I am not a hunter. I don’t (and will not) own a gun and, though I’ve toyed with the idea of bow hunting in the past, my aim really stinks. Even so, the deer population where I live does need to be thinned, since we’ve taken their natural predators away.

And I sure do appreciate a good venison steak.

Here in Nebraska does are not in short supply — in fact, many hunters are after a trophy buck and the state has to push hunters to shoot their female counterparts. Having many more does than bucks is not only bad for the raw population numbers — because one buck can sire many offspring in a season — it’s also bad for the genetics of the wild herd. This year, the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission was giving out plenty of “antlerless” deer permits, and our neighbor said if he was able to shoot an extra deer, he could give us some of the meat.

The opening day of deer season arrived, and by noon my neighbor had bagged a huge doe. Many laborious hours later, he had steaks and ground meat waiting in the freezer for his family to eat this winter. We stopped by as he was finishing up, and he told us he was headed out again the following morning, and would call me if he shot another doe.

Sure enough, my phone rang the next day before noon, and he let me know he had another deer in his truck and was coming home from the courthouse where he’d registered her. I was to meet him in a half hour in his dad’s machine shed so I could learn for myself how a deer becomes venison.

I arrived to find the truck already in the shed, and I’ll admit I was a little apprehensive. When it comes time to handle raw meat in my house, it’s rarely me who volunteers. I was a vegetarian for many years, and there is definitely something a little unpleasant about the sensation. But I’m not one to shy away from the task at hand, especially when it comes to harvesting my own food. So I came prepared — with a small hunting blade and my newly honed kitchen knives.

I peered in the back and saw a smaller doe, field dressed with dark eyes that reminded me of the many trophy heads I’d seen decorating country bars. I was expecting to feel guilt or sadness — but instead I felt gratitude. I touched her head briefly, closed my eyes, and thanked her. The deer’s sacrifice would feed us well all winter, perhaps longer.

Through the next four hours, I lost all the squeamishness I’ve ever had for handling meat. And I learned a few of the skills that hunters have been perfecting for millennia, such as: where to cut so that the deer can hang evenly, how to skin the animal, how to use an animal’s anatomy to make the carving job easier. I’ll be frank — my inner scientist came out to play. Mammalian bodies are fascinating, and I got very familiar with how muscles look, feel, and behave. I also learned what muscle looks like when it gets pulverized by a bullet, and how to avoid tainting meat with spinal tissue (which can be dangerous because it can be the source of Chronic Wasting Disease, a relative of Mad Cow). It took two of us four hours to carve the deer, and another couple hours to grind the meat with the help of a KitchenAid.

Brian and I have already had some venison in a pasta casserole that was quite tasty, as were the burgers I made when my parents visited — per usual, I put too much garlic in them. The tenderloin steaks we grilled that first night weren’t very good. Perhaps it’s because of the way it was killed — one of the benefits of gun vs. bow hunting is that guns can be faster, but unless the death is instantaneous, the adrenaline that pumps through the deer can affect the quality and taste of the meat. Arrows, on the other hand, though more difficult to achieve a kill, are much quieter. A skilled hunter can down a deer without scaring the animal.

Either way, I’m thankful for the sustenance and hopeful that, because of the record hunting season, I’ll see fewer deer dead on the side of the road this winter.

Photo courtesy of the USDA archives

Ms. Oakley said young farmers rarely discussed that lack of community, adding that she had seen the isolation break up marriages. At their Three Springs Farm, she and her husband, both 34, grossed $60,000 by their third season — a reason to celebrate by most standards — but they wished they had more company.

“It was just the two of us, every job we did together,” Ms. Oakley said. “It’s intense. We would gladly trade a little competition for more community and collaboration.”

Amen! As a young, very extroverted part-time farmer who didn’t grow up in a small town, I’d do just about anything for more of a sense of community.

Not only do farmers rarely discuss the isolation they face, but consumers and advocates who want to see more small, sustainable farmers on the land rarely talk about what it will take to build the kinds of communities where farmers want to live.

Picture in your mind the perfect farm, the farm where you would like your food to be grown. It’s a place that reflects all the values you hold dear. Feel the sun on your face; maybe there’s a slight breeze in your hair. Notice what plants are growing there, the vegetables and fruits and herbs that you love. Smell the rich, wet soil. Hear the birds in the trees or on the ground. Look in the face of the farmer. You know that she doesn’t use synthetic pesticides or inject her animals with hormones. She’s also making a living wage, has access to health care, and she can pay her workers a living wage too.

