An Urban's Rural View

A Nebraska corn-and-beans farmer isn't used to answering loaded questions, especially during an otherwise pleasant dinner and especially when the interrogator is a member of a landlord's family. But there it was:

"When," the young man wondered, "are you going to start growing food?"

By definition, a loaded question contains a dubious assumption. Consider the classic example, "Have you stopped beating your wife?" It presupposes that you are -- or have been -- a wife beater.

Similarly, asking a corn-and-beans farmer when he's going to start growing food presupposes he does not. But for the farmer, pointing out the fallacy is risky. If he wants to continue leasing the land he will resist the temptation to blurt out, "I can't believe you're sitting there with barbecued pork on your plate asking me when I will grow food. You're eating it."

That the question was asked at all is a sign of the times. Four decades ago, when the farmer started leasing the property, it would never have been, and not just because the first landlord -- the interrogator's grandfather -- was a farmer himself. Americans' attitude toward corn-and-beans agriculture was different.

Today it's often skeptical. Barrages of public criticism -- some of it justified, much of it overblown -- have taken their toll. Today many Americans assume corn and bean farming degrades the environment and promotes obesity. Some even think the only people growing "food" are fruit and vegetable farmers.

Now mind you, I like fruits and vegetables and admire those who produce them. I've come a long way from my student days, when my idea of a balanced meal was to fry an egg to eat with my hamburger patty. No bun, no lettuce or tomato, just protein and grease.

Having since evolved into an omnivore, I salute the folks who provide the fruits-and-veggies half of my plate as well as those who make possible the meat half. If some of the latter want to start competing with the former -- not out of guilt that feed grains and livestock aren't "food" but because it makes economic sense -- more power to them.

But as much as I might welcome corn-and-bean farmers diversifying into strawberries and squash, I have to wonder how and to whom they would sell the stuff. For all the growing popularity of farmers' markets and community-shared agriculture arrangements, they handle but less than 1% of the country's food. And they're largely an urban phenomenon. In heavily rural areas, where the farms tend to be, the customer base for farmers' markets is limited.

Most people still buy most of their food at supermarkets; it's cheaper and more convenient. In much of the Corn Belt, though, there's little or no middleman distribution infrastructure to channel locally grown produce to supermarkets -- no brokers to do the buying and selling, no cold-storage warehouses to hold the inventory, no processing plants to can or freeze produce for later consumption.

Someday it may be different. Somebody might see a business opportunity in creating the infrastructure and contracting with Midwestern farmers to grow the lettuce and tomatoes. Climate change might rearrange which parts of the country grow which crops. You never know.

In the meantime, eastern Nebraska corn and soybean farmers will have to put some thought into how to answer loaded questions.

Urban Lehner can be reached at urbanity@hotmail.com

(CZ)

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