September 07, 2007
Where do farmers get off being so self-righteous?
Our own Morgan Meis in The Smart Set:
Michael Pollan's bestseller, The Omnivore's Dilemma, has gotten people all riled up about farmers again. The last time this happened was when the first Farm Aid concerts reminded America that we have strong feelings about the family farm and its economic viability. The new round of farmer feelings is more directly related to issues of trade and the impact of globalization. As Pollan writes:
"I’m thinking of the sense of security that comes from knowing your community, or country, can feed itself; the beauty of an agricultural landscape; the outlook and kinds of local knowledge the presence of farmers brings to a community; the satisfactions of buying food from a farmer you know rather than the supermarket; the locally inflected flavor of a raw-milk cheese or honey. All those things—all those pastoral values—free trade proposes to sacrifice in the name of efficiency and economic growth."
My general feeling about farmers is that they can go fuck themselves. Perhaps this is strong. But farmers also come on strong in their own sort of farmer way. They take a homespun approach but they often wrap themselves up in a hell of a lot of self-righteousness. It all has to do with the land, I suppose, the importance and simplicity of the land. Americans love the simple even if we've been destroying it for generations. A few pithy sayings and we’re eating out of their hands. The farmers.
More here.
Posted by Abbas Raza at 04:54 PM | Permalink
Comments
I'm a bit puzzled by this piece, why Mr Meis are you so put off by self-righteous farmers? Surely they aren't nearly as self-righteous as most New Yorkers. Andy's dead but I'm sure you'll soon be able to take your one pill (made in China) and go about your business in New York happily out of sight of any farms.
Posted by: Presley Martin | Sep 7, 2007 6:20:36 PM
Farmers are by and large nothing but right-wing conservatives looking for socialistic govt handouts. there. And big city people ought not badmouth farmers till we get safe food from S. America and China. And writers are tired of badmouthing the suburbs (from the city) and so they have now turned to the farmer. I support the cattle ranchers and believe farmers should not put up barbed wire to fence off the open plains...back to huner gatherer life!
Posted by: fred lapides | Sep 7, 2007 7:33:47 PM
There is no food without farmers. They are not all right-wing conservatives looking for socialistic handouts. They are looking to get fair prices and not screwed over. The price of your bread does not reflect what the farmer receives or what labours they put into it.
Posted by: Karen Peters | Sep 7, 2007 8:18:47 PM
Actually there's probably not a sector of society that has participated so willingly in its own disempowerment as the American conventional farmer.
I found Michael Pollan's book a good look beneath the hood of our food system, and a useful corrective to the "supermarket pastoral."
So Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms isn't the best prose stylist in the world (comparing him to EB White is a bit like comparing Emily Dickinson to the label on a bottle of Dr. Bronner's soap. Both are entertaining in their own way.)
What Joel Salatin knows how to do, apparently, is take a rundown, eroded farm, make a living out of it with no government handouts, using basically chickenfeed as the only purchased input.
As far as farmers and handouts,
I benefited personally from the system of price supports that existed from the New Deal to the Earl Butz era: the wonderfully named "Ever-Normal Granary." My grandpa took the windfall profits he made by keeping back his soybean crop during a glut year and selling it the next when prices were high, and distributed it to his grandkids. My 1/16 share paid a year of living expenses at college. Then Earl Butz re-arranged agricultural subsidies to keep commodity prices low, to the benefit of agribiz and the processed food industry and the detriment of the small farmer. If you ever drive past the rows of corn in flyover country, know that most of it is pre-sold to the elevator, at a pre-determined low price, and most of it will go to producing the kind of highly processed, calorically dense food that is making us sick.
Posted by: Vicki Baker | Sep 7, 2007 9:00:06 PM
"Pull down your pyramids /
the earth is for the living."
One of the more unforeseen and unfortunate
consequences of the past decade or two of romantic obsession with the American farmer has been the unnecessary (and unfortunate) prolonging of John Mellencamp's career; (a career, from the start, more mysterious than crib-death.)
... and the Belle of Amherst, despite her prodigious OCD output, never quite achieved the stylistic (let alone the grammatical) grace of the average copywriter.
In other words, I enjoyed the tone and attitude of your piece.
Posted by: marc page | Sep 7, 2007 9:57:55 PM
"Pull down your pyramids /
the earth is for the living."
One of the more unforeseen and unfortunate
consequences of the past decade or two of romantic obsession with the American farmer has been the unnecessary (and unfortunate) prolonging of John Mellencamp's career; (a career, from the start, more mysterious than crib-death.)
... and the Belle of Amherst, despite her prodigious OCD output, never quite achieved the stylistic (let alone the grammatical) grace of the average copywriter.