Now picture the community your farmer lives in. Picture the people that she is surrounded by, the neighbors he sees every day. Listen to the sound of the vibrant businesses in the place where she lives, feel the support and security that your farmer feels. Visit the school her children attend, the grocery store, and the cafe where she sells her products. Notice that the community nourishes her with positive support, just as the farmer provides the community with healthy food.

Sounds pretty good, don’t you think?

Unfortunately, most farmers don’t live in a supportive, idyllic community like the one you just pictured. In reality, producing food can be lonely. If you’re farming in a manner different from all your neighbors, it can even be alienating. Not to completely romanticize “the way things used to be,” but there were a lot more families here — in Nebraska, and all over rural America — 50 to 60 years ago. I drive by towns that once had several hundred people, a post office, and a school; now there are only a few houses left. Everything else has been bulldozed to plant corn. People were lonely then too, but at least there were a handful of other people there canning food or tending livestock, and you could do these things together.

If we’re going to bring 100,000 new farmers onto the land, as Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has suggested, we’ll need more people who are willing to step up and grow our food. Whether they live in urban, rural, suburban, or frontier places, farmers need to know they’re part of a web of other people who care about and value their work. Even those of us who lean towards fierce independence want to know we’re not alone.

I live five miles outside a town of 850 people that could be more vibrant, more open to my ideas and goals as a farmer. I know that the customers who buy our eggs and lamb appreciate the work I do to make the food they eat, but I don’t see them every day. (In fact, because I sell at an online farmers market, I rarely see any of my customers at all.) There are one or two other farmers in the area who grow things like we do, but we see them about every other month. Folks in my town are nice people, but they generally see nothing wrong with chemical farming or genetically modified seeds, as far as I can tell. Rarely does anyone think that farming without these technologies might be worth something extra. We stand by our values and practice sustainable agriculture, but pay the price of being seen as outsiders.

Growing food can be fun and rewarding. But for me, and many others like me, much of the enjoyment slips through my fingers like soil if there’s no one to share it with.

So what can you do? At the time of year when everyone is contemplating thankfulness, one place to start is with the farmers in your life. Find out what kind of community they live in, and what you could do to help them feel more nourished. Smile when you see them. Write them a thank-you card, make them a gift, or express in some other way that you appreciate their hard work. You might think of them every time you eat their products, so why not give them something that will remind them just as often that their customers are grateful? Bring as much joy to their lives as they bring to yours with the food they grow. Perhaps you’ll find that by building your farmer’s community, your own community is strengthened too.

There were only two of us — my partner Brian and I — plus our flock of sheep and Arrow the dog. So why did we take the time to carefully mull over messages and paint colorful signs?

One of my top reasons was to remind urban dwellers that there are populists in rural areas. Just like in cities, there are rural people who believe in climate change, progressive taxes, and smarter government. Rural populists can be a monumental political force, as it takes fewer people mobilizing in a rural area to make change.

One of our signs read: “Be Just! Grow your own food!” I picked this message because I believe one fundamental way to rebel against an unjust economic system is to grow my own food. This way, my primary means of sustenance is out of the hands of corporations. Most food sold in grocery stores — even organic food – is owned by a few, very consolidated agribusinesses. Growing your own food undercuts their power.

Growing food is also a terrific entry into the barter economy (where corporations have no power). I’ve traded jam and veggies for a few hours of labor, and we bartered the utility pole that holds our internet receiver for homemade applesauce.

Of course, I don’t grow everything I eat. Flour, for example, takes a lot of work to grind in small batches, and I much prefer someone else to rise at the crack of dawn to milk a cow or goat. For these things, I do my best to shop at small, locally owned businesses to keep my money circulating in the community, and bypass the corporate control that the 99 percent are protesting.

But what about the 80 percent of Americans who live in urban areas?  Even a front-yard patch of tomatoes and peppers, a community garden plot, or a pot of herbs on a windowsill can have an impact on their corporate quarterly statements. And you can even use Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits to buy seeds.

In addition to growing things, we can all make a difference by buying directly from our local farmers. Support farmers markets in your area, and ask your grocers and restaurant owners to source food from local producers. Then keep asking, and encourage your friends to ask too, until those foods start showing up on shelves.

