The Farmer's Son

by John Connell

  My friend Charlie, the healer, says that I’m meant to write, to create some great work, but I wonder now if the great work I had dreamed of as a teenager, copying Dürer’s engraving, might instead be a simple thing, an elegy to the nature I know.

  Scale

  Despite practicing one of the oldest professions in the world, farmers are often the early adopters of new technology. As farmers embraced new methods of farming and breeding and began to use steam-powered machines rather than beasts of burden to work their land, so agriculture was industrialized. As output increased, so the world’s population grew, and so too did the need for more beef.

  It is to America that we must look once more in the story of the cow, for it was here that its modern chapter began.

  There are now 1.6 billion cows in the world, one for every fifth person. Through selective breeding, people began to produce the meat or milk they desired, but it was through science that this process was perfected.

  The development of vaccines and antibiotics in the first two decades of the twentieth century meant that large groups of animals could be housed together indoors without fear of bacterial infection or spread of sickness. The containment of the cow, our largest domesticated animal, in a small area had huge advantages. It cut down on farming time, and with controlled feeding, animals could be bulked up and brought to kill weight sooner. By the late 1960s, advances in machinery allowed for feeding houses to be built, and with that, factory farming began.

  Farming in America soon became less a family enterprise than a business endeavor, and by the year 2000, 80 percent of America’s beef was produced by just four main companies. The plains and the range had given way to concrete and steel.

  Factory farming, or confined animal feeding operations, works on the basic principle that maximum output should be achieved with the lowest possible cost input. This method has ensured that the world has had enough beef in recent years (albeit often of lower quality), but it has come at a price—that of lower animal welfare. A confined beast is not a happy one, but selective breeding and artificial insemination have allowed industrial farmers to produce more docile and husbandry-friendly animals.

  In this the cow has been lucky, for it has not been the subject of as much experimentation or as drastic physical modification as the humble chicken. Chickens lead a life of hardship: housed, caged, debeaked and slaughtered. If the reality of factory farming has a mascot, the scrawny, mutilated chicken is it.

  Recently at a farming conference, I listened to data scientists and academics talk about the development of intensive farming in the future. Agriculture, they said, was the last frontier of the tech sector, and it was an exciting time to be in the industry.

  In years to come, it seems, quality won’t be a concern anymore, because we will all produce the same type of animal. Consumers demand cheap meat, and it is our job to make it, to feed the supermarket-driven race to the bottom. Machines will weigh and dispense feed; low-paid workers will carry out whatever manual work must be done. The people closest to the animals will not be farmers but line workers.

  The factory farming of cows has not yet taken hold in Ireland. The cows here are still largely pasture-fed and housed only in winter, when there is no grass available naturally. To the tech entrepreneurs who see agribusiness as the future, I and my fellow farmers are Luddites, relics of the past. And yet, I am happy to continue in the old ways, as are most European farmers. Under EU farming law, the use of growth hormones in the production process has been banned and the use of antibiotics must be tracked and traced. In this way, we prevent the flow of animal antibiotics into the human diet and food chain.

  Growth hormones are not the only problems of industrial farming. In the 1980s and 1990s the emergence of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) threw light upon the problem of bone-meal feeding. In this practice, which many European famers used as part of intensive feeding programs, cattle were given bone-meal feed, which contained cow and sheep leftovers from the slaughtering process, as a source of protein. Traditionally, US farmers used soybean meal, but the bean did not grow well in Europe, where farmers turned to bone meal. The cow, of course, is a herbivore, and in the eating of its own kind, nature fought back with the development of BSE, more commonly known as mad cow disease.

  The disease affected the animal’s brain and spinal cord, eventually rendering it unable to walk and driving it insane. The suffering of the cow was just a foreshadow of the danger of intensive farming, for when BSE crossed the species barrier from animal to man, it took the form of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, or vCJD. This disease caused memory loss, dementia, depression, hallucinations and eventually death. At the height of the epidemic in the 1980s, it was discovered that over 400,000 infected cattle had entered the human food chain. Millions of animals were slaughtered in an effort to eradicate the disease, but sadly, some humans had already been infected with vCJD, and to date there have been 177 deaths in Britain. The UK’s beef market, which was the worst infected, had its exports suspended for ten years, and although the ban is now over, British beef remains tainted in some markets.

  The long-term risks of intensive farming are not yet known, for it is still in its first generation, but the BSE epidemic was a warning that caution is necessary. Perhaps in the future our industrial meat will come, like cigarettes, with a warning: FACTORY FARMED: EAT AT YOUR OWN RISK.

  The industrialization of the cow is not just about meat anymore, but also about the valuable byproducts of its entire body. Indeed, the real value of a cow is in what’s known as fifth quarter—the offal, hide and organs of the beast. Fifth quarter is where the processors make their real money. These parts are harvested and used to make over two hundred products, from insulin to face creams; in modern agribusiness no piece of the animal is wasted. The meat factories do not pay farmers for fifth quarter, and in so doing deprive them of most of the real value of the animal.

