowledge.  Sexually used without her knowledge simply to get men off, when asked if she had ever been abused would say no. But she wouldn’t understand how sexualization works. Slowly groomed over time, she becomes both a willing and unwilling participant.

To be sexually abused makes a girl rethink her admittedly few choices. It makes her want to get out of her current situation, but she lacks what society demands she needs- money. She starts to twist the abuse in her head into what she thinks sexual expression really is. She confuses it. She learns to like it, since she thinks it’s love. And then, she may go through periods where she understands it’s bad, it’s wrong. She is looking for a way to regain control, and she doesn’t have a lot of ways of doing it, except that which her abusers have taught her- using her body. Grade- Adult Responsibility.

We have seen so far just why the SAMBP is not a teen problem, but an adult problem. Teens can’t do a damn thing to solve it. Only adults can. And I haven’t mentioned words like teen irresponsibilty, teen immorality, teen ethical lapses- and I won’t, ever. There is no such thing in this world. There is only adult behavior. It’s a one man show- adult men only need apply.

Let’s all go back to 1976.

Watergate, Vietnam, Civil Rights, Acid, Long Hair, Bad Clothes, Disco, Pre-AIDS- Remember? We thought it would never end.

A fellow by the name of Joseph Califono, Jr., a Health Secretary under Jimmy Carter, stood up one day and said

“Teenage pregnancy….is one of the most serious problems today. The birth of a child can usher in a dismal future of unemployment, poverty, family breakdown, ….dependency on public agencies….Scarcely anyone…can read these figures without a sense of shock and melancholy”.

Although the term “teen pregnancy” had been tossed around a few times before, we can say that this is the first time it was ushered in, spoken aloud, and seared into the nation’s consciousness. Up until 1976, what did we call teens getting pregnant? We called it.,..pregnancy.

It didn’t matter that Mr. Califono Jr was wrong. That was beside the point. Even though the Teen Birth Rate (TBR) had dropped almost 40% from 1957 to 1975, that wasn’t the point. The point was, we finally had someone to blame for our breakdown of the family. We finally had a villain for our rising taxes. We had someone to point a finger at for all the free love 60’s, for crime, for poverty, for loosening of morals, for abandoned ethics- the teen mom. So now was born The Teen Pregnancy Epidemic.

Under mostly Republican rule from 1968 to 1993, this so-called epidemic was played out in back rooms and amongst religious traditionalists, who decried the “the great moral vacuum” that sex was playing out within our nations young. The beginning of the public crucifixion of the Teen Mom began with Ronald Reagan, decrying the “welfare mom”, who “sucked the system dry”. Remember?

But it wasn’t until Bill Clinton came into office that the teen mom was excoriated, savaged, destroyed, lied to and about, and held up as a sacrifice to the nation, exploited by the very people who said they would help. The liberals, Democrats, who thought nothing of sacrificing our nations young, at any time, whenever it suited them.

Building on the Welfare Mom myth,  Bill Clinton set out to create a version of the teen mom that even republicans didn’t believe in.  Like all shallow men who delighted in exploiting women, men who could only raise themselves up by pushing women down, Bill Clinton was without doubt one of the biggest pieces of shit who ever walked the corridors of power. The lies he and his administration created are still with us today. Teen mom’s are irresponsible. Teen pregnancy causes poverty. Teen pregnancy causes the crime rate to rise. Pregnant teens are immoral. Pregnant teens lack values. Pregnant teens aren’t thinking straight. Pregnant teens make bad choices. Pregnant teens are sexually promiscuous. Pregnant teens cause a rise in the  AIDS rate. Pregnant teens raise abortion rates. Pregnant teens cause a breakdown in the family. Pregnant teens are godless. Teens sexually lead men on. Teens are moral failures.  Pregnant teens are responsible for their own damn mess. And the greatest lie, told and retold again and again by the stupid, by the ignorant, by  humans with dirt clods for brains?

Abstinence. The golden calf. Abstinence. Say it again. Abstinence. The greatest lie- that by keeping teens from having sex, we can keep teen girls  from getting pregnant. So sayeth the Adults, those Paragons of Virtue.

