Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
It is like a three-and-a-half-hour drive, but they have an immaculate system
down there. The birds are very clean, and they are packaged nice. Everything
for the farmers' market is frozen.”
The Rissmans' innovation and diversity show in marketing and the cre-
ation of new items, but this is tempered by a clear realism. “Well, we let
our Web site go. For what little sales it brought us, it just wasn't worth the
hassle. And we thought about selling our homemade soap, but we found
out through our insurance man that there are huge liabilities selling soap
over the Internet. We can sell it at the farmers' markets and we are covered
under our policy, but the minute we start selling over the Internet it is like
a separate business. He said the first time it burns someone's eyes, or it
could be a made-up problem, someone out to get you. They could sue you
right out of business. So he suggested not to do that. But at the farmers'
market we are completely covered. It goes from a farmer's product to being a
business product or something like that.” Joel and his family are innovative
but realistic. “When I was getting my bachelor's degree, I came up with
that radio-controlled turn signal. It is something you could mount on the
back of a wagon with the controller in the cab that controlled turn signals
and brake lights. I looked into manufacturing that, and the insurance was
just prohibitive. Because if someone rear-ends you and gets killed, they are
going to sue you, whether it was the fault of the blinker or not. So I never
ended up doing anything with that.”
Joel is always seeking new information and learning fromvarious sources.
Joel worked on his master's degree in crop science for several years, driving
to an extension of the University of Illinois for classes. “Sometimes it's
a video transmission, and other times they just send a teacher out.” His
organic farming knowledge often contradicted his conventionally trained
professors. He described one course: “Plant Diseases - the university has
completely missed the boat. I got an A in it, and I was surprised. The first
professor was all chemical - live and die chemical. And I thought I basically
am going to speak my mind. If it affects my grade, then that is just the
way it is. But we were always into it. And there is one example. In class, he
says, 'Let's face it, folks. When it comes right down to it, it is yield. Yield,
yield, yield.' I raised my hand and said, 'Excuse me. That's not my main
concern. My main concern is my bottom line. Yield would probably come
third or fourth down on my list. The second thing would be a balance of
my soil nutrients. If you have a balance of soil nutrients, the yield will come
because of that. The third thing is getting the erosion stopped, getting the
microbes back in my soil, and getting all the wildlife and things back into
the ecosystem. Once you have those three - the two main soil ones in place
[120],
(30)
Lines: 358 to 362
———
0.0pt PgVar
———
Normal Page
PgEnds: T
E
X
[120],
(30)