The 99 percent movement has been criticized for not having a specific policy agenda, but I agree with George Lakoff; this is about a lot more than policy. It’s about our collective values as Americans. Growing food, bartering, and supporting local businesses are only a few of the many ways to wrestle power away from corporations and put it back in the hands of the people.

I occupied my pasture. What will you do?

Photo: Accidental Ocelot

It starts with a distant, unmistakable whine, like a fly in another room you’ve been too lazy to swat. As the sound grows, I make sure the dog is inside, then grab the camera and head to the pasture.

Planes spraying fungicides have interrupted several quiet weekends on our small farm this summer. They’re hard to ignore — the buzz of their loud propellers is deafening, especially when they fly above our house to turn around. Over the corn fields they soar, sometimes only a few feet about the tips of the tassels, with white mist trailing nefariously behind. Depending on the direction of the breeze, I can often smell the chemicals from inside the house.

I hate every minute of it.

Once it’s clear that the plane is in fact spraying the field beside our small farm, the most immediate concern is the integrity of the electric netting that keeps in our grass-fed sheep. There’s a substantial voltage charging through the fence, but the sheep have been known to charge through it or jump over it when they’re startled, creating a messy, scattered scene. The giant noisy yellow bird in the sky can definitely cause a breakout, and I don’t blame them. Luckily — this time — the sheep stayed where they were supposed to, though the running they did trampled the grass they were supposed to eat for breakfast.

As long as the sheep are inside their paddock, the next concern on my list is chemical drift. Our farm is not certified organic, so we’re not risking 3 years of lost revenue if the pilot misses or the wind shifts. Even so, the welfare of the animals is important, and I’m not excited at the prospect of potential respiratory problems if they get a lungful of pesticide.

Unfortunately, neither the company spraying the chemicals nor or our conventionally farming neighbors are required to tell us when they plan to fly over. Don’t get me wrong, my neighbors are really good people, though we have different attitudes about farm chemicals. The corn harvest is their livelihood, and the fungicide producers say that protecting it from disease could mean an additional 15 bushels per acre of grain (although this claim is still contested). I think it probably doesn’t occur to them to let us know, because they’re surrounded by these materials all the time.

All the same, I’d like to maintain my choice to keep chemicals off my land and out of my body.

If they had told us about the timing of this latest plan to spray, we would have moved the girls and their babies closer to the barn, where they’re less likely to be affected. Even when I know what they’re spraying (in this case, a fungicide called Headline they assure me is harmless), I have to wonder what impact it could have when combined with all the other chemicals floating around in our environment.

My concern also extends to my own health, especially since we’ve watched them over-spray onto our grove. After they spray, I always wonder: how long will it be before I can safely romp in the woods with my dog? Did anything drift onto the garden I’ve been working so hard to keep chemical-free? Has anyone been spraying while we’re not home?

After a conversation with staff at the Pesticide Action Network of North America (PANNA), however, I’m not sure there’s much I can do. Liability is complicated, especially since we’re not organic and cannot point directly to loss associated with chemical exposure. In order to make a solid case, we’d also have to do more than take pictures of planes – we’d have to make use of a “drift catcher,” which samples air and measures for the presence of pesticides. Then we’d have to show that the presence of pesticides has directly hurt our  farm income — and it hasn’t.

I did look up Headline in PANNA’s chemical database. It’s not a human carcinogen or a cholinestrase inhibitor (a dangerous neurotoxin), but that was about all the site could tell me. Chemical companies aren’t required to test for synergistic effects, where the presence of more than one chemical amplifies the toxicity of all of them. And of course, I have no idea whether it could affect my sheep. At least they’re not pregnant yet.

The best we can do is write a letter to our neighbors and to the aerial sprayers they hire, asking them nicely to be very careful when spraying on us. I mean, I know they can be incredibly accurate if they want to be.

Before long, the planes move on to another field. The odor dissipates, the sound grows faint, and the sheep calm back down and start munching alfalfa again. Back inside, I wonder whether the pilots have seen us in the pasture snapping pictures and making our presence known. Do they think we’re watching in awe at their daring, low-flying maneuvers, or that we’re crazy for not trusting the chemical company’s claims that it’s safe? I also worry for the pilots and other chemical workers; I’m only exposed to this stuff for a few days a year, and from a distance. For their sakes, I hope that I am just paranoid.