The Teen Pregnancy Epidemic is a social myth, created by politicians of the 90’s era, and is still carried on today. It is fiction, an illusion, used to hide the reality of who and why teens get pregnant. Mike Males, author of “The Scapegoat Generation”, and “Framing Youth”, said it best-

“[The so-called Teen Pregnany Epidemic ]…a damning indictment of liberals exploitation of a social problem they themselves manufactured. The grievous cost of two decades of myth making is evident as liberals now strive to rescue poorer, young mothers from the Clinton/rightist “welfare reform” napalming”.

First, let’s clear the air about the name of the problem- it is not the “teen pregnancy” problem. It is not now and never was. It is instead The Straight Adult Male Behavior Problem (SAMBP). Calling it the teen pregnancy problem infers that the teen is somehow responsible for this problem. They are not. No teen is responsible. Teen pregnancy is an Adult problem. Adult males created it, and only adults can solve it. Whether they want to or not is a different matter, but only they can solve it. Adult males simply found a gullible, weak enemy of the state, an earlier version of “the terrorists”, who,  unsure how it all went down,  silently and bravely accepted “blame” for a problem they had no part in creating. Once the public bought this story, adult males, with the help from females like Donna Shalala,  could go on doing what they have always been doing, abusing power and stealing your money, without worrying about changing anything or helping anyone.

Notice I say adult males. Yes I do. As I go through this manifesto, notice how males do the destroying and then entice many, not all, but many females to stupidly and blindly believe them, follow them,  and continue the same ignorant and destructive policies. Read over on the blog the links under “The Teen Pregnancy Fallacy” to see both very good articles and very stupid ones.

Next, We go through the 10 Dynamics by which the TBR works. If you’ve read this far, now is the time to see the truth. Dump the attitude, especially if you’re a guy. Dump the pride, dump the ego. I’m about to trample all over you.

( Many thanks to Mike Males “The Scapegoat Generation” and “Framing Youth”, and Kristen Luker “Dubious Conceptions” for the facts, and their sheer honesty,  courage, and integrity )

This is the big time for what everyone calls The Teen Pregnancy Problem.

Juno. Gloucester Girls. Jamie Lynn Spears. Bristol Palin. Not to mention George ( we wish his parents had practiced abstinence, too ) Bush, and his famous (I really want to eliminate sex) abstinence programs. Really, it’s everywhere in the news, in the TV, on the radio, on the web. You know this- I know this.  

People write about this great social problem, using words like teen values, morals, irresponsibility, mistakes, choices, consequences, all with a finger-wagging, lecturing, stern faced reproachful air of, shame, shame on you! As though somehow teens made a mistake, as though they didn’t quite think when they were doing what they were doing. They were irresponsible. They were stupid. They were lacking values and morals. In plain talk, they screwed up, and now, by Christ, they are going to have to just live with the consequences. So sayeth the Adults, those Paragons of Virtue.

So after listening to this crap for the better part of a year, I could not keep silent one day longer. If I have to listen to the public lionize Bristol Palin while excoriating Jamie Lynn one more day, one more second, I will scream. If I have to hear people talk about Juno, as though a fictional character in a fictional movie  somehow represents reality, I will scream. If I have to hear about how the Gloucester Girls are an example of the excess and crumbling morality of America, I will really, really scream. Loud.

So lets all take some time and revisit the truth, shall we? All together now, repeat after me:

1. There is no such thing as The Teen Pregnancy Problem.
2. Teen Values play no part in determining the  Teen Birth Rate.
3. Teen Morals have no place in determining the Teen Birth Rate.
4. Hormones don’t have anything to do with The Teen Birth Rate.
5. Most Pregnant teen girls are not irresponsible.
6. Teen Pregnancy does not cause poverty.
7. Teens are not making bad choices by getting pregnant young.
8. Contraception has nothing to do with Teen Pregnancy, except as sexual self defense.
9. Sex has nothing to do with determining the  Teen Birth Rate, anymore than rifles are the determinants of war.
10. Teens have absolutely nothing to do with determining the Teen Birth Rate.
11. Abstinence plays no part of The Teen Birth Rate. It’s only a cruel joke adults play on the young.

