I was recently asked to set up a table to display Winkelman Farm at a charity bazaar in Switzerland. The point of the Bazaar is to raise awareness and fundraise for charities. I was asked to join because friends presenting at the Bazaar know that I also support Winkelman Farm. I instinctively hesitated to participate because our cause of farmland conservation in Western New York State pales next to the other causes: schools and orphanages in developing countries.
Charity is about helping those in need, so Winkelman Farm is there to address a need in Western New York to keep farmland in farming. Winkelman Farm is also about justice, that is, fair play and equity. Is it fair that the farmer who takes care of the open spaces we all enjoy is not compensated for that service? By “farmer” I mean the small family farmer that treats the land as the inheritance of her children. This farmer stretches pennies to keep things working, to provide food for our tables, to ensure that crops are rotated for our drive-by viewing pleasure, and to conserve the spaces for wildlife to thrive in our watersheds and wooded areas.
In this case, charity is righting a wrong: it is an injustice that the people that work their backs off to feed us cannot afford to keep the land that we enjoy, open over generations. They are not in a position, in their retiring years, to make gifts – even tax-deductible ones – to the public of scenic fields and forested land. We, the public, do not pay enough for our food to give them this luxury, even as our food is transported further and further from the field to our tables.
Winkelman Farm addresses this injustice by using charitable funds to purchase conservation easements on farmland so that retiring farmers can comfortably hand the land down to their children, or sell it to another farmer, so that the land produces benefits for all of us forever.
So, no, I will not present Winkelman Farm at the charity Bazaar in Switzerland. I will go and support the children who need help in Nicaragua, Sri Lanka, Nepal and South Africa. At the same time, I will continue to support Winkelman Farm because I believe that farming communities are important to our children’s future in Western New York.
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