The World is not Split into Good Farmers and Death Eaters
Hello Big Teammates—
Well, it’s gone. Farm (and Other F Words) is out of my hands, off to the copy editor and then on its way to print and to your mailboxes. After I sent it off for the final time on Wednesday, I thought I would feel relief, or at the least, catharsis. What I actually felt was a very strong desire to cry. As someone who’s published a lot of stuff in my life, from tweets and blogs to articles and live national news broadcasts, letting this book go for the final time was by far the most exposed I’ve ever felt shipping ideas that have my name on them. I guess that’s what happens when you pour your whole heart, years of your life, and most importantly, the stories of people you care about, into a Thing that then has to go and live in the world without having you there by its side to protect it and make sure it’s understood.
Someone once told me there’s exactly three steps to accomplishing any and everything hard in life.
1) Start.
2) Keep Going.
3) Finish.
The secret to this recipe is that 99% of the time, the part that trips people up isn’t the steps, it’s what comes in between: A question— when? When do I start? When do I finish? When do I keep going? And how do I know?
A friend of mine use to tell me this story of the very first time she was tall enough to use the tallest diving board at the city pool. Her big sister told her that it was scary up at the top, but her sister insisted that no matter what the other kids said, she should just wait until she was ready. So she went up to the top, walked out on the plank, and waited. She waited and waited. The kids behind her in line yelled and jeered. But she just waited, still as a stone. After a long time, after all the kids had given up on the diving board, she came back down the ladder and stomped over to her big sister.
“You said if I went up there and waited I’d get to be Ready,” she yelled, “I did everything you said, and I was just me the whole time!” The story played for a laugh, but it always felt deeper to me. Ready isn’t something we become, ready is just a word that describes the affirmative choice to start, to keep going, or to finish. In other words, it’s not something that comes to us, we go to it. The empty air in front of the diving board is never going to slide under your feet, you’ll be ready the moment you step into it.
The Good, The Bad, and The Farmers
I’ve got the feedback recently that, “it seems like you really *hate* farmers,” and I want to spend some time unpacking that.
This week, I came face-to-face with one of the uglier parts of the public farming world. Backstage at a virtual event with some good ag economist friends, we were chatting about a big (in fact, probably the biggest) farmer podcaster. The guy has a show on RFD-TV, the network I use to be a correspondent for, and the friend mentioned listening to five minutes of this guys’ podcast before it devolved, during a commercial no less, into a stomach churning discussion of “how hot” one of the network’s news anchors is. This tidbit was shared during a conversation about the fact that agriculture media is circling in the drain generally, with mass layoffs leading to an ever sinking level of quality, all while a middle-aged farmer dude-bro rakes in revenue objectifying one of the few female ag journalists still in the game.
At some point, the inevitable, it’s terrible, but what’ll you do about it? was uttered.
Y’all know me though, I’ve never heard a rhetorical question I didn’t have an answer for. In the moment, I had a shockingly chill response that I would now (l’esprit d’escalier-style) sum up with this cliche Star Wars line:
“That's how we're gonna win. Not fighting what we hate, saving what we love."
The thing is, as a young, smart, nearly indefatigable woman with a real “you’ll lose the argument but still enjoy it” vibe, *hate* is not really in my playbook. Sure, a person could clapback at an over-grown man-child with greasy hair and the “rough around the edges” persona of a guy who was not welcome in the boys locker room because he was too much of a creep, and who has since become emotionally, intellectually, or politically stunted at that point. But my gawd, what a waste of time. I’ll credit Dr. Sarah Taber for being the first person to point out, when I was just a wee freelancer first spreading my wings, that Debate Bros are a YUGE time suck, and when your time pays your rent, you’re actually making the problem worse when you give them attention.
So, no, my instinct upon hearing about this shitbird was not to rage at my friends or to vent my anger to the Internet. My instinct was to remind my friends (and myself) that there are great farmers out there, and that the best revenge I, as a part-time female ag journalist myself, could have on a guy with the power of a profitable platform and a society built around entrenching his wealth and lifestyle, is to throw every bit of my time and talent behind his competition, and make sure they win.
How do I do this? Well, I bring my A-Game to Sylvanaqua Farms i.e. my day job, where I get to work alongside Friend of the Big Team but notable Person Who Failed to Pre-Order the Book, Chris Newman (#shade 😆 ). And I couldn’t be more excited that I now also work with Amber Tamm too, who I met for the first time yesterday and can I just say, *fan girl swoon*. I have also worked recently with both Zack Smith, Iowa farmer and inventor of the inimitable ClusterCluck 5000, and Vaughn Davis of SchoolHouse Farms in Ohio/New Hampshire, who sells some pretty spectacular blue corn meal that makes a phenomenal blue corn bread (you can buy it now on this website). This doesn’t even begin to get into folx like Vermont dairywoman Abbie Corse, Oregon tenders Edith and Randy Woodley, or ranchers like Megan Brown and Cuyama Lamb in California, who are all doing some brave, thoughtful, and truly awe-some things in the spaces they occupy.
I’ll spare you any more name-dropping (but definitely give these folx a follow if you haven’t yet, they’re all treasures). Suffice it say, there are many good farmers out there. Farmers who are thinking about how to run businesses that serve their communities, working to make their organizations, industries, and regions more just, who are trying to create opportunities for people to find a place on the land where people, plants, animals, and ecosystems are treated with dignity.