Ok, well done. Now look at what I just wrote. Please reread it. Take a deep breath. Reread it again. Ok. Feeling better?

In the next 4 parts, I will explain the truth. You need to leave your pride and prejudice at the door. You’re in for a wild ride.

It’s time for a subject that begs for understanding. Someone needs to explain how this all works.

The ignorance about this subject is making my head spin, giving me vertigo and brain drain, all at the same time. So much has been written about this social problem in today’s media that you would think we host a country of experts, or a country of morons.  I read newspapers, blogs, editorials, magazines, the front page, the back page and all pages inbetween. I listen to talk radio and music radio. I watch PBS, CNN, cable shows, news shows.

It’s not difficult to understand. What’s difficult is giving up both prejudice and pride, and accepting that things are not what they seem.  

Ok, almost no one gets it, I see that now. Especially the media. Particularly my local school district. No one seems to understand the Straight Adult Male Behavior Problem. Don’t recognize the name? Oh, sorry. Let’s call it by what you call it- The Teen Pregnancy Problem.

Organic farming today is where public education was in 1978.

Public education had just passed it’s heyday. No one knew it, of course. Everyone took for granted that it would always be as great in the future as it had in the past. But just as the passing of Prop 13 signaled the beginning of the end for California’s locally controlled, locally financed, excellent public education system, so too the passing of the Federal Organics Act of 2002 was the beginning of the end of the small farmer.

Up until 2002, although standards were irregular, farmers were free to create their own versions of what “organic” meant to them, just like local school districts were allowed, within reason, to create their own ideas of “educated”.

Some schools were located within big cities, and had big city problems that small towns didn’t have. They might have had classes on large banking, public transportation, city planning, building city parks, pollution, and so on. Smaller districts might have concentrated on agriculture, improving roads, small local business, coaching, teaching, the extended family structure. They concentrated on what was going on in the local level, because they lived it and could see where they needed attention.

To some farmers,  like the Amish, spreading barnyard waste fresh from the corrals was a time-honored tradition. They didn’t compost every drop they spread- too time consuming, to energy intensive. Who cares, they said, it breaks down in their soil anyway. Just give some time between the spreading and the next planting.

Others, like small-livestock producers in the Midwest, spread rabbit, poultry, or other small game type manure fresh with bedding on their fields, beds, rows, trees, wherever they felt like it. They saw organic as more than just compost- they saw it as saving energy as well as saving money. It didn’t mean anything if they couldn’t create their own system.

Other farmers spread whatever they could find- leaves, chaff, onion tops, radish or sugar beet waste, fish waste, rodent waste, horse, mule, cow, goat, sheep, any waste they could find, and they spread it on in whatever fashion suited them and their system. But not anymore. Now, the waste you spread has severe restrictions, and this push towards farm “sterility” will do nothing towards food safety, which is in the hands of the food processors, not the farmers. Buying expensive compost, forcing farmers to prove when and how they spread what on their fields, this paper trail works against the small farmer. Why should I have to prove anything to anybody about what works for me? Test my food- fine- at your expense, not mine. But if my food is safe, then get off my property and leave me alone.

Some livestock producers fed their livestock such foodstuffs as corn tortillas, expired bread, chips, bagels- all good enough for people to eat, but, according, to the Organic Association, not “organic” enough for livestock to eat. This notion that in order to produce “organic” products, you have to use “organic” inputs is the greatest pile of bullshit to ever be encountered in the Farming Industry. We have spawned a whole new sub-industry of people running around creating organic corn to feed organic cattle, organic seed to sow for organic farmers, organic straw for organic pigs to chew on. This destroys the farmers creativity, initiative, use of local waste products, defeats a farmers micro-system he or she might use, encourages conformity, an unwillingness to rock the boat. Spreading fresh manure is discouraged. Compost in encouraged, even if it is cost prohibitive. Organic seed must be used to grow organic food. And stupider rules- fish caught in the wild can’t be called organic, because it can’t be verified that they have been eating organic feed.