Lookin’ sharp!

The object of my affection is about 5’4″, slender, and she’s the sharpest tool in the shed. Did I mention she’s a redhead? I’ve taken her out twice now, and we danced around the garden like we were made for each other.

I’m talking, of course, about my new stirrup hoe.

Equally enamoring is our new low tunnel — a temporary structure made of curved metal and special fabric that lets light and water in. My partner, Brian, keeps exclaiming, “How did we ever grow anything without a low tunnel?!”

The answer is not as well as we do now.

Our garden last year was a weedy, disorganized mess. As usual, I was trying to do too much at once and not planning beyond what I could plant in the next bed.

And we paid dearly for it. If the stem borers or the flea beetles didn’t eat the plants, the violets and bromegrass choked them out.

When a friend who had spent the summer interning on a farm came to visit my weedy garden last September, she said the two tools that would save me this year were lots of good mulch and a sharp hoe.

She wasn’t kidding — we don’t have nearly the weeds we did at this time last year, and the ones we have are quickly dispatched. It sure beats spending hours pulling up bromegrass on my hands and knees. Our kind neighbors offered us the 30-year-old straw in their hayloft if we’d come fork it out of the barn, and a better mulch you won’t find anywhere.

If we end up with a good tomato harvest this year, I’ll credit it all to the low tunnel. No sooner did we put it up and transplant a few seedlings inside than the wind started to howl something fierce. The tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants that would have been ripped to shreds couldn’t be happier in their warm, cozy home surrounded by weed barrier and mulch.

We use some unconventional tools on our farm too — one of my favorites is old coffee cans. It’s a trick Brian learned somewhere, and they protect new transplants from wind and strong sunlight. We leave them on for as long as we can, and later in the season they can shield the stem from crawling insects and hungry bunnies.

Another trick we’ve learned is that weeds can grow through even thick straw, the persistent buggers. Laying down a few sheets of damp newspaper first and putting mulch on top makes a biodegradable weed barrier that weeds have a much harder time poking through.

The tips I’ve been picking up from others are part of the fun of growing things. It’s also a challenge to think creatively about what I need and how to accomplish things efficiently.

What’s your favorite garden tip or trick?

Steph Larsen’s digital farm plan takes shape in the material world.Photo: Steph Larsen

My garden plan! Last year’s was, anyway.

Most farmers I know will say that keeping good records and plans is fundamental to farming success. By no means am I what you might call a natural planner — I lean towards the “organized chaos” style of living. But when it comes to growing things, I’m convinced that adding a healthy dose of order to the garden chaos is a necessity. There are just too many variables to consider otherwise.

Garden plans don’t have to be fancy, and last year mine was on old fashioned graph paper with pencil. By the end of the season I had a muddy, smudged mess with so much text squeezed in that it was illegible. I’d left it out in the rain a time or two, which didn’t help matters any. For 2011, I was looking for something computer-based and easy to use.

Enter the garden planner from Mother Earth News.

While far from perfect, this planner is a pretty decent tool with many useful features I’ve quickly found invaluable. For example, if I want to plant tomatoes, it graphically tells me how many I can plant in a given bed. No more endlessly looking up distances on seed packets! And knowing how many plants I could fit in a space was incredibly helpful when we started seedlings indoors in March.

Timing is also critical for a successful garden — knowing which seeds germinate in cooler soils and which like it warmer, or how long after planting can you expect to harvest. When starting this garden planner, one of the first things I did was enter my zip code. Immediately the planner estimates frost dates, and for every plant I’ve plotted it tells me on an easy to read graph when I should plant it inside and outside and when I can expect to harvest. Suddenly a weekend’s worth of tasks is laid out without having to lift a finger, and you can even buy seeds from several different seed companies directly through your plan.

And that’s not all — twice a month, I get an email reminding me what I should be planting in the subsequent two weeks.

Another cool feature of this planner doesn’t show itself until the second year of use. I drew my 2010 garden plan into the system this past winter, and when I started my 2011 plan, it already knew where permanent strawberry plans were and where I had my paths. When I clicked on a tomato to “plant” it, red zones immediately popped up telling me where I’d planted tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, and potatoes last year — reminding me to rotate in order to break up disease and pest cycles.

And each plant icon comes fully equipped with much of the information you need to grow it successfully — soil type, plant family, and spacing for example. I would have liked to see ideal soil temperature for germination too, but maybe that just shows how nerdy I am.