I have learned and plan to continue to learn a lot from farmers. My parents were farmers. So no, I do not *hate* farmers. In fact, I love quite a few of them. And what’s more, I don’t know most farmers. The USDA believes there to be about 2 million in the US today (smart ag research guys Nathan Rosenberg and Bryce Stucki think that number might be 2x or so exaggerated). And even being a bit of a know it all, I wouldn’t claim to know enough about even 1 million farmers to be able to say uniformly that there are only A Few Good Farmers and are otherwise exclusively evil and deserve to be hated. People don’t work like that, and it doesn’t make sense to act like they do.
I do abhor when any person hurts others for profit though. And unfortunately, American farmers as a group have been legally allowed to do this very thing for a long time without consequences. Not only that, they’ve been actively encouraged and even paid to do it at times, either through farm programs and scientific research, lax environmental and labor regulations, an insanely generous tax code, or in this case, commercial sponsorship to be The Worst in public because, I guess, “it’s just a joke, lighten up” or “boys will be boys.”
Re: above, not all farmers act this way. When a farmer does hurt others for profit, however, I want to live in world where that action gets punished, not rewarded. Where people who do the most good find the most success, where people who strive to do better, get better, and where people who can’t or won’t, fail and fade away. The only way to get to that world, in my mind, is to start inhabiting it; to write about it, live it, and breath life into it. This less abusive alternative, in other words, becomes ready and real, when we decide, and start acting like, it is. And if not now, then when?
All in all— hating farmers, or anyone, really, would be a big ol’ waste of my time. I’ve written before about killing your enemies, and in my experience, the most powerful enemy poison in the world is empathy, caring, and love. In a sector dominated by alpha d-bags, the beta energy that makes people feel seen, heard, and cared about can be a potent tool. You’d think nurturing energy wouldn’t be so rare in a space like agriculture that is defined by nurturing activities… but alas. Here we are.
Letting love be my guide not only works better, it also feels better; whether I’m fighting for and lifting up my friends, making the stuff in my brain available to people who are interested, or helping build the kind of future where a farmer would not get paid to demean a female journalist in public, but would instead find himself shunned, de-funded, and finally, an afterthought in a story where he was so irrelevant, we couldn’t even remember his name.
Tell the Bees (to GTFO)
A few nights ago, my partner and I started watching Midsomer Murders. There was an interesting line in the first episode that prompted some digging.
Lucy Bellringer : Well, you have to tell the bees when somebody dies, otherwise they just clear off.
Lucy here is referring to the tradition of telling honeybee colonies of major events in the beekeepers life, including marriages, deaths, arrivals and departures, because failing to do so, according to some European mythologies, will cause them to die off or, as Lucy says, clear off. This quaint practice usually involves dressing the hive in black so that the bees can “go into mourning” and bringing the colony a piece of cake and a glass of wine from the wedding feast so that they can celebrate as well. According to Wikipedia, little is known about the origin of this custom, though it is thought to be related to the ancient Aegean notion that bees are able to cross between the natural world and the afterlife.
I had not heard of this tradition before, likely because its roots are European. Which makes sense, given that honeybees are also European non-natives in the Americas, and though they are helpful for farmers, their presence contributes to the decline of native bees and other pollinators who’s populations have dropped dramatically in recent years.
If you’re curious about decolonizing your pollinator knowledge, might I put in a plug for the Halictidae family which includes these gorgeous sweat bees?
Okay, I know that a bee that’s attracted to sweat doesn’t exactly sound like the #1 invite to the first summer BBQ, but remember that these beautiful beings are nocturnal or peri-nocturnal, and thus much less likely to bother you and yours during your sweatiest times of the day.
Native bee species are just the beginning of the American pollinator extravaganza. Hummingbirds, wasps, butterflies, and of course, the world’s most important mammalian pollinators, bats, are also common. If you’ve got some time to kill today, I’d highly recommend spending some time pondering the cuteness of bats (and also the danger!).
Last F(ew) Things
In case you didn’t know, you’re totally welcome to forward this email to anyone who you think might interested. Big Teams are by nature non-exclusive. The more the merrier! New folx can sign up here.
Apologies for the lack of #FarmArt this week. Scrambling to get the book finalized has made it hard to coordinate with the second round of artists, but you’re definitely in for something exciting next week.
Thanks to everyone who updated their name in the Acknowledgements, glad to have everyone on the roles. It’s an exciting part of the process for me— I can’t wait for it to be a kind of yearbook of everyone who’ll go on to remake the American Food System. One day I’ll be a little old lady, forcing the neighborhood kids to listen to stories about each one of you and how you once read my book and then went on to do amazing things. Don’t worry, I’ll split the credit with you 50/50. (or 70/30? We can negotiate). But no thanks to the 99% of everyone who didn’t add a fun nickname. Frankly, I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed.
I finished Bridgerton and was disappointed. That is all.
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Stay safe and well out there, friends. And remember, if you have questions, comments, concerns, or high quality gifs or memes (especially farm-related) you’d like to share, I’m right on the other end of this email.
Rock on,
Sarah