Organic was never, ever about a product. It was never ” I have organic lettuce. I have organic carrots.” It was ” I run an organic farm”. Customers were curious, what is organic, they would ask? What makes your farm organic?  Farmers could then explain how they saw organic. It couldn’t be one size fits all, any more than all schools were  one size fits all. It was a system, a set-up, a theory, a vision. It was all-inclusive. You couldn’t separate your outputs from your inputs. It was a way of making everything work together to create a final product for the consumer. You sold your farm, your way of doing it, you didn’t sell your product. You sold a better way.

Today, organic products are the test-scores of the organic farming industry. You are judged not by your system, your way of doing it, but by your final product. No one cares anymore how you did it, just show me what you have. A test score works the same- No one wants to know who the students are, what their system is, where they are going, how they see the world- Just show me the test score. It’s a cheap, lazy, easy way to judge a school, a district, a teacher, a student. Show me the test score and I will know all I need to know. Just like today’s consumer being told” Buy the tomato. Buy the peach.  You don’t have to think! You don’t have to know the Farmer! You don’t have to know the system! It’s all the same, same-o, same-o. ”

 We now have organic “consultants”, people who once tried to farm, failed, and now give advice, for a price, to other farmers who have not failed. We have organic “certifiers”, people who slowly walk around your farm, inspecting, lifting, poking, asking questions, deciding, deliberating, giving the impression they have knowledge you don’t have. All for a price. We have organic compost makers, organic seed cleaners, organic officials, organic fertilizer makers, organic pesticide makers, organic advisers, organic teachers. We now have all these thousands of people who, prior to 2002, mostly didn’t exist. The farmer barely matters  anymore, he or she exists only to support the organic trade groups, the lobbyists, the entire leech-group beneath him or her. In years to come the small farmer will be moot- you won’t need his skill, her experience, her unique way of turning a patch of land into food and profit. Everything will be spelled out in manuals, and the dumbest rock in the field will follow the book, do this, plant that, harvest now. Creating food will no longer be an art, a wonder, a speciality, a hard-earned skill honed over years of trial and error. It will be a set of rules put out by a centralized group of people in Washington, most who have never farmed. They, like the public education officials on Sacramento, will run the family farm from an office in town, not from the back of a shovel. The Organic Association has been created not help farmers, but to farm farmers. We, as farmers, are the commodity used and abused.

The word Organic was created to mean whatever the farmer decided it meant, following a few simple rules.It was never about sterility, or never any pesticides. The early farmers in England didn’t see anything wrong with spraying a little bit of this or that to stave off blight, or a bit of herbicide to kill a poisonous group of plants. But they were against the indiscriminate use of toxic sprays. Spraying from airplanes. Fumigants sterilizing the soil. Drenching everything in Roundup. Spraying fruits 3 and 4 times per season. They were against the laziest approach, and wanted the farmer to take a long range approach.Feed the soil first. Spray as little as possible. Recycle farm waste into farm inputs. Sustainability. Don’t overgraze or over plant. Rotate. Accept a smaller yield for a constant yield every year.

Now, the word organic has been stolen. Once in the public domain, it is now the property of the US government. They stole it and auctioned it off to the highest bidder. It means less now, to be organic, than it did in the past, when you had to create an organic version of yourself. Today, it’s already created, cookie cutter versions of organic farmers, handed down through USDA rules on what organic now means. Another graceful art defeated, another culture slowly eroded by greed, by fear, by conformity, by lack of education. The USA is a land slowly caving in on itself. Other countries, other cultures protect their farmers, work hard to set an ideal for the next generation to look up to. In the USA, we look up to the Almighty Dollar, and who can grab and hold on tightest. Watch close today, and you’ll see the disappearance of the Independent Farmer, and our regression back to the share-cropper. The Corporations own most of the USA, and now they want to own the farmer too. Watch the once proud,  angry, strong, resolute Independent Farmer forced to kneel and bow and scrape before the mighty United States Government and it’s ally, the Corporation. Watch it.   Watch it, I said!  Watch it and you’ll never stop weeping.

