Wait in the Car

I drove through the nearest large town yesterday and saw the line at the drive though at the Dairy Queen and thought “Man…if people would just line up like that for vegetables”.

Here we are, on the doorstep of another season. I don’t know a farmer who goes into a season with real confidence. We feign it though! We don’t want to appear like we are worried about another season and what is in store. Will people go to the farmers markets and buy our CSA shares? Or will they opt for Trader Joes? Will the weather be compatible with our efforts? Or will it be so rainy that we will stand painfully powerless? Or worse, will there be disaster!?

Tucked within all these worries is a question amongst farmers that has been dogging us for some time. I’d say it’s been dogging us long before the current generation found their way to the farm fields, when the world was starting to become truly global. When we as consumers where suddenly able to forget about the seasons, and have what we want now. This problem is especially pronounced (I think) in the United States, and maybe even in the Midwest. It’s a question with an answer that evolves. And given the history of this country, it’s a difficult one to answer. There almost isn’t an answer, not concretely. And there shouldn’t be. Because a concrete answer doesn’t move, doesn’t evolve, and eventually…crumbles.

The question that dogs us is: what is the culture of this place we are trying to serve and do we have a long term place in it? This place where we try to play a role in food that will be a positive one. On the surface, it seems like a really simple question, but I think the dynamics are a little more difficult than it appears. As a white guy with upper middle class roots, I’m really not qualified to give a fulfilling answer. I grew up relatively without culture, unless you are talking Saturday morning cartoons, in which case…I was steeped in culture! Most of us have come of age in a consumer culture which has displaced cultures of heritage. This leaves us a little dumbfounded. We want a good life and good health…but the blueprints were not inherited.

The reason, even if I don’t have any answers, that this question is so important to farmers is because the future of farming hinges on what evolves here over the coming years. When we are steeped in consumer culture, we rarely look inward to see what culture is. We look to the talking heads, the news, the glossies, the trendsetters and influencers. They rely on a weak culture to stay relevant. They make it a moving target and a thing to chase, rather than a place to reconstruct and reflect. Farmers enjoy little boom times when the winds of cultural fortune blows our way. But those winds shift quickly. We think each time the wind does fill our sails “This is it!! Culture has finally seen our worth! We will sail on like this FOREVE…HEY! WHAT? WHERE’D THE WINDS GO?”.

The winds shift, because they are chasing something. A feeling? Connection? Followers?

We are on the doorstep of another season. And though I am not qualified to say what a good culture is or what a more general culture should be in a post colonial, consumer displacement world, I can offer that at its basic, a culture is what we do everyday. It is literally how we live. If Dairy Queen drive through is truly the culture that we want, then problem solved. DQ has got us covered. All we need to do is wait in the car. It’s definitely the easier option, but something tells me that most of us aren’t content waiting in the car.