Looks Like The New Agrarian Age Has Arrived
From GENE LOGSDON
Upper Sandusky, Ohio
I define “new agrarian age” as a society in which rural and urban lifestyles become indistinguishable. Roof top vegetable gardens in downtown Manhattan for instance. A more typical example is a landscape where urban agriculture and rural manufacturing exist side by side in harmony. I saw a photo recently of horses plowing a large garden plot with the Cleveland, Ohio, city skyline in the background. Some years ago I visited Paws Inc., where Jim Davis, the creator of the comic strip “Garfield” has his business headquartered. The location in rural Indiana (where Davis grew up), is so far out in the country that there was no suitable sewage system to handle the waste from his three big office buildings and fairly large number of workers. He had engineers design and build a greenhouse where plants, fish, and other aquatic animals flourished by feeding on the nutrients in the wastewater while purifying it before its return to natural waterways. Aquaculture and urban culture surely joined hands in that greenhouse. Silviculture too because Davis was also raising tree seedlings in the greenhouse to reforest wornout farm land in the area.
Last week I attended the annual conference of the Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association (OEFFA), spending the day signing and selling books and gabbing with people. Those of us who remember the early days of OEFFA were stunned and jubilant at the overflow crowd. So many people wanted to come to the conference in fact, that about 200 had to be turned away because of space limitations, Carol Goland, OEFFA’s executive director told me regretfully. I looked around the main exhibit hall (a highschool gymnasium) crammed with booths where all sorts of organic and natural farm supplies were being sold. I was remembering the early days, when, said Mike McLaughlin, a farmer and OEFFA official since the early days, “we thought that four exhibitors was a major achievement.”
It is difficult to make generalities about any group of humans, but I’d say that today’s OEFFA member is more sophisticated about the possibilities of the new ecological trends in agriculture. Back in the early days, I’d say that we were mostly angry and rebellious at being called radical just because we didn’t like what industrial agriculture was doing. Today’s OEFFA members are more assured about the way forward. They would rather figure than fight. If someone called them radical, they would merely be amused. They are convinced that the agribusiness methods of the past are so obviously unworkable that there is no need to fight anymore. Move on.
And they are moving on. There was something electric in the air. I could feel it. At meetings of industrial farmers these days, the talk is fairly bleak, but here, among new farmers and gardeners with a hundred new ways to produce food and sell it locally, the people just seemed to glow with optimism. I’ve been sitting at tables selling books it seems like forever. This time, buyers would approach me with victorious little smiles on their faces. Something about the way they would pick up a book and plop it down in front of me for signing while they got out their billfolds bespoke an exuberance that was full of quiet confidence. Sometimes a buyer would briskly pile three or four books up and say “How much?” An author’s dream. OEFFA itself had a long table of books for sale. I was told that on Saturday, the big day (I was there on Sunday), people stood three and four deep in front of that long table, buying books. A couple of attendees who stopped to buy a book from me were carrying— you’d never guess what. Brand new pitchforks they had also just purchased. When a farmer buys a new fork and a new book in the same breath, that’s new age agrarianism.
I could be wishful dreaming again. This could be just another spurt in the ancient back to the land idealism I’ve seen come and go twice in my lifetime. But maybe something more permanent is in the offing. Money farming is pricing itself out of the food market, and maybe government, which continues to prop up this kind of farming with artificial money, is being forced to realize that. As farmer and author Joel Salatin, the keynote speaker, symbolized to the world: ecological and organic farmers are here to stay and they are ready to take the helm.
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Thursday, March 4th, 2010 at 5:38 am
I grew up with OEFFA. I was born the year after the organization was formed and I was one of the kids in the day care while my parents attended conferences through the mid 80s. Recently I talked to a high school friend on Facebook about bees, about her looking forward to Salatin’s talk and about my being a bit envious of her current farm endeavours. The more the world changes… I’m a bit of a cynic so I expect the current cycle of enthusiasm to fade with time, but I do share your hope that this time around there will be a more lasting legacy.
March 4th, 2010 at 7:17 amAS an old back-to-the-lander from the 70s who ended up on a farm in Kentucky and then in a city, I see huge changes in both rural and urban KY. Up until about 5 years ago, the University of Kentucky didn’t acknowledge organic agriculture; in fact the official line was to pooh-pooh it. Now they have a agricultural sustainability major–now THAT’S positive change (KY is a very conservative state in all ways)! I have a beehive in my backyard, worms multiplying in my basement worm bin and eating my garbage, Lexington is talking about mandatory recycling (why can’t everyone understand that recycling is simple and necessary?) and our local food co-op just went through a major expansion and supports over 250 local farmers and producers. These kind of things were basically unthinkable even 5 years ago.
I’m slightly jaded; I realize that municipal recycling was initially driven by running out of landfill space and the poisons that seep from landfills, but city recycling is still happening all over. I hope that the momentum continues and that we can actually pass a more sustainably managed world to our great grandchildren.
And Gene, I’m glad for your post; I was wondering if the unthinkable had happened and you’d run out of words!
March 4th, 2010 at 8:04 amAnne H. I am laughing at your comment. The day I run out of words will be the day you want to head for cover because the world will be coming to an end…or I am. Gene
March 4th, 2010 at 10:39 amGene, you’ve seen “back to the land idealism… come and go twice in my lifetime.”
But I think this time is different, although based on the same reality.
In the ’70′s, major oil price shocks rippled through the economy. People who always assumed things would continue pretty much as they had got a dose of reality. Some of them did something about it; others (like myself) fretted and told ourselves we’d do something about it “someday.”
But then, Reagan convinced the Saudis to loosen up, and it was Morning In America, and thing pretty much went back to greed and growth.
Now, things are more like they used to be than they ever have been, and the recent energy shock is waking people up who have been sleeping for over two decades. Only this time, the Saudis can’t open the taps. So I think the current movement has traction, and will continue.
Perhaps this is what is driving the enthusiasm you see; the knowledge that this time it’s for real. We aren’t “playing farmer” this time. It’s going to be feed yourself, or die.
March 4th, 2010 at 11:28 amYou should write history, Jan. I hope you’re right. I like the old saying, “Root, hog, or die.”
March 5th, 2010 at 6:52 amI know I’m thinking it’s “for real” this time. My newly cleared and tilled 1000 s.f. “pancake patch” is just sprouting after being planted two weeks ago. We’ll see how it does. Maybe I’ll work my way up to a half acre eventually.
March 5th, 2010 at 8:37 pmGene,
I read your books in the 80′s as a kid, and just loved your writing style, so I am glad to stumble onto you again.
My family and I have been forced into the good life, with the recent collapse of my business, and this time I am following my passion. I have created a homestead beehive, http://www.beelanding.com that is much easier for the back yard beekeeper, and I’m wondering if you can point me in the right direction to market this product. Do you know of any trade shows that feature homestead and survival type products?
Thanks in advance, James
March 28th, 2010 at 5:58 amJames Zitting: I took a look at your website. I think what you should look at are truly local farmers markets where you will now see sometimes homestead products like yours. Also organizations devoted to local food and local markets and homesteading, like OEFFA,the one featured in this blog, have booths at their annual conventions selling products like yours. I don’t know how to find a listed source of such organizations and new kinds of farmers markets. I suppose finding one will lead to two more etc. Good luck. Gene Logsdon
March 29th, 2010 at 1:15 pm