Dr. Farmer

I read this silly article, by which I mean, opinion in the Globe and Mail today. Margaret Wente was writing about her experience with new, upscale markets where she lives. She says that lots of young people have moved to the countryside to start farms, inspired by Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. She complains about organic farms being pricey and not being as productive as conventional farms, despite having no evidence to back up her claims. Anyway it's worth a read if only to laugh and read the comments.

She talks about highly educated young people starting these farms, often with PhDs and other post-grad degrees. In her words: "They are highly educated young people with three or four degrees who've gone back to the land to build a better life for themselves and the planet by growing food the sustainable way."

I think she is right, many people I know have gone to university before taking up farming (or better gardening because everyone should grow their own food) and should know better and get jobs as civil servants or in non-profit organizations and collect a generous salary. But we don't. It's not because we want to grow food the sustainable way (since there isn't really much sustainable about agriculture), it's because we know that humans are fucked. We have no connection to our food and don't even know the basics of how food is grown or foraged, seeds are saved, plants propagated and the rest of the equation. This wouldn't be such a problem if grocery stores lasted forever but they are expiring and if we're not careful we will too.

If you are really educated you'll see the world, energy flows and what is coming and know what you have to do. Unfortunately you spend thousands of dollars on your formal education before realizing that you should never have wasted your time doing it in the first place and gone wwoofing instead. So you find yourself with several letters after your name digging around in the dirt, and that's fine.

I guess in the end I wouldn't be me and I wouldn't be here without all the people and experiences along the way. But I'm glad I'm here, much like all those other people selling $5 bunches of organic carrots that Margaret Wente resents so much.

The real question is: do I really want to grow food for someone like her? The answer is no and for now she can keep sucking back her 50 cent pesticide carrots until cancer comes for her or the factories stop producing them, whatever comes first.