Like any tool, there are aspects of this one I’m not crazy about. The drawing tools aren’t very robust, so I spent several hours at first trying to get all the boxes and paths the way I wanted them. Often it was easier to erase a feature and start over rather than try to change its characteristics.

While the plant list is large, there were a few missing — mizuna and broccoli raab immediately come to mind, and it doesn’t allow for combinations like my spicy salad mix. I also ran into a problem with varieties of a crop. Take radishes as an example — there are small red salad radishes, icicle-shaped daikons, and the increasingly popular turnip-sized “watermelon” radishes. Spacing is going to be substantially different for each, but the graphics don’t allow me to specify large or small varieties.

I also have lingering questions about the back-end design of the program. I know precious little about these things, but I have yet to determine whether I can export my plan as a graphic and save it to my computer. The entire program appears to these extremely novice eyes to be driven off Flash and Java, which means it lacks a lot of the functions I’m used to when navigating other websites.

Did I mention it costs $25 a year? That amount is worth it to me, but part of that value is the continuity from year to year. What if Mother Earth News chooses to discontinue the garden planner? I might be completely out of luck.

But until then, I’m pretty happy with my neat, organized garden plan. Now if only my garden actually looked as perfect in real life as it does in its digital version!

Someone to watch over me: a mama ewe, with lambs. Photo: Steph Larsen

At times, it’s not been easy. There’s an old shepherd joke that says the first thing a lamb does when it’s born is look for a place to die. With six ewes done and three to go, we haven’t lost any lambs yet, and I hope it stays that way.

This is our first year lambing, and so far I’ve mostly learned the many things that can go wrong with newborn lambs. When a cold front hit one night, I spent the next morning in the barn with my hair dryer, warming up the twins born around 4am. Another lamb was born completely within its water sac, and might have drowned had we not been right there to break it open. We took turns getting up in the middle of the night to check for new arrivals, and like new parents everywhere I was starting to get a little sleep deprived.

Katahdin sheep are known to be good mothers, and it’s amazing to me how they all know exactly what to do. When a lamb is born, their mama immediately begins to lick them clean. After a few minutes the lamb starts trying its legs out, and within 20 minutes a good mama has guided her lamb to a teat, filling its belly with high calorie, antibody-rich collostrum. If not, we step in to guide them. There’s a special trick to coaxing a stubborn lamb to eat for the first time, and my partner, Brian, has a knack for it that I haven’t quite mastered yet.

Like human pregnancies, there can be complications. One of the ewes had a health problem that required careful monitoring, a special diet, sutures and an uncomfortable harness to keep everything in the right place. Eventually we had to induce labor, coincidentally with a similar drug to the one used on humans. She gave birth in the back of the pick-up, just in case we had to take her back to the vet. We bought all the children’s ibuprofen at the grocery store because it was easier to administer to her than pills. I doubt we’re the first people to think of that.

We haven’t had a breech birth yet, but we’ve got plastic gloves and “personal lubricant” in case we need to reach in and assist. The giant book of medical advice for shepherds gives me detailed information on what to do in every possible incorrect birth position, and since it’s from a British publisher I get to read words like “whilst.” There are many sections in that book I hope I never use.

The flock can be a handful to manage, but it’s all worth it when I can relax in the pasture and watch everyone play.

Steph Larsen down on the farm. Or not?

So at what point can I legitimately say that I’m a farmer, and not just someone with a big garden, some backyard animals, and a hobby?

It seems like a simple question, but I find myself squeezed between two opposing views. On one side are those who think that most of a farmer’s income should be from the farm, without an off-farm job to cushion the blow of a bad harvest or virulent disease. I tip my hat to the hard work of those farmers, and can understand why putting myself in the same category as them could seem insulting — it doesn’t give due respect to the risk to their livelihood and financial well-being those individuals and families are taking.

On the other side are those who scold me for being too cautious and not proudly embracing the title “farmer.” It’s increasingly rare for a farm family to not have at least one off-farm job, these folks argue. And it’s not the size of our chicken and sheep flocks that matters, they say; it’s how we’re making decisions — based on profitability, not whether the flock looks pretty against the big Nebraska sky. To these people, I’m a farmer, full stop.

People whom I love and respect live on both sides of this fence, and I never quite know who will be where.

