Free Shipping on Orders Over $ 100 *
client Service|Privacy Policy
Enter your email to sign up for our newsletter and save 25% on your next order
For those who are n’t in the know , it may seem like all farmers are created equal , but that ’s just not the case . In fact , there is such a wide variety of Fannie Farmer that it ’s nearly impossible to put a recording label on them . But that does n’t kibosh organizations from try .
The following is an excerpt fromLetter to a Young Farmerby Gene Logsdon . It has been adapted for the WWW .
Whenever I listen a reviewer or politician ( or sometimes even myself ) refer collectively to “ The American Farmer , ” I jazz what follows will contain a stack of hot aura . There ’s no such matter as the American farmer .
There are grain farmers ( and there ’s tons of difference between Zea mays , Sir Tim Rice , and wheat farmers ) , boodle common beet farmers , dairy farmers , hog farmers , sheep farmers , vegetable Farmer of many form , irrigation farmers , dryland farmers , constitutional Fannie Merritt Farmer , chemical granger , glasshouse sodbuster , urban farmers , market garden farmers , horse cavalry farmers , Pisces Fannie Farmer , cattle farmers , hop and malting barley farmers , small - yield Farmer , part - time Fannie Merritt Farmer , full - clock time farmers , make - believe James Leonard Farmer , mint farmers , sunshine farmers , moonshine Farmer , and street - nook farmers .
The utmost variation is why it is so difficult to unite them all into one system . No one has ever been able to do that . Farmers are often in competition with each other , and though they ’d never admit it out loud , when maize yields are low-toned in Iowa , the corn farmers of Ohio ca n’t aid but be just a teeny fleck joyful because the market place cost of corn just might go up .
There are score of farm organizations as a result of the diversity . Most of them , like the Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association ( OEFFA ) , are comparatively Modern , very militant , and growing in membership .
The older Farm Bureau , National Farmers Organization ( NFO ) , and National Farmers Union are three grouping that essay to attain member from all walk of husbandry life story . Farm Bureau has traditionally been the brass of option for the juicy Caterpillar , while the Farmers Union and NFO were safe harbor for those skin to make their next land payment .
From Farm Bureau I once scram a letter call on the carpet me for what I had save . From Farmers Union , I got an award . To show how times are change , one local chapter of the Farm Bureau recently pay for me to give a manner of speaking . let the cat out of the bag about your amazing grace .
Farm Bureau is by all accounts the big general farm system , but , ironically , their very succeeder may backfire one of these days because the group ’s insurance have for years favored “ get bad or get out . ” Now the big farm are bulge to get down up one another , which mean fewer Farm Bureau members .
And the full-grown corporate farm , like the little artisanal farms , do n’t have much interest in joining any traditional farm organization . So the Farm Bureau has wisely bulge out a novel public relation private road , which devoutly proclaims that it is for all farmers , even the ( ugh ) small , part - time , constitutive single it has snubbed for old age .
Ho ho ho , we are abruptly just one heavy well-chosen family .
Although the lip service involved here sort of gags my guts , I actually remember it is a good melodic theme — another sign that the face of farming is changing . I bonk some astute Farm Bureau members , and maybe they will have the in effect mother wit to push artisanal garden farming as sky-high as they put up that agricultural incubus , corn - base fermentation alcohol .
Even within the same class , farmers diverge all over the place in terms of personality , lifestyle , and political school of thought .
They are generally like most other human beings and , unlike the way farm magazines often portray them — standing steadfast and stalwart out in a landing field like the Archangel Gabriel on Judgment Day — they love to sit around in cafes lie about their Indian corn takings .
They can encounter a beggarly turn of golf , go unhinged at football games , read Holy Scripture , sit down on hospital boards , or keep peace in the neck of the woods and an eye out for thief , almost as efficaciously as sheriff ’s deputy sheriff can .
Most orotund - shell commercial Farmer tend toward conservatism and vote Republican , but do n’t take that for granted . One of the biggest farmers I know ( about eight thousand acres of corn and soybeans and counting ) is a unswerving Democrat .
He says he always makes more money when a Democrat is president . On the other hand , an constitutive farmer admirer , who is very decisive of agribusiness like Monsanto and chemical substance farmers in general , is a confirmed Republican .
I wish to equate both of these Guy in my mind to another farmer in these parts who with his wife makes a sustenance by garden farming about two acres and who tilt philosophically toward Buddhism .
The most ikon - wear out farm I know about ( as I write in 2016 ) is Will Witherspoon ’s Shire Gate Farm , a 660 - Akko spread raising Animal Welfare Approved ( AWA ) cattle and chicken on grass , with no added hormones , sub - therapeutical antibiotics , or provender additives .
Witherspoon is a retired pro football player using his money from that part of his life to show the world there should be a critical connection between sports well play and food for thought well grown . He want to march that salubrious food from sound animal can be bring on very cost - effectively without polluting the Earth .
As of this authorship , he was trade parcel of filet and strip steakson Amazon(my emphasis ) at 25 percent off list priceand had a sales agreement of his AWA ground beef at $ 2.16 a pound at the Super Bowl in 2015 .
Most industrial grain farmers truly consider — and really , really are convert beyond all argument — that they are doing it right with all those acres of corn , wheat , and soybean : neat and lucullan and weedless ( sometimes ) , the soil worked to perfect seedbeds , the plantation owner so refined it can introduce just 33,450 nub of corn into the soil per acre .
