Apprenticeship Program

Article: The Occupation of Farming

by Kris Larson

Farming is an occupation that has a knack of choosing people. It’s a way of life that creeps up on you. Job counselors and college career counselors generally don’t invite youngsters or general job seekers to try out farming. It’s not even an occupation that is recognized as a way that an American would even earn a living.

It’s not surprising, then, that I never actually researched job opportunities in farming before jumping into it. I had only volunteered at a local small farm where I went to college and discovered that those 4 to 8 hours were the highlights of each week for me. Soon after graduation I knew that I had to try out farming full-time before any more “acceptable” careers were attempted. I don’t know exactly when I decided that, yes, I should and will be a farmer. It happened sometime during the apprenticeship with Bill and Debra last season. And then it all started sinking in.

It’s interesting how people react when you tell them you want to farm. My grandparents got out of farming several decades ago. My parents remember visiting their grandparents farms. My dad remembers his grandfather dying in his early 50’s with a body wrecked from a life of hard labor in farming. He wasn’t pleased to know that I was getting into what his parents got the family away from. His image of farming is not pretty. He’s not alone in having an unfavorable image of farming.

It’s been said that image is everything. Image is what generally drives our initial reactions to anything. Image rules the media. Political careers and big businesses thrive on image. Image gives us more information than we’d care to think. Image sways opinion and all too often guides our footsteps. The only hope is that the images we hold onto are correct.

Farming is as affected by image as any occupation. I didn’t have time to think about the image of the occupation I was choosing. However, I’ve been confronted by as many reactions to my decision as there are crops to grow, it seems. Many people see the country bumpkin’ waist deep in the cow poop. Others see the redneck with no better sense than to wallow in dirt. Some see the deep poverty that can plague farmers in the poorest regions of this country and the world. Others see the migrant laborer of the Central Valley who toils year in and year out in the chemical-drenched fields following whatever big harvest is happening.

And then there’s the Farm Channel. I was visiting a friend this winter with one of those new satellite TV systems that seems to have a channel for every possible interest, and sure enough, there’s a channel called The Farm Channel. I got excited at first, until I started watching it for a while. It wasn’t long before the farmers on TV were displayed living in total dependence on the whims of the commodities market and the research information coming from the nearby state university. The farmers on the Farm Channel seemed to always be shown sitting on a mighty big tractor in the middle of a mighty big field doing what the ag-scientist, the ag-company, and the ag-bureaucrat tell him to do. And usually he was left only to complain about some raw deal he got from one of them. And in his free time he seemed only to enjoy the occasional tractor pull event. That’s the image of the American farmer most people are getting, I guess.

Why is any of this important? Every year governments big and small establish farm and food policies. Every financial quarter the multinational food corporations cut their teeth into the global commodities networks and into the lives of working farmers the world around. Every week banks make decisions on farm loans. Every day each of us makes choices on food to buy and eat. The image we have of those who grow this food often determines the directions these decisions take and the shape of the world of food and taste around us.

Writers such as Wendell Berry and Gene Logsdon have long challenged the image of the idiot country farmer, arguing instead that it is the integration of urban and industrial practices into the countryside that has turned farmers into a cultural entity nearly indistinct from the monotonous drone that industrial ag has become. The image of the anonymous, under-educated, stubborn, culturally-backward bumpkin becomes self-fulfilling as government policies, corporate endeavors, and consumer indifference align into a reality of anonymous food and unidentifiable culture.

I make no statement on the image anyone should have when it comes to farmers, or any occupation, for that matter. All I ask is that you talk with your farmers. Get to know them, just as you would get to know anyone who serves you in your community. Let image fade while the real faces set in. The food you eat, taste, and become is too vital to give up of anonymity and generalization. False images hurt the image-holder as much as they do those who are imagined. Image is everything, but the world around us offers more than we can imagine.

* Kris Larson is a 2nd year staff - returning after completing the apprenticeship last year. He spent his winter touring the county by greyhound bus and train with his friend Ms. Weinkauf who is our 2nd coordinating staff member and apprentice from “way back.” Not only is he a talented writer and musician, but Kris is able to interpret Alex’ inner musings for human ears.