One definition developed by Center for Rural Affairs founder Marty Strange in the book Family Farming says that a family farmer is one who, among other things, provides the labor, makes the management decisions, earns enough income from farming to pay farm and household expenses, and conserves natural resources. Kansas Sen. Pat Roberts (R) likes to reference the real farmers in Kansas who are 6’3″ and grow grain, versus the gentlemen farmers of Vermont who are 5’3″ and grow apples. The U.S. Department of Agriculture defines a farmer (for some of its programs) as one who earns at least $1,000 in gross sales.

Then there’s Brian, my partner in life and farm, a philosopher by trait and training. This question is a regular source of active debate in our house. Brian stands by a point that’s sticky for me, namely that a meaningful part of our income must come from farming, though he does recognize that beginners (like us) won’t typically make money in the first few years.

Larsen uses that tractor for more than just lookin’ cool.My definition of farmer includes substantial hours of labor, growing products to sell to others, and also the qualitative notion that we’re treating the farm as a business — keeping records, paying attention to our bottom line — and not as a hobby. It’s not a factor for me what percentage of our income is coming from the farm.

So, am I a farmer? Here’s a slice of activities from the past year. We raised a flock of chicks into adulthood, and I learned how to drive a 1960 Farmall tractor. We raised a few lambs and marketed them, a few to folks I had never met before. I learned the difference between hay and straw. I fought with electric netting and weeds, sometimes both at the same time. We planted our ground to pasture and learned some lessons about managed intensive grazing. I killed two animals with my own hands and said goodbye to five others. I spent the winter regaining energy and planning how to use what I grow more efficiently. We did market research and decided to try growing a few things specifically for selling. We successfully signed up for two USDA farm programs.

So where does that leave me — real farmer or hobbyist?

Brian and I do the vast majority of the work for the activities above, and spend a lot of time doing it. We keep careful records and change our management strategies when we see we’re losing money on inputs. We have marketed eggs, apples, and meat to over 40 families. We have made the deliberate decision to grow our business slowly so as not to go into debt beyond our mortgage. We do our best to conserve the resources we have.

So, we meet most of Marty’s definition — we provide all the labor, but our mortgage is not paid by our farm income. Neither of us make the height requirement for Sen. Roberts. We didn’t quite sell enough in 2010 to meet USDA’s definition, but we will in 2011. We probably don’t meet Brian’s definition yet, and probably do meet mine, but we’re also finding more of a consensus position as we develop our business.

Marty makes another point too: farming is also more than a profession. It’s a mindset and a lifestyle. I learn so much every day about what being a farmer entails, both in the skills I need and the way of confronting challenges I must master. I fall woefully short on both, and aspire to improve. Every day I’m faced with tasks I have no idea how to tackle, and I’m learning all the time that I have to be faster at problem solving and at independent but thoughtful action. I’m learning the importance of planning ahead and anticipating everything that could go wrong, even as I hope for everything to work smoothly.

I’ve certainly come a long way. For myself, I think the answer is that like many things in life, farming a process. I am becoming a farmer.

The view from Washington, D.C., of the rural Midwest: quaint scenery on the way to the West Coast. Photo: Scorpions and Centaurs

So it’s hard to understand why some urbanites criticize rural folks because we choose to make our home in a place without traffic where you can see the stars.

My brow furrowed a bit when Washington Post blogger Ezra Klein wrote glowingly about the book The Triumph of the City and titled his post “Why we still need cities” as though a rash of people have suggested we get rid of them. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack jumped in to disagree with Klein, but the best thing Vilsack said was that Klein’s post was a slap in the face to rural places — to be frank, the overall conversation wasn’t Secretary Vilsack’s finest moment in persuasion.

What really got my blood boiling was Klein’s lament of all the assumed subsidies for rural living. I mean, I live in a rural area. Where’s my subsidy check? Vilsack didn’t push Klein to define what he means by a rural subsidy, but thankfully Brian Depew did. Farm subsidies do not equal rural subsidies, argues Depew, and farm subsidies actually contribute substantially to the decline of rural communities.

Klein goes on to assert that “rural living ends up costing a lot more than urban living on a variety of measures,” an assumption he offers no links to support and that Bill Bishop neatly debunks with a few graphs on per capita federal spending. That’s the thing about assumptions — they’re often wrong.

