Today at The Farmer and the Cook, an all-organic farm-cafe and market, I answered the accusations of an irate citizen of Ojai. She was a kind and determined woman, sure of her battle and sure of her target; she wanted to know why Steve (the farmer who is my husband) poisons mothers and children, when he uses bacillus thurengensis on our farm. I was chopped up and then lumped in with Richard Nixon, Monsanto and all injustices before and after.

She might be right. Sometimes running a small, all-organic market and café turns me into more of an ogre than a peacenik. Try forcing a sixteen year old to be cheerful. Explain to a non-English speaking cook why people eat tofu. Try figuring out which of my 22 employees keeps on stealing the start-up cash. Try telling all of the flies in the Ojai valley to stay near the compost buckets and please not to come into the store.

The Ventura County agricultural commissioner is spraying our neighborhood with a bacteria, called bacillus thurengensis (BT) in an attempt to eradicate gypsy moth larvae. Steve has stood up in favor of this action; because BT is in fact, allowed within the definition of “certified organic”. We are farmers. We grow food. We sell food. I am wife. I cook. This is what we do.

What I have learned during the 9 years I have been living with a farmer is that in order for people to eat; a farmer must do battle with gofers, deer, weeds, aphids, fungi, erosion, caterpillars, cold weather, hot weather, too much rain, not enough rain and that is just the beginning. I have watched the farmer I live with walk away from hundreds of dollars of crops when one of the above has gotten the upper hand.

This is not an argument for using DDT or atrazine but it is not argument for doing nothing at all in the tug of war between pest and crop. Steve toils and troubles, he makes a small income so as not to have to come indoors and he is not knowingly poisoning mothers, children, teenagers or men.

Last night we thought seriously about selling the store.