Be grateful for those who grow our food

By Teresa Opheim

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Dan Specht, a MacGregor farmer, conservationist and beloved member of Practical Farmers of Iowa, died this past summer, crushed by a bale while moving hay for his cattle. He left behind hundreds of friends, family and admirers, and also boxes of beef. I bought a couple of those boxes, and soon schemed up a way to honor Dan's memory: gifts of meat to a chosen few who are continuing his work for an agriculture that is good for people and for the land.

I put a couple packages of minute steaks in the vegetable box I returned to one of “my farmers,” Julia Slocum of Lacewing Acres. Julia is a beginning farmer growing vegetables, Dan's product was beef, but both faced that uphill battle of farming profitability without government support given freely to those raising corn and soybeans.

I dropped off a roast with Matt Liebman, a professor at Iowa State University. Dan worked, as Matt does, to implement a vision of an agriculture that would ensure our future. Both delight (delighted) in the complexities of ecology as a model for agriculture and lamented the ignorance and lack of respect for the soil that we wash away at our peril.

Musician and agronomist Rick Exner got a roast for his musical talent with the band The Porch Stompers. At an October memorial concert held in Elkader, musician Jon Stravers said that Dan had been the band's best fan. I thought the same thing about Dan and Practical Farmers of Iowa as well - there was no one who came to as many events.

Practical Farmers' Tomoko Ogawa, staff cook, wrote the most poignant tribute about Dan after his death: “Dan also always asked me for advice about how to cook a meal for his field day. I'm sure he cared and loved good food and drink, but I think he was doing this in part because he knew that food was the language I feel fully competent to speak. He had that kind of genuine sensitivity and kindness.”

And then I came home and enjoyed a meal with my family of spaghetti with Dan's ground beef flavoring the home canned tomatoes (from Tabletop Farm in Nevada).

This Thanksgiving, I am grateful to know the individual farmers who grow much of my food. I can empathize with them and their trials with both extreme floods and extreme drought all in one year, and the problems of finding enough consumers to pay them the price they need to make a living. I can celebrate their vocation with every meal I have.

And then I have the bittersweet gift of mourning them when they are taken from us.

Teresa Opheim, of Ames, is the director of Practical Farmers of Iowa, www.practicalfarmers.org. Comments: pfi.teresa@gmail.com