Growing big and successful is the American way, but at what cost. Something to me is lost in the translation here as the family farm, an icon in American history, is lost again to a corporate world of mass production, chemical over-kill, illegal workers, methane air pollution and soil depletion. But staying on the family farm is quickly becoming a lost way of life, as more and more young would-be farmers head for the cities and more profitable lifestyles. Only 7% of small farms acquire 100% of their income from the farm and more than half are ages 45-64, only 6% are under age 35.
What happened to the sense of 'the good life', where clean air and cool, fresh spring waters once abounded. Where families sat at the kitchen table together after a hard day at the job, a labor of blood, sweat and tears to keep the family farm afloat. Where the eldest son would take over the farm and the senior could enjoy the fruits of his labors from the rocker on the porch. Just how do we define this good life in these times...
I guess, it would be just to have more and more stuff. Why not just sustain what we have...our lives shouldn't be defined by how much and how many. We are destroying a planet and a culture because of our blind greed. Many of the larger family farms are being split into parcels and sold to would-be farmers, city-slickers wanting a piece of the good life and a dream and really, there is nothing wrong with this, at least it keeps it out of the hands of the corporations, but it has also torn away the very fabric of this country's heart, the folk that fed the country...the American farmer.
Our world is so overpopulated today, it's hard to imagine a world working together for the better of the all. With all the greed and corruption that abounds worldwide, will we ever find the good life again? But I believe we can, it just starts with one...then another...we can watch the growth in our lifetime, if we just sit a spell on the porch in our old rockin' chairs and visualize this growth...a peace and harmony for one and all in one world.
Please support The Homestead Family Farm, buy organic and buy local...be the cure.