  Meanwhile, feedlots have grown in number. There are now eighty-two thousand in the United States alone, supplying most of the meat to American consumers. Even fortress Europe, with its traditional farming, is under threat from imports from Brazil, the South American beef giant. Farming there is a high-intensity business: huge tracts of rainforest have been cleared for the nonnative animal, and in the doing, soils and environments have been ruined, indigenous residents driven from their homelands and vast areas of verdant woodland turned into desert.

  Globally, the rise in cattle numbers and increased amounts of methane gas in the air are contributing to climate change and a rise in the planet’s temperatures. Greater numbers of cattle also require a greater use, or misuse, of water. It takes around 15,400 liters of water to make a one-kilo piece of meat, and in some countries that water is far too precious. It seems that the Minotaur has awoken from its millennia-long sleep and escaped its maze, razing the environment as it goes.

  Through its relationship with man, the cow has been transformed over the millennia from a mythical animal, a carrier of gods, a maker of galaxies, to a carefully programmed product in the food chain. Where once the cow was man’s most valued companion in the natural world, now its value in some nations depends on removing it entirely from this world. It has lost its sentience, it seems, in the minds of those involved in the industrial process.

  The End of the Line

  Da and I have not spoken in a week. The next crop of calves and lambs are coming. He asked me to go out to deliver a lamb, but I refused, for he would not apologize, and so we are at an impasse. Mother feels the strain the worst, but understands that I must stand my ground and that I cannot just ignore what has been said. She understands, but she worries too.

  “What’s going to happen to the farm?” she says.

  “I don’t know. I don’t care,” I say.

  “You do care,” she says.

  “What’s the point? I’m not wanted here. All my work was for nothing.”

  “There’ll be no one to take over this farm. I’ll sell it. I’ll sel
l it all.”

  I feel guilty at hearing this, but it was not me who abandoned the place.

  “If he said sorry, I would help him.”

  “Your father never says sorry, and he never admits he was wrong.”

  “Then I can’t help him.”

  “I’ve no one to carry on this. What was it all for?” she laments.

  She leaves the house and returns to work.

  The lambing is not going well. Mother has had to take over the night shift.

  Intercession

  It has been ten days, and I have taken other work through my friend Andrew. I did not tell him of the fight, only that I needed work. In the evenings now, I spend my time in my room and eat separately from Da. He has lost several lambs. He is still unwilling to ask for my help, and I shall not give it, for I have been too deeply hurt.

  On Tuesday evening, I saw him with a knife in his hand; he had to cut the head off a lamb stuck in labor. Partly I lament for him and partly I think it serves him right. Let him realize what I have been doing on the farm.

  The bales are running low and I can hear the cows roaring with hunger most days now. A calf is very sick with pneumonia and Da has begun to stomach-tube him fluids to keep him alive. He is too ill to suckle. He may well die. I miss them. I miss my animals, and I don’t like to think of them suffering because of this human quarrel. The rain is still coming. The nights are wearing on Mother. Someone must give.

  “You have a kind heart, John. You’re forgiving,” she says.

  “There’s some things I can’t forgive. Even our Lord lost his patience once.”

  I think of Jesus then, of the Saint Francis painting hanging in the shed, of the Brigid’s cross I have woven, of the litany of divinity around this yard and house, pagan and Christian, and I reflect.

  “These are just cattle rows, John. Every father and son has them,” she tells me.

  I nod, for she is right: it is the way of farming and has been for centuries. But I am still sore and hurting.

  John McGahern wrote about the trouble he had with his father. I once heard McGahern refer to him as mercurial, and he told how they had come to blows and never spoke again. I know that Da and I too could have come to blows, and that everything then would have been ruined beyond repair.

  I wonder now, do the cows notice my absence? I do not know. Do cows think of their masters? I cannot say. Perhaps they shall hold a meeting for me, like Orwell’s Animal Farm, calling out in the animal tongues for my return.

  Writing

  It happened when I had given up hope. It happened in a dark loft, amongst the insulation and the sweat. My work is to be included in a literary magazine, and already a publisher has made inquiries about publishing my book. I wiped the dirt from my hands and face and read the email once more. When the day’s work was done and the cash in my hand, I told Mother.

  “That’s great,” she said. “It’s finally starting to fall into place.”

  “It is,” I said.

  I did not tell him. How could I?

  When the photographer came to take my picture for the literary journal, Da insisted I not take him to see the yard. Those were the first words he had spoken to me in nearly two weeks.

  The bales are all but gone now. Mother has asked me to get some more and I agreed. Whatever our differences, the animals should not be made to suffer. I drove to Clonfin one of the days and gave the cattle their food. I did this not for him, nor to ease his workload, but out of habit and to see the animals once more.

  The new bull has arrived. He is young and strong, snow white with a splash of darkness around his head. I am not decided on the animal yet. His head is different: he is a Charolais, yes, but he has a different look from the old bulls. He seems to have a temper. A wicked bull is of no use on a farm, but perhaps he is afraid and getting to know his new home. These things take time.

  He took the old bull to the mart. Mam tells me he got a decent price for him.

