The following speech was delivered by Ryan Voiland at a farmers’ rally opposing cuts to USDA and other federal programs that are negatively impacting farms and agriculture in the region and around the country. The rally took place on Sunday, March 23 in front of Hadley Town Hall.

 

 

We are at a time when humanity has stretched the earth beyond the limit.

Burning of fossil fuels is most certainly resulting in climate change, and this change most certainly is now resulting in negative weather changes that are impacting agriculture now, with increasingly extreme challenges expected into the future. Here in western Mass., we experienced extreme drought in 2022, abnormal extreme freezes in the winter and spring of 2023 that killed or damaged blossoms and thus the crops of peaches, apples and berries; then excessive rainstorms in the summer of 2023 that flooded and swamped 13,000 acres of our Massachusetts fields, resulting in 65 million in additional crop losses.

More drought in the fall and early winter of 2024 stressed perennial crops as they prepared to go dormant for winter.

Additionally, we are seeing changes in plant and animal populations, some of which will impact farming directly or indirectly. Alarming is the decline in pollinator species and abundance, threatening crop pollination. Also alarming is the spread of crop pests into increasingly wide geography. New pests recently arrived or headed our way include spotted wing drosophila, Mile-a-Minute weed, brown marmorated stink bug, and swede midge, among many others.

Then we have the societal challenges and inequities:

■ A capital market system resulting in unequal distribution of wealth, leaving many people unable to afford enough nutritious food.

■A land ownership and valuation system that has a disregard for the importance of farmland, farming and food production. Land is valued by our system for building lots, resulting in an average of 4,500 acres of Massachusetts farmland lost per year. Farmers are increasingly forced to sell their land since the system does not pay them to take care of it and grow food.

■Farm work is among the most complex of any occupation, requiring adherence to the timeline of crops and weather (not a 9-5 work week!), requiring knowledge of plant and soil science, use of complex machinery, and ability to work extremely fast while enduring rain, cold, mosquitoes and heat.

Yet farm owners who make this effort are faced with nothing but razor thin or negative margins and debt, and many farmworkers who do this most challenging work for meager pay to put food on your table are now expected to also live in fear.

In the face of these challenges, farmers and eaters need support from all corners. This includes especially from the federal government, which should exist for the good of the people, and especially the good of the common people. Keeping farms in business growing food for the people, and doing that in ways that address the challenges of climate change and protect the environment, should be a number one priority of any government!

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has been an important part of helping farms overcome the obstacles to staying in business. Programs and grants that improve the sustainability of farming practices (NRCS EQIP and Climate Smart Commodities), the development of renewable on-farm energy such as solar (REAP), funding for farmland preservation programs such as APR, and Local Food Purchasing for schools and food banks (LFPA), are among the vital programs that have been essential for helping support local agriculture around here. Yet the callus Trump administration has taken (often illegal) actions to terminate staff that support all of these programs and is discontinuing or reducing the funding for these programs.

This will result in Americans deprived of nutritious food, a more degraded environment, food systems that are less resilient to climate change, and more farms going out of business. All just so the richest billionaires can get more tax cuts?

We must stand up to this! This is why my farm has joined a lawsuit with the lawyers at Earthjustice to sue the Trump administration for freezing and attempting to discontinue our REAP grant for making solar energy on our farm.

We need to do everything we can to resist and limit the damage as we endure the next few years of Trump, and we must educate voters so that political mistakes of this magnitude don’t happen again!

Ryan Voiland is owner and manager of Red Fire Farm in Montague and Granby.