Farms Flows - Bees, Cash and Confusion


Courtesy of thedailygreen.com

We were watching the movie Colony last weekend (highly recommended) and I was inspired to follow-up on a topic that I think confuses the heck out of most people. Cash vs. Accrual Accounting. Don’t be alarmed by the word “accrual”, you don’t even need to know what it means to understand the concept. Press on! 

Colony is about beekeepers. Not just any beekeepers, these are hardcore beekeepers. They perform a task that I never knew existed. These individuals literally manage and care for thousands of bee hives and transport them all over the country on giant flat-bed trucks to pollinate various crops (almonds, blueberries, etc.). I could write a whole post about how cool that is and how that’s just one more critical component of the food supply chain that most people never think about, but I’ll save it for another day.

Today Cash vs. Accrual accounting rules the roost (or hive?). In the movie
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The "Ick" in Organic: Fox and Factory Farms Fight Back!

Sweetbreads recently sent me this article/video titled "The 'Ick' Factor and the Myth of 'All-Natural'". Give it a quick watch. At a minimum it's entertaining.
 
The article/video really reinforced the great responsibility that we are assuming by committing to produce food. It reminded me how important it is for new farmers to make sure that we produce at the highest standards of quality and cleanliness. Especially for those of us that are (or will be) in the business of producing alternative food products. There’s already the hurdle of trying to sell something that’s not mainstream, so why add any more fuel to fire? 
 
First, a few things that I appreciate about the video.
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One Small Step for Family Farming, One Giant Step for Little Seed Farm

Sprout Creek Farm, Cheese Curds, Little Seed FarmSprout Creek Farm Cheese Curds - Photo by Sprout Creek's Georgie Blaeser
Big news on the Little Seed Farm front! Sweetbreads recently accepted an apprenticeship role at Sprout Creek Farm near Poughkeepsie, NY. We’ll be packing up and moving out at the end of November and she’ll be working on the farm for approximately 6 months. As we posted about previously, Sprout Creek operates a highly diversified farm (dairy, meat chickens, eggs, pork, lamb, goat, turkeys, etc), but really specializes in cheese. 

On our first Farm Hop to Sprout Creek we had a long heart-to-heart with Margo Morris, the founder. The entire time we were chatting I was thinking to myself
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