The Hidden Farmer

The good all around us is the product of many unknown but faithful stewards

Photo by Carles Rabada on Unsplash

That there is wholesome food on your table and fertile soil in the fields, is half owing to the multitude of Good Farmers who have laboured with ceaseless motion from sunrise to late in their hidden fields, and who will come to rest in forgotten parish graves.¹

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The majority of our farmers are nameless, unthanked, unknown individuals — at least to those of us for whom the supermarket is where we purchase the fruits of their tireless labour. The farmers who supply these mega-stores may simply exist as a code on the corporate buyers’ spreadsheets — dehumanised by a corporate food system that loves to squeeze them out of existence². In this day and age, we may even remain ignorant of the very country from which our food originates; this information being hidden and obscured by a hyper-globalised food system, where geographically disparate food stuffs are aggregated into place-anonymous mass-tradable commodities. Our farmers, and their farms, are thus nameless to us and neglected by the food system. And rarely do we notice.

In previous eras, residents of a community would often have known of, and most probably would have known well, the farmers of their locality³. Besides the fact that many of these residents would have found their vocation as farmhands and labourers, the community members were dependent on their local farmers for a substantial portion of their daily sustenance and would have to interact with them (or their associates) to acquire what they need. It was local farm produce that predominantly lined the shelves in the local shops — the butchers, the greengrocers, the dairies, and the market — and it was local farmers who walked the road to the local church to sit in its pews and local farmers who gave their patronage to the post office, pub, and village store. Everywhere one turned, one was reminded of the local farmers who graced the community. All this meant that it was almost impossible to think of produce without also thinking of the grower. In such an environment, a spirit of gratefulness was fostered between the Good Farmer(s) and the local population — a fitting disposition for a relationship that concerns the provision of one’s daily bread⁴.

There still exist pockets of our society — often tucked away deep in rural hinterlands — where this first (and second) name familiarity persists. I had a first-hand experience of this earlier in the year when I was in one of my favourite parts of the UK, the Longsleddale valley in the heart of the Lake District. Outside of the award-winning (yes, really) public toilets in this remote valley, I started up a conversation with the lady whose turn it was on the rota for the upkeep of the “public facilities”. She was a resident of the valley and as I mentioned the family name of my aunt (who was kindly driving my wife and I around) a smile of recognition reflexively lit up this woman’s face. She knew my aunt’s extended family, who lived at the mouth of the valley, and ran over to see her. What followed was an impromptu ‘village grapevine’ session where news of the inhabitants of the valley was shared, old memories and stories recounted, and farmers and their histories were mentioned by name. Everyone in the valley — farmer and non-farmer — knew each other intimately. It was a delight and joy to witness — and it is heartening to know that this ancient habitus of name-knowing and communal affection is still alive and well in the 21st Century.

Long may it continue.

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It is not just in the rural hinterlands where farmers are known by their names. Even in the most surprising of places, a revival of naming is starting to blossom. For in the glistening halls of the corporate food regime, tentative efforts are underway to dignify (some of) our farmers. A positive development I have observed is that on some vegetable packaging in my local supermarket, the name of the grower is printed in small print on the front. It may only be a small victory (and may just be a marketing ploy), but it is a step I shall celebrate. It is a small gesture by which the corporate giant begins to dignify its suppliers. It is a mark of respect that implicitly says “This is who to thank for producing your food. Your food does not come from Tesco, Walmart, or Lidl — rather it comes from the soil on this named man or woman’s farm.”.

However, it is only on a select few packages that the name of the farmer is given. On most labels, the name of the corporation and its brand takes pride of place, while the name of the farmer is nowhere to be seen. And this does something to us. We may not be aware of the disposition that is effected in us but this anonymisation of the farmer, and this disconnect from grower and produce, removes the human connection from our food turns it into a mere fuel or commodity for our consumption rather than a gift to be received with thanks⁵. The food we grasp in our hands is the product of the farmer’s countless hours of care and attention coupled with the productive energies of sunlight and soil — but how often do we think of this? And how often do we give thanks? Probably rarely, if ever.

Failing to see the human behind the food we consume contributes to our unwillingness to pay a proper and fair price for the food we buy — which I have come to believe is one of the main impacts the anonymisation of our food system has on our food buying habits. When we do not see the face of the man or woman who has laboured by the sweat of their brow to produce the food we put on our tables, we are more inclined to justify paying prices that are exploitative and unfair. When we do not know the names of the farmers who surround us (or who live on other sides of the world) we are more likely to permit the food system to run them into the ground. It is hard to stare a man in the face and exploit him. It is much easier to let a system do this for us while it soothes our consciences with pretty pictures of smiling (nameless) farmers on packages and branding.

