It’s impossible to speak of American history without reference to the life of the farmer and the land. The experience shaped many generations. It formed the basis for the belief in freedom itself, the conviction that a family can provide for itself through hard work and defend its rights based on the little slice of physical land that the family controlled.
Read any of the writings of the Founding Fathers, and you find an unrelenting romanticization of life on the land. It rattles us a bit. We don’t really have agronomy anymore. We live in cities, type on laptops, play with digits, farm information, and our only connection with food is the grocery store and restaurant.
Reading Jefferson, then, makes one think: We don’t live on farms anymore, so all must be lost. That, of course, is untrue. His point is simply that the agrarian life provides a bulwark, not that you cannot have freedom if it gives way to other modes of living.
And the agrarian life did give way, for reasons both organically evolving but also through force, which is deeply regrettable. As the Industrial Revolution advanced, fewer and fewer people lived on farms. We moved to the cities. By 1920, it was pretty well done. Industry beat agriculture in its overall contribution to American productivity.
For most of my adult life, I made fun of people who had regrets about this. What’s wrong with corporate farming? It’s feeding the world and we would starve otherwise. We need big companies, huge machinery, oceans of pesticide and fertilizer, and consolidated supply chains. We simply cannot and should not go back.
I’ve come to change my mind, however, now that I’ve been so heavily exposed to a critique of industrial food and Big Agriculture. I see now that it is not entirely natural and normal that they would have replaced small farms.
Last year, I drove to the countryside, pulled over at a farmers’ market, and had a long conversation with the husband and wife who ran the farm and the meat and vegetable stand. They talked of their struggles with the weather, of course, and dealing with the exigencies of nature.
Mostly, they spoke of the artificial struggles they face. They are hit relentlessly with tax on land, taxes on production, taxes on profits, taxes on everything. There are regulations too. They are prevented from selling directly to stores. They face grueling restrictions on meat processing. The health inspectors drive them nuts. They face constraints on wages, hourly restrictions on labor, and wrangle with bureaucrats constantly.
Without all of this, they are certain that they could make a better go of it. They could compete with the big guys. After all, their products are healthier, more delicious, and just overall better. No question, they said, that they could compete and win on a fair playing field. As it stands, they barely survive.
I’ve come to appreciate that point of view. Imagine if we suddenly did have a free market in agriculture. No taxes, no regulations, no mandates, no restrictions. Anyone can raise food, process it, and sell it to whomever under any conditions. In other words, what if today we had the same system we had in the time of Jefferson and Washington?
We would see an absolute explosion in small farms. Everyone would be selling eggs. Produce would be everywhere and so would meat. We would learn not to depend on grocery stores and supercenters but our friends and neighbors. The idea of eating locally would not have to be preached by anyone; it would just become our daily routine again.
This is because everyone prefers local produce over industrially shipped and packaged corporate food. We only have the ubiquity of the latter due to subsidies, taxes, and other restrictions and interventions.
Could we still feed the world? It might be the wrong question. The real question is: Can the world feed itself? The answer is yes. How do we know? Because the human experience is a very long one, and we have the evidence. So long as governments leave people alone, humanity does indeed figure out a way to feed itself.
Maybe that point seems obvious when stated that way. But it was not so obvious to me when I thought we needed mega-corporations and every manner of potions and government plans to make it happen. Once I realized that I had believed a lie, I could never go back. Now, I’m all in with the movements that push regenerative farming, condemn chemicals in food, and eschew processed food, which is likely poisoning us all.
When you travel to foreign countries where the agricultural life is still relatively localized—I include fishing in this category—we find much healthier food and better habits of eating overall. We also find healthier people. I’m speaking of Japan, Korea, Portugal, Chile, and European countries too.
I’m not alone in observing that when I travel to Israel or Spain or Brazil, I can eat like a horse and not gain weight. Why is this? Many people have reported the same.
There is clearly something wrong with the American food supply. I have immigrant friends—Vietnamese, Pakistani, Greek—who simply will not eat American food. They don’t trust it. They set up and shop in their own stores with imported products and products made by their own chefs and butchers and farmers they know. Their customers depend on them. They are healthier people overall than the typical American mall dweller.
Something has to change. It could and may. We could deregulate, stop taxing the heck out of farmers, open up markets, make raising local produce and meat easier, or at least stop punishing it. If we took these simple steps, we might indeed see the flourishing of small farmers again.
Why should we not bring the innovative spirit we use in technology to the world of food production too? We simply do not. Instead, all government systems of agriculture pretend as if we found the right answers in the early 1970s and will never change. Actually, much needs to change. We don’t need to subsidize grains forever and stick the surplus in everything we eat. We can embrace healthier alternatives.
Thomas Jefferson said: “Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens. They are the most vigorous, the most independent, the most virtuous, and they are tied to their country and wedded to its liberty and interests by the most lasting bonds.”
I used to dismiss such thoughts. No more. Maybe he was right. Nor am I willing to give up on agronomy as the foundation of the American way of life. Maybe it can make a return, if only governments would get out of the way.