If you want to see and understand the direction organic farming is going,   look no further than the rise and fall of Public Education.

 My home state of California once held the title of Greatest Public Education in the Country. From K-12 to higher education, it was the crown jewel of the United States. Other states tried to copy it, other countries closely examined it, it was a wonder. From 1950 thru 1960, California was in it’s golden age of education. California teachers were the best paid in the country. A California teaching credential guaranteed you could teach in any state in the union, and in most countries. In the mid 60’s, half of all California graduates went on the higher education, compared to a third in the rest of the US. 20 schools were being built a day to educate the swelling population, including one of the greatest accomplishments- The UC system and the Cal State system, a group of colleges built in various places in the state, priced low enough that almost anyone could afford to go. It was a heady time.

Today, California ranks near the bottom. A California teaching credential is seen as a liability, not an asset. Teachers are fleeing en masse to better opportunities elsewhere as salaries have dropped, and their power and dignity stripped. . Schools are crumbling to the ground, with leaky roofs, oudated computers, torn carpet, broken desks. Teacher turnover is incredibly high. No longer is the small school built for the local 500-1000 students. Mega schools, built to house 5000 and up are built, because it’s cheaper to build one massive school than five small ones. Kids are squeezed, crushed, ignored, bullied, left alone, and then pushed, prodded, manipulated, and “taught” to do one thing, and one thing only- get a high test score. And today’s California high school graduates? Only 29% will go on to finish college and receive a degree, a stunning, shocking, sad number.

This is not the fault of the teacher. California teachers are some of the best in the country still. The problem started with funding first- Prop 13 was passed in 1978, which cut funding to local schools by half by reducing property tax on the homeowner. The public simply turned their collective economic backs on a school system which had so enriched them and enriched their state.

Massive waves of immigration also caught the system unaware. Different languages, different customs, mostly poor people, searching for the American Dream.  Educational Foundations started, not for profit groups, which raised money for schools, blurring the lines between public and private schools began, with richer school districts affording more experienced teachers, better facilities, smaller classes, and happier students. Prop 13 changed funding for the schools. It took local money and local control away from the local school districts.  Now, the state controlled the purse strings, not the local school districts.

With power of the purse, the state set out, seeking to “improve” the schools. No longer did the local principal or superintendent have broad discretionary powers. Policy began being rigidly set by people up in Sacramento, people who had never been in a classroom as a teacher. So now you have non-teachers, non educators,  setting policy for schools and teachers.

Fads started-  The first was Whole Language Reform, which tried to teach kids how to read without first teaching them how to read- by going about it backwards. People at the state level who had never taught a day were now convinced that this was the way you teach children to read. You give them a book, push them to read without first sounding out words, or being taught the skill of  reading. Like throwing your 14 year old kid the keys to the car, and saying ” Let’s go. We’ll learn as we get out on the road”. Of course, thats exactly what we do with sex education today. We don’t teach them anything of value, and then when they turn 18 we say” Ok, now go and be sexual”. But that’s another subject.

Whole Language Reform failed miserably. In 1995 California had the lowest reading scores in the nation. An embarassed state finally scrapped it.

 Without consulting anybody local, state officials decided next to simply reduce class size. Spending a billion dollars a year, starting in 1996, the offered $650 per student to any K-3 school whose classes held less than 20 students each. They believed that this simple act would give teachers less of a work load, thus giving more instructional and individual attention from the teacher to the student.

But things are not that simple. By reducing class size, you increase the need for more classrooms. And having more classrooms means you need more teachers. And needing more teachers means you need more money to pay them. And needing more money to pay them means you have to cut back on other services, because $650 per student wasn’t nearly enough to pay more teachers.  And because you needed more money to pay those teachers means you needed more students worth $650 each. And, of course, more $650 students means you have to crowd more students into classrooms, which means you can’t keep class sizes under 20 kids.  Schools were caught in the revolving door of portable classrooms, unqualified teachers, cutting back on services, reducing salaries, needing more than you get, robbing peter to pay paul, a never ending cycle of always having less than you need.

