In an essay titled “The Trouble With Famers” (subtitle: “Where do they get off being so self-righteous?”), writer Morgan Meis vents about … well, it’s hard to figure out exactly what he’s venting about, but it involves his irritation with Michael Pollan stirring up a renewed and romantic view of farming and the idea that farms are better than cities.
What seems to have piqued the New York–dwelling Meis is a quote from farmer Joel Salatin in The Omnivore’s Dilemma: “Why do we have to have a New York City? What good is it?”
In response, Meis writes:
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.
Indeed, remarks DaveH over at Synthstuff, Meis is literally eating out of farmers’ hands. “[H]ey Morgan,” DaveH writes, “think about this for a little while. Where does your food come from?”
DaveH also, hilariously, corrects Meis’s spelling of Nietzsche.
The country/city divide is nothing new, of course, and Meis may even have a legitimate point about farmers being self-righteous. The quote he pulls from Joel Salatin sure does sound pompous and hippirific:
As a teepee dwelling, herb healing, home educating, people loving, compost building retail farmer, I represent the real answers, but real answers must be eradicated by those who seek to build their power and fortunes on a lie—the lie being that genetic integrity can be maintained when corporate scientists begin splicing DNA.
But Meis falls victim to an equally annoying stereotype. He’s a founding member of a famous art collective, the Flux Factory, and has a PhD in philosophy from the New School for Social Research. It’s so embarrassing when these artsy academics try to take on the hippie farmers. Can’t we all just get along?
Wow. Farmers have it difficult enough. Does this topic deserve attention? I am amazed that people seem determined to go after the little guy. Why?
What good is NY City?
Okay, let’s put this another way: what good has come from the fact that humans, unlike many (or even most) animals, do not have to spend the majority of their time and resources seeking out sustenance? How about things like political, educational and social institutions, literature, art, and science (including medicine and technology, without which modern farming wouldn’t be nearly as “romantic” as it is: even farmers who practice “sustainable,” “traditional” and “low-tech” farming are taking advantage of scientific research and technological advances that make farming much less back breaking than it was even fifty years ago). If every human had to spend as much time and energy in food-related activities as cows, we’d have the same level of civilization as cows.
Furthermore, if it weren’t for the wealth that cities generate, “retail” farmers wouldn’t be able to command the kinds of prices for their products that allow them to live relatively comfortable lives.
whoa. nobody elected joel salatin as “farmer’s ambassador to the city,” Ruth! the man rarely gets off his own land, unlike a lot of farmers who work closely with partners both urban and rural, growing, raising, moving food to our tables. farmers like science and art too, and it’s not right to categorize people who spend all their time producing food as being on the same level intellectually and culturally as their farm animals!
farming is still one of the hardest jobs there is, it’s one without vacations or days off, it’s physically gruelling and it takes enormous commitment and self-sacrifice. those of privilege who don’t have to worry about the source of their sustainence should support small farmers rather than letting rural economies and traditions die.
Soupkitten, that’s not what I said. What I said was that if *every* human spent their lives devoted to food production, there would be no “civilization” — “civilization” (using that term broadly to mean all the cultural, social and technological “artifacts” of humankind) requires that people have time to think and create and build things unrelated to their daily survival, and then “operate” those things.
I’m answering the question posited at the top: “Why do we have to have a New York City? What good is it?” The question annoyed me not because I think the speaker is any kind of “ambassador” but because it’s such a short-sighted, bigoted questions that if only one person thinks that, he needs to countered.
The function of cities is to act as “engines” of civilization: places where people can come together to share knowledge, skills and ideas to generate a critical mass necessary for “development.”
Farmers work hard — no doubt about it. And they’re obviously necessary. But cities are necessary, too, or, as I said, humans wouldn’t be much different from cows, who spend all their lives procuring food, eating and digesting. There’s more to life than producing and consuming food, and I for one am glad of it!