Is Farming Gardening?
To get the blog discussion rolling, let me pose a question to the farmers of Kansas and the rest of you.
One Japanese farmer I once spoke with compared his job farming to gardening, although he was a full-time farmer growing vegetables within Kyoto for sale to local residents mostly. I think he meant that he spent a great deal of energy tending his vegetables on his plot of land that was small, but nonetheless provided him with an income comparable to a “salary man,” or company employee. It seems to me that sort of farming is completly in contrast to the farming we observe in Kansas, driving by mile after mile of fields of soybeans or corn without even a farmer in sight! I am wondering if that contrast is a symptom of what is wrong with modern agriculture and that American farmers need to adopt a similar view as that Japanese farmer. Or is that just a naieve thought, given the great differences in the structure of agriculture for large American farms and the small urban farms of Japan.
I look forward to hearing your thoughts.
I admit that my view of farming derives from childhood visits to my grandparents’ farm in Kingman, Kansas. My grandfather came from a farming family; he eventually quit b/c it was no longer “fun” or profitable enough to warrant the physical hardships.
My grandmother’s parents and my mother, on the other hand, had a “garden” in which they grew vegetables. Later on, my mother switched to “gardening” with flowers and bushes/shrubs.
So, I suppose it depends on size, in my mind. And, yes, I usually think of men as being the “farmers” in the USA. In some Brazilian indigenous cultures, the women and men worked together on their “gardens” - which contained cultivated plants used for food. Women and men just had different roles.
Nowadays, my view of farming is changing, thanks to visits to Lawrence Farmers’ Market and my apprenticeships in Rolling Prairie Farmers Alliance and Vajra Farm. There are definitely more women farming and ranching than I ever knew; permaculture and other organic-style methods are influencing how people grow crops (edible, floral, etc.).
Keeping your question in mind, perhaps “garden” connotes a more intimate relationship with the plants one cultivates. That’s how it is for me.
And perhaps a change of perception would also change our expectations for farming itself - leading to a revolution in how the average person in the USA consumes and grows food.
Who knows? It’s worth a try.
I think the question might easily be turned around to “Is gardening farming? I suspect many Americans, when asked to conjure up a picture of a farm and a farmer, would think first of those miles and miles of soybeans and corn and a man on his tractor. Modern equipment and methods have allowed farmers to farm larger acreages with less labor, and as Dan mentions, produce more crop for less money.
If the produce farmer were American, I would suggest that he were calling himself a gardener because of societal views of farming and farmers, but I’m not this fits for the Japanese farmer. Perhaps he feels his little plot of land, however profitable, is not large enough for consideration as a farm? I’m curious to hear others’ thoughts.
Thanks for your thoughts Eric.
There are examples of high dollar sales, small garden/farms in urban areas. The economics seem to be against small-generically identified produce farms. They can compete on freshness or localness, but they have lots of inexpensive competition from the supermarkets.
They can set themselves apart through growing practices (organic, free range, etc.) or just build customer loyalty, but if there produce leaves their hand and travels far, it will become subject to commodity pricing.
Even large farms which have committed to commodity production, are perennially under pressure to produce more, cheaper, from larger acreages.
Five or six years ago, when we had several employees performing hand labor, we had discussions in the field about the fact that we were the only farm with visible employees working with their feet on the ground. We compared ourselves and tableau to Asian paintings with people toiling in the landscape. I recall there was a similar body of paintings in Europe also among the Dutch and Flemish.