Paying the Price

I picked rocks today.  That's not an unusual thing for me to do at this time of the year.  In Western Canada (and other areas, I'm sure), there are a lot of rocks in our soil and we need to pick them every year so they don't break our equipment later on.  It's a hard job, but certainly not the worst job on the farm.  Sometimes we use a mechanical rock picker, but most of the time we walk through the fields and pick up the rocks by hand.  Some rocks are small, and we can carry several at a time.  Others are bigger and we can only carry two or three at time.  Some are so big that we can only roll them into the bucket of the tractor, and still others are so big that we have to use the tractor, or even a backhoe, to dig them out of the ground.

I've spent many hot, windy days getting covered in dust whilst picking rocks.  I can't remember a spring/summer when I wasn't picking rocks as a child (that was back before some people decided it was child abuse to teach children to do a good day's work).  It was always hard work, but I had fun looking for arrow heads (that fun sort of disappeared after I finally actually found one as a teenager).  There are large rock piles in every field that my dad owns and rents.  Even with all of the rocks I've picked, I can only take credit for a small portion of those rock piles.  My dad has picked tons (literally) of rocks in his lifetime.

Every once in a while a friend or neighbour will ask us if they can have some rocks, usually to use in their garden or as lawn ornaments, depending on the size of the rock.  We have always just given the rocks away.  Today while I was picking rocks I started thinking about what my professors tried to teach us at college, especially in the business-type classes.  According to my professors, farming today requires a good deal of money (who doesn't know that?) and it is just good business to charge a fair price for products from the farm.

For years, we been giving away rocks and composted manure for people's gardens.  I understand why we do it.  Those are just waste products that other people can use.  They come pick it up and take it away.  Why would we charge money for that?  On the other hand, why wouldn't we?  In the case of the rocks, unless the people come pick them or dig them out themselves, we have spent hours working hard to pick those rocks and put them in a convenient pile.  It's hard work that has to be done anyways, but it would be nice to get paid for it, especially when other people get the benefit of that hard work.  The composted manure takes a little less work, but it takes time and effort to clean out the corrals and get it all into a pile.  Again, that's work that has to be done anyways, but when people come to get it, we have to take the time to find the best pile and get the tractor out to load their trucks up.  Then again, what's a few minutes to help a friend take some waste products off of our hands?

Do you get the idea that I'm having a bit of an inner struggle here?  I want to be a nice person and help people when I can.  Then again, I want to be a good business person and when I look at this situation from a business perspective, all I can can see is that it only makes sense to charge a fair price for the products.  I don't think it's unreasonable to charge for these things, as long as the price is fair.

My parents are great people and they've kept the farm going for several decades.  I'd really like to be able to keep the farm going the same way that they have, but I don't think that's possible.  I'm going to have to figure out the best way to run the farm as a business.  The farm has to pay for itself and make me a living if I'm going to be able to keep it.  One of the ways the farm will pay for itself is if I can make money from waste products, like rocks and manure.  I haven't completely made up my mind yet, but I think once the farm is mine, I will start asking people to pay the fair price for products that have previously been free from this farm.

Let me know what you think.  I'd like to have feedback as I consider this.

One of the rock piles on some land that we rent.

You can see the variety of rock sizes we deal with.