EMASSCRAFT
2003 CRAFT Discussion #1 - Why Farm?

Dear CRAFT folks,

Webmaster Pete Z. suggested that I write up my notes on our discussion of the question “Why Farm?” following the first ‘03 CRAFT tour at Gateways farm last Wed. (-thanks again to the Hydes for their time and hospitality). I hope this summary with commentary is useful to those who missed the talk. Maybe it can also help all of us to use that discussion as a point of departure for the next 2 or 3 scheduled talks on “Why Farm?”. Also feel free to respond through email at the craft website. (or post feedback at the bottom of this page)

One good thing about writing this is I get another try at framing the discussion, to whit: The goal of this and subsequent talks is to deliberately put some effort into understanding why we’re involved in this alternative farming movement, since most CRAFT time otherwise tends to focus on how we do the farming. To explain why we might care about the “why”, I tried to connect the “why” with the “how” by pointing out that often on CRAFT tours there arise interesting (sometimes controversial) details of how things are being done that we all have an opinion about. It’s often the case that these opinions are only understandable or analyzable with reference to the “why” of our involvement in alternative agriculture. Our vision of , say, the role of tractors or synthetic fertilizers will depend on the goals we have for our own operations and for the larger movement our farms are a part of.

The obvious first thing to do if we’re interested in discovering and developing the “why” of our involvement in farming is to simply ask everyone why they’re doing it. So we did, and the subsequent go-around confirmed what was learned at a similar meeting in 2001: namely, that, contrary to this facilitator’s prejudices, most of us farm not as a rational response to the desire to achieve some set of measurable outcomes or goals, but because of the gratifying emotional aspects of the work itself. This may not be the end of the story, however, since it emerged in discussion that this intuitive meaningfulness of farmwork might arise out of peoples’ background awareness of a broader social and ecological context. For instance, one farmer indicated that her number one goal was to provide an experience for her CSA members. On further discussion, it seemed clear that enlightening these customers was itself important mainly because of her background notion that there is a need at this time in our society for the general public to be more acquainted with basic ecological realities.
There were other similar examples. Several farmers told variations of a “corporate refugee” story. They reported finding work in a corporate setting meaningless and alienating. Future dialogues might explore whether a perceived meaningfulness of farmwork is tied to some background judgments about broader social utility. Or we might discuss whether our personal solutions to the problem of alienation and oppression in hierarchical workplaces may have a connection to broader social forces.

So there were some glimpses of a constructive agenda when we explored people’s views a little deeper. Nevertheless, the dominant consensus that emerged was the participants’ sense that their work had some intrinsic value quite apart from any applied usefulness to broader social problems. Folks showed a strong intuitive conviction that their farmwork is justified and has value because it is among the biological preconditions for human existence. In hindsight, your facilitator is struck by how closely we echo the beliefs of our intellectual and geographical predecessors, the American Transcendentalists, in whose communities we still farm. Their reaction to an earlier industrial era was to conclude that alienating people from what we might now call their “ecological context” was a tragic and perhaps fatal spiritual impoverishment.
So we’re in good company, but your facilitator suspects that we ignore the pragmatic aspects of our work at our own peril. First of all, the explanation that one farms because one loves the work is unsatisfying because it fails to explain much. Why not have a ceremonial home garden to “reconnect with nature”, or a ceremonial houseplant? It also doesn’t explain much about how we farm. A love of farmwork might motivate me to double dig a biodynamic garden, but it could just as easily inspire me to enjoy discing 5000 acres of bt corn with 250 horsepower. Is it just a coincidence that our operations fall into a much narrower spectrum of the possible farm choices?
Even on a strictly personal level, the immediate gratification of farmwork doesn’t seem to explain the whole story. I suspect everyone at that meeting has at times done farmwork in spite of some of its less pleasant aspects. Even if my suspicions are wrong and we all currently perceive farmwork as uninterrupted bliss, I’m concerned that this might not suffice to motivate us for the long haul. The novelty of the aesthetic experiences wears off. To the physical pleasures of the job are added the inevitable pains of an aging body. The intellectual challenges may threaten to frustrate with their intractability (how can it be this weedy again?) We may discover that, in addition to the immediate satisfaction of doing the work, it’s an understanding of the role that this work plays in relation to the great issues of our time that sustains us in the long run.
And finally, on a community level, if we believe, for whatever reason, that our way(s) of farming deserves perpetuation and propagation, we need to be able to articulate the reasons why when we ask for help, whether we’re asking others to pay for their food or to preserve farmland. No matter how beautiful it feels to us to be small scale market gardeners, your neighbor and the rest of your community (town, state, region, nation, society) need to know what’s in it for them. For example, if I stood up and gave a passionate speech about my spiritual connection to riding horses, I might have received sympathy and encouragement from the generous and compassionate folks at our meeting, but I don’t think I would have convinced anyone to get together with me to start a movement to save and perpetuate the fox hunt as a cultural institution. Yet all of us, to different extents, are involved in a movement to change the way our culture grows food. Do we think that our ideas are more than an indulgence of a privileged aesthetic sense? If so, what are the reasons? It’s my hope that, having established that we all are motivated by the pleasure of what we do, we move on in subsequent dialogues to develop our understanding of “what’s in it for them”.

In the course of all this some intriguing particular issues arose, which could serve as focal points in future dialogues on the broader themes I’ve raised: “What is the fate of suburban open space – saved by heroic community effort or triaged in a strategic withdrawal to more affordable rural land?” “If the former, what are the models for its use: Non-profit or for profit? Social service models? (feed the hungry, educate the children, horticultural therapy)? Incubators for private farm enterprises a la Intervale of Burlington, VT? Family farms vs. “sharecroppers” or “transient” tenant farmers?”

Lastly, I want to suggest that fellow CRAFTers wishing to explore (or be reminded) how their work relates to the “great issues of our times” give a listen to a radio show which you can find at: http://world.law.harvard.edu/show5.html.

See you all at Wilson’s -C. Yoder
 

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