But even if it were true that rural living is more expensive per capita, it’s not just rural people that are served from strong infrastructure in rural communities. The urban driver on a trip through Wyoming or Maine will appreciate quality roads as much as the rural driver, and when either driver gets into a wreck, both will appreciate that a hospital wasn’t hundreds of miles away.

I haven’t read Triumph of the City yet, but I wonder how (or if) the author deals with the idea that urban areas mine resources (natural, economic, and human) from rural areas. Author Patrick Karr makes the point in Hollowing Out the Middle that rural schools teach their brightest stars to leave their communities, depriving rural communities of their most valuable human resources.

Cities export many of the dirty eyesores they’d rather not deal with to rural places, like sewage, prisons, nuclear waste, and garbage. To give one example, you don’t find stinky, polluting confined animal feeding operations overrunning Seattle or Phoenix like they are in rural North Carolina. Rural places bear the brunt of natural resource extraction too — strip mines and oil pipelines, drained aquifers, and clear cut forests don’t do much for the tourist economy.

And because most of the corporations that dump or extract are owned by city-dwellers, the wealth generated by these resources doesn’t really benefit rural people as much as it could if they were locally owned.

Vibrant rural communities are vital to the success of cities in another way too. Not only do rural communities provide the food and materials from which cities are built, but they serve a crucial role in environmental protection. In places where there is an engaged and organized rural populace, people raise their voices in protest if someone makes an environmentally-detrimental proposal.

Sometimes the alarm doesn’t get sounded until after the damage has been done, but in these situations the presence of concerned rural residents motivates environmental remediation.

There is a segment of the country that doesn’t see much value in rural places, and I can only hope that it’s because they’ve never taken the time to truly experience a rural community. To those folks (and Ezra) — you’re welcome to visit Thistle Root anytime and put to rest your assumptions about us hayseeds.

Is this really what farmers look like?

If you don’t believe me, do a Google image search for “farmer.” The cartoons are especially instructive on how society views farmers.

Collectively, we don’t think of farming as an occupation for intelligent people. Smart people are doctors and lawyers, bankers, and professors. They don’t dig in the dirt, drive a tractor, or milk goats.

I say “we” even though until recently I would have counted myself outside of the influence of this social meme. And yet, when I asked myself this winter why I didn’t want to be a full-time farmer, I’m mortified to confess that one of the reasons that eventually came out was that I didn’t consider it to be an intellectually challenging or prestigious occupation.

I’m wrong to hold this opinion, but I also know I’m not alone. To change the way America eats, we need to change the way Americans view farming as an occupation.

Some farmers are among the smartest people I know. Many have gone to college, have master’s degrees and PhDs, and can discuss philosophy, science, politics, and religion with the best. Many are also active participants in democracy, advocating for policies that help them make a living and ensure the survival of their community and their occupation.

At the MOSES Organic Farming Conference in La Crosse, Wis., last weekend, I saw exactly how diverse farmers can be. There were people of all ages — from tiny babies to spry elders 86 years young and all ages in between. While the majority appeared white (though we shouldn’t assume ethnicity), I met African farmers and ate breakfast with Native Americans. One session I was in was simultaneously interpreted for a Hmong woman, and the keynotes were being simulcast in Spanish. There were passionate teens with years of experience and elderly beginners looking for their second (or third) career.

As I wandered through the array of farming workshops, I was reminded of all the subjects in which farmers must not only be knowledgeable but expert in. It is a list that could intimidate even the most intellectually capable: chemistry, math, communications, soil science, personnel management, systems thinking, physics, finance, customer relations, mechanics, plant and animal biology.

In addition to working harder than most, successful farmers must be keen observers and constant innovators. They have to think creatively and be humble enough to admit when something isn’t working. I can only speak for me, but I’m not sure I’d make the cut.

Of course, not all farmers are created equal. Any fool can stick a seed in the ground, especially with satellite-guided sprayers and tractors that operate themselves. But it takes a truly intelligent and conscientious farmer to make sure the soil, air, and water are all healthy enough to grow a crop 10 or 50 years from now.

What does it take to raise the prestige-factor of farming? I don’t have the definitive answer, so use the comments to toss ideas around. All of us can publicly and privately recognize how hard it is to farm land and grow food sustainably. Unfortunately, prestige is associated with money in our capitalist society, so paying farmers well (and without complaint) when they farm well is a responsibility for all conscientious eaters.