In the years following World War II, farm families increasingly wanted a standard middle-class life. Probably the single most important agent promoting the new materialism was television. Starting in the 1950's TV and the kind of life it promoted helped bring down the traditional American farm culture.
To make money to pay for the TV set, clothes like the other kids wore, and all the other middle-class trappings, farmers adopted the pesticides that the chemical companies began to push at them after 1945. Up until that time, most agriculture except fruit growing was "Organic"; it had never been any different.
Probably the strongest current in agriculture in the late 1930's and early 1940's was an environmentally sound approact exemplified by Broomfield's Malabar Farm. In an almost unbelievably short time, that current died. Nothing was left but the chemical tidal wave.
The pesticides, herbicides, and synthetic fertilizers took over- produced by the chemical companies as substitutes for their wartime products. They are advertised heavily, and promoted by the Ag colleges who were, and are still, dependent on the chemical companies for funding.
A long and deadly cascade had begun. The chemically dependent farmer could obtain higher yields. Farmers continuing to farm in the old way could still grow crops, but they couldn't make a living, at least not a middle-class living, in competition with the chemically dependent farmers. They fell in line.
With less dependence on manpower, farmers could farm more land, and they needed to. They borrowed money to buy land. To farm that much land, they had to have to have a big tractor, so they borrowed more money.
There was no need anymore for a a tree in the middle of the field where a team of horses could rest in the shade while the farmer ate his lunch. The grasses, herbs, and shrubs in the fencerows, and the fencerows themselves, were expendable. They took up room that could be in corn and were an obstacle to the big tractor and the new big corn picker.
There were costs to these things- interests to be paid to the bank, and many others. Pest insects became more of a problem as their predators were poisoned and the habitats of the predators were demolished. Birds began to die from eating the animals that ate the plants coated with pesticides. Soils became less and less living systems and more and more just dirt that held the plants up while they absorbed the chemicals the farmer had to add every year.
The extension service told the farmer that it was inefficient to raise his own pigs or vegetables or to have a little orchard. He could use that land to plant more row crops. When you take your time into account, the experts told him, it's cheaper to buy chicken already cut up at the grocery store. Leave raising chickens to the specialists. There was no room anymore for a general purpose farm.
So the 1950's brought TV, pesticides, and government policies that pushed a switch from agriculture as a way of life to agriculture as a specialized business. Nothing has improved since.
"Adapt or Die" Earl Butz, Nixon's Secretary of Agriculture told the farmers, and they have adapted to many unnecessary and dangerous practices. Most recently, they've adapted to high priced genetically engineered seeds developed by the chemical companies, which are also the seed companies now. The seeds don't grow better soy beans, but they're immune to the effects of the herbicides the company sells, so the farmer can soak his fields with it and not worry.
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Land Trusts generally tend to be cool, in the jazz sense. They approach their work in a relaxed, even mellow way. The supporters of Farmland protection, on the other hand, are often as intense as a chorus of Potato Head Blues" by Louis Armstrong. The natural lands conservators have been at it since the 1890's, when the natural lands were already being rapidly lost- often by conversion to farmland.
Another reason the urgency shows so clearly is that farmland advocates see themselves as defending not just land, but a way of life. Almost no one would argue against the preservation of the family farms as advocated by Jefferson, Aldo Leopold, or Louis Bromfield. (1)
Next- WHY PRESERVE FARMLAND?
Wm Greenfield Center for Environmental Stewardship
Boardwalks and Long Walks
Four Great Blogs- Link and Index
(1) Richard Brewer- Conservancy
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