  The launch of the literary magazine is to take place in Galway, and my friend Duncan is coming from London to go with me. It has been many months since we have seen one another. We are to take a trip down the coast afterwards. It will be a break, a break from here. And at last I shall see the ocean again.

  “Why don’t you invite your father to the launch, John?” Mam asks.

  “I don’t want him there.”

  “Are you embarrassed of him?” she asks.

  “No, it’s not that. What would we say to one another?”

  “I don’t know,” she admits.

  I am finally starting to be a writer and this is what I have always wanted. And yet, am I a farmer? The sight of the animals now hurts me, for only they know the work I have put into them and the emotions I have been through. The farm, the scene of my victories and defeats, has come to feel like taboo ground. I am not sure if I belong there anymore, if I have any stake in its sheds and fields, its sheep and cows.

  Duncan

  The weather is improving. There are still four bales left, and instead of buying more, he has decided to release all the cattle to the fields. He did not ask for my help. The rain has stopped but the fields are still wet; the cows will find grass but they will destroy the ground in the process. Another week or two inside would do no harm, for we still cannot be sure what way this weather will go.

  I have returned to the yard, in a way. We do not work side by side, but rather I carry out my own jobs with the sheep, with the cows. I have cleared the scrap metal and rubbish that has littered the place from the winter. The calf with pneumonia was still sick. He had lost patches of hair and his tongue hung limply from his mouth and I thought he might die. I helped stomach-tube him, but we did not talk while doing it. I felt for the animal, for I knew that we would have to stop tube-feeding him soon or we would scar his throat and weaken his sucking muscles. There is only so much medicine can do and then nature must take over. By the fifth day, he drank from his mother. I do all this now not for Da but for Mother, for I know the stress has grown too great for her. It is not fair on her, being in the middle of all this.

  The day of the launch has arrived, and I am suited and cleaned and Mam has lent me her car for the drive to Galway. In the mirror, I look every inch the writer in my suit and glasses, but I do not feel it. I feel this is all pretend. I am only an actor, a farmer on his day off, a farmer without a farm.

  The west of Ireland is a beautiful place. The woodland hedges of the midlands give way to stone wall country and cows are replaced by horses, for this is the homeland of our horses. The soil in the west is poor, but it is here that our culture survived the most. It was here too that Oliver Cromwell supposedly drove the conquered Irish after the wars of religion and genocide in the mid-1600s. It was he who forced over fifty thousand defeated Irish into indentured servitude in the Caribbean. The Irish have remembered this as an act of slavery. There are Afro-Caribbean people in Barbados and Monserrat today with red hair and Irish names. They are our lost tribe, our lost county.

  “G’day, mate,” Duncan says as I park the car in the city and we hug. We have not seen each other in over two years. I met Duncan in Australia, and he has been a good friend and confidant ever since. He too is a writer, though once he was a trainee doctor. His Australian accent seems stronger now, amidst a sea of Irish voices.

  “You all ready for the launch?” he asks.

  “Ready as I’ll ever be,” I say.

  “Did your folks not come down?”

  “No, they’re busy,” I say, and do not go into the matter.

  The night is a success. I am introduced as the farmer-writer. I speak and am spoken to and I wonder if I will spend my life in these literary circles. Patrick Kavanagh, the poet, left his farm so that he could become a man of letters; Seamus Heaney left his beloved Derry farmhouse; even Henry David Thoreau’s Walden ended. I buy Duncan a pint and we decide that we shall leave the city in the morning and head south to the Burren. The weather is with us and the day is promised fine.
/>   “A few days from the farm will do you good, mate,” he says.

  I nod and agree.

  The Sea

  I have so missed the sea. We drive our small car south from Galway city, towards County Clare. The road hugs the coastline and soon we enter the lunar landscape of the Burren. It is grey and rocky and unlike anything I have ever seen. Billy Joel plays on the radio and we sing along.

  Duncan is a keen runner and we agree to find a place to stop and lace up our shoes. By the village of Fanore we park. The sun is setting and, though I am tired, we begin. The country roads are quiet and the evening is beautiful. In our T-shirts and running tights we look every inch the Yankee tourists.

  It is the fourth or fifth kilometer before Duncan begins to talk.

  “How are things at home, John?”

  “Ah, they’re OK . . . There was a big fight,” I confess, and unfurl the details of the row.

  “I thought so. You seemed a bit dull.”

  “It was a lot to take in.”

  “Well, you’ll be out of there soon.”

  It was then that we passed the cows. The herd peered over a stone wall, looking at us curiously.

  “There’s a red Limousin,” I say, and point out the beast. “They’re fiery but bring an easy calf. And there’s a Belgian Blue, they’ve got good, lean meat.”

  The cows moo and peer at us and I continue to name all the breeds and explain their qualities to Duncan.

  “You know, it really is beautiful here,” says Duncan.

  “It’s not such a bad place at all,” I agree.

  “When do you think you’ll go back to Australia?” Duncan asks.

  “You know, I’m not sure. I’ve come to enjoy the farm.”