As a small family farmer in the South West of England I sometimes see the contracting out of land-work as a “cop out” of actually working on your own farm at a scale which is sensitive - It is rare now to see farms where they decide on a system for their land which can be run simply and efficiently with appropriately paid family labour and suitably sized machinery in a lower input - medium output system.
It seems to be a mixture of abstaining from responsibility by abjugating the self from the land & on the other hand being lured/pushed into the industrial machine like and lead model of farming by accountant perceived or actual financial necessity in their present model of farming.
A bit like citizenship that has to be attained to live in a country there is a sense that those young contracting tractor drivers have too little knowledge of what the machines they are ‘harnessed’ to are doing to the land, earth, soils, hedges / unique share of the ecosystem that they are working above & bizarrely against! They are the unknowing humans which/who are pressed into action by militaristic style management at a complete remove from the individual acres.
The siren call of time efficiency to do a narrowly parametered job means all else is thrown into the furnace.
I agree with Wendell Berry and yourself about some serious decentralisation. We have the individual units of our democracy which are to be voted over on the 2nd of May in the form of Wards which can help shift the direction of travel in small ways which can sometimes be the best ways.
Thanks Hadden for your well researched and thought out pieces.
It sure is complex Bruce, and the deeper one digs, the more complex the picture becomes!
These are really interesting thoughts about contracting. It is a topic I need to consider a lot more than I have, as I am aware that a sizeable proportion of the countries farmers use contracting.
But in the meantime, this paragraph you wrote is gold:
"A bit like citizenship that has to be attained to live in a country there is a sense that those young contracting tractor drivers have too little knowledge of what the machines they are ‘harnessed’ to are doing to the land, earth, soils, hedges / unique share of the ecosystem that they are working above & bizarrely against! They are the unknowing humans which/who are pressed into action by militaristic style management at a complete remove from the individual acres."
And thank you for taking the time to read and comment on what I wrote. I am always immensely grateful to farmers who read my thoughts. They are my favourite readers.
"All drains must end somewhere. These drains terminate in our large towns and cities"
I believe that wholeheartedly. I prefer the rural life. I believe it builds better people. I have always considered city life to be shitty life. The largest city I have lived in was Toledo, Ohio, truly a cesspool. The first generation of rural people who migrate to cities is mostly composed of decent, hard-working people, in contrast to those who have lived in cities for multiple generations. Of course, real populations are always composed of an assortment of people including the worst and the best, and everything in between. And, even within good families are often found as "black sheep."
But it seems like the worst are more fecund on a scale going downwards as the caliber ascends. And, that seems true of rural folks as well as city folk. But, crammed into cities, people tend to descend in caliber. Why that is, or even if it is, I have no clue. I just know that it seems that way to me. The split between U.S. urban and rural is eighty percent and twenty percent. I could not find the data on the split in prison population but my guess is that the percentage of prisoners by whether they were from urban or rural origins would be more like ninety-five and five. If anyone has those numbers I would like to know.
Could you clarify what you meant in #9 in the endnotes—specifically about the MAGA Wing of the Republicans in the USA being similar to the position Wendell Berry adopts? I don't think I understand what this is referring to exactly. Thanks!
Hi Taylor, what I meant by this is that me classing the MAGA wing as hard-right/populist is similar to the views of Wendell Berry, who from what I have read, classes MAGA republicans as fairly populist/hard-right. I was not implying that Berry is a MAGA republican (but I can see I was a bit clumsy with my words!) I have amended that footnote now.
It’s a real toughie Hadden!
As a small family farmer in the South West of England I sometimes see the contracting out of land-work as a “cop out” of actually working on your own farm at a scale which is sensitive - It is rare now to see farms where they decide on a system for their land which can be run simply and efficiently with appropriately paid family labour and suitably sized machinery in a lower input - medium output system.
It seems to be a mixture of abstaining from responsibility by abjugating the self from the land & on the other hand being lured/pushed into the industrial machine like and lead model of farming by accountant perceived or actual financial necessity in their present model of farming.
A bit like citizenship that has to be attained to live in a country there is a sense that those young contracting tractor drivers have too little knowledge of what the machines they are ‘harnessed’ to are doing to the land, earth, soils, hedges / unique share of the ecosystem that they are working above & bizarrely against! They are the unknowing humans which/who are pressed into action by militaristic style management at a complete remove from the individual acres.
The siren call of time efficiency to do a narrowly parametered job means all else is thrown into the furnace.
I agree with Wendell Berry and yourself about some serious decentralisation. We have the individual units of our democracy which are to be voted over on the 2nd of May in the form of Wards which can help shift the direction of travel in small ways which can sometimes be the best ways.
Thanks Hadden for your well researched and thought out pieces.
It sure is complex Bruce, and the deeper one digs, the more complex the picture becomes!
These are really interesting thoughts about contracting. It is a topic I need to consider a lot more than I have, as I am aware that a sizeable proportion of the countries farmers use contracting.
But in the meantime, this paragraph you wrote is gold:
"A bit like citizenship that has to be attained to live in a country there is a sense that those young contracting tractor drivers have too little knowledge of what the machines they are ‘harnessed’ to are doing to the land, earth, soils, hedges / unique share of the ecosystem that they are working above & bizarrely against! They are the unknowing humans which/who are pressed into action by militaristic style management at a complete remove from the individual acres."
And thank you for taking the time to read and comment on what I wrote. I am always immensely grateful to farmers who read my thoughts. They are my favourite readers.
"All drains must end somewhere. These drains terminate in our large towns and cities"
I believe that wholeheartedly. I prefer the rural life. I believe it builds better people. I have always considered city life to be shitty life. The largest city I have lived in was Toledo, Ohio, truly a cesspool. The first generation of rural people who migrate to cities is mostly composed of decent, hard-working people, in contrast to those who have lived in cities for multiple generations. Of course, real populations are always composed of an assortment of people including the worst and the best, and everything in between. And, even within good families are often found as "black sheep."
But it seems like the worst are more fecund on a scale going downwards as the caliber ascends. And, that seems true of rural folks as well as city folk. But, crammed into cities, people tend to descend in caliber. Why that is, or even if it is, I have no clue. I just know that it seems that way to me. The split between U.S. urban and rural is eighty percent and twenty percent. I could not find the data on the split in prison population but my guess is that the percentage of prisoners by whether they were from urban or rural origins would be more like ninety-five and five. If anyone has those numbers I would like to know.
This is a wonderful and needed writing, Hadden.
Could you clarify what you meant in #9 in the endnotes—specifically about the MAGA Wing of the Republicans in the USA being similar to the position Wendell Berry adopts? I don't think I understand what this is referring to exactly. Thanks!
Hi Taylor, what I meant by this is that me classing the MAGA wing as hard-right/populist is similar to the views of Wendell Berry, who from what I have read, classes MAGA republicans as fairly populist/hard-right. I was not implying that Berry is a MAGA republican (but I can see I was a bit clumsy with my words!) I have amended that footnote now.
Thanks Hadden! Ah, yep, this make sense. Appreciate it.