In other words, I enjoyed the tone and attitude of your piece.
Posted by: marc page | Sep 7, 2007 9:59:37 PM
Oops. (Or is it 'whoops'?)
Well, nothing like writing something not worth writing once twice.
Posted by: marc page | Sep 7, 2007 10:02:21 PM
As Peter Kropotkin long ago said, "People think they know so much. They don't even know where their food comes from."
One might think it prudent to hedge the bet when it comes to food. Morgan Meis will have none of that, yet has not demonstrated any knowledge of food. Obviously, it is only from ignorance anyone can say, "My general feeling about farmers is that they can go fuck themselves."
Posted by: John Bunting | Sep 7, 2007 10:39:37 PM
Dear John,
Why, exactly, does it matter from where your food comes? I personally couldn't care less where it comes from so long as it nourishes me, it tastes good and doesn't kill me.
Why do you care so much about the place of origin of your food, and not about, say, the place of origin of your computer, phone, or dildo.
This infantile obsession with farming is bad for everyone in the world except big farm business. The consumers in rich countries have to pay more for their food than it's price if it was imported freely from other countries, and they pay a ton of taxes that go to keep farmers filthy rich in unearned money. Farmers in poor countries continue to be poor because they can't sell to rich country markets. Even small farmers eventually get fucked, as they get paid money to stay in jobs that are worthless and pretty harmful to soceity, and that will inevitably become obsolete, instead of being forced to compete like normal adults for a living they deserve and earn on the market. Instead, their subsidies not only keep them on the farm, but helps them raise generations of future farmers who will continue to be a burden supported by society.
In conclusion, I see no reason why we as a society should treat farmers in any way differently from dildo producers, waiters, cab drivers, doctors, or engineers. If any of these people's services are no longer needed, we do not hold concerts to give them money, or to keep their useless businesses open.
Posted by: Trippi | Sep 8, 2007 3:49:47 AM
Wow, I never knew that agriculture was a topic where people were so proud to be ignorant, and yet so willing to have strong opinions.
I guess like Trippi, most people have a vague idea that farmers get subsidies and also that farmers are boring or stupid or otherwise not worthy of notice. Well, we don't actually live in teletubby land, and there is no Noo-noo to dispense our treats and clean up our messes.
Since 1972, our ag policy has focused on keeping commodity prices artificially low with devastating consequences to the small farmer, the environment, and the health of our population. No one's getting filthy rich except Archer Daniels Midland and Monsanto.
The farmers that Pollan is talking about in the quoted passage, the ones that bring local produce to your farmers' market, are the least subsidized.
And yeah, you should probably care if dangerous strains of E. Coli are better able to survive in the human stomach because of the artificially low price of corn.
But thinking about where stuff comes from is hard. Let's go shopping!
Posted by: Vicki Baker | Sep 8, 2007 8:45:10 AM
Well Trippi, you seem to have a misplaced faith in bureaucrats and political jargon.
Less than 1% of imported food is inspected. Here's an example from August 2nd which was caught:
Meizhou Aquatic Products Quick-frozen Industry Co., Ltd.
SHANTOU , CN 515041 LOS-DO
16JGD05 FROZEN FLOUR DUSTED SHRIMP
The shrimp contained nitrofuran.
You should know that according to the GAO, since the government has no way to hold the items they detect as dangerous, the items almost always end up in the retail chain.
You seem also to be unfamiliar with oligopsony power. Most farm prices have fallen dramatically since the Reagan revolution. Subsidies have, at the same time,increased. In reality, the subsidies are passed through to the Cargils and ADMs of the world allowing them to purchase the raw product at less than cost.
I have not suggested farmers should be treated differently, although perhaps food is more important than the other activities you mention.
However,much of the food imported into the US was produced under oppressive and dangerous conditions for those actually doing the work.
It really should matter if eating is becoming an immoral act.
Posted by: John Bunting | Sep 8, 2007 8:53:51 AM
"My general feeling about farmers is that they can go fuck themselves."
Drop-dead dumbest non-Swiftian line I ever read. After the farmers go fuck themselves you're going to start buying your food from - ?
Posted by: pa kettle | Sep 8, 2007 9:23:30 AM
Farming is the profession of the future. That is, for the survivors, if there are any.
It would be a evolutionary anomaly if there were any.
99% of everything that has arisen is now extinct.
Posted by: Dave Ranning | Sep 9, 2007 1:59:41 PM
It seems to me global poverty might be somewhat alleviated if the developed world dropped local subsidies and import tariffs on agricultural goods. Local prices might very well end up lower for that, but would this not be the best definition of "fair price"?
Posted by: Sagredo | Sep 10, 2007 9:27:46 PM
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