I’m the midst of reading What’s the Matter with Kansas? : How Conservatives Won the Heart of America
My experience and knowledge of farming is very limited.
My great-grandfather was a farmer for a short period of time until his serious partying undid him. According to family lore, he would stay up all night drinking and dancing. In the morning he would fall asleep behind the plow. The horse would drag him and the plow around the field creating spagetti-twirled furrows. Later, he moved to the city where he was a train engineer with the same drinking/sleeping issues. He would fall asleep while driving the train and roar through the stations without stopping. But other than great-grandfather’s ill-fated time in the Iowa fields, most of my ancestors were crowded into ethnic urban ghettoes.
I went to the local farm yesterday to pick up some lettuce and bananas. Yes, I bought bananas with the Dole stickers peeled off at a farm in New Jersey. There are a few designer farms around here, where the executives from the Mercedes corporate offices and the trophy wives go for the salad bars at lunch time. I stopped in for donuts for the kids and slightly better produce than at the Shop Rite.
I’m not sure what to do about the real farmers out in the Heartland. Protecting them from extinction does seem important. Not only for the environmental reasons, but because farming is good honest work that has a long tradition in this country.
On the other hand, a lot of careers and lifestyles are endangered. Pretty much ever career that I have been involved in. Academia. Journalism. Publishing. Just as would try to convince my kids not pursue careers in academia (For the love of God, kid, don’t go to graduate school!), perhaps we should just accept that the world has changed. No governmental policy can prevent another foreclosure on the family farm.
The only farms that have any future are in blue states where they can charge double for organic rhubarb and get $10 for a plate of greens.
Apt. 11d 