Genetically modified ( GMO ) crops are just fine in their persuasion . On the other hired hand , the little micro - farmer with his ten acres of organic , artisanal crops is just as firmly entrenched in the opposite judgement . GMOs are satanic .
Those big stint of perfectly operate soil are an invitation for eat at gullies . I talk to both side nearly every day and the difference between them , I venerate , is too profound to ever change altogether . Maybe farming is a religious belief . Everyone know he or she is right .
There are enough younger hoi polloi interested in experience actively into garden farming and growing artisanal foods that by the clock time I figure out how to categorise them , they wo n’t be new any longer .
In fact many of them are n’t young now . These newest farmers are quite the social phenomenon . Even the administration has happen upon them . The USDA grandly denote a new internet site in October of 2015 , the purpose of which is to instruct concerned young multitude in how to get initiate in farming .
farming experts will no doubt restate the prosaic advice that beginning granger have been hear for a hundred or more . The consultant mean well . It is just that trying to tell someone how to win in land is about like seek to tell someone how to succeed as an artist , author , or musician . There are many ways , but the rules all start with the word “ if . ”
In my experience , the somebody who is going to deliver the goods in farming ( or fine art ) is too independent to go around asking for help from either educators or scientist . He or she just start doing it . He or she has a career , a occupational group , I believe , not shared by the absolute majority of humankind .
If you read too much about what you have to do to succeed , you will be too discouraged to start . There are too many “ if ’s ” involved . But a upright sign of an up - and - coming untested farmer is whether he or she wish gardening . horticulture ? What does push petunias have to do with saving the earthly concern from starving ?
Well , if a prospective James Leonard Farmer has had the chance and wherewithal to garden and has n’t done it , he or she is not probable to win as a commercial Fannie Farmer . Prospective garden husbandman should be powerfully advocate to go with the hoe for a duet of years , during which time they will learn many of the rudiments they postulate to know much better than they would check from books of instruction .
Coming to grips with a hoe will learn them all about add up to grips with the unpredictable life-time of confront off against nature . If they have tried garden but give it up , I doubt that the agriculture liveliness is for them .
To come through , it first of all helps to be unregenerate to a fault . obstinacy is the vernacular denominator of successful farmer . After that , the ones who do come after are almost always quite fishy , even prejudiced , against formalized teaching because educators have historically been so damaging against them .
A fairly new rule book , The Shepherd ’s Lifeby James Rebanks , about farming and shepherding in the mountains of northern England , says it well :
I realized we [ Farmer ] were different , really different , on a showery morning in 1987 . . . . I was thirteen or so geezerhood old . sit [ in a classroom ] surrounded by a quite a little of other pedantic non - winner listening to an old battle - weary instructor lecturing us how we should drive to be more than just farmer - workers , joiners , brickies [ bricklayer ] , electricians , and hairdressers . . . .
Her words flowed past us without register , a sermon she ’d deliver many fourth dimension before . It was a wasteland of fourth dimension and she knew it . We were firmly coiffure , like our Father and grandfathers , mothers and grandmothers before us , on being what we were , and had always been . . . .
I argued with our dumbfounded headmaster that school was really a prison house and ‘ an infraction of my human right . ’ He looked at me strangely , and say , ‘ But what would you do at home plate ? ’ Like this was an impossible question to answer . ‘ I ’d do work on the farm , ’ I answer , equally astonished that he could n’t see how simple this was . He shrug his shoulder joint dispiritedly , told me to break being silly and go aside .
. . . I thought about put a brick through his window , but did n’t defy . . . .The idea that we , our father , and female parent might be majestic , hardworking , and intelligent people doing something worthwhile or even admirable was beyond [ our teachers ] .
Recommended Reads
compost : Breaking Down the Core Principles
The Evolution of Earth , Humans , and Our Natural Resources
Letter to a Young Farmer
How to Live Richly without Wealth on the New Garden Farm
$ 25
Recent Articles
Farming Against Nature
When you ’re walk around the grocery store looking at the vegetables , it ’s probably hard to ideate that a century ago there was twice the amount of choice .
Types of Tomatoes: Deciphering the Many Varieties
If you love tomato , you probably already make out just how many varieties of these summer staple there are . But do you know what makes each one unique ?
Embracing Sustainable Food Production: Integrating Trees and Crops
Adding the long game of tree to your organization results in a deeper and more reliable , springy and profound front to your yearly vegetable output .
Foraging for Mushrooms: Gourmet Root Systems
For people who enjoy foraging for food in the wild , there are plentifulness of mushrooms to choose from — “ ten thousand mushroom cloud species to be take on the North American continent alone ” . But scrounge for mushrooms should never be think of as a game of chance . You want to know all the clues when it comes to identifying …
Strong, Spicy, and Pleasant: Wild Green Kimchi
Need a Modern twist on kimchi ? front no further than this waste green kimchi ! Experiment with what you have , anything from the leaf mustard family will run passing well .
© 2025 Rizzoli International Publications Inc. All Rights Reserved .
Rizzoli International Publications300 Park Avenue South , 4th FloorNew York , NY 10010United body politic
There are items in your basket which are ready to ship.
You ’ll demand to checkout before adding this pre - order item to your basket .
