Farmland is not valuable to anyone but a farmer. Here's why that's flawed.
Farmland (noun): land used or suitable for farming. Merriam-Webster Dictionary.
I submit that the official definition of farmland is misleading. If farmland is accepted as simply ‘land for farming’, non-farmers, naturally, needn’t concern themselves with it. Changing the definition has profound effects on the value of terrain proximate to our homes: Farmland is FOOD.
Connect the dots: everything we eat is traced back to farmed fields. We are what we eat. More specifically, we are what our food eats, whether that’s a cow or a carrot. The methods we employ to feed our food affect soil abundance, richness, and quality. Thus, the landscape is a reflection of people who inhabit it, and vice versa. Eating habits, societal priorities, and lifestyles are physically imprinted on the terrain in the form of farms.
Most cultivated ground shows signs of neglect. The imprint left by comfortable modern living is one of littered fast food wrappers, brush infested woodlots, and cornfields. How is it that the pursuit of high living standards led to degradation of our surroundings?
Packing and shipping technology broke a vital connection between town citizens and the terrain surrounding their community. Food growing and processing has been removed from our neighborhoods and centralized somewhere else. Our bodies are physically tied via food to a landscape we may never set eyes on. That’s not healthy, mentally or physically.
Consequences of this reality are two-fold.
First, we’re never certain what our diets are doing to the landscape or what the landscape is doing to our diet. Nobody can verify label claims because the claim takes place somewhere else. Trivial assurances allow for misperceptions to become consumers’ reality. People are shocked when a food atrocity makes the news because most consumers believe the problem is being handled thanks largely to information gathered from label claims. Friends, if you can’t go and see it, it will be corrupted.
Second, the land surrounding our hometown is trivialized. Land used simply for recreation has been robbed of its inherent value to humanity. It’s like reworking a pacemaker to power a model train layout: the unit transforms from a life-sustaining miracle to an entertaining novelty that’s ultimately disposable when the fun wears off.
The closer humanity moves to the point of origin for their food, the more our proximate landscape will improve because people will be able to see value in the property. Good stewardship is a byproduct of community support for good farmers and the land they tend. Communities need an anchor in the midst of global turmoil, and there isn’t a better way to get grounded than to connect with physical acres.
On our farm, we’re working to create a sense of place for customers. Commuters regularly drive past their next meal and can see what is happening in the fields throughout the seasons. When families source food from a specific, proximate location like our farm it reinvigorates a healthy dependence on the soil: that soil is providing their life.
Guests visit the farm to connect with the soil that provides their food.
Therefore, it seems only natural that our focus is not on simply ‘selling more meat’ in order to achieve what might be considered ‘success’. Instead, our daily interactions with the landscape are more abstract: we want to make our acres taste good. Good flavor is a result of rich mineral content and abundant biological activity, both associated with a thriving, fecund landscape. We can grow the best food on Earth by nurturing our soils back to health.
Given opportunity to experience this revelation, people unite with farmland on a soul level that’s inescapable. Our farm goals become customer food goals. Everything becomes valuable: water, vegetation, biology, diversity, timber, wildlife, crops. It’s humbling to acknowledge our mutual dependence on the land, and to see it, and feel it, and experience the connection so long lost in the aisle of a grocery store. Humility is a powerful tool that unites people on a mission that is achievable, measurable, and life changing.
Farmland is not simply land suitable for farming. It’s your sustenance. It’s your children’s sustenance, and their children’s sustenance. Farmland is our most valuable asset that spans generations, and it has the power to create an unbreakable matrix of people who live in a beautiful, rich region unique to everyone who inhabits it.
Eat close to home. See the results of your meals. Experience life from the landscape you live in. Unite with neighbors who share similar food goals. Revitalize your local economy from the ground up, and the results will be a healthy landscape creating healthy people who relentlessly work to maintain a healthy landscape, thus completing the circle.