It doesn’t — and shouldn’t — have to be this way. By purchasing our food more locally, such as in farm shops and farmers markets, we make visible to ourselves once again, the good and earnest labour of our farmers. As we hand over our cash, we can smile directly in the face of the man or woman who has grown our food or who is representing the labour of the farmer back home. And we can give thanks. Personal thanks. Thanks by name.

Another positive habit may be instilled in us by knowing the names of our farmers. We are much less likely to waste that which we have given thanks for, that which we can put next to a smiling face, and that which we know has cost much time, energy, and care to produce. It would be an affront to the farmer we have just met to let their work — a year or more in the making — rot in the bin. We wouldn’t throw away a hand-carved tool or a homemade cake — neither should we throw away farm-produced food. I wonder, therefore, if the monumental amount of food wasted each year⁶ is partly a result of the rampant anonymity that characterises our food system, which has helped lessen the pain of throwing away food. A healthier, more sustainable food system may result if we committed to know our ‘hidden farmers’ by name. At least, this is what my pondering mind has come to believe.

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It is not only food that we have to thank our hidden farmers for. The landscapes we know and love — the landscapes of the rural idyll whose imagery was used to motivate troops fighting to protect these shores during the Battles of Britain and the D-Day landings — are the product of countless unnamed but faithful hands, who have shaped and formed, planted and carved, and nurtured and cultivated the land into a masterpiece — a gloriously intricate tapestry of nature, culture, and produce — that we can all enjoy.⁷ Each successive generation of farmers — some named, others unknown — has woven in their unique thread: planting an oak tree on the ridge, tending the hedgerow, digging a pond, or farming in communion with the multiplicity of life and thus leaving a legacy of rich biodiversity for the next generation to enjoy. James Rebanks, a Good Farmer himself, describes this very phenomenon in his book The Shepherd’s Life better than anyone:

“I smile at the thought that the entire history of our family has played out in the fields and the villages stretching away beneath that fell, between the Lake District and the Pennines, for at least six centuries and probably longer. We shaped this landscape, and we were shaped by it in turn. My people lived, worked and died down there for countless generations. It is what it is because of them and people like them.

It is, above all, a peopled landscape...”⁸

Our rural spaces are a peopled landscape indeed, and they should be populated by a multitude of Good and Faithful Farmers, whose names deserved to be known and remembered. If we were to lose our farmers — if the vision of the techno-futurists and eco modernists for a farmer-free future⁹ comes to pass — then we would become painfully aware of their absence. Good food would cease, traditions would die, and much beauty would be lost. We may not think to thank them, but all this, and much more, is thanks to our faithful, hidden farmers working from the early hours to sunset out in the fields and plains no matter what the weather throws at them. We owe them a debt of gratitude for labouring under the noon day sun for us so that we can put the fruit of their hands onto our tables. We owe them a debt of gratitude for the traditions and beauty they keep alive — even at great personal cost. And we owe them a debt of gratitude for the treasured landscapes they, and their forefathers, have shaped and cared for.

So, let us then give thanks for our Good and Hidden Farmers — and endeavour to remember them by name.

1. This is my deliberate play on the famous line from Middlemarch by George Eliot: “For the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.”

2. Wendell Berry, Farming and the Global Economy. Berry notes farmers sell their produce on under-inflated markets with prices squeezed to the bottom by supermarkets, and buy their inputs on over-inflated markets with prices set by the big agri-corporations.

3. Or would have at least had greater opportunity to do so.

4. This is not to say that the relationship was always idyllic — often the harsh realities of farming in the 1800-1940s were far from the somewhat utopian portrait I have presented here.

5. Wirzba, N. (2023) The Trouble With Sustainability. Sustainability 15, https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/2/1388

6. We waste up to a third of all food produced.

7. This is not to ignore the destruction that has been wrought by industrial farming on our landscapes, nor how greatly our rural lands have changed post-World War Two. I have written about this in these essays:

And The Fields Fall Silent

No Longer With the Eyes to See the Land

8. James Rebanks, The Shepherd’s Life. pg.3.

9. Either the replacement of farmers by robots (techno-futurists) or the removal of farms altogether (extreme wing of the eco-modernists).