The Daily Grist:
“History celebrates the battlefields whereon we meet our death, but scorns to speak of the plowed fields whereby we thrive. It knows the names of the king’s bastards, but cannot tell us the origin of wheat. This is the way of human folly.” — Jean-Henri Fabre
Every one of us if totally dependent on our food supply but how many of us really think about how our food got to our table or what it took to get it there? For the most part we take it for granted. Food shows up in our supermarket and we buy it if we like it.
I was thinking about that as I watched the farmers prepare for their events in Turlock this past weekend. And was thinking about that last week as I planted something in our garden. We grow a few vegetables to supplement our diet with fresh produce but buy most of our food at the grocery store like everyone else. If we had to grow all our food by ourselves I can only imagine how much work that would take and I’m grateful that others can grow the food more efficiently and better.
Right now we have about fifteen percent of our population involved in food production but only 2% live on a farm. It’s hard work and dangerous work. Mechanized agribusiness farming has cut our number of family farms to about a third of it was in the 1930’s, when people needed to know farming for their very survival:
Oh he does the best he can, he’s a hard working man
By the sweat of his brow, by the hoe
All he really owns is time
In his pockets not a dime
He’s an old time farmer
Most of us have “real jobs” these days and the farm to us is a heavily romanticized place:
Just a village and a homestead on the farm
And a mother’s love to shield us from all herm
A mother’s love so true, a sweetheart who love you
A village and a homestead on the farm
Many bluegrass icons have cherished their connection the the farm. Bill Monroe grew up on a farm in Rosine, Kentucky. Clint Howard owned cattle till the day he died and Lester penned this for his classic Down the Road:
Now old man Flatt he owned the farm
From the hog lot to the barn
From the barn to the rail
He made his living carrying the mail
Carrying the mail might be a “real job”, like most of us us have these days. But I for one am grateful that there are still people out there producing our food. And I’m glad that we have had a little bit of rain this year in California, from where people depend on food more than anywhere else in America.