And today? Test scores, the Holy Grail of Education. Test them, test them, test them. Test, baby, test. That is the mantra. As though testing prepares a student to do anything but- learn how to take a test. This absurd, stupid, ignorant way of educating children and young adults could only be dreamed up by people who have no experience working in a classroom. A standardizes test score says exactly nothing about a student and everything about a state official justifying a large salary, desperate for a way to “educate” students, throwing peas up against a wall, hoping some of them stick.

I won’t even comment on No Child Left Behind- There are so many children left behind that only someone of George Bush’s character could dream up something like this- another non-teacher, another unqualified person setting policy, a person who doesn’t have to deal with more rules, more regulations that don’t work on an everyday basis.

By ceding control of education to a centralized group of people who don’t understand education, California’s once mighty and proud school system today is completly and utterly broken. Today, California still ranks near the bottom. Dropouts are high. Students can’t afford college, or come out with  thousands of dollars in debt. The schools are still falling apart. Tension is high. And still, people who have never taught but are paid six figure salaries up in Sacramento are setting policy for a wide range of towns, cities, cultures, and economic disparities.

In California today, the fastest growing industry is incarceration, where prison spending is up 17%, while funding for education has fallen even further, with the Governer holding back funds he promised 2 years ago.  The small elementary school near my farm, where my kids went to school, has closed because of lack of funds, and three others are going to close. More kids will spend the next 12 years crowded into already  over crowded schools, and everyone wonders why they don’t want to go to college. Schools are closing, and prisons are opening- that’s California’s future.

 ( Many thanks to The Merrow Report, ” From First to Worst”, for these statistics and information )

So what the hell does this have to do with farming, Rick?

We have been asked many times why we are not certified as organic anymore. Good question.

When we decided to leave it behind, I wrote an article in the Press Enterprise about our reasons, and the reasons why it no longer worked for us. I got a lot of feedback from my customers who said they sympathized with us, and understood. I have had more time to reflect on our reasons,  and I can be more articulate about our decision.

Here is some background first-

1. The whole basis for the organic movement, which started in England in the late 30’s and early 40’s, was about recycling waste from your farm, including manure from the animals, chaff and stem from the grains, table food waste, crop harvest waste, leaves, cuttings, and so on into your fields to enrich and fertilize them for the next crop. That’s it. Called the Law of Return by Sir Albert Howard, it was simple, straightforward, and emphasized the farm as a unit, a whole, and you could and should not split the farm into separate entities. Thus if you grow lettuce, for example, you are relying on residue from livestock, trees, table waste and such, to incorporate into your lettuce beds.

2. No one took organic seriously until after Rachel Carson’s book, Silent Spring. She argued that the indiscriminate use of pesticides were killing song birds in forests and fields next to farmer’s fields. Note that she was against the “indiscriminate” use of pesticides.

3. When organic started becoming noticed, it was ridiculed as not producing enough to feed very large amounts of people, i.e. the world. Conventional farming was the way to go, with artificial fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides and so on. They said that if all farms went to organic, we wouldn’t be able to feed everybody.  This was absurd logic, as the original pioneers of organic never intended to produce huge yields of food. They simply wanted less outside farm inputs, less pesticide use, and a sustainable model to regrow year after year without a large drop in yield.

4. Organic was laughed at until it started making money. Then it was taken seriously. It was not taken seriously because other farmers believed in it. Only because it was making money for organic farmers.

The passing of the Federal Organics Act in 2002 was a death knell for the small farmer. We told our fellow farmers time and again it would mean the end of the small family farms, but driven by visions of big paydays, and the belief that it was the “right thing”, they embraced it with open arms.

5. Organic food exploded from 1996 until 2006, plateaued, and now is dropping off, as we predicted. It has lost it’s status as an “art”, and is now seen as routine by customers who only know it as “no pesticides”. And most farmers, even early farmers, use that hook to explain how organic farms work, The general public has no idea of what is involved, and farmers are wrongly selling their products to customers instead of selling their farms.

Our personal reasons for leaving are these-

1. Our concept of independence refuses to allow our farm to be run by the federal government.

2. The costs, which are substantial, go the federal government, in part, to support the organic food export business of the United States. That is, food that is sent overseas, to Japan, to the Soviet Union, to China, to South America, to Thailand. What is organic about flying organic carrots to Japan that were grown in California?

3. Nowhere in the bylaws and the rules of the FOA does it mention what most farmers are most ignorant about and in need of education-  water and energy. Knowledge of these areas are critical to success on a farm, and take far more skill to manage than soil fertility. There is a soil test to guide us, but there is no one size fits all water or energy test.

4. Much is spent in the FOA upholding the lofty ideals of soil sustainability, but not a word is said about something much more important- economic sustainability. Building fertile soil is fine, and necessary, but it means nothing if the farmer is losing money and going broke. Farmers leave farming not because they can’t grow great crops, but because they lack strong profits, either through ignorance, fewer good markets, rising costs, or simply, lack of a good, sound, long term business plan. Stop viewing the organic farm through the prism of the product. Stop testing the soil, and instead test the farmer’s business sense.

5. Large companies have consolidated into mega- farms to take control of certain organic sectors- view the chart here. This would have been impossible with a loose, unregulated free market group of small family farms. But now it is all to common.

6. Small family farms will disappear, as they have no real way to control and sell what organic means to them. This one size fits all mentality and show me the paper trail regulations are the leg up large corporations needed to control this organic market. Small farmers will simply drop out, being unable to afford the certification costs, or the constant paperwork, or the cost of doing business.

7. Organic farming was a specialty, an art, using niche marketing and specialty crops, along with local fertilizers and waste products. Because of  new restrictions regarding the spreading of manure, and the push towards compost, including strict record keeping and the assumption that raw manure is ultimately toxic, farmers will be forced to buy compost. Even the smallest of farms will be unable to make all the compost he/she needs. This added expense is just another dollar in someone else’s pocket other than the farmer.

8. The last avenue the small organic farmer has is the Farmer’s Market System. Once a fabulous way to sell products, keep local money local, introduce yourself to the community, and really have a direct impact on society, they too, have slowed down. Farmers used to be able to do 1-4 markets and make a good living, but now, the same farmers need double the number of markets to achieve the same results. With new farmers coming in with no business skills, they seek to ride the coattails of the “organic” movement, not realizing you sell your business, not your product. Quickly becoming disillusioned, the leave soon after, and another future farmer is gone. No one cares, no one is educated, no one realizes how one less small farmer means one more step the corporations make in controlling this food supply, from seed to table.

9. We’re not against farming organically. We are all for it, because we do it everyday. And we are not against making sure farmers are held accountable. We take our farming seriously. But we are against setting standards that reward the deepest pockets, and that promote conformity and fear. If there are a thousand farms, then there are a thousand ways to farm, and they should be encouraged to follow their path accordingly. But if that happened, then money would be wonderfully  scattered across the country, held in thousands of hands, local farmers,ranchers, merchants, carpenters, townspeople . Local business would work with local money, schools would have local money, money would circulate within many different hands within the same towns.

But now it’s harder, and may be impossible. The passing of the federal organics act has made it easier for the very few to control the very many. Now, money goes to the people at the top, concentrated in the hands of the wealthy, leaving less for the people at the bottom. Every dollar spent to benefit this act pushes the small farmer closer and closer to a slow, sure financial death. You have all seen the beginning of the end for the small farmer. Watch it and weep.

Buying really quality day old poultry can be problematic.

First, there’s the issue of reliability. If the chicks, kits, poults, or whatever you buy die in transit, will you get reimbursed? If they die within a few days, will the company you bought from offer to replace them? Will the newly arrived poults grow as advertised? Were they priced reasonably to begin with? And finally, do you really believe in the company, are they trying to make a difference?

We used to buy from a company called Cebe Farm, out in Ramona Ca, and they sold really superb chicks, mostly cornish crosses, red and black, and some other types. But they grew very fast, and were very hearty. The main guy, whose name was Joe Cebe, was very kind and helpful. They are still around, but don’t have a website. But here is the phone #- 1-800-777-8730. Good service and good stock.

Lately I have been buying from Sand Hill Preservation Center, out in Calamus Iowa. They are genetic preservationists,  selling rare breeds of poultry to  preserve these genetic lines, some which were thought to have been extinct years ago. Glenn and his family are lovers of the Farm and Agricultural life, and sell excellent birds for the table or for eggs. The catalog is great, the service very good. They are somewhat busy, they are hard to get ahold of. But order early and you won’t have to track them down. They often sell out a year in advance. Look for the link under General Agricultural Information.

We open a new category today, Books and Literature.

Anyone that knows us knows how passionate we are about reading. Books are scattered everywhere all over the house, my outside kitchen and office, in the cars, trunks, floor, kitchen table- we have a hard time being away from them even for a few minutes.  There are bookshelves floor to ceiling in the book room, smaller ones next to our bed, in the kids rooms. It’s a real love affair.

Leslie writes down each book she reads, when she read it, how she liked it. I do no such thing, but as I advance onward towards my graduate work, I may pick up that habit. For one, you can take notes on it. For two, you can always remember that you read it. Not a bad idea at all.

You can rest assured that if we recommend a book here, we feel it’s superb. Life is short- I’m not sure I have enough time to read all the good ones, much less the trash. We’ve noticed that the more you read, the more you get the feel of a book, the better able you are in picking good books, just from their cover and reviews. Maybe you are reselecting the same intrinsic themes over and over, but  people that like a certain book tend to like the same group of books, the same writing styles, the same flow, and we seem to be drawn towards each other and our books.

So today I have selected the book Man on Fire by A.J. Quinnell.

Most of us have seen the movie, with Denzel Washington and Dakota Fanning, but I always wondered if there was more to this story. Was it based on someone real? Was it a book first? It’s the kind of thing I tend to get sidetracked on, much to everyone’s dismay.

Well, here’s the gist of it. Yes it was a book first, published around 1980. Yes it was a movie after that, with Scott Glenn as the title character,  sometime after that. Then another movie with Denzel.  No it doesn’t seem to be true, and no one can ask Mr. Quinnell because that’s a pseudonym for Goddess knows whom.

However, it’s all moot because it is one fine read. Without giving too much away, it follows a different path than the movie, has much more background on the events and people, all highly enjoyable. Well woth your time. Especially good is the leadup to his actions, the author is in no hurry.

Note that in the beginning of the  book, it has in the  an opening poem called “The Para’s Prayer”. Very inspirational, Again, I got completely hung up on finding out what the hell this was, and tracked it down. It is short for “The Paratrooper’s Prayer”, something well known in the French Foreign Legion, and is legend amongst the French Paratroopers. A fascinating bit of trivia. Here’s the link.

http://www.iwvpa.net/zirnheldala/index.php

You can buy this book for a penny on Amazon. Don’t pass it up.

That’s it for today. Go do good somewhere.

When we look for information about Drought Research, we have to ask ourself, what exactly are we looking for? Do we want to plant trees, for example in a dryland area? Do we want to use less water because of drouthy conditions? Do we want to prevent erosion? Or do we want a broad overview, with some specifics thrown in? Farming? Permaculture? Reviving irrigation methods?

If you aren’t sure what you want, but are looking for a large amount of research material to dig through, check out The Arid Lands Newsletter. Published by the University of Arizona, it contains scholarly papers written by scientists and farmers, teachers and sociologists worldwide, to understand the vast world of desertification, drought, farming, and the like.

This is a gem of a find. Each newsletter has several articles, and all are archived by a fall/winter season, or a spring/summer season. It will take you a while to plow through this site. Look especially at the pre-web archives, at the dryland garden section. Good, solid information. As always, the link is on the right under